Asia Cup Qualifiers:
Japan 1 - 1 Slovakia

Date: June 11, 2000 Location: Miyagi Stadium, Japan Japan 1 1 1H 1 0 2H 0 1 Slovakia Nakamura (9') Scoring Dzurik (6') Cautions Dzurik Seigo Narazaki , Ryuzo Morioka, Naoki Matsuda, Takeshi Oiwa, Junichi Inamoto, Atsuhiro Miura, Shunsuke Nakamura (Eisuke Nakanishi 73'), Teruyoshi Ito, Hiroaki Morishima, Daisuke Oku (Tatsuhiko Kubo 85' ), Akinori Nishizawa (Atsushi Yanagisawa 68' . Kamil Susko, Peter Dzurik, Milan Timko, Vladimir Leitner, Stanislav Varga, Jozef Valachovic, Ladislav Pecko (Attila Pinte 55'), Vladimir Kozuch (Martin Fabus 92'), Igor Balis, Peter Nemeth, Erik Jezik (Michal Pancik 61') (Tibor Zatek 91').

Following their success in Morocco, Japan returned home to play the annual Kirin Cup contest, against a team from Europe and a team from Asia. The contest against Slovakia got off to a poor start, when Japan's defenders allowed the tall Slovakians to steal a quick goal by outjumping them on a corner kick. Japan responded quickly with a goal by Shunsuke Nakamura, but thereafter the two teams battled to a stalemate, as Japan could not turn its superior ball possession into goals.This problem would plague Japan throughout Troussier's reign, and indeed, has been a shortcoming of the National Team throughout its history.