National Team Match:
Japan 0 - 5 France

Date: 24 March, 2001 Location: Stade de France Japan 0 0 1H 2 0 2H 3 5 France Scoring Zidane (9') Henry (14') Wiltord (56') Trezeguet (63') Trezeguet (69') Cautions Seigo Narazaki, Naoki Matsuda, Ryuzo Morioka (Yuji Nakazawa 72), Toshihiro Hattori (Koji Nakata 78), Junichi Inamoto (Shigeyoshi Mochizuki 69), Hiroshi Nanami, Tomokazu Myojin (Naohiro Takahara 45), Shunsuke Nakamura (Atsuhiro Miura 45), Teruyoshi Ito, Hidetoshi Nakata, Akinori Nishizawa (Shoji Jo 78) Rame, Candella, Liszarazu, Desailly, LeBouef, Pires, Ramzi, Zidane, Petit, Dugarry, Henry.

Football fans (in Japan, at least) have been looking forward to the match at the Stade de France for several months now. Consequently, there is sure to be a great deal of disappointment at this result. While France clearly dominated the match, the score line was probably a bit flattering. The first goal was a gift from the referee, who called a PK in just the 10 minute on what looked to me like little more than incidental contact between Naoki Matsuda and Robert Pires due to the slippery surface. Zidane converted the PK to give France a quick lead. Japan took a further psychological blow just two minutes later, as keeper Seigo Narazaki misplayed a low ball from Thierry Henri, letting it squirt underneath his body on the slick pitch and into the net.

Playing on a wet and slippery field served to emphasise the one area where Japan are noticeably inferior to the French. While they displayed some good ball movement and reasonably competitive tactical play, on a physical level Japan was visibly outclassed. In this respect, perhaps the biggest disappointment was Shunsuke Nakamura, who was muscled off the ball every time he touched it by Marcel Desailly. The unequal contest was so distressing that Troussier pulled the Yokohama midfielder early on, to spare both Nakamura and the team further embarassment.

After the first two goals, Japan played France pretty even for about 45 minutes in the late first half and early second half. Hidetoshi Nakata had a couple of nice runs, rattling the post on one shot and forcing a pretty save by Ulrich Rame on a second. However, while Nakata put in a good individual performance, he was not working well with his teammates. On several late-first-half breaks, Nakata tried for force the ball upfield himself, ignoring wide-open teammates on the wing. Though Nakata was one of the few highlights for Japan, he needs to work harder to fit into the team flow, rather than trying to do it all on his own.

One other positive aspect of the match for Japan was that they played attacking football throughout, despite the lopsided score. If the team had been concerned about a "respectable" score line, they probably could have held the margin to 2-0 or at most 3-0. However, Japan continued pushing forward until about the final 10 minutes,when they finally seemed to lose heart. All three of France's second-half goals were created by counterattacks which caught Japan pushing forward too hard for a score of their own (actually, one goal came on a nice set play by France, but the corner kick that created it was on a counterattack by Henri that Toshihiro Hattori just barely managed to turn away).

All in all, the match was quite a disappointment. Troussier will need to rethink his strategy at midfield, since Nakamura's physical weakness on the ball is sure to be noticed and exploited by opponents in the future. One possible solution would be to use Shinji Ono, who inexplicably did not see any action at all in this match. This points up an interesting fact which occurred to me only after watching the tape of the match a second time. The two players who looked capable of holding their own against France, from a physical standpoint, were defensive midfielders Junichi Inamoto and Tomokazu Myojin. Yet both were substituted rather early in the match. Meanwhile Teruyoshi Ito, (whose play was so pathetic that I nearly posted this report without remembering he had been on the pitch) was left in for the full 90 minutes. While I have had reason to doubt Troussier's tactical abilities in the past, in this case it seems hard to believe that such poor player selection could be simply the result of a tactical blunder. The two players who were performing best, from a defensive standpoint, were both pulled early. Did Troussier deliberately throw in the towel before the end of the first half, in order to get a look at alternative players?

Another player who occasionally seemed out of his depth was defender Ryuzo Morioka. He was clearly unable to keep up with Henri in either speed or strength. Yuji Nakazawa seemed to do a better job when he came on late in the second half. Toshihiro Hattori looked the best of the three defenders, while Matsuda put in a decent performance, but made a few mental errors and misplays. Narazaki had a bad match, and clearly let his early first-half fumble affect him psychologically. He seemed tentative and unsteady for the rest of the contest.

Hiroshi Nanami looked good in the midfield, as did Myojin and Inamoto early on, but they were not on the same page as Nakata. While Nakata had a fine individual performance, and was the most effective player for Japan, he needs to work more with the team if he is to make a really effective contribution. His efforts were almost entirely individual, and his failure to find open teammates ended up making him as much of a weakness as a strength. None of the forwards looked effective in any sense of the word, and Troussier will need to spend some time rethinking his strategy up front. While ball motion in midfield is clearly Japan's forte, you still need to have a finisher in the front line if you expect to be competitive against a team like France.

Basically, all of Japan's players need to start working on strength training, though as mentioned earlier, the pitch conditions clearly dictated how much this disparity in strength affected the match. While Japan will no doubt have to feel very disappointed about this result, the key will be whether the team simply gets depressed, or whether they can consider the factors that made France the superior team, and try to address them.