This has been a problem that everyone since Troussier has struggled with. It's actually become worse; but I'll get back to this point farther down. And we've seen the kind of experimentation that you've suggested. The problem is that, let's say you experiment against a team like Uzbekistan. If it fails, OK.. probably it was never going to succeed. But if it succeeds, you still don't really know anything. Because it worked against inferior competition does not really help you. And Uzbekistan is probably one of the better teams you could afford to experiment against. We saw this with Troussier and Naka. For awhile, Naka was part of his plans -- because it worked against inferior competition. But then we played France in a friendly it became very evident that Naka was too weak on the ball at that time and would be a liability. So the next idea is to say "Ah, this is what friendlies are for"; but here the changes to the FIFA Bottle Cap system ruin that. It was already a tall order to get European or S. American sides to travel to Japan. Especially at full strength. But now they is an even bigger disincentive from playing anyone outside those regions. If you are a France trying to crack a 1 seed and gain some points from friendlies, why would you risk playing a team ranked 40th whose clearly closer to 20-30 and whose points only count for a fraction because they are in Asia ? Combine it with the travel times, etc. and you get the idea. So that 4 game series of friendlies in Euro last year was the resulting plan. In fact, I'm shocked the Dutch agreed to play us. Yet now people here are saying "friendlies mean nothing" -- well yes the scoreline doesn't mean much. But those were the best, and a very solid, plan to solidify tactics and strategy. Obviously Confed Cup is another excellent opportunity when we get it. But it's timing is off and people will want results which limits experimentation.
Not really. Cameroon (W) -- Netherlands (L) -- Belgium left to play .... that was still on track. Because everyone knew Dutch would finish 1st in that group. Ivory Coast (L) -- Greece (W) -- Colombia left to play ... not really on track. That's still a 3-way race with Ivory Coast having their easiest game against the worst team in the group. They are in control, and we have a steep hill to climb. It's the exact opposite of 2010... here CIV would be in same situation as Japan in 2010; having already got 3 points from one of the contenders for advancing and having already played the toughest team they could face in the group (Colombia)
Sure but I was talking about Zac/Okada job. After the Greece match if we win Zac will have 1win and 1lose as Okada in 2010 with more goal scored.
I just wish we stopped comparing things. Every world cup has his story: different opponents, different squad, coach, injury situations, etc. It's as useless as comparing the last Confederations with Zico's.
so kawashima you should have stopped the second but other than that you did well good job maya and masato you did ok i know its not easy defending headers against bony and drogba but good effort lads honda good goal man but you need to keep possession we gave it away too cheaply kagawa i know youre top in attack but you have to track back your runner you do that so well at united. i mean when you drift centrally how can you let aurier advance into so much space at least tell endo to cover him zac what are you doing why did we just sit deep letting them send cross after cross for their tall strong guys when our strength is possenssion and pressing. why didnt you tell kagawa to do his defensive duties or put okazaki or okubo on that side. you have forged an excellent team but you need to consider the opponent as well. we need a plan b when our skilled players kagawa and honda arent performing we have depth there why didnt you try kiyotake in friendlies
I think the best result for Japan is hoping for a draw in the match between Colombia and ivory coast. This way Japan wouldn't have to worried about goal difference. If Colombia win then it would all come down to goals difference in the last game. So Japan should be ready to score a lot of goal against Greece. I have a feeling that this would turn out like the ucl group of Arsenal, Dortmund, and Napoli. Edited: Well actually it would all could come down to goals difference in the last game. Just hope that Colombia don't win. If they win it would be a very hard game for Japan, because they would sit back and defence to secured their goals difference.
Colombia lose or draw would be best. Or Colombia win more than 1 or 2 goals against Ivory Coast which is possible considering how awful Ivory Coast defence is. The hardest scenario would be Colombia winning less than 2 goals against Ivory Coast and Japan did not score a lot against Greece.
So we all knew it was a terrible day for Japan's passing, but just for the sake of documentation.... total: 326 / 456 (71%) 34/70 long passes 178/233 medium passes 114/153 short passes ..............total........... long / medium / short Osako 8/13 62%... 1/1.. 2/5 .. 5/7 Kagawa 40/61 66% ... 2/5..24/31..14/25 Honda 34/55 62% ... 0/3..15/25..19/27 Okazaki 16/28 57% .. 1/4 .. 8/14 .. 7/10 Hasebe 25/29 86% ....... 3/4 . 12/14 .. 10/11 Yamaguchi 41/48 85%...7/9..21/26..13/13 Nagatomo 25/42 60%..1/4..9/15..15/23 Uchida 30/37 80%... 4/6..17/21..9/10 Yoshida 28/37 76%... 2/2..23/30..3/5 Morishige 30/36 83%..4/7..23/24..3/5 Kawashima 19/31 61% .. 6/18 .. 9/9 .. 4/4 Endo 23/29 79% .. 3/6..11/14..9/9 Okubo 6/7 86%... 0/1..3/3..3/3 Kakitani 1/3 33% ... 00..1/2..0/1 What I get from this is largely what we knew already. Kagawa, Honda, and Okazaki were all rubbish at passing. Nagatomo was pretty bad as well. Okazaki went missing for long stretches. Osako and Okubo may as well have not been playing. Hard to judge Kakitani since he was only on for 10 minutes... and at least 4 of those involved Ivorians rolling around on the ground feigning injury.
