World Cup diary: Japan, needing a miracle, get a visit from bonkers anti-China cult

Japan need a miracle to qualify for the knockout stage, but we're not sure if Happy Science are going to deliver it.

The religious cult visited the team's training camp and left a banner of support reading "Open The Way With Positive Thinking".

The organisation was founded in 1986 to spread the teachings of Ryuho Okawa, who speaks for El Cantare, their god. This is how their website explains it:

His Truth, as taught in Happy Science, transcends the barriers of race, nations, cultures and religions, and is a major force in uniting a world that is becoming increasingly fragmented, isolated and chaotic. The teachings also hold the key to resolving the escalating conflicts between major religions around the world.

They have been compared to Aum Shinrikyo, the cult that launched the sarin gas attack in a Tokyo metro station in in 1995. Happy Science denies the comparison and say their founder tried to warn authorities of the attack after he had a premonition about it. Aum Shinrikyo also apparently tried to assassinate Okawa with 'agent XV' poison, although sources of that story apart from the one linked to on Wikipedia appear thin on the ground.

On the Japanese version of their publication's website is what appears from Google Translate to be an interview with the 'Guardian Spirit' of Japan star Keisuke Honda. A novel approach to journalism - we might speak to the ghost of Stanley Matthew's in tomorrow's diary and get his thoughts on England's early exit.

Japan need to beat Colombia handily and hope Greece beat Ivory Coast, but by a smaller margin. Both outcomes seem unlikely - but let's just see the power of Happy Science in action.