Two visiting teams in August
　The west German first division club, BSC Hertha Berlin visited to Japan in early August. It drew its first two games with the Japanese national side in Kobe and Tokyo. The scores were 2-2 and 1-1 respectively. Hertha won the third and the last match in Omiya by the score of 2-0.
　The Japanese Football Association invited the amateur selection team of the United States of America in middle August. The Japanese national squad met the U. S. team as part of its preparation for the Asian Games in Teheran. Japan drew the first match in Omiya with the score of 1-1, but won the next two games overwhelmingly in Yokohama and Tokyo. The scores were 3-0 and 7-0.

　New era in Asian Football
　For the first time in the Asian Games' history, the teams from the People's Republic of China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have entered the football tournament in, Teheran in September. The fact means the beginning of a new era in sian football.
　After World War II, football in Asia developed mainly under the leadership of the South-Eastern Asian countries. Tunku Abdul Rahman, the former prime minister of Malaysia and the president of the Asian Football Confederation established the Merdeka Football Festival in his contry and has since invited many Asian national teams every year. The festival has made great contributions to the improvement of Asian football activities ; for instance, the progress of Japanese football in the 1950s owed a great debt to the Malaysian contribution.
　However, no team from these two communist countries were guests at the festival or other football tournaments which were often held afterwards in other South-Eastern Asian countries, These two countries promoted their Football independently and separately from the other Asian countries.
　In the Asian Games, Taiwan had sent football teams under the name of China and won the title three times in the past, but the teams had never really represented the footballers of the Taiwan area. Football was not so popular in Taiwan that it could compose such a strong team from its local players. When Taiwan won the Asian Games' title in 1950, 1954 and 1958, the teams were composed of players who were tentatively imported from Hongkong. In those days, some people complained that a small British colony could send two teams to the Asian Games under two different names ; China and Hongkong, neither of which represented the whole of China.
　On the other hand, footballers from mainland China had been banned from competing in international events, because their Football Association withdrew from F.I.F.A., the governing body of world football, in1958 to protest the admission of Taiwan.
　 In last July, F.I.F.A. decided to allow international competitions between its member countries and the People's Republic of China and as the result the national team which represents the biggest population in the world appeared in Teheran.
　The situation with regard to Korea was different ; despite the fact that the F.A. of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has been a member of F.I.F.A., the Asian Football Confederation did not accept its application to affiliate. But now, the national team from the northern part of the Korean peninsula was in Teheran without any objections from A.F.C.
　It seems that all footballers in Asia are gathering under one roof. The organization of Asian Football will soon have the biggest population in the world, and we can expect further progress of our football standard through wider and keener competition.

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