National Team Match:

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Japan 3 - 1 Saudi Arabia

Date: November 15, 2005 Location: Sapporo Dome Japan 3 2 1H 1 1 2H 0 1 Saudi Arabia Marcus Tulio Tanaka (20') Kazuki Ganaha (28') Kazuki Ganaha (50') Scoring Al-Kaftani (32') Kengo Nakamura Akira Kaji Cautions Mumtashari Mumtashari Sent off Mumtashari Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, Yasuyuki Konno, Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Yuki Abe, Yuichi Komano, Akira Kaji, Keita Suzuki, Alessandro Santos (Satoru Yamagishi 65), Kengo Nakamura, Seiichiro Maki (Naotake Hanyu 87), Kazuki Ganaha (Daiki Takamatsu 74) TBA

A clever video editor could probably take the tape of Wednesday evening's National Team match against Saudi Arabia and piece together a 45 minute display of the best football that Japan has played in nearly two years. It would show an extremely mobile and flexible team playing the sort of "total football" that we have always felt Japan is ideally suited to playIt would include some dazzling pass work, solid defending, deadly finishes, poised ball possession in midfield and lightning strikes down the flanks. In short, that 45 minute tape would depict just about everything that we have been hoping for since Ivica Osim took over the national team, in July.

Unfortunately, footall matches typically last for a shade over 90 minutes (this one actually continued for 95 minutes, including the injury time in both halves). And if another video editor picked up the remaining 50 minutes of footage from the cutting room floor and pieced it together, the result would be one of the worst nightmares to grace the video screen since Freddy Krugger went into retirement. When you put the two together, the result was a solid, 3-1 victory which allows Japan to claim first place in their qualification pool, edging out Saudi Arabia on goal difference. But it was still a less-than-satisfying performance, which certainly does not provide much optimism about how Japan would fare against more talented opposition.

On the positive side, we have to admit that Japan has been making gradual progress towards effectiveness in every match since the debacle against Saudi Arabia in the away leg of this competition. Much as we may complain about Osim's player selection, his "public relations skills" and his attitude towards anyone who disagrees with him, we have nothing but admiration for his general football philosophy and his ability to design a game plan which neatly matches the skills and characteristics of Japanese players. When the team finally got their signals straight and put the game plan into practice effectively (over a period of about 15 minutes in the first half and five to ten minutes in the second half), the result was breathtaking to watch. Unfortunately, those two breif glimpses of the ideal, finished product known as Osim Japan simply drew that much more attention to how pathetic the team looked over the final ten minutes of the first half and the final 30 minutes of the second half.

There are clearly a host of reasons why the team still struggles at times, and we will try to discuss some of them in detail below. But if we were asked to sum the problems and shortcomings up in just one word, that word would be: Maki.

Lest readers misunderstand, we are not trying to suggest that Seiichiro Maki should bear the blame for all of the team's woes, or that he is unique in his shortcomings. On the contrary, the entire team exhibits the same problems, to either a greater or lesser degree, and if we were given the option of replacing just one player from the team that Osim sent out against Saudi Arabia, he probably would NOT be our first choice. But Maki seems to epitomize just about every quality and shortcoming that is holding the team back. And therefore he is a useful "window" through which to examine the things that Osim Japan still needs to address.

First, Maki seems to owe his starting positin not so much to his individual talents or recent performances, but rather, to the fact that Osim is familiar with him, and trusts him, while the same cannot be said about other players who might be better options at striker. This is a problem that pervades Osim's roster, and which simply cannot be left unaddressed if the team is to continue making progress. There are, quite simply, too many JEF United players in the team. Four members of JEF United got playing time in this match, and yet this is a team which may very well slip into the bottom half of the league table before the season is over!! (JEF currently siot in eighth place, while five other teams could overtake them with a single win). By contrast, there were three members of the league-leading Urawa Reds, two from third-placed Frontale, and just a single player from second-placed Gamba Osaka.

While numbers do not tell the full story, the simple fact is that mst of the JEF players simply cannot justify their positions on the roster based on the quality of their play. Yuki Abe definitely is a key member of the team, and his play in this contest was above reproach. But none of the others have done a thing to suggest that they deserve to be playing football at this level. On the contrary, when Satoru Yamagishi set foot on the pitch to replace a tiring Alex Santos (certainly not our favourite player on the team, s regular readers will be aware), the result was such a dramatic plunge in the quality of play that Japan never really recovered. Bringing on Naotake Hanyu for Maki, late in the contest, just made things worse. When you have a wealth of midfield talent in Japan, the likes of Masashi Motoyama, Shinji Ono, Makoto Hasebe, Takahito Soma, Daigo Kobayashi, Naohiro Ishikawa, Yohei Kajiyama, Ryoichi Kurisawa, Koji Yamase, Hayuma Tanaka, Shingo Suzuki, Jungo Fujimoto, Yoshiaki Ota, Keisuke Honda, Takahiro Futagawa, Akihiro Ienaga, Shota Matsuhashi and Ryo Kobayashi (to say nothing of Shunsuke Nakamura or Daisuke Matsui), it simply is not possible to justify continued call-ups for players like Yamagishi and Hanyu, who have had more than enough chances to prove that they do not have the ability to play at this level. As for Maki, he did show some indications of skill last year and in some of the pre-World Cup matches. If he should regain that form, then perhaps he can be recalled. But the kid has not scored a goal in over four months! There is nothing to be gained by continuing to start him up front for the NT. It merely increases the pressure he is feeling, and makes it that much harder for him to break out of this scoring slump.

On the issue of personnel, the JFA has given Osim a lot of leeway up to now. His "favourites" have repeatedly failed to perform, and now it is time for him to look for other options. If he fails to do so himself, the JFA needs to step in and tell him that he cannot call up the proven "weak links" any more. It is bad enough that Osim steadfastly refuses to call players from Europe (though he claims that this is to avoid "dirsupting their concentration" by forcing them to make the long trip back to Japan, the simple fact is that Nakamura travelled home during the international break ANYWAY, to visit his wife and child). For him to insert personal favourites in the team regardless of their repeated failure to perform is just compounding the error. Next year we will expect to see new faces in midfield -- if not Matsui and Nakamura, then at least a few of the domestic-based players named above

A second problem that clearly needs to be addressed is the team's tendency to slack off for extended periods of time, particularly when they have a lead. Though the players have technical skill to burn, they simply do not exhibit the sort of intensity and "hustle" that you invariably see from their top opponents -- Saudi, Iran, both Koreas, Australia and even China. This has been a weakness of Japan National Teams for at least the past five years, but it is by no means a characteristic of Japanese players in general. Under Phillippe Troussier, Japan's players always exhibited an impressive work rate, and prior to Troussier they had an even stronger reputation for hard work and "hustle". The Osim "game plan" does seem to be well suited to Japanese players, but it also depends a great deal on the ability of all team members to move quickly to fill positions vacated by teammates. When everyone was running hard (as was the case for the middle 15-20 minute stretch of the first half), Japan looked simply awesome. When they stopped running, the opponent was allowed back into the contest.

Once again, Maki offers a clear example of this shortcoming. On at least four or five occasions he gave up on balls that were overhit by teammates, rather than making an effort to chase them down. On one occasion he stopped running and started arguing with Alex Santos for not sending him the ball where he wanted it . . . . despite the fact that the ball was rolling very slowly, and he still could have caught up to it in the corner if he had made the effort. He rarely if ever retreated on defence (though Kazuki Ganaha did so repeatedly), and the most dangerous scoring opportunity that the Saudis got in the match (apart from their dodgy PK) came when Maki suddenly broke off coverage of the Saudi wing back, who continued unmarked into the box and very nearly latched onto a long cross. Tulio and Suzuki -- who both apparently thought that Maki was going to cover the man the entire length of the pitch -- nearly chewed his head off with a tirade that Osim could not have missed noticing.

That certainly is not to suggest that Maki was alone in slacking off. Other players did so as well -- in particular, Santos and Yamagishi, but almost all were guilty at one time or another. If Japan is to move to the next level, they need to develop better stamina, or a stronger work ethic (or most likely . . . both).

Now that we have covered the obligatory criticisms -- which simply cannot be downplayed, and need to be addressed as quickly as possible -- we want to put all of those above comments aside and focus on the positive. Because there is no question that Japan achieved a great many positives in this match. We may not be satisfied by the performance over the full 90 minutes, but during the breif spell when the team finally got its act together, Osim Japan looked more dominant and dangerous on offence than Zico Japan EVER did. The team under Zico was more defensively solid, it is true, but that reflects the difference in strategy, most of all. Osim Japan plays a much more offensive formation, and takes a lot more risks than you ever saw from the team in the past four years. And when it was working properly, it was a joy to behold.

