Imagined I guess. But yeah, you don't know, that much is clear. As for the defence, I'd go with Nagatomo-Itakura-Taniguchi-Yamane. As much as I like Sakai, he seems to have lost a step or even 2 to me. Actually I'd go with Muroya if he was fit and there, of the 3 right backs he's been the one who IMO has played best for Japan in the past years. But can live with any of the 3 really. Wasted sub on Nagatomo, with 5 available, I have no problem with that. It's not like Moriyasu generally runs out of subs, rather the opposite, and if taking Nagatomo out prevents him from putting Asano in, perfect.
Excellent stuff Moriyasu continued to play Yoshida/Tomiyasu every single game with the occasional Sasaki even against Mongolia. Now we have an undercooked defence against Saudi Arabia. Itakura/Taniguchi should be okay though.
Man... not being pessimistic or anything but I doubt this untested defensive unit would withstand SA speedy attackers. Let's hope for the best, and to a certain someone, please, focus and stop doing careless backpasses; if he gets to play of course.
That Xi Wu guy is a real nasty piece of work. The fact that he has not been booked so far is surprising.
China Football NT has always been a mystery for me. They've been playing football for ages but haven't made a significant improvement in their gameplay. They even "hired" foreigners to play for their NT but nothing has changed for them. Almost 1.5 billion in population but they have yet to form a decent football squad! I wonder what else they need to excel in this sport!
I'm not surprised. You're playing against the infamous Kung Fu football squad and that's the only thing I know of China's football that hasn't changed to this day.
The inefficiency in attack still bothers me none, need to put away some of those. Minamino totally missed a wide chance when he should have shot with his left rather than cut back to right. Also what is point of A.Tanaka on the field, should have Kubo in AMC with lot more incision
F***ing hell. That should have been a yellow card for a blatant scissors tackle from the Chinese defender; the referee was asleep at the wheel.
Osako goes with another epic miss and then gets pulled out. I'm running out of expletives to throw at him when he misses a huge chance.
It's like JNT are playing with 3 Ousmane Dembeles in front with the way they waste chances lol Can't afford that against a better opponent like KSA.
I swear that I ran out of expletives to throw at him. Between him and Timo Werner, I can't tell which forward sucks more in glorious scoring positions. Bob Barker sums it all on Osako.
There's no debate, Nagatomo is still far better than Nakayama. Of course Nakayama's cross was the highlight of the whole game today. But well, one of the Chinese simply moved out of the way to make it as easy as possible... 2-0, job done, nothing more. Still unimpressive as a whole. Start of the second half until the 2-0 was really the best 15' Japan had in the game. After they went back to the same uninspired play they had in the first half. China never a danger except when they were pressing a few times and Japan almost managed to passt itself into trouble in the back.. But one big + from today: Moriyasu managed not to put Asano in! Good! Outstanding.
Please tell me what exactly makes Nagatomo better than Nakayama? Nagatomo is completely useless in attack and never reliable in defence (giving away cheap possession, the PK against Australia being the obvious example). Horrendous first touch, never even attempts to beat his opponent, waste of time back passing. When he does cross the ball on the rare occasion, it’s not even close to the quality of Nakayama. There were times when Nagatomo was in so much space tonight and his team mates rarely gave the ball to him… It was like playing with ten men.
I agree, Nagatomo is still okay but he is to old now. Nothing to be ashamed. Time is coming for everybody. He was one hell of a left back at his time in Italy and Inter. He was a starting member for almost 7 years there. It is not fair to say Nagatomo is useless, he was one of the best Japan ever produced and on of the best/better LBS in his prime worldwide but at some day every career is over and Nagatomo is not good enough for the JNT. Sure he can offer some stuff but offen not enough. Nakayama is so good, has such a solid and consistent quality for the last years. For now Nakayama is way better then Nagatomo, makes little mistakes in defence and is solid in offense.
Not sure what the xG table would look like, here's big chances created v conceded: Japan 16/3 Aust 18/10 Saudi Arabia 11/9 Oman 11/10 China 11/15 Vietnam 4/19. You'd expect Japan to score more but Osako has missed the most big chances and I don't think he's going to improve.— Jay (@RobsonPonteFC) January 27, 2022