Sugasawa penalty call Sorry, but for me that's a dive. She starts rotating her body only after the contact. Combined with the other more than...
I still cannot get over Scotland playing a 4-4-2. I just... don't get it. Why would you possibly go 2v2 against Japan in central midfield when you...
Looks like Scotland are doing everything wrong so far and on top of that their goalkeeper is terrible. With a bit of luck Japan might actually win...
Finally, a goal! Edit: And a horrible goalkeeper error. How can you not save that?
Well, looks like the yellow cards are going to continue coming.
Well, at least they are attacking.
Wait, are Scotland also playing a 4-4-2? Why in the blazes would they do that?
I think that would be a mistake, they haven't really looked solid in defence so far and it's not their style anyway. Not when I'm predicting...
Yep, I'm the kind of "fan" that can look at things objectively instead of having rose-coloured classes duct-taped to his face and pretend...
Yeah, because at that level modern tactics are largely absent and Japan can still cruise by on being the technical team instead of having to...
Around 2011, Japan were the technical side playing possession football and they had world-class players in almost every position. They were the...
Eh, Spain had 16 attempts at goal against Germany (#2) while Japan had 8 attempts against Argentina (#37). Spain looked way better than Japan in...
Anyone else suddenly really glad that the USA aren't in group D?
No, you're definitely spot on. She was far and away Japan's best player today, the complete opposite of Shimizu. I never understood why some...
Well France and Norway are really good teams, it's unfair to compare them to Japan.
Eh, it was a 4-4-1-1 at best, with the wide midfielders staying wide and in midfield. And with the way Argentina were defending it was effectively...
Are we going to pretend the players are the problem now?
Leave it to Japan to produce the first 0-0 of the tournament. All hail 4-4-2. (Stat of the game: Japan had 3 cautions and only 2 shots on target.)
Yokoyama had a long-range effort that the keeper spilled straight into Sugasawa.
What is it with this team and late tackles? I'm not saying any of them were particularly bad, but they need to cut this out.
Is this your first time watching Japan?
You know what, you're right. They really could fail to make it out of the group if this continues. The funniest thing is that in this tournament...
You do know that four of the six third-placed teams will advance, right? I can see Japan lose to Scotland and England, but I'm sure they will...
Please tell me you didn't. That was an amazing game, proper end-to-end stuff in the last minutes.
I'll probably post more in a couple weeks after Takakura has been sacked. At the moment I'm hoping we'll at some point see another match between...