Readers who have seen the team in action themselves (or read all of our past reports) are aware that Osim uses a very flexible formation, with a lot of position-switching and frequent "overloads" in one area of the pitch. Probably the best feature of the Osim strategy lies in the use of Tulio as a truly "free" libero. His most common position is at the center of the back line, but a careful dissection of play in this contest suggests to us that he has no fixed responsibilities. On defence, he sweeps up behind the defensive line, but moves so freely about the box that we often had the impression that Akira Kaji, Yasuyuki Konno, Yuki Abe and Yuichi Komano were playing a four-back formation, with Tulio simply roaming about and scooping up loose ends. But it is his ability (and desire) to get forward into the attacking flow which makes his contributions so telling. As the match progressed and Japan solidified its lead, Tulio's forays into attack fell off. But in the first half he was popping up all over the place, and it invariably put the Saudis off balance.

Tulio's mobility in the formation is by no means unique. We think that the team still has some work to do before they can develop enough flexibility and fluidity in their play to truly describe it as "total football", but the frequent position changes, and their impact on the opposing defence, were one of the highlights of this contest. Both of Japan's first two goals were created when someone (Alex Santos in the first instance and Yasuyuki Konno in the second) joined Kaji and Nakamura on the right flank, to "overload" that area of the pitch,. The first time it resulted in a Santos run into the corner which produced a corner kick, about 19 minutes into the contest. Japan packed the Saudi box and on the next two plays, their opponents could only scramble the ball out of play to concede yet another corner kick. The third time that Nakamura whipped the ball in, Seiichiro Maki met it at the penalty spot with a header. Given his recent slump, it was typical that he headed straight at the Saudi keeper. But the keeper fumbled the ball in front of him, and Tulio slammed it home at the left post..

The second time, Kaji, Konno and Nakamura overloaded the right wing and after a quick exchange of passes at midfield, started breaking down the wing. As Kaji dashed for the corner and Nakamura pulled up for the drop pass, a gap opened in the defence and Konno dribbled right through the opening, cutting across the top of the box. Just before he reached the junction of the penalty arc, he fired a line drive for the left post. Kazuki Ganaha slanted in from the left side and headed the ball home.

At this point Japan looked totally dominant, and for a moment it seemed like they were going to rout the Saudis. But just a few minutes after the second goal, a Saudi player took a blatant dive in the penalty area and conned the referee into awarding a PK. We must say that the officiating was generally good in this contest (unlike the usual standard in AFC competitions), but the PK was a blatant exception. There was almost no contact whatsoever, and what little there was had been initiated by the Saudi player. But a PK was awarded all the same, and with the deticit cut to 2-1, Saudi Arabia settled their nerves and managed to keep things pretty even until half time

Immediately after the break, Japan put on another breif surge of stellar play, and Ganaha claimed his second goal on what was the best sequence of play in the entire contest. Yuki Abe got it started with a long ball into the left corner for Yuichi Komano. Komano was clearly going to reach the ball first, but he slowed his pace for a split second to coinvince his defender that he was going to collect it in the corner and wait for help to arrive. When he suddenly accelerated again, he caught the defender by surprise and was able to turn the corner and dash for the box. As he reached the edge of the area he played a sizzling ground ball across the face of goal. Kaji was dashing through the middle, but with the keeper right in front of him he wisely stepped over the ball, letting it roll through to a completely unmarked Ganaha at the far post. Ganaha stroked his shot through the wide-open back door, and Japan again looked to be on a roll.

But at this point, several players started to slacken their pace, as noted earlier in this report, and the momentum began to stall. A clever substitution might have revived the pace and allowed Japan to add another goal or two. But with Maki trudging about in increasingly ineffectual frustration and Ganaha well on his way to a hat trick, Osim decided to send Daiki Takamatsu in for . . . . . yup . . . . you guessed it.

The entry of Satoru Yamagishi, as a replacement for Santos, let all the remaining air out of Japan's turbines, and the team went completely flat. Indeed, the collapse of momentum was so pronounced and so sudden that we think even Osim will have to notice, and accept that his JEF United favourites are simply not able to perform at this level. The addition of Naotake Hanyu did little to change the situation. Japan did win a penalty kick late in the contest, when Takamatsu was hauled down in the box during a set play. But Tulio uncharacteristically shanked his shot high and off to the left, so the final score remained at 3-1.

As we said at the top, Osim Japan is definitely beginning to make progress, and we see signs that the team might actually be able to surpass the previous incarnation of the NT in competitiveness, given another year or so of development. Be that as it may, the team still has a number of weaknesses which have been apparent from day one, but which Osim still has not addressed. We certainly hope that next year will bring some changes, in both personnel and performance.