The Hero was a Korean Japanese

The Asian Cup Soccer 2011 at Doha, Qatar, has ended in Japan's victory on 29 January. Altogether 16 national teams have participated. Eight have gone into the tournament which is the second stage. There Japan has beaten Qatar, then South Korea in the semi-final, and Australia in the final by 1-0. All three were won in a pitched battle. It was Lee Tadanari, 25 years old, who decided the fate of the team with his powerful volley into the Australian goal.
Lee was not a part of the game from the start. He was put into it by Coach Zaccheroni 9 minutes after the game went into extension. Alberto Zaccheroni comes from Italy. He was appointed after the World Cup 2010 and has not been long with the team. But he is already transforming it by being attentive to each and every player, and his preference for offensive tactics. Half of Japan's victory is Zaccheroni's.
But let us look at the hero more closely. He is a 4th-generation Korean. His father belonging to the third-generation is a Korean by nationality also. During the 35 years of the Japanese rule over Korea, many Koreans came over to Japan, a large number of them against their will. In 1910 when the annexation was made there were only 790 Koreans in Japan, 600 of whom were students. It increased afterwards, and sharply so during the war years until there were about two million at the end of the war in 1945. Many thousand of them were victimized by the atomic bombs. After the war many went back to the now divided Korea, many others became Japanese citizens, but many are remaining in Japan as either South or North Koreans.
Lee himself was a South Korean like his father under the name Lee(pronounced ee in Korean) Chung-Sung. He is a member of a Japanese professional soccer team based at Hiroshima. He was going to play in the Beijing Olympics as well as the Asian Cup as a part of the South Korean team, but because of the language barrier decided to abandon the South Korean citizenship and became a Japanese 4 years ago. His name became Lee(pronounced ri) Tadanari, although if written in Chinese characters it is the same. The difference is that in both Koreas they do not usually use Chinese characters.
Lee has reportedly said that both Japan and South Korea are his mother countries. Let us be sure that the presence of Lee and 300,000 to 400,000 zainichi(Japan-residing) Koreans will enrich the Japanese culture. In the meantime, Kamsa Hamnida(Thank you) to our hero.