Irish soccer fans may be getting good news from Japan but so too are Irish pig producers, who expect to win their own game in the next 10 days.
Irish pigmeat exports have been locked out of Japan since the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease here last year.
This meant the loss of Ireland's third-largest market for pigmeat worth nearly €30 million - 12,000 tonnes - when the trade ceased.
However, following negotiations between the Department of Agriculture and the Japanese government, the reapproval of Irish pigmeat is currently at the consultation stage in Japan.
An official announcement on the reopening of the market has been delayed until mid to late June due to certification issues dealing with the origin of product in processing plants, according to An Bord Bia.
There is a growing confidence that Ireland will be given clearance to export there again before the end of the month into a market which is growing substantially.
Towards the end of last year pork consumption in Japan rose by over 50 per cent as consumers switched from beef following the discovery of their first indigenous case of BSE.
The board has warned that producers will have to be very price competitive to recover the market share which was lost, but niche markets will be available.
Beef exporters, meanwhile, have been heartened by the response of the Egyptian authorities to a trial shipment of Irish beef within the past fortnight. This market was Ireland's largest non-EU outlet when it was closed in late 2000 after the Egyptians banned the import of all beef from the EU because of rising levels of BSE.