National Team Match:

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Japan 3 - 0 India

Date: October 11, 2006 Location: Katarnaka, India Japan 3 2 1H 0 1 2H 0 0 India Ryuji Bando (23') Ryuji Bando (44') Kengo Nakamura (83') Scoring Cautions Anitam Manjit Singh Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, Yuki Mizumoto (Makoto Hasebe 45), Yuki Abe, Yasuyuki Konno, Alessandro Santos, Keita Suzuki, Yuichi Komano, Kengo Nakamura, Satoru Yamagishi Seiichiro Maki (Kazuki Ganaha 67), Ryuji Bando (Hisato Sato 71) Nandy, Manju, Shiri Kumar, Sanjiv, Pradeep, Deepak Mandal (Anitabh 14) Venkatesh, Manjit Singh, Steven Dias, Rennady, Bhaichung Bhutia

Hard to say which is more pathetic -- the fact that the All India Football Federation is incapable of keeping the lights on at their football stadia for a full 90 minutes, or the fact that TWO SEPARATE debutantes managed to score more goals in their first NT start than Seiichiro Maki has managed to score in the entire time that Ivica Osim has been coach!

For those of you who were not around back in 2004, the last time that Japan travelled to India for a FIFA-sanctioned match, the loss of lighting that interrupted this match for seven minutes at the end of the first half might seem to be shocking. But based on recent experience, this is a pretty typical ocurrence at stadiums in India. When Japan travelled to Calcutta for a World Cup qualifier in 2004, a power outage interrupted play for nearly an hour. Thus, the seven-minute failure of "only" half of the lights in the stadium might be viewed by some as progress. Even so, the combined impression created by a power failure, the atrocious condition of the pitch, and a 60 second interruption because a dog ran out onto the playing field, is certainly not a very positive one. If India cant even provide an adequate venue for a football match, perhaps the AFC should send them back to the second-tier group (along with similarly undeveloped countries like Mongolia and Bhutan), so that countries taking part in meaningful competition dont have to put up with this folly.

Speaking of folly, how long do you think that Ivica Osim will persist in the folly of giving completely ineffectual players extended playing time, while leaving proven contributors out of the team altogether? Hopefully, the answer is: "Not much longer". Though blind dedication seems to be the only explaination for Osim's choice of Seiichiro Maki as his "ace" striker, he is sure to come under increased pressure now that Maki's weaknesses have been so cruelly exposed. It isnt just the fact that Maki failed to score against an opponent as mediocre as India. What really drives the point home is the fact that Ryuji Bando managed to score twice in his first-ever start, and might easily have had a hat trick if not for the difficult pitch and the fact that he was taken off midway through the second half.

Even Bando's most enthusiastic defenders will tell you that he is not the most impressive striker to ever come down the pipe. He has great speed and a quick release of the ball, but his dribbling skills are mediocre and his first touch is even less technically precise than the icon of bumbling effectiveness, Masashi "Gon" Nakayama. Nevertheless, like the greand old man before him, Bando is able to overcome his modest technical abilities with a tremendous work rate and the sort of killer instinct that is rare among Japanese strikers. He certainly demonstrated this finishing ability in his first NT start. While his striker partner was swinging wildly at balls and failing to even get off a shot, Bando tallied twice and troubled the Indian keeper incessantly. Even if Osim can somehow manage to ignore it, dramatic disparity in effectiveness between Bando and Maki is sure to give other members of the NT coaching staff and the JFA brass some food for thought.

We are reluctant to attempt a detailed analysis of Japan's match against India, for several reasons. First, as noted above, the pitch condition was atrocious, and there were a host of other distractions such as the light failure, the frisky canine and the chippy play by the opponents which can help to explain why Japan may have been so ineffectual against a clearly inferior opponent. Even so, the concerns about Osim Japan that we expressed in previous match reports were not eased by the performance in Bangalore. True, Osim did make one concession to his critics, replacing the out-of-place Yasuhito Endo with a more effective playmaker in Kengo Nakamura, and the Kawasaki Frontale midfielder rewarded the coach with a highly effective performance including a cannon shot from 30 meters, in the second half, to produce Japan's third goal. But Osim's inexplicable persistance in playing Maki, as well as the occasionally useful but still underperforming Alex Santos, had Japan NT fans banging their heads in disbelief once again, on Wednesday night.

Japan got off to a sluggish start in this match, perhaps in part due to the difficult pitch conditions, but also due to a very lively performance by Bobby Houghton's charges. India may still be rather amateurish in technical ability, but they showed a very good work rate as well as fairly effective organization in the defensive third of the pitch. Nevertheless, the scoring opportunities began to appear after about 15 minutes, with both Yuji Komano and Santos finding space on the wings to send in dangerous crosses. If Japan had an effective "big man" up front, these chances might have produced an early goal. But Maki was simply not up to the task, and his replacement in the second half, Kazuki Ganaha, did not do any better.

Perhaps it is time for Osim to give Sota Hirayama a chance? If not, then he should at least consider abandoning the "conventional wisdom" about having a big man up front, and pair Bando with another small striker who can penetrate on the dribble (such as Hisato Sato or Tatsuya Tanaka). Maki has had his chance to win a spot on the national team, and failed. Continuing to give him a starting spot will not only hurt the Japan NT, but also could have a negative effect on the player. Surely part of the problem Maki faces at the moment is the intense pressure to deliver results. If Osim drops him from the team for a while, maybe he sill rediscover his scoring touch and earn a return to the squad. But even if this never happens, it is clear that Maki has had more than enough chances to prove himself at the NT level, and failed to make the grade. By refusing to admit this fact, Osim is just prolonging the agony for player and team alike.