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/round=255931/match=300186507/index.html#lineups Scroll down til you find the stats PDFs
They have heat maps, avg location, etc. for every match... in this case the "passing distribution" pdf. http://resources.fifa.com/mm/docume...7/eng_06_0614_civ-jpn_passingdistribution.pdf Other interesting info in there is it breaks down how many successful passes between all 11 players. So, for instance, I can see the most successful passing was from Kagawa to Honda (13 passes). Or you can also see how many passes each player received (Kagawa with 46, followed closely by Honda and Yamaguchi with 45 each)
I don't think a lot of the these games can rival a complete no show at the World Cup. Either they belong to an era with low expectations or there was something produced, incredibly ineffective yes but there was "something".
ok, I guess I saw another midfield in 2006 then. Besides, you're overreacting, if it was a "no show" it wouldn't even end 2-1.
There were definitely a few no-shows. Regardless stats like Kagawa's 14/25 in short passing are pretty atrocious and way below what's expected them; and what I'm sure they expect of themselves. All of the midfielders had stats like that too. Kawashima's needless punting the ball away didn't help any either. As if there's anyone downfield to win a header against an African squad. I hope he learned his lesson because there's not going to be anyone to win headers down the field against Greece either. I'm not interested in comparing to 2006... besides, I've wiped just about everything from that year out of my head anyway. All I remember is Yanagisawa. It was so bad, I can never forget it.
it was a complete no show, the Ivoirians were on top from the beginning to the end and had a bazilion of chances. Japan never really looked like they could score after Honda's strike. You must have felt some helplessness in front of the tv, it cant be otherwise. Even after Ivory Coast took the lead, they didnt push.
The Ivorians should score at least 4 goals against us if not for some bad finishing and some heroic saves from Kawashima, and yet they were not playing their top football!! @Dax I'm following Japan since 1996 and this is the worst match I've seen. It is not about the defeat nor the the deficit, it is about a team failing to demonstrate their real abilities and match the high expectations on them, and don't forget the importance of the game. Man, they couldn't complete 3 passes, that is not Japan NT! Can you remind me of a game that Japan showed same poor passing? Even when we lost against Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Serbia and Belarus last year, their passing wasn't bad, and they didn't lose their identity completely like against the Ivorians. As I concluded before they shocked!!
I definitely did, they were completely submitted to Ivory Coast as overall flow. But nope, they had their limited chances, I don't even want to grab a video and point them 'cause it's a no argument. @Samurai Warrior: You're just overreacting. If you think that, you should have a better look at the other matches with heavier defeats, because that's what counts in football. It doesn't matter if you play a good game, shoot 20 times against a side who scores one goal with one shoot, like Belarus, because you still lost it in the end. And it doesn't matter if you do "good passing" and then lose 5-0, lol. We lost 2-1, and it doesn't mean anything that they had "bad finishing" because so we did in the few chances we had. Football isn't made with "the could have scored" because that works for everyone. Their passing wasn't so bad against the likes of Belarus for the simple reason that Ivory Coast is a much better side and they put pressure - even mental pressure unfortunately - on them. You're wondering why did they suffer this more than against Brazil? Because this is the World Cup, obviously, and it's way more easy to falter under pressure.
Then watch the game again. Just off my mind, I remember Hasebe's chance (think it was before the 2 goals), or a shot by Okubo. Those 7 shots have to come from somewhere, and it's not like chances are only "a shot on goal" "just apparently" XD
Calm down guys. I can totaly feel with you but the game is over...end ! I think the first half was good/ok even the german analysis duo in the half time said that Ivory Coast was nearly chanceless against agressiv and well passing + good defending japanese and they are impressed by the JNT. After second half anything was different,you know why. But in football anything can happen. Uruguay was waaaaaay more bad then JNT,Belgium today was close to a loss against Algeria, England loose,Spain was raped and so on....I know comparisions are useless but it could be way more worse. You all know it, Japan can win easily the last 2 games when they show his best even the hopes are not that big but football is football and when Japan trash Greece maybe 3 or 4-1 then everything is possible even with a loss or draw to Columbia we can go through. I think we should gave the JNT way more credit. They have hard time with an injured Hasebe andUchida, a little out of form cause of less playing time Kagawa,Honda,Yoshida and the pressure. No Excuses I know but let`s wait and see what the next game brings.