Mario balotelli @FinallyMario9h Japan congratulation great match amazing team! FORZA ITALIA! BRAVI RAGAZZI!
Zacheroni Macheroni edit: reading the FIGC report, it confirms Prandelli had to move Balotelli in the wide.
Whispered11 It's quite simple. You just need to use google (just like with everything else). But go check fullmatches.net.
Seriously though I always knew Honda and Kagawa were fantastic players, one is easy to follow at ManU, the other not so much. As a Milan fan I want Honda (if he's willing to come). Do you guys think Honda would be successful in the Italian league?
OT: forza_azzurri perchè venire in un thread dedicato alla nazionale giapponese a litigare? Lui ha solo detto che spera di non incontrare il Giappone perchè sarebbe un avversario difficile. Da sempre in Italia quando vengono sorteggiati i gironi della Coppa del Mondo speriamo di avere avversari deboli, il Giappone non è più uno di essi. Fine.
That Italy in fact has a recent history of imploding during the World Cup. But don't mind me, I was just being petty (though you were too in fairness).
Brilliant game to watch. Recorded it, it was totally worth the wait! As for the Gazzetta grades Majster posted here's a brief translation: Kawashima 6: it can't be said with certainty that the first goal was his fault, other two goals were an own-goal and a PK- two situations in which a goalkeeper can't really do anything. Uchida 5,5- if you add a 'c' it becomes Ucchida (a lame pun on "uccida", Italian for 'may he kill') but after all he's not that dangerous, also tends to hurt himself as the owngoal demonstrated. Yoshida 5,5- Clumsy on the 2nd goal, when he allowed Giaccherini to keep going with a wrong touch. The defence, or defending in general, seems to be Japan's weak point. 4 goals are too much, some of them could have been avoided. Konno 5,5- On De Rossi' s goal Japan's defence doesn't really look good. De Rossi came out of nowhere. Nagatomo 5,5- Good first 30 minutes, like Japan as a whole. After that, he normalizes, or better, he "Interizes" Hasebe 6- praise worthy in the first part, anticipates, recovers and builds game along with Endo. After Italy wakes up the two lower the head a bit. Endo 6- bosses midfield for the first 30 minutes, even against Italy, not a team like Iraq. After that, normalization. Okazaki 7- occupies the right section with fury, turns De Sciglio back into a shy teenager. Then takes off on Montolivo and scores Japan's 3rd goal. Honda 7- Honda after Honda, Italy seems to drown (another pun, "Onda" means wave in Italy and also rimes with "affonda", drowns). Extremely lively behind Maeda, for most of the game Honda lives up to his last name and runs like a motorbike. Kagawa 7- best of the team- Doesn't live up to his last name (Cagava means "shits" or "sucks" in Italian... well this is extremely lame), he totally doesn't... yeah, you got that. Unleashed on the left side. Maeda 6- has to create holes for his teammates behind to fill. Does his job with Japanese self-sacrifice. Sakai 6- Goes forward a bit and defends a bit. Does fair enough. Havenaar 6- He gets in and Japan gets even more dangerous. Nakamura unmarked- plays just a bit when there's nothing more to add. Zaccheroni 7- What a good Japan, dear Zac. Technic, tactic, dynamic. If they were playing on full tank, qualification to the next round could have been reachable. (not very professional if you ask me but that's the way Gazzetta does things.) 100% agree about the supporters' comments on certain boards... as regards the Maiku part though, if you were talking about the Rai commentary, they introduced Havenaar by talking about his dad, Dido Havenaar! It was something like "son of a Dutch footballer, who moved to Japan to end his career- it should have been an year long adventure but he actually ended up staying there". The only remarkable mistake they did was when they said Konno was the only player still playing in Japan, but they corrected it briefly saying they meant 'the only defender' I think Italian commentary was actually pretty good, of course a lot biased towards Italy but to a completely acceptable extent- after all they are Italian! Japan was praised all along and newspapers also gave very good receptions on the JNT's match. It was also nice to get some chunks of trivia along the game- I never thought I would hear Italian journalists discussing the Maeda curse!
Kodemari's translation should explain why you should never think of Gazzetta as a serious or competent paper.
I was utterly heartbroken. One of the best performances of a men's Japanese national team I have seen. They dominated Italy in an almost Spanish style. Superb. And that's why this defeat felt so unnecessary. Well, they have to keep working on themselves and we might be able to see a bright future, coming in WC 2014.
It has been since the internet started. If you want to know about who is dating who then that is the place to go. For sports ??????
If he makes it on being out of injuries, yes. GdS doesn't know a damn thing about Japan. Anyway, you followed Sky or RAI?
We may have outplayed Italy in this one game, but they're still the better team. We took on Italy under favorable conditions and still lost. A couple ways the conditions were favorable 1. For whatever reason, we had a lot more energy than they did. It could be because of the one extra day of rest, or because Japanese players are more used to playing in humidity, as some have speculated. Bottom line is that it was a noticeably tired Italy that we played yesterday. 2. This was essentially a home game for Japan, due to Brazilian fans rooting for the underdog. The crowd definitely had something to do with the good performance. Our team is still a bit mentally fragile. They played scared in the Brazil game with the crowd against them. Still, it was a great game. The talent in our squad was on display for the world. They put on a good show; definitely the most entertaining game in the CC so far. I really liked the decision to play for the win at 3-3, even if it may have ultimately cost us the game. It's the CC, might as well go for it. Our players felt that they could impose their will on the game; they almost did.
I'd say both of the reasons you quoted don't really matter because there is not a single match in which both of the team are the same fitness level and Italy weren't particularly booed or anything else. Japan was in front of an home crowd against Bulgaria, still lost 0-2. Against Brazil, they were tired but who cares now ? Only what happened on the pitch remains.