Japan 2 - 3 Peru

Date: June 29, 1999 Location: Asuncion, Paraguay Japan 2 1 1H 0 1 2H 3 3 Peru Wagner Lopes (7') Atsuhiro Miura (78') Scoring Jorge Soto Gomez (71') Roberto Alavaro (74') Roberto Alavaro (82') Cautions Norberto Solano Juan Hayo Lecario Seigo Narazaki, Yutaka Akita, Masami Ihara, Ryuzo Morioka, Toshihiro Hattori, Teruyoshi Ito, Shigeyoshi Mochizuki (Atsuhiro Miura 62), Hiroshi Nanami, Kazuaki Tasaka (Takashi Fukunishi 31), Wagner Lopez (Daisuke Oku 73), Shoji Jo Oscar Ibanez, Juan Reynoso Guzman, Miguel Rebocio, Jose Gomez Soto, Jose Perreira Maruyama (Marco Rodriguez 83), Juan Hayo Lecario, Norberto Solano, Roberto Palacios Mestas (Roberto Holsen Alvarado 46), Flavio Maestri Andrade (Juan Jose Velasquez 89), Claudio Pizzaro

In mid-1999, still boasting a respectable record with the national team and still flush with the victory achieved by the U-20 team in Nigeria, earlier in the year, Phillippe Troussier took the full national team to South America as a guest participant in the Copa America. This was to be a fateful tournament, since it quickly gave Troussier a bracing sense of what hard work lay ahead of him, and seems to have confirmed in his mind the need to rebuild the team using a youth base. With the perspective of time, we can look at the tour and consider that it was not quite the disaster that it seemed at the time. Though Japan did struggle, they only narrowly missed victory in two of their three matches. If there had been some marginally better finishing, or a bit of luck, the team might have moved on to the second round, and returned home feeling pleased with themselves. But in the long run, this result was probably for the best, since Japan's failure in the Copa America pointed up weaknesses that needed to be addressed.

The first match of the series, agains Peru, was perhaps the most crucial. Japan got out to an early lead in the 7 minute, winning a free kick about 30 meters out on the right side. Hiroshi Nanami took the kick, and dropped the ball onto the head of Wagner Lopes, racing for the near post. Lopes headed the shot just inside the post and Japan were off to a fine start.

Though Japan had adopted Troussier's flat three by this time, they played a fierce midfield press and overlap on the wings, with much the same sort of tactics that they employed in the 1998 World Cup. Although it did a good job of stretching the field, and keeping Peru's defenders scrambling, this also created a large gap between the defense and the midfield, as well as a large open space at the back. In the second half, Peru came out and immediately exploited this flaw.In the 71 minute, Peru played a long ball across the field, from the left sideline to the right, which ripped open the seam between midfield and defenders. As Yutaka Akita rushed to react, Jorge Soto slipped forward from his midfield position into the gap left open by Akita, and was wide open to collect the cross into the box and finish it off.

Just 3 minutes later, Roberto Holsen unleashed a long shot which took a lucky bounce, ricocheting off a defender to wrong-foot keeper Seigo Narazaki and slip into the goal. Japan's lead had evaporated in a shade under four minutes. Peru were in full attack mode and the situation was looking grim.

Japan got one last opportunity to escape with points, after a foul on the edge of the box gave Japan a free kick, and Atsuhiro Miura blasted a shot into the top corner from directly in front of goal. However, the second half belonged to Peru, and they eventually managed to restore their lead with a fine cross from the left side which Holsen headed home in the 82 minute.

This match was pivotal in several ways, for Japan. First of all, Troussier came away infuriated at several players who, from his perspective, had failed to follow his strict game plan. In particular, defenders Yutaka Akita and Masami Ihara seemed unable or unwilling to play the aggressive offside trap that Troussier wanted and the coach was harshly critical of their play, especially that of Akita. For one reason or another, Troussier appears to have developed a serious grudge against Akita on this tour, and would pointedly ignore the big Kashima Antlers defender for the next three years, bringing him in only on the eve of the World Cup, and then only as a decoration. Many theories have been advanced to explain why Troussier would ignore a player who is clearly one of Japan's finest defenders ever.

However, perhaps the best explanation was advanced by Akita's coach at Kashima, Toninho Cerezo. "The reason Troussier doesnt like Akita", Cerezo once observed, "is that Akita is capable of thinking for himself."