Kids' Activities 21

Man Went to 19 World Cup Games!

Kenji Ueno, a 41-year-old Japanese man, has been a big soccer fan ever since he was a kid. He went to watch 19 of the 64 matches in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, including the final in Yokohama on June 30. This time the World Cup was hosted in two countries, Japan and South Korea, and a lot of matches took place at the same time as other games. So 19 games is thought to be about the most that any person could have seen.

Ueno is a departmental manager in a general trading firm. He used the two weeks of vacation time given to employees who have worked at the company for 15 years - not to mention weekends and time after work - to see the World Cup. As well as matches in Japan, he also traveled to the South Korean island of Jeju to see the Germany vs. Paraguay game.

He had great trouble getting tickets for so many games. In March 2001, when the first period of ticket sales began, Ueno was working in Thailand, so he could not apply for tickets in Japan. Luckily, friends and coworkers who knew he loved soccer sent 68 ticket applications on his behalf. This is how he got tickets for seven of the matches.

In the third ticketing period in March this year, only one application was allowed for each phone number, so Ueno bought 12 new mobile phones! This extraordinary effort enabled him to get tickets for 12 more matches.

This is the fourth World Cup that Ueno has attended, beginning with the 1990 tournament in Italy. He says: "However many matches I go to, I always want to watch more."