@ Saku I mostly agree with your statements but "spirited performance", man I don't know. Lots of time was wasted, and in the first half they were hardly incisive. As the clock started to thin down the urgency started showing, I did not like the attitude. At times I thought it was because they were trying to focus, and as the stats suggest the passing was smooth overall this time. Yet, again, nobody attempting a 1 v 1, often just moving the ball outside of the PA up and down... that was poor. Osako had some guts and I appreciated the shots, but for some reason his off the ball movement lacked OR his teammates were often not able to make the pass for him. I'm not sure about Honda's sub, he was slow but dangerous at times. I would've put Kakitani from the start (not as a sub) only to have a different approach.
Osako played some post play and won some 1 vs 1 against the Greeks which is more than Okazaki can claim. He had a very good deviation that Honda wasted in the first half and he would have been much more useful than any other striker had he been on the pitch when they started crossing all the time. Okubo tried but who else is gonna do it ? its just not one of their qualities, they cant reinvent themselves all of a sudden. Kakitani hides when the opposition is too physical.
Okubo "tried" like two times, and pretty much everyone in our team (who plays on the wings) can do it. Uchida, Nagatomo (who never attempted and instead kept delivering lame crosses from the line), Okazaki. They sure can, didn't have the guts. Kakitani was fine against Belgium...
Nagatomo did burst on the side but he s not exactly the talented dribbler. Uchida did what he had to do, he can beat a man on a burst but he doesnt sustain enough speed and power to really make the decision. Okazaki was disappointing but hes also hardly an artist. the dribblers were on the bench (Kiyotake, Saito) or in Japan (Haraguchi, Doi, Morioka, Endo, Ogawa)
You guys really need a striker! I have never seen a team miss so many clear cut chances inside the six yard box.. It was funny and sad at the same time.
@Saku² I totally agree with you, as I said in Cote d'Ivoire's match, Kiyotake should be Kagwa's sub if he lost his form not Okubo, who is too individual and isn't a passing genius like Kagawa or Kiyotake. We passed a lot against Greece, yes, but we was missing an effective passer to share the responsibility of our passing game in the attacking third with Honda, and that didn't improved until Kagawa was subbed in. Okubo's late inclusion was a gamble, and it is proved to be a faliure so far, as he have no understanding with his team mates. He is not supposed to be a starter, even if things didn't worked out Kiyotake should be the direct alternative for Kagawa, and Kakitani/Osako/Okazaki should be the choices for the CF spot not him. Okubo at best should be considered as a wildcard that can be thrown late in the match in hope to bring something different to the team. Just look at the header he had at the first half, he doesn't excel at heading and he should leave it to Osako who is in a better situation and is better than him in aerial balls.
Why is Honda AM? With his prowess and big size wouldn't Japan do better if he was the striker up front? Honda isn't really good at passing but really good at shooting. I have been wondering about this for a while.
Nah... he is best on passing... he just dint really show it on this world cup... I have been wondering are you really know about him.
I don't really follow Honda that much lol. I have only seen him play in WC. This year and 2010. I haven't seen him make any good passes so far but I have seen him make some very good strikes (eg. CIV game).
Endo killed it for me. Followed by Zac. The other players went out there to win, with all their strengths and deficiencies. Okubo cant finish to save his life, but that is nothing new. I thought osako settled in and redeemed himself, along with kagawa. But endo... he ground everything to a halt, no urgency at all, no movement, even his set pieces were a waste. He has no business being in brazil. He gave us magic in the past but its beyond him now
He was only played there in 2010 because, as you can see, the "proper strikers" available at the time -- Okazaki and Okubo -- are dog awful when it comes to actually scoring. Okazaki isn't actually that bad, but at least in JLeague he was always dependent on having a strong CF to play off of**. I don't know what his team looks like in Germany to say if he's adapted... but... still, at WC level, he is well below the mark that you see at other countries. As Ballack said yesterday, we saw 2 squads that had very good passing and were clearly superior ... but one had a superb striker (Suarez) and the other had ... well... 3 of the best chances in this game dropped to Okubo. **Which Japan can never really find. Briefly had it with Takahara. Attempts were made with Maki... who is apparently now a defender lmao. I think there was some hope with Havenaar as well but he fell out of Zac's plans awhile ago.
Honda and Kagawa both created quite a bit and moved to get in position for passes. I literally saw Endo stand still for about 20 seconds while Nagatomo ran past him to receive the ball and put in yet another cross. Maybe if Endo had moved to a different spot they could've had a 1-2.... but alas, Endo just stood there. It's not like that was the only time either; the entire half was characterized by Endo standing around and making no effort to help with the goal scoring at all. Yoshida even came up at the end... but Endo is still standing around. Useless. The only time I saw him move with any urgency was during one of the Greek counters.
Endo drifts around the pitch and distributes the ball. In particular he hung around the left wing and got the ball to Nagatomo (and later on, Kagawa) in decent places. It's arguable whether putting him in was the right thing to do, but mostly he was doing his job. Osako also did better than against CIV. His hold-up play was important and he did create several decent shot opportunities.
In that situation, there is no need for somebody who is only going to stand around and "distribute", if you could even call it that. It's not like he was feeding through balls or switching sides in some intelligent fashion -- 9 times out of 10 he just delivered a flat pass to the closest player and continued standing there being useless. For all the talk about the lack of urgency, etc. ... Endo is the biggest culprit. He had 0 urgency. The other players failed in their own ways, but at least they were putting in effort for most of the game. Endo couldn't be bothered ... but seems like he's going to get a free pass just b/c of his name. [shrugs] I love him for what he's done in the past, but he's beyond it. I don't think he cares about the results very much, and I don't think he has the energy to run for his team anymore -- even when he's only been on the pitch since half time.
Which players can replace Endo, Konno or Maybe Hasebe also since by next world cup, he is 34 years old, you guys think?