(CNN)Before their World Cup quarterfinal in 2011, Japan’s female footballers were given a reminder of home.
Except the photos produced by coach Norio Sasaki weren’t the sort you see on a postcard — fields of cherry blossoms or the setting sun behind Tokyo’s skyline. This was a rather more sobering sight — one that defender Aya Sameshima admits she could hardly bring herself to look at.
The players may have been thousands of miles away from home in Germany, but the scars from of the earthquake and tsunami that had devastated the northeastern corner of the country still lurked in their thoughts.
