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National Team Match: |
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OK, time for a few observations. Let me know if you have heard any of these comments before:
(1) Japan is a better football team WITHOUT Hidetoshi Nakata.
What's that you say? Ive mentioned this 50 times in the past year? Come on, it cant possibly be THAT many, could it? Errr . . . then again, you could be right. OK, how about this one:
(2) Alex Santos is losing his touch, and he never COULD do a very effective job on the defensive end.
Really? Youve heard that one too? All right, lets try one more:
(3) Zico is incapable of judging players on the basis of their actual performance, and tends to focus too much on someone's "poise" or "fame" or "experience", and as a result, often puts the Japan national team in a more difficult situation than need be the case. If he would only quit relying on washed up or out-of-shape players and simply field the best eleven players he has available, Japan would be far more competitive.
OK, I already KNEW you had heard that one before. Maybe that is an indication that I should just shut up and not spend any more time and effort droning away on the same old refrains, and sounding more and more like a scratched vinyl disc (you know . . . those things they used to have back in the old days, before CDs).
About six or seven of Japan's national team members actually turned in strong performances on Wednesday night against Honduras. Certainly, the 5-4 victory that they managed to salvage after one of the worst first halves in recent memory, will look like a positive result to those who didnt have to sit through the contest. Unfortunately, the final result cannot erase the images of Alex Santos being toyed with mercilessly by Horduras midfileder Garcia, who beat him again and again on the wing, creating two of Honduras' goals, or the sight of Hide Nakata passing the ball directly to a Hnoduran striker, less than 25 meters out from his own goal, to give Honduras their third goal.
Other newspapers and sportswriters will no doubt give you a more detailed analysis of all the activities of each key player. Somehow, I suspect that some will even manage to find a reason to fawn over Nakata, despite his pathetically poor outing. That is none of my business. However, as someone who cares deeply about the Japan national team, and wants to see them go as far as possible in 2006, there is one bit of business that the Rising Sun News simply has to take care of before discussing any other issues.
This is a personal message to Hide Nakata, as one Yamanashi native to another. If you still have any respect for your old home town, hear me out, and give this some honest consideration:
Hide, as we have commented on this website countless times over the past five years, there is absolutely no doubt that your understanding of the game of football is superior to that of anyone who has come out of Japan in our lifetime-- player, coach or commentator. You understand the game better than anyone else, and for that reason, you should be capable of seeing the things that we have seen in your national team appearances over the past year.
About six months ago, you wrote on your personal website that if you ever thought that you were holding back the National Team, you would withdraw from the squad of your own accord. Taking you at your word, I would like to ask you to watch the tapes of the match yourself -- particularly the second half. More than anything else, I want you to watch your movement in deep midfield, and notice the positioning of the Honduras #16, Vega. I counted **14 separate times**, just between minute 63 (when Inamoto went out and you took over as the left side defensive midfielder) and the end of the match, when you failed to pick Vega up on the defensive end, even though he was clearly your responsibility, and he subsequently received a pass.which created a dangerous scoring opportunity for Honduras. I could see what you were TRYING to do, by creating a lane for the outlet pass on the left side, but the simple fact is that nobody else on the team read the situation the same way, and the result was that your positioning was HURTING the team as a whole.
I am convinced that, if you watch the match tape and appraise your own performance, with the keen football understanding that I KNOW you possess, you will reach the same conclusion. You are no longer the player that you were in your younger days, and though you can still fill a useful role with the right teammates, under the proper conditions, you have clearly become a detriment to the Japan National Team. The sooner you retire from National Team play, the better for us all.
Certainly, your contributions were not as much of a burden to the team as those of Alex Santos (who has been benched by his club coach, Guido Buchwald of the Reds, due to his poor form over the past several months). Nevertheless, it is clear that the National Team plays better when you are NOT in the team. For the sake of all those who cheered for you in your younger days, it is time to admit the obvious, and step aside and give players like Ogasawara, Nakamura and Endo the space they need to develop into Japan's next stars.
