Confederations Cup:
Japan 0 - 0 Brazil

Date: 4 June, 2001 Location: Kashima Stadium, Japan Japan 0 0 1H 0 0 2H 0 0 Brazil Scoring Myojin Suzuki Cautions Fabio Lucio Ramon Ryota Tsuzuki, Kenichi Uemura, Naoki Matsuda, Toshihiro Hattori, Yasuhiro Hato, Teruyoshi Ito, Tomokazu Myojin, Shinji Ono (Koji Nakata 45'), Hidetoshi Nakata, Atsushi Yanagisawa (Masashi Nakayama 60'), Takayuki Suzuki (Hiroaki Morishima 45'). Nelson Dida, Ze Maria, Lucio, Edmilson, Leomar, Leandro, Leo, Fabio, Ramon (Julio Batista 62'), Carlos Miguel (Robert 73'), Washington (Magno Alves 80')

Despite the fact that this was a scoreless match, it was a fairly entertaining one. Having already clinched a home field contest in the semi-finals, Phillippe Troussier started choosing players from the very end of Japan's bench. Three starters, including the keeper, top striker and rights side defender were wearing the blue-and-white for the first time ever, and several others had their first or second caps. The only "regulars" for the Japanese side were Shinji Ono and Hidetoshi Nakata, and Ono left the game at half time.

Of course, everyone knows that Brazil was playing a B squad as well. However, Japan showed that even a second-string squad was capable of keeping up with Brazil, except for a few spells of about 5-10 minutes when the defence stopped moving to the ball fast enough, and Brazil created good opportunities. Debutante goalkeeper Ryota Tsuzuki was equal to the task, though, and he was only forced to make difficult stops on three occasions during the match. Nearly all of the scoring opportunities for Brazil came from Ze Maria, who was a threat on Japan's left flank all night. Washington had a very disappointing performance, spending almost half of the match in offside territory. However, not too much blame should be heaped on the young Brazilians. Japan played a very sound technical match, fronting their opponents at all times, and with the forwards lending good help in defence as well.

One has to wonder whether Japan could have pulled off a win if Nishizawa, Nakayama or Morishima had got the start. The hero of the Cameroon match, Takayuki Suzuki had just one or two chances before coming off at half time, and Atsushi Yanagisawa was equally unimpressive. Japan's best chance of the night came in the second half, on a blistering free kick by Hide Nakata that the Brazilian keeper just tipped over the bar. By the 70 minute, though, it was pretty clear that both teams were satisfied with the status quo, and a point apiece. After midway of the second half, most viewers realised that the match would end scoreless unless one team or the other made a crucial mistake, and that never happened.

With the draw, Japan take the top spot in Group B, and will host Australia in Yokohama on Thursday night. Brazil move on to Korea where they will face off against France.

Below is the full roster for the Confederations Cup: