FT: Japan 3-2 Turkmenistan. The good news is that Japan have the 3 points. However, the bad news is that there is plenty of work to do at the back. That kind of sloppiness won't forgive against the better teams.
Stressful to watch, congrats nonetheless. With that kind of laughable defense, I really hope JNT doesn't get teams with speedy forwards like the Saudis in 2nd round.
The only positive from this match for me is Tomiyasu. For a very tall guy he is quite quick with good technique. I still keep my view that the coach see the group matches as 'training' opportunity, the players are better than that but their attitudes toward this game nearly costed them 3 points. On the side note, Yoshida looked exhausted to dead all match. Hope his stamina could keep up the upcoming games. Oh, and biggest problem is not CBs. Makino is bad, Tomiyasu is the future, we all know that. The real problem is GK.
gonda: some important saves for a terrible defence. that goal conceded was a belter. sakai: as usual very strong in defence with nothing in attack. he was once highly rated in the j league for his crossing. yoshida: important leader but continu to make me nervous against these lesser known asian strikers. makino: okay. made risky choices playing out from the back. nagatomo: full of running, great runs in the second half. nice assist. tomiyasu: solid performance despite his inexperience. made some nice tackles to break up the counter. shibasaki: dreadful first half, looked slow and heavy exactly like someone who has barely played club football this season. improved in the second half. haraguchi: like shibasaki grew into the game. expected more from an experienced player like him. minamino: was he playing. doan: over played things in the first half. showed promising moments throughout. very well taken goal. osako: two goals. keep them coming.
unfortunately this will only get worse. sure there are some really promising youth gk coming through the system but at the end of the day there are way too many korean/foreign gk blocking their development. since when did a j league club show some faith in a young japanese gk.
Just watched the highlights. First goal for Turkmenistan was great, nothing they could do about that. But look before the penalty, what is Makino doing? Looks like he is running a sunday morning run, not even trying to get closer to the ball. So bad. Great first goal by Osako, easy second, although it looked like he could've missed it, would have been typical Osako. Hope this was a wake up call yes. Let see. Depressing surroundings with little attendance.
The same moment turk #7 was handling the ball totally free I thought "Why the f*ck none cares about this dude that will shoot in a moment" and then he scored. Gonda laughable but it's not his mistake simply these are his limits. Kawashina did the same in 2010 vs Netherlans but at the end of the day he did an amazing WC. Hope the same goes for Gonda this time. Osako ala Ronaldo: playing barely average but scoring twice, giving his team the 3 points and turning into the mvp as in his first WC match. Very good. Now all the big ones had a not so good debut match, let's see if they find the shape in the second round.
That's why playing an AFC Asian Cup in the West is tough. And I don't think Qatar 2022 will be so much better. Attendances in Australia 2015 were so much better.
Ikr? No passion, no hype, nothing. You might see it in their own Arab teams matches but in other teams matches you would only hear crickets chirp. Money talks.
Uzbekistan 2-1 Oman Despite the result, Oman played better, lots of possession with aggressive and physical attacks. I think Oman had more than 10 shots on target, vs Uzbekistan's 3~4 Uzbekistan's GK pulled some exceptional, Casillas-like saves; on the other hand Oman's GK let in 2 very manageable shots.
I really have a bad feeling about the game against Oman. Hopefully, the defense get their shit together and make watching the match less stressful.
Well it will be an interesting challenge and an important match. Anything else than a convincing win means that Japan is not ready to win the title. This match will give us the answer weather Moriyasu is capable of managing a team at this level. I certainly look forward to this match.
North Korea is looking horribly bad this tournament. After losing the first match against Saudi Arabia 0-4, they are trailing by the same scoreline against Qatar now by the 60 minutes mark. Even the likes of India, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan are progressing and putting a brace fight than opponents stonger than them. As of now North Korea is the worst team among the whole 24, even worse then Yemen. How this team degressed in such a manner?
Japan's starting line-up against Oman: Gonda. H. Sakai - Yoshida - Tomiyasu - Nagatomo. W. Endo - Shibasaki. Doan - Minamino - Haraguchi. Kitagawa.
Replacing Makino with Tomiyasu and the inclusion of Endo are good decisions. But I am not really sure why he replaced Osako with Kitagawa. He could have chosen Muto and he does not seem to have a lot of trust in Inui. It is not like that Haraguchi or Minamino were really great in the last game
Was that a penalty? The people around me here in the cafe are saying otherwise. The replay angles are not helping either. Anyways, good performance so far and if JNT had a bit of luck, it could've been 3-0.