I thought it was a fine performance against inferior opposition. Kagawa and Honda back to their usual selves, not letting their club form affect them. Okazaki with great improvisation and energy and most importantly goals like he's shown this year for Mainz. Nagatomo very good, basically a Japanese Patrice Evra. Defense was a concern as usual but things are looking up at least with the emergence of Yamaguchi. For the first NZ goal, it was poor of Sakai to get beat but it still took an unlucky deflection off Yamaguchi and a nice finish from a tight angle by Wood for them to score. The second was poor defending by Morishige but you also have to give credit to another good finish by Wood. I'm not convinced by Morishige at CB. He had some good headers like his goal but he does seem to be lacking in the physicality department like on the second NZ goal. I feel like we're one player short of having a team capable of making a good run at the WC. A shame because CB was one of our strengths in 2010. Osako was fine. He played his part. He helped out with defensive headers in set piece situations and tracked back to make tackles. Lack of offense wasn't our problem in this game.
Japan v New Zealand International Friendly Mar 5th Fox Sports 2 (Australia) 576p https://mega.co.nz/#!rUh2xYoA!CdNqc3b6ao0g8VnBI1uvZSopqBxPfUR9ND0qA8-9ZFc