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The story
On September 24, during the Kirin Challenge Cup 2026 match between Japan and Uruguay, viewers voiced complaints about Fuji TV’s terrestrial broadcast. After play resumed, a VTR replay kept airing, and the sequence leading to Uruguay’s goal went unshown during that stretch. On 5ch’s Geinou/Sports Speed+ board, comments like “Amateurs, seriously” and “the switcher sucks” piled up one after another. Meanwhile, some pushed back, saying “the goal itself was shown” and “this is probably just jealousy of soccer’s popularity,” so the thread was split on whether this was a plain broadcast blunder or within acceptable limits.
During the Japan–Uruguay match, what could be seen as an unexpected “broadcast mishap” occurred, drawing a wave of complaints from viewers on social media.
The Kirin Challenge Cup 2026 match between Japan and Uruguay was held on September 24 at Q&A Stadium Miyagi. The game aired live on terrestrial TV via the Fuji TV network and was also live-streamed on TVer.
Japan took the lead in the 11th minute when Kuryu Matsuki, making his senior national team debut, scored with a left-footed shot from distance, but Uruguay gradually began to take control of the match afterward.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Even though play had already resumed, all they cared about was running the VTR replay, so they missed switching to the goal scene while it was happening.
Fuji TV, is your broadcast crew made of amateurs or what lol
Just keep it on a wide shot the whole time.
Amateurs much?
Moments where a scoring chance wasn't shown because they were airing a VTR replay.
Though it's not just Fuji — commercial network soccer broadcasts are all bad lol
Even on corners, they zoom in tight on the kicker and only cut to a wide shot after the ball's already been kicked — are they stupid?
Show us the positioning battle!
It was only the blunder before that that wasn't shown.
The media's probably just jealous of how much buzz soccer is getting.
Desperately nitpicking.
Amateur hour, Fuji TV lmao
Even with play already resumed, they run VTR replays at the worst possible moments.
Or TV Asahi's Liger vs. Murakami broadcast works too (another famously bad broadcast).
×××
Today's Japan national team match —
attendance at Q Stadium was
44,070 people!
That's more than the 36,000 population of Rifu, the Miyagi town where the stadium is located…
And this was on a weekday lol
https://dec.2chan.net/up2/src/fu7312602.jpeg
Stop holding national team matches at athletics stadiums!
The pitch was torn up all over, but it was a good stadium.
That's just an everyday thing for baseball — 50,000 sellouts for completely ordinary games.
For reference, Japan's goal scenes:
Goal 1: Matsuki
x.com/Fooootest/status/2103070017994776692
Goal 2: Shiogai
x.com/ilovefootballjp/status/2103094476139041207
Goal 3: Ueda
x.com/Fooootest/status/2103094945766854691
Matsuki — difficulty rank SS.
The level of his cut-inside move was superb,
and the shot looked like he was going for topspin.
Not sure if the "Uotaro gyro" effect (slang for a gyroball-like spinning shot) was intentional or not…
but something along those lines.
You know the type: even at work, there's always someone who meddles with pointless stuff and digs themselves into a hole.
Though it was probably the director's call.
It's just that the blunder that led to the danger beforehand wasn't shown.
Soccer is something you watch as a continuous flow.
I've been thinking for ten years now that they should study shot composition by watching the Premier League.
DAZN's broadcast team was awful at first too, but they've gotten a lot better with experience.
Really it just comes down to not doing anything unnecessary.
That's really what it comes down to — camerawork and commentary both come down to experience.
Going forward it'll be specialist channels > NHK > commercial networks.
Commercial network camerawork is generally like this across the board — even during last year's comeback goal against Brazil, they zoomed in on a woman in the stands while the crucial goal itself only got caught from a side angle.
They probably think it works like baseball, where you just need to catch it from right before the pitch.
Watching how they switch shots on corners makes me think that.
⚽ Japan National Team Schedule
Mon 9/28, 19:25~
Japan vs Venezuela 🇻🇪
Edion Peace Wing Hiroshima
📺 Nippon TV
Kirin Cup
Thu 10/1, 19:10~
Japan vs Ecuador 🇪🇨
Yokohama International Stadium
📺 TBS Network
Kirin Cup
Mon 10/5, 19:30~
Japan vs Panama 🇵🇦 or New Zealand 🇳🇿
National Stadium
📺 TV Asahi
Background and Key Points
A “switcher” refers to the technical staff (or the equipment they operate) who decide which camera or footage to cut to during a live broadcast; in live sports coverage, they constantly have to juggle judgment calls about when play resumes and when to cut to replays. In this case, the match resumed while a VTR replay was still airing, causing the network to miss the sequence leading to the conceded goal — and this kind of complaint about “replays running during live play” is a recurring point of criticism in soccer broadcasting. In the thread, some pointed out that while sports-specialist channels and streaming services like DAZN have improved through repeated experience, terrestrial key stations — which only handle major broadcasts occasionally — struggle to build up that same experience, framing this less as a one-off technical error and more as a structural issue worth noting. It’s also worth mentioning that the match drew a crowd of over 40,000, far exceeding a typical J1 league match, showing that the national team’s drawing power itself remained strong.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Speed+) thread “[Fuji TV] Uruguay’s Equalizer Not Shown on Terrestrial Broadcast!? Viewers Frustrated Over Goal Conceded During Replay: “The Terrestrial Switcher…”“.
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