Japan v UAE World Cup qualifier (R)

Okada manage to do it in 2010 albeit with different players tho.

 

Tulio and Nakazawa. Two players that many disliked, I always liked them and Japan never had two cbs close to them since.

 

Once again, the 2010 became a defensive team because they couldn't score a goal or win to save their life anymore. The 2016 team is well capable of doing that now but people would bitch about it being backwards football.

 

in my opinion, if oshima's trip was a penalty, then by same standard uae's foul on usami was a penalty as well. japan's taken for a ride the ref.

 

You need to call Aria Hasegawa. He can help your team.

 

You guys have only yourselves to blame for the ref. We haven't allowed neither FIFA nor AFC to appoint an arab ref for us when we play against an arab team since as long as I can remember.

 

Watched it on replay. Very nice to watch it in HD on ESPN3 here in the states. It wasn't a great performance, mistakes were made, but I don't see any reason to enter panic mode. I thought Japan played quite well in stretches. They came out guns blazing leading to the opening goal. Lost the plot after the equalizer. After the UAE went ahead they responded well at first leading to what should have been an equalizer of their own. Ran out of ideas and energy at the end.

The UAE stole this game. I don't think they deserved even a point. Omar did not boss the midfield. He got pushed around physically and spent a lot of time on the ground appealing for fouls that weren't given. As one of Asia's most hyped players I was expecting more from him. Khalil's free kick was quality but overall the UAE created very few chances and their penalty was soft. On the other hand Japan had a clear goal not given and didn't get the penalty call that the UAE did. The ref had a terrible game, clearly, but I don't think there's any more to it than that.

I would just chalk this one up to bad referring and forget about it. Japan should still qualify.

 

Haven't been to JNT matches in a while but I don't understand the continuous chanting by some of the supporters. When my stream reconnected after it broke down I thought we'd scored our second goal based on the chanting. I'm not saying supporters should start booing the players but the atmosphere was very strange.

 

Even after looking at the highlights it looks like a clear PK to me. Oshima is clearly touching Al Makbhout's foot there, so no doubt in my book.

The free-kick that lead to the 1-1 goal is a bit more doubtful, but the highlights aren't really decisive there either. Yoshida's foot goes out, and whether it hits or not I can't tell from the camera angles. Either way, a GOOD GK would have saved that shot.

Really poor finish on the disallowed goal yes, but that one next to Kagawa's miss straight after 1-1 is really the only 2 big chances Japan had next to the goal. The header off the post to some degree as well, but looks like the GK would have saved that if it had been goalbound.

Kiyotake's FK cross for Honda's goal was good, and a couple of others were decent, but there was as I said earlier countless of crosses that were horrible. Especially from the 2 wingbacks, but of course it is also the players in the box's fault for not making better runs or getting into better positions.

Usami's PK situation looked more like a dive than what you're saying about Omar's incident with Hasebe. Hasebe and Omar also clinched together after Hasebe refused to put the ball out of play when a player was injured, so seemed to be some bad blood between them.

But 3, maybe 4 if we're being kind, big chances for Japan with this amount of possession is not acceptable, and they can only blame themselves for not winning. Saying the referee is corrupt, the UAE players wasting time, diving etc is not the point, and sounds more like poor excuses than anything else.

Japan failed, that's the point. With a performance like this they would have been torn apart by Australia or South Korea.

 

That's a Japanese thing, isnt it? I see the same when I go a J.League game. The home-team going 0-1, 0-2 or even 0-3 down...they still sing like nothing happened after a few seconds break. After the game though they will boo the players.

Which to some extent can be good I gueess? I mean, for some players hearing boos might be like a wake-up call, but in most incidents it could just make the pressure even higher and hurt the player's confidence even more?

However, with more boos, players might grow tougher mentally, and implement a stronger winning mentality, which is something a lot of Japanese players would need I guess.

 

Got no interest in going into an endless flamewar with you on this topic, and you are entitled to your opinion.

But you sound extremely biased in my ears, and are looking hard for excuses using silly arguments to prove your points.

If I need to point it out a 3rd time, UAE's coach tactically outclassed Vahid in this game, which is clearly not the same as UAE outclassing Japan on the pitch. How you can't see the difference between that is beyond me. Do you remember Greece in Euro 2004? They didn't outclass anyone on the pitch, but tactically very much so. Not drawing any similiarites there in any way, but might be easier to understand the point?

UAE played with a very tight defensive line, positioned themselves well for most of the match. Japan got a lot of space on the flanks, but please tell me how many of those endless crosses actually were dangerous. UAE's defenders owned the Japanese strikers on almost every single cross, and only Honda proved a match to them. The FK-goal was brilliant work by Kiyotake and Honda, and Asano's disallowed goal was also after a Honda header, but besides that? Nothing.

UAE had some nifty combinations going forward as well, and even if it was just KHalil, Al Makbhout, Omar and 1-2 players that contributed offensively, it was enough to cause tons of problems when they attacked. Counter-attacking play straight out of Drillo or Klopp's book, with the ball going fast forward every time.

