This is probably THE soccer manga, which is about how Japan totally owns everyone else in the world behind a guy named Tsubasa. Now I realize at least they haven't actually won the World Cup yet because otherwise this might trigger an international incident. Now I'm not talking about how little sense or how ridiculous good the Japanese are, but although these guys are supposed to be honorable samurais or whatever, I find them to be some of the dirtiest players in fictional sports history. Let's go over some examples:
Wakabiyashi, the goalie of the Japanese team, is said to be someone who can stop any shot from outside the penalty area. Now, if you ever read a sports manga, you know that it takes literally no effort to get into the penalty area because all you need is a guy do some physically impossible action and then he'd be all alone in the penalty area to shoot. Yet, Wakabiyashi has managed to trick all his opponents into shooting outside the penalty area. It's not until one of the more recent one, against an African team (Nigeria I think) when one of their guy is like: "Hey guys I just realized we don't get 2 goals for shooting outside the penalty area and we can be shooting inside the penalty area whenever we want" and then went on to totally crush team Japan (but they tied the game at the end, of course).
In U17, against Sweden (I think), their star player is some guy whose girlfriend got killed by a stray soccer ball or something, so he decided to work on how to kill people with a soccer ball. His shots look like something from a Metal Blade from Mega Man 2 (it cuts people up and shreds stuff), and although Wakabiyashi still can block them, he was taking significant damage because the ball cuts up his hands when he deflects it (and he can't catch it because it's spinning too fast). So team Sweden was steadily taking the upper hand and they got a 1on1 situation and then the defender collapsed because he tried to stop a killer shot earlier, so now it's only the goalie and even Wakabiyashi would have a hard time stopping a goal, but then the Japanese team pulled some hex and summoned the spirit of the dead girlfriend which causes him to kick the ball away.
And then the Japanese team says that since Sweden played honorably (by throwing away a penalty kick situation) they'll give the ball back to their stary player in the middle of the field so he gets a clean shot at the goal, which is easily stopped by Wakabiyashi, but remember, the Japanese are totally honorable guys and a free kick in the middle of the field is totally the same as a guy throwing away a penalty kick situation to talk to the spirit of his dead girlfriend. The star player also swore to never use soccer to kill people again and return to kicking normally, and team Sweden gets defeated easily by team Japan because the killer shot is the only thing that could've gotten through Wakabiyashi's defenses.
Three years later, the Sweden guy meets Wakabiyashi again in Euro league, and his team is down 1, so the Sweden guy is like 'guess I have no choice to go back to killer shot again', so apparently it's totally okay to use soccer to kill people when you're behind. Unfortunately Wakabiyashi has been practicing how to catch chainsaws with his bare hands during his spare time after realizing that he can't stop that shot reliably 3 years ago, so even that didn't work.
But none of this compares to Tsubasa. In 2002, there was a special where the fictional Japanese team led by Tsubasa played against the real Japanese World Cup team. The real Japanese World Cup team went up 3-1 in the first half since it'd obviously be pretty dumb if a bunch of guys who is destined to win the World Cup actually lost to a bunch of fictional guys. So down 3-1 after first half, team fictional had their usual rallying speech about how they'll turn the game around, and then Tsubasa, captain of the fictional Japanese team, took his jersey off and put on a real Japanese World Cup jersey and joined the other side, since he clearly sense defeat is imminent and Tsubasa is a sore loser who can't stand losing even to the real Japanese World Cup team.
Also note that Tsubasa has been taking drugs as early as elementary school to get a leg up on the opposition.
Now, unrelated to the dirty players, there's Karl Schnider from Germany, who is clearly meant to be the series's strongest character until Jesus showed up. During his jr. high years he was on the same team as Wakabiyashi and he can score 50% of the time outside of the penalty area with his flame kick. However, Karl Schnider clearly never took any classes in probability, because everytime you see him he'd do his Flame Kick outside the penalty area, gets blocked, and then he'd think: "I can score 50% of the time outside the penalty area so the next Flame Kick will definitely go in". This is despite the fact that everyone but him knows Wakabiyashi is now considerably stronger than he was during jr. high, and that even if this hasn't changed, missing your first shot doesn't mean the second shot is guaranteed to go in just because your overall odds are 50%. Of course, like any halfway decent character, Karl Schnider can get into the penalty area any time he wanted and take a completely clean shot. In fact most of the time you'll see him catch the ball in the penalty area and then he'd dribble it out just to try to maintain his 50% average, even though he has yet to make a shot against Wakabiyashi outside the penalty area since jr. high. He's actually a pretty cool character, but someone should tell him probability doesn't way the work he thinks it does.