Japan finally broke the deadlock in the 23 minute when a Santos cross finally made it through the India back line. Maki had the first crack at goal, but in a typical display of his recent form, he swung and missed the ball completely. This turned out to be a fortunate miss, as the ball bounded through to Bando who poked it in at the far post. Santos, as we noted above, managed to do a few positive things in this match, and was involved in both of Bando's goals. Nevertheless, he still has not overcome his penchant for wasting dangerous opportunities by trying to do too much with the ball himself. The performance against India may win him a bit of a repreive, but we still think that Osim should consider some of the other options at left wing.

On a side note, the weak performances of Santos in recent matches has prompted a fair amount of discussion on Japanese NT fan message boards, with participants discussing some of the more well-known options such as Takahito Soma, Akihiro Ienaga, Akihiro Hyodo, Yuichi Nemoto, and even U-20 star Atsuto Uchida. However, the Rising Sun News has a strong suspicion that Osim already has a candidate in mind to replace Santos, and is only giving the Urawa Reds veteran playing time in order to prevent any of the other potential claimants to the position from establishing themselves before Osim's "ideal candidate" returns. Those who saw Shinji Murai making his bid for a spot in Zico's NT lineup, in early 2006, will know that he is a qualified candidate. If not for the debilitating injury that he suffered against Scotland, shortly before the World Cup, he probably would have been on the roster when Zico Japan left for Germany. Since Murai was a favourite of Osim, when he played for JEF United, there is no question that Osim is considering him as a potential core member of his team, and for this reason, we think that Santos is being used mainly as a "place-holder" until Murai recovers from his knee injury.

But while the move makes logical sense, we view this as a short-sighted move by Osim. Even if Murai does happen to return from injury and immediately regains the sharpness he showed in the past, he will need a qualified backup. Better to call up a few youngsters now, while Murai is still unavailable, and let them show what they can do. Yes, there is a risk that one of them might perform so well that Murai would be unable to displace them when he returns. But is that really something to be WORRIED about? A far greater concern would be that Murai never recovers completely from his injury, leaving Japan without an effective player at left wing. Whatever Santos' contributions in the India match, he definitely has not been getting the job done in recent outings. Even againts India, his two assists were about the only positive contributions he made in the entire match. More importantly, his age will probably be an increasingly meaningful factor in the coming years. It is very difficult to see him taking part in the 2010 World Cup. Better to start blooding newcomers now, while Murai is unavailable, than to wait and discover in 2008 or 09 that there are no experienced players to fill the left wing position.

Japan's second goal came some three or four minutes into "injury time" of the second half. However, this was after a more than seven minute interruption due to the power outage (so perhaps the proper tern would be "blackout time" rather than "injury time"), so in reality the two teams had only been playing for about 40 minutes. The goal came shortly after the lights had returned and Japan restarted play. Santos popped up suddenly on the right flank, as Japan's free-flowing formations created a crack in the India defence. His cross for the near post was a bit off the mark, but Bando retreived the opportunity with an aggressive run to the end line and a spectacular diving header which surprised the keeper and squeezed between his gloves and the near post.

The second half was so uneventful that it hardly bears discussion. Japan seemed to be satisfied with the score line, and stopped making the effort needed to crack a ten-man India defence. The only goal came with seven minutes remaining, when Nakamura received a drop pass from Keita Suzuki and unleashed a rocketing blast that screamed underneath the crossbar.

Overall, we saw some minor indications that the team is starting to grow accustomed to Osim's game plan. The fluid position changing that we saw against Ghana was apparent in this match as well, and might even have been a bit more effective than the Ghana match if not for the condition of the pitch, which often caused potentially dangerous passes to bound wildly away from their intended target. With Nakamura in the playmaker position in place of Endo, the sudden interruptions in fluidity were not as apparent as they were last week. On the other hand, Nakamura's midfield partner Satoru Yamagishi looked completely out of his depth at the international level, and though his tremendous work ethic patially offset his shortcomings in technical play (we never saw a single instance in which he managed to trap a ball cleanly), he was a noticeable weak link in the attack. The back did a pedestrian job against the completely impotent India attack, though hopefully players like Tulio Tanaka and Keisuke Tsuboi will soon be back from injury to cover these roles. Yuki Abe and Yasuyuki Konno are both talented players, but neither one is cut out to be a defender. If Japan were to face a competent European or South American opponent, we suspect that both of these players would quickly discover that their physical gifts are inadequate for the job.

For the second match in a row, the most impressive player was right wing Yuji Komano, who managed to look smooth on the dribble and efective on the overlap despite the pitch conditions. Then again, his best scoring chance of the day was demolished when the ball took a wild bounce just as he was winding up for the shot. Komano, together with Bando and Nakamura, managed to make Japan look reasonably effective. Thus, we are prepared to concede that a few pieces of Osim's team are beginning to fall into place.

Be that as it may, there is still a lot to criticise in terms of player selection, execution and team coordination. If these problems are not addressed quickly, Japan could very well face another embarassing loss when Saudi Arabia comes to visit, in November.