Meanwhile some of the Uzbek fans are depressed by getting Japanese referees who often screw them over.
Agreed with you. Give Halilhodzic time. I laugh when some Asian fans say Japan is in a downward cycle. This is their "wish", not analysis. As you say, Japan has more successful players in the best leagues in the world than aggregate of all other Asian teams. What have they done recently, while Okazaki became a starter for the best team in England, Haraguchi became a starter for the third best team in Germany, Muto made an immediate impact in Bundesliga and received an offer from Manchester United last winter (Unfortunately he's been injured, though) ? Even Havenaar can start for every Asian team except for Korea, Australia and Iran. Asia is such a sad region. Now that Japan got rid of Zaccheroni, the opponents lost golden opportunities to beat Japan. Let them know the truth!!! PS: Zaccheroni is big in China. 17th place in the league without a single goal. Japan wasted four years.
good group, no excuse for not having an easy campaign. collecting 12 points from iraq and thailand is a must. i think we will have a better team than we did last time around. i like halilhodzic's philosophy. japan and j-league lack the intensity. to step up to the next stage, japanese players must try to win every 50-50 ball and have a huge desire to win. he is right. we need warriors, not guys like kagawa to survive on the world stage.
visit afc forum. japanese referees are criticized by many fans, not only uzbeks but arabs (qataris, sauids, etc). however i can't complain about that sadly. everyone knows japanese referees are awful if you watch j-league games.
Please refrain from making 3 different posts in the span of 10 minutes, and to provoke other group of users. Thanks. But the coach does play Kagawa every time? So he's on track to do as well as Okada in China probably. Seems a good parameter to rate the completely unrelated work with a national team. damn, I beg permission to put this in my signature
I really hope Qatar go all the way through. Surely, it would be great if they weren't going to be the first nation since 1934 to be given hosting rights without having previously qualified.
I only care about WC results and he failed miserably there in an easy group. By the way, performance wise Japan was well below what we expected of ourselves at the 2011 Asian Cup. Japan already had the most Euro-based players but Zaccheroni made the team mediocre as usual. JS = Japan's shots OS = Opponent's shots TS = Total shots (JS+OS) JS/TS = Japan's shots / Total shots Code: 2011 Opponent JS OS TS JS/TS Jordan 14 7 21 66.7% Syria 14 11 25 56.0% Saudi Arabia 11 9 20 55.0% Qatar (QF) 11 14 25 44.0% South Korea (SF) 16 19 35 45.7% Australia (Final) 10 20 30 33.3% 2015 Opponent JS OS TS JS/TS Palestine 23 6 29 79.4% Iraq 14 5 19 73.7% Jordan 19 4 23 82.6% UAE (QF) 35 3 38 92.1%
I see, makes sense to say that a team wasted 4 years then. In that case, let's use the same metric you did to compare the asian cup performances with last two WCs Hmm, "number of shots" seems a good parameter to rate the performance of a football team, I don't know why I never tried it before. Let's compare the last two world cups with the same method. Code: 2010 Opponent JS OS TS JS/TS cameroon 5 11 16 - 31% netherl. 10 9 19 - 52% denmark 15 19 34 - 44% Paraguay 12 13 25 - 48% 2014 Opponent JS OS TS JS/TS Ivory C. 7 20 27 - 26% Greece 16 9 25 - 64% Colombia 23 13 36 - 64% We can put any discussion to rest and safely say that performance wise Zaccheroni's team played better than Okada's. Nonsense apart, here's some more interesting notes: 1) From the team that faced Cameroon in 2010, there are only 6 players who started against Jordan 7 months later. (Kawashima, Nagatomo, Endo, Matsui (I'm being generous and counting him even though he played two matches in the end), Hasebe, Honda). In the squad overall, there were 4 more players who were in the WC squad (Okazaki, Iwamasa, Uchida, Konno) 7 months before. And that's how much there was from the team who succeeded at the 2010 WC, 10 players. And this team went on to win the competition From the team that faced Jordan in 2011, there are 7 players who started against Jordan 4 years later (Kawashima, Yoshida, Nagatomo, Endo, Hasebe, Kagawa, Honda). In the squad overall, there were 2 more players from the 2011 squad (Konno, Nishikawa). 9 Players already played together for 4 years. (I'll spare you an obvious comparison between the 2007 AC team and the 2011 one ) Last, to make a comparison similar to the first one, from the team that faced Ivory Coast in 2014 there are 8 players (Kawashima, Yoshida, Morishige, Nagatomo, Hasebe, Kagawa, Honda, Okazaki) who started against Jordan 7 months later. In the squad overall, there are 5 more players who were in the WC squad (Nishikawa, Kiyotake, Endo, Konno, G.Sakai) and that's from a team who failed at the 2014 WC - 13 players who just needed a better coach! Which means that since the 2014 result is mostly the coach's fault and Japan "wasted" 4 years, one wonders how come the next coach had an abysmal early QF exit (but probably more shots), even with the same system of play at times and why its players are still there for a good part. 2) in 2015 Japan actually had even more euro-based players since you seem to care about that. 3) The 2015 group stage basically had two teams. lol 4) Non-performance wise the first team won the asian cup while in 2015 the team had the worst results since the 1996 edition, which likely contributed to the firing of the coach to quickly put it past everyone's memory. They had more shots tho, which is why fans will fondly remember the 2015 edition, proudly waving that "35 shots against UAE" flag (of which only 8 on goal, btw).
Aguirre wasn't fired for that though otherwise Zucchero would have went after the Confederations in 2013. The JFA is patient.
I said "likely contributed" - if he had a strong tournament it remains to be seen if he would have been fired. Considering how it went, I doubt there was much of a discussion. The confederations obviously was never a goal, because the JFA couldn't even imagine Japan actually taking part in it. The team also did well despite the disappointing loss against Mexico (Okazaki's goal screams revenge tho).
I think he would have been fired, it's a country high on self molestation on moral grounds. As for the Confederations, winning the AC after the strong WC showing wasn't much of a stretch, and the result was three losses including an humiliating one against Brazil. The game against Italy was fun but the outcome was what it was, and they didn't even win the winnable one against Mexico. Complete failure.
I doubt any coach would be fired after a Confederations if he himself earned it unless the team is 3-0'd every game or is a winner candidate who doesn't make it past the group stage this really doesn't mean anything and the squad wasn't even anywhere similar. Australia and South Korea also had a good world cups unfortunately in 2010 so it really was up to grab. getting 3-0'd by Brazil in Brazil like Spain in the final must have been incredibly humiliating for the JFA, sure. I don't think anyone in JFA is blind and it certainly wasn't the coach's fault lmao Could have been "winnable" because Mexico isn't Brazil, sure, but I think a draw would have been a more likely result (and it's also what technically happened on the pitch). Mexico has always been\is still a better team than Japan historically, never failing to make it to the round of 16 in world cups in the last 20 years and with a Confederations title under their belt. (Sadly, I think they had beaten us 2-1 in 2005 too)
I think Zac was okay and the 2011 AC was a great result, but where he failed IMO is in overhauling personnel and formation after the Confederations Cup - the adjustments right before the WC were way too late.
Yeah getting spanked by Brazil in the first match of a competition watched around the world, was not humiliating at all. And the gap between Mexico and Japan isn't big by any means, not crossing it proves there wasn't enough improvement yet, thus the failure. Btw you wrote Are we talking about Timor Leste or Japan ? Couldn't even imagine please it was a realistic possibility.
A possibility with became reality thanks to the Asian Cup victory, yep. Let's hope we have another taste of that in the next decade.