Does anyone know anything about the international tournament going on in Qatar? QFA's site is under construction... All I know is Japan's results: Japan 2-1 Thailand, Japan 2-1 Switzerland and Japan 4-0 Germany (!). Japan is bringing the U-22 Olympic squad. What about other teams? Group A Japan Germany Qatar Switzerland Thailand Group B Egypt Brazil China Norway Czech Republic If Japan beats the home side Qatar, it will reach the final on 1/24 against the group B winner: Egypt, Brazil or China.
Yes, China sent their U22/Olympics team as well. I would imagine that's the case for most of the teams.
Ive been posting reports at my web site. You can read the results of all the Japan matches there. Actually, Japan did NOT bring their Olympic team, which makes their performance a big surprise to everyone. They left out all of the players who are already sure to make the olympic team, and took mainly high school, university and J.League benchwarmers. No Okubo, no Nakayama, no Matsui, no Nemoto, no Aoki, no Suzuki, no Tanaka . . . . and yet they now need to just avoid losing to Qatar by more than two goals and they will be in the final! This result actually might **NOT** be seen as good news, since it will make it a lot harder to decide who should be on the Olympic team. I think Yamamoto was expecting to get knocked out quickly, and just have a chance to look at the borderline players and decide which ones he could ignore. Now he will be faced with some difficult choices between the players who played on the team at the Asian Games, and the (completely different) players who took part in this tournament.
Precisely, Japan isn't an U-20 team. The team has 7 over U-20 players who have had few occasions to play in J.League last season .(10 J.League Div 1 players, 5 Div 2 players, 2 college players and 5 H.S. players) The German team Japan beat by 4-0 was an U-20 team who finished 2nd in the European U-20 qualifiers for the World Youth '03. As Matsu pointed out, most over U-20 players from the Asian Games are not included, and coach Yamamoto picked some players who played in Tulon Youth tournament(Japan finished 3rd) and had been left out from the team since then. The team also doesn't have most of the starters from U-20 side except Tokunaga, Naruoka(who went to the trial with Ajax early this month) and Kikuch(who linked with Feyenoord and Arsenal). Anyhow, this team has just organised a few weeks ago, and it seems like they get better and better as they play more games through this tournament. And as a big fan of Iwata, I'm pleased to hear Ryoichi Maeda, the MVP from the Asian U-19 tournament '99 is finally back in the good form after being sidelined due to the series of injury in the past 2 years. Yamamoto is saying he'll select olympic players from U-23 and U-20, but I personally want to see some U-18 players in the olympic team. U-18 isn't considered too young in the international football, and there's no reason not to select them for the olympic team. I was expecting to watch Gamba Osaka's Ienaga for the first time in the televised Japan Youth Club Tournament final , but he missed the game due to collecting too many yellows. He's said to be a genius attacking MF. Has anyone seen him?
No, if they lose to Qatar by 3 goals or more, Qatar will progress and Japan will be the second place team in the pool. Japan need to win, draw, or lose by 1 or 2 goals in order to reach the final. If they lose by more than 4 goals, Germany will be second in the pool
Japan advanced to the final after drawing to hosts Qatar in the final match of the group league by 2-2. Japan is the group A winners, followed by Germany, Switzerland, Qatar and Thailand. Qatar went ahead in the first half by 2-0, but Japan's FW Hara(backup FW at Nagoya GrampusEight) scored twice to tie the game. I don't have the roster of Japan in the Qatar game now, but I believe Japan didn't start the game with their best players to rest them. And I also don't know which team from Group B Japan faces in the final on the 24th at this time. It should be either Egypt or Brazil(or China).
There is the Swiss results on the Swiss-Austrian forum in the german board. the best english web-site that follows the games is www.gulf-times.com, or the tourney's site at www.toyotacup2003.com Hope that helps. By the way, the Swiss sent their u21 team. I think the tourney was for any team under 23/olympic. I know the German team is its u-20 team.
The final matches of group B have not been played yet, but it will almost certainly be Egypt. They need only a draw, and they are playing against Czech, which was one of the weakest teams in the group. China no longer has a chance to make the final, but they might finish second and play Germany for third place in the tournament
Alright, the final is Japan vs Egypt. Japan vs Brazil would have been nicer, but let's hope Japan takes this championship. The 3rd-4th match is played out between Germany and Brazil. I guess this would get more attentions from the public.
ARRGHHHHH! Japan chokes again!! Granted, it was Japan B-Team, but WTF? They beat the living sh!t outta Germany, beat a good Swiss team, then lose to Egypt, and not even score a goal? GAHHH!!! Watch them make it to the Gold Medal game in Athens then lose to Bosnia or some other sorry @ss team. At least when Korea goes down, it's to someone on their level. Egypt 1-0 Japan. http://www.nikkansports.com/news/flash/f-sc-tp0-030125-11.html
actually egypt's youth teams aren't as bad as you sound. they won their U-20 regional tounament of this year. the team against japan mostly consisted of the players that finished 3rd in the world u-20 tournament 2 yrs ago. according to the paper, egypt controled the game most of time against japan. http://www.fifa.com/Service/MR_A/50676_E.html http://www.fifawyc.com/fixtures/indice_1046_2001_E.html
OK OK. Maybe I overreacted. I take nothing away from Egypt they deserved the win, but I still think Japan choked. They apparently got dominated.
True ture... U may not know much about egypt since they don't go to the WC very much. But they are a great soccer nation, the pharos are among the top teams in Africa. Bosnia arn't that bad to