Wakabiyashi, the goalie of the Japanese team, is said to be someone who can stop any shot from outside the penalty area. Now, if you ever read a sports manga, you know that it takes literally no effort to get into the penalty area because all you need is a guy do some physically impossible action and then he'd be all alone in the penalty area to shoot. Yet, Wakabiyashi has managed to trick all his opponents into shooting outside the penalty area. It's not until one of the more recent one, against an African team (Nigeria I think) when one of their guy is like: "Hey guys I just realized we don't get 2 goals for shooting outside the penalty area and we can be shooting inside the penalty area whenever we want" and then went on to totally crush team Japan (but they tied the game at the end, of course).
In U17, against Sweden (I think), their star player is some guy whose girlfriend got killed by a stray soccer ball or something, so he decided to work on how to kill people with a soccer ball. His shots look like something from a Metal Blade from Mega Man 2 (it cuts people up and shreds stuff), and although Wakabiyashi still can block them, he was taking significant damage because the ball cuts up his hands when he deflects it (and he can't catch it because it's spinning too fast). So team Sweden was steadily taking the upper hand and they got a 1on1 situation and then the defender collapsed because he tried to stop a killer shot earlier, so now it's only the goalie and even Wakabiyashi would have a hard time stopping a goal, but then the Japanese team pulled some hex and summoned the spirit of the dead girlfriend which causes him to kick the ball away.
And then the Japanese team says that since Sweden played honorably (by throwing away a penalty kick situation) they'll give the ball back to their stary player in the middle of the field so he gets a clean shot at the goal, which is easily stopped by Wakabiyashi, but remember, the Japanese are totally honorable guys and a free kick in the middle of the field is totally the same as a guy throwing away a penalty kick situation to talk to the spirit of his dead girlfriend. The star player also swore to never use soccer to kill people again and return to kicking normally, and team Sweden gets defeated easily by team Japan because the killer shot is the only thing that could've gotten through Wakabiyashi's defenses.
Three years later, the Sweden guy meets Wakabiyashi again in Euro league, and his team is down 1, so the Sweden guy is like 'guess I have no choice to go back to killer shot again', so apparently it's totally okay to use soccer to kill people when you're behind. Unfortunately Wakabiyashi has been practicing how to catch chainsaws with his bare hands during his spare time after realizing that he can't stop that shot reliably 3 years ago, so even that didn't work.
But none of this compares to Tsubasa. In 2002, there was a special where the fictional Japanese team led by Tsubasa played against the real Japanese World Cup team. The real Japanese World Cup team went up 3-1 in the first half since it'd obviously be pretty dumb if a bunch of guys who is destined to win the World Cup actually lost to a bunch of fictional guys. So down 3-1 after first half, team fictional had their usual rallying speech about how they'll turn the game around, and then Tsubasa, captain of the fictional Japanese team, took his jersey off and put on a real Japanese World Cup jersey and joined the other side, since he clearly sense defeat is imminent and Tsubasa is a sore loser who can't stand losing even to the real Japanese World Cup team.
Also note that Tsubasa has been taking drugs as early as elementary school to get a leg up on the opposition.
Now, unrelated to the dirty players, there's Karl Schnider from Germany, who is clearly meant to be the series's strongest character until Jesus showed up. During his jr. high years he was on the same team as Wakabiyashi and he can score 50% of the time outside of the penalty area with his flame kick. However, Karl Schnider clearly never took any classes in probability, because everytime you see him he'd do his Flame Kick outside the penalty area, gets blocked, and then he'd think: "I can score 50% of the time outside the penalty area so the next Flame Kick will definitely go in". This is despite the fact that everyone but him knows Wakabiyashi is now considerably stronger than he was during jr. high, and that even if this hasn't changed, missing your first shot doesn't mean the second shot is guaranteed to go in just because your overall odds are 50%. Of course, like any halfway decent character, Karl Schnider can get into the penalty area any time he wanted and take a completely clean shot. In fact most of the time you'll see him catch the ball in the penalty area and then he'd dribble it out just to try to maintain his 50% average, even though he has yet to make a shot against Wakabiyashi outside the penalty area since jr. high. He's actually a pretty cool character, but someone should tell him probability doesn't way the work he thinks it does.