For those of you who missed the match itself, nothing that we say can do the contest justice. You will have to find some way to get a tape of the contest, because it is likely to go down as the most crucial match in Japan football history since the "Agony at Doha", back in 1993. Japan came out looking tired, disorganised and lacking in determination. This problem was exemplified by Nakata -- who rarely touched the ball and invariably squandered his passes when he did -- and Santos -- who surely earned a dismissal from the NT selection with two fatal blunders on defence (leading to two of Honduras' first-half goals). Santos was also very fortunate to escape being sent off, when the referee failed to see an obvious "deliberate foul" off the ball, in the 43, minute, when he already had one yellow card.
Not that Japan played THAT badly in the first half. The team did create some good offensive opportunities, even if they did sag much too deep on defence when Honduras had the ball. After Honduras scored for the second time, Japan seemed to discover a bit of motivation, which had been lacking in the early stages, and between the 25 minute and the 45 minute, they had the vast majority of possession, and all of the good scoring opportunities. In the 33 minute, Junichi Inamoto collected a pass about 30 meters out, in an open position, and decided to try his luck. A Honduran defender managed to block the shot, but the ball fell right at the feet of Naohiro Takahara, who pushed the ball forward, took a step into space, and then poked the ball just beyond the keeper's reach and into the back of the net. With all the momentum on Japan's side, it looked like they might manage to equalise before the half.
But a minute into injury time, Nakata received the ball deep in his own end, and for reasons that defy explanation, passed the ball directly to Honduran ace Veracruz, less than 30 meters from his own goal. Veracruz immediately passed the ball to Martinez., who broke towards goal and finished off with an easy, unchallenged drive past Seigo Narazaki. Japan went in at the half with a 3-1 deficit.
The team's performance in the second half will leave fans feeling good about their team, and for good reason. Though there were still some problems (particularly involving the defensive play of Nakata and Santos), Japan showed that they can not only come back from a deficit,. but that they can generate some truly impressive offensive pressure when they set their minds to it. Japan pulled a goal back almost immediately after the restart, as Shunsuke Nakamura placed a free kick onto the head of Atsushi Yanagisawa, who made a lovely mid-air adjustment to head the ball back across the face of goal and into the unguarded corner of the net. Unfortunately, yet another defensive lapse gave Honduras their fouth goal, just moments later, and Japan were back in the same spot they were in at the start of the half.
But in the 54 minute, another free kick to Japan turned the momentum around for good. Nakamura sent a long ball that just cleared the head of Takahara, but Tsuneyasu Miyamoto collected the ball at the far post, and held a defender on his back as he tried to settle the ball for a shot. The defender got a bit too aggressive, and bundled Miyamoto to the ground, conceding a spot kick which Nakamura dispatched coolly to pull Japan within one goal, yet again.In the 70 minute, Yanagisawa make the play of the match, twisting his way through the Honduras defence before drilling a low shot from the intersection of box and penalty arc that eluded the keeper and knotted the score.
And what did Zico do in the wake of the equalizer goal? He pulled Yanagisawa and Nakamura (who had been playing brilliantly), left in Nakata and Santos (who -- between them -- were personally responsible for all four of Honduras' goals), and brought in the goal-challenged duo of Keiji Tamada and Masashi Oguro. Based on these horrendously inappropriate substitutions, ZIco fully deserved to take a loss. But good fortune smiled on him on this one occasion, as a through pass from Oguro sent Santos behind the defence, all the way to the end line, and his cut-back pass was drilled into the back of the net by Mitsuo Ogasawara.
No matter how you look at this match, it was a narrow escape for Japan, and a prime example of the sort of football that this team does NOT want to play, if it hopes to go far in Germany. We really do hope that either Zico or Nakata himself will accept the inevitable and drop Nakata (Hide . . . not Koji, who performed reasonably well in this contest) from the national team once and for all. More importantly, though, Zico needs to either find a player who is capable of playing defence, who can replace Santos on the right flank. Either that, or he needs to return to the 3-4-3 set that he used breifly in the WC qualification round, which relieves Santos of the defensive responsibilities he bears in a 4-4-2 formation. If not, Japan can expect to concede two or three goals in every match, regardless of the opponent. Obviously, that will ensure that the team is not able to progress from their pool, in 2006.
National Team
Overseas Players
Japan 5 - 4 Honduras 