If you think time-wasting was a big factor in this game you clearly can't have watched much Asian football lately, or from Europe, South America or pretty much anywhere. I've seen worse scenarios almost weekly from both Chinese and Korean teams, and to put the blame on that is a horrible, horrible excuse. Usami stood for the night's biggest dive, not the UAE players, so that's also ludicrous to bring up.

 

DOn't really agree. I can count on one hand the times Omar lost the ball. He was bullied around physically a lot yes, but either got a FK or managed to pass the ball around before he went to the ground almost every time.

His clashes with Hasebe in particular were interesting, and he clearly came out on top in that duel. His little tricks down at the corner flag in the 2nd half when he got the ball to a team-mate in an almost impossible situation is something none of the Japanese players on the pitch would have been capable too. He also won MANY aerial battles.

Think he was rated MOM at the end by the officials, which is well-deserved.

 

Well, in second round we will defeat UAE 3-0, maybe 5-0 and we will qualify to WC 2018 as usual.

 

That's right!

 

I don't care much for flamewars either, and I think it was 2 or 3 am for both of this when it started so that probably had something to do with it. But I just don't agree with you on the tactics issue. I don't know why you think I'm biased, as I'm always critical of Japan and critical of them in this match as well. But in the end, UAE won because of luck and refereeing decisions, not by tactics. Japan had plenty of chances to score. You seem to conveniently omit the Honda/Kagawa double chance, and crossbar by Okazaki, not to mention a few other close calls where Japan should have scored.
On the other hand, UAE's PK, whether legit or not, had nothing to do with Vahid's tactics as even after the stupid giveaway Japan still had 3 defenders covering 1 guy. I don't know how you can pin that or anything else on Vahid. Japan had plenty of chances to score and didn't take them, and made some bonehead mistakes, compounded by refereeing decisions. They gave UAE basically no chances from open play. And UAE aren't a bad team to begin with.

 

I've enjoyed the family friendly atmosphere of the J League compared to other countries but I find the lack of urgency in the supporters frustrating. I agree that it's not always productive to turn on your own players. Nagatomo has certainly made it clear that it's very different playing in front of Inter fans and IMHO it's made him a tougher player.

I thought Omar was pretty good, he managed to get a pass many times even though he was surrounded by two or three of our guys.

 

Yeah, that's a fair point.

I didn't leave out the Honda/Kagawa double chance and the Okazaki header ( I wrote about them in another post), but the Honda/Kagawa chance didnt came directly from a cross iirc, and the Okazaki-chance wasnt as big as it looked as I think the GK would have saved it easily had it been goal-bound. I only counted 3 big chances for Japan. The goal, the Honda/Kagawa thing as well as Asano's disallowed goal. None of the other ones were close calls I think.

Of course luck was a factor, it usually is, but tactics as well. By blaming Vahid I'm not necessarily talking about the defensive mistakes ( that's human errors), but more his attacking plan which to me was pretty much non-existent.

Handling the ball over to Kagawa or Honda, passing it around and then whip it out to one of the sides only to see the cross being cleared over and over again is not good tactics. It was pathetic to watch, and will not work against good teams. Imagine if this was in the World Cup....

Defensively it might would have made more senses using someone faster than Hasebe, Morishige and the likes, so that they would be able to follow Khalil etc when they made a run for it, so I still stand behind my initial comment that overall Vahid lost the tactical battle against Mahdi Ali by a big,big margin.

I wrote in the other thread that this qualification would be a lot tougher than the previous ones, with 6 teams instead of 5, and better teams overall with both UAE and Thailand having improved a lot since the last cyclus. So yes, I agree that UAE aren't a bad team, but seems the Japanese players/media and even bookmakers underrated them ( UAE were 15/1 to win this game which is ridiculuous).

 

Yeah, it will probably only make them stronger in the long run, but besides Urawa, none of the fans in Japan seems to be tough enough to boo the players during the game. So they have a long way to go.

Yeah, Omar almost never lost the ball, even when he was tackled he always managed to pass the ball to someone else first.

 

That's an interesting point. My (Japanese) wife isn't really that big on soccer but when watching this match she also was pointing out how lenient Japanese are in general with regards to soccer. They build up the matches so much but never come down hard on the players when they underwhelm. OK, maybe its like that with most sports other than Judo and sometimes baseball.

 

the refs were really terrible but our performance was average at best. where are the idiots who always say sending players to european leagues improves our national team? yesterday japan fielded 11 euro-based players and 3 j-league based players. when six guys are coming from germany, two form england, one from spain, one from italy, one from france, how can you build any team chemistry? according to several sources, uae was together for 2 months practicing for this match. as for japan, they were given only 2 days and most of their players were jet-lagged. guys, stop dreaming.

 

UAE were in better condition but I would rather have the players competing in Europe than being pampered in the domestic league.

I don't think it's the lack of team chemistry. Since Zach how many times have we seen Honda, Kagawa, Okazaki, Hasebe and co. in the starting line up. I don't have the numbers but surely must be well over two dozen matches over the WC, WCQ, AC and friendlies. We need in-form guys like Kubo and Muto to step up and create some competition in the lineup.

The team's got complacent. Asia is getting stronger. Hopefully it's the wake up call they needed.