Japan 1 - 0 Slovakia

Date: April 26, 2002 Location: National Stadium, Tokyo Japan 1 1 1H 0 0 2H 0 0 Slovakia Nishizawa (38') Scoring Toda Fukunishi Cautions Vavrik Bencik Spilar Debnar Hitoshi Sogahata, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Naoki Matsuda, Koji Nakata, Kazuyuki Toda (Tomokazu Myojin 66), Junichi Inamoto (Takashi Fukunishi 45), Atsushi Yanagisawa (Yasuhiro Hato 55), Hiroaki Morishima (Mitsuo Ogasawara 69), Alessandro Santos (Takayuki Suzuki 66), Shunsuke Nakamura, Akinori Nishizawa (Tatsuhiko Kubo 66) Juraj Bucek, Ivan Kozak (Michal Hanek 76), Marek Spilar, Pavol Vavrik, Marian Cisovsky, Peter Dzurik (Martin Fabus 71, Karol Kisel (Ondrej Debnar 87), Marek Mintal (Juraj Czinege 53), Lubomir Talda, Henrich Bencik, Robert Vittek (Juraj Ancic 73)

On a perfect spring afternoon in Tokyo, a packed house turned Tokyo's National Stadium into a sea of blue, as Japan took on Slovakia in the first of Japan's two Kirin Cup matches against Slovakia over the Golden Week holiday break (the national team will take on and Honduras on May 2). Although we noted after the last match, a disappointing draw against Costa Rica, that the time for experiments was over, Phillippe Troussier is continuing to monkey around with his lineup. This time, he opted for a 3-6-1, which Japan has not used since its horrific loss to France in early 2001, and put striker Atsushi Yanagisawa at right wing, a position he has never played before. Predictably, the strategy failed completely, though Japan were sufficiently superior to their opponent that it didnt matter as much as it might have done against a better team.

Although the choice of Yanagisawa on the right wing proved to be a bad move, the formation actually looks like it might have promise, especially against strong opponents. Alex Santos started on the left wing, with Shunsuke Nakamura and Hiroaki Morishima in the middle and Akinori Nishizawa as the lone forward. If Santos and Nakamura were replaced with Shinji Ono and Hidetoshi Nakata, and either Naohiro Takahara or Takayuki Suzuki played the lone forward, this lineup could prove to be quite dangerous. Though Japan was only able to get one goal, it was not for lack of scoring opportunities.

The first 10-15 minutes of the match was a bit unsettled, and Slovakia got their two best chances of the match, both on free kicks. On the other side, Santos was sent free on the left wing twice within the space of five minutes. The first time he had Morishima with him, wide open on the break, but he tried to take the shot himself and it was saved by the Slovak keeper, a 206cm giant who was the player of the match for the visitors. The second time, Santos sent a poor pass that was behind Nakamura, and the chance again went begging. Though he had several good runs down the wing, Santos continues to show a tendency to waste good opportunities. Nakamura, on the other hand, had a very good match, and almost got Japan on the board himself after a lob over the defence by Morishima put him through into the box. However, the keeper reacted quickly off his line, and Nakamura had to volley the ball out of the air while still off balance, and his shot was easily smothered by the keeper. A very similar play off a corner kick fell to Junichi Inamoto at the penalty spot, but once again, the keeper was all over him before he could get off a shot,

For a spell of about 5-10 minutes in the middle of the half, Slovakia seized an advantage in posession -- the only spell in the match when they would do so -- but good pursuit by Japan's midfielders and constant offside trapping by the back three prevented Slovakia from getting any good shots. Indeed, the visitors had only about 4-5 good shots on goal in the entire match. True to his reputation as a "ball magnet", substitute keeper Hitoshi Sogahata was standing directly in front of every one, and never even had a chance to get his uniform dirty.

From the 35 minute on, though, Japan regained their dominance in ball possession, and good ball movement at midfield began to crack the Slovakia defence. In the 36 minute, Nakamura played a one-two with Yanagisawa on the right sideline, and then looped a ball into the penalty area that sent Nishizawa clear on the keeper. However, his shot around the keeper didnt hook quite enough, and bounced off the right upright. Just two minutes later, though, a very similar play finally put Japan on the scoreboard. Again, Nakamura sent Nishizawa free towards the right post, but this time Morishima was breaking as well, and Nishizawa chipped the ball to his Cerezo Osaka teammate. Morishima split two towering defenders and the two-meter+ keeper to reach the ball first, but just as he did, the Slovakian players sandwiched him. The collision took all of the force off his shot, and the ball bounced lazily towards the net as all four players went down in a heap. As the defenders scrambled to get some part of their body on the ball, Nishizawa rushed into the fray, and in the melee, the ball somehow made its way over the line. At first it was called an own goal, and later it was credited to Nishizawa, but after a careful look at the replay, it would appear that the ball made it across the line before anyone else touched it, and the goal should have been awarded to Morishima.

The second half started with a rush. In the first minute, a Yanagisawa through pass gave shatos an open shot that went just wide, and in the 2 minute, a free kick from Nakamura found Morishima for a header, but this one came back off the crossbar. In the 4 minute, following a scramble in the box, the cleared ball fell to Yanagisawa at the top right corner of the box, but his shot was again saved by the Slovak keeper. Though it looked like Slovakia were about to crack, Troussier chose this moment to empty his bench, bringing in six players in the space of 20 minutes. Not surprisingly, this resulted in a certain amount of confusion and lost fluidity, which let the opponent off the hook. If we are keeping score, this marks the fourth stupid tactical move by Troussier in two matches. The announcers were also quite critical, noting again and again that experiments were all well and good for a team that is trying to find the right combination, but this stage should have been completed months ago.

In any event, while Japan lost some of its early momentum, they were clearly in a class above their opponent (Slovakia, it should be noted, were without several of the players that held Belgium to a 1-1 draw earlier this month). By the midway point of the second half, Japan's second team had worked out the kinks, and were starting to get into a good rhythm. In the 30 minute, Mitsuo Ogasawara sent a perfectly weighted lob to Tatsuhiko Kubo, who found himself wide open at the edge of the box with the keeper rushing off his line too late to make much difference. However, Kubo's lob was just a tiny bit too hard, and it glanced off the crossbar and back into the field of play, where it was cleared by a desperately retreating defender. Japan got two or three more good opportunities in the late second half, but only one resulted in an actual shot. Nakamura took a corner kick from the right side, and found Takashi Fukunishi at the far post, but his header was just wide, and the score line remained 1-0 at the final whistle.

The post-mortem on this match is easy to make. Japan seem to be in good form, and the key players all look ready for the World Cup. However, it is long past time for Troussier to stop playing games and start working with the unit that he is going to field during the World Cup. Admittedly, 3-4 players are still out of the lineup due to injury or team commitments, but instead of using that as an excuse to try out all sorts of new experiments -- most of which will naturally fail -- he needs to play his top substiture in each position. Finishing let Japan down a bit in this match, and considering how many times they found woodwork, they also were a bit unlucky. Nevertheless, it was hard to avoid the sense that Japan should have won this match by 3 or 4 goals, if Troussier had been playing his best eleven.

Here is Japan's roster for the Kirin Cup: