Confederations Cup Semifinal:
Japan 1 - 0 Australia

Date: 7 June, 2001 Location: Kashima Stadium Japan 1 1 1H 0 0 2H 0 0 Australia Nakata (43') Scoring Cautions Chipperfield Popovic T. Vidmar Moore Suzuki Sent Off Moore Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, Naoki Matsuda, Ryuzo Morioka (Kenichi Uemura 22'), Junichi Inamoto, Hidetoshi Nakata, Akinori Nishizawa (Hiroaki Morishima 80'), Koji Nakata, Kazuyuki Toda, Yasuhiro Hato, Shinji Ono (Toshihiro Hattori 55'), Takayuki Suzuki Mark Schwarzer, Kevin Muscat, Craig Moore, Paul Okon, Tony Vidmar, Tony Popovic, Stan Lazaridis, David Zdrilic (Archie Thompson 71'), Marco Bresciano (Mile Sterjovski 60'), Steve Corica, Scott Chipperfield (John Aloisi 60').

Japan won a very brutal match against Australia played in the midst of a downpour, on a free kick by Hide Nakata, shortly before half time. Australia did its best to take advantage of Japan's reputation for shying from physical contact, picking up four yellows and a red in the process, but they did manage to goad Takayuki Suzuki into a foolish reaction that got him sent off, as well.

Nevertheless, while the Australians may have been bigger and "tougher" than the Japanese players, it was always clear that they were no match in terms of footballing skills. The slick pitch conditions kept the match low-scoring, but Japan walked off with the win after dominating play for almost the full 90 minutes. They move on to face France in the final

Below is the full roster for the Confederations Cup: