National Team Match:

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Japan 4 - 1 Vietnam

Date: July 13, 2007 Location: Vietnam Japan 4 2 1H 1 2 2H 0 1 Vietnam Seiichiro Maki (12') Yasuhito Endo (31') Shunsuke Nakamura (52') Seiichiro Maki (59') Scoring Own Goal (07') Naotake Hanyu Cautions Hoon Kong Minh Lee Kong Binh Sent off B. Said Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, Akira Kaji, Yuji Nakazawa, Yuki Abe, Yuichi Komano, Keita Suzuki, Kengo Nakamura, Shunsuke Nakamura (Naotake Hanyu 62), Yasuhito Endo (Koki Mizuno 68), Seiichiro Maki (Hiosato Sato 68), Naohiro Takahara TBA

Based on the final score of this contest, a lot of the headlines in the papers tomorrow moring are going to make light of the competition with cliches like "a stroll in the park" or "a walking cake". In reality, though, this was an incredibly tense, nail-biting affair . . . . for about 12 minutes. Once again, Japan came out looking like a group of jitttery schoolkids playing their first match in a big stadium. They were tentative on the ball, hesitant about making runs forward, and seemed to go into cardiac arrest every time Vietnam got the ball.

Although Keita Suzuki's brain-freeze and jaw-dropping own goal on a pretty harmless-looking corner kick, seven minutes after kickoff, put Japan in abit of a hole, that probably was the best thing that could have happened to the team, under the circumstances. For some reason Japan seems to suffer the worst problems with mental lapses when they are under no pressure at all. They seem to be at their worst when they face weaker teams, under conditions that seem to be heavily in their favour. But the early goal for Vietnam forced them to wake up and get serious about their football less than ten minutes after kickoff. We strongly suspect that they would have been in a lot more serious trouble if Vietnam's goal had not arrived until early in the second half.

But when Suzuki rattled the ball past Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi for an own goal, sending the 40,000 Vietnam fans into a paroxysm of celebration, suddenly the light seemed to go on in the eyes of the Japanese players, and for the first time in this tournament they began to play without the sort of crispness that you would expect from these players. After 180 minutes of drifting around in a semi-dazed state, we finally got to see some crisp passing, running off the ball, and real effort on the offensive end. Just five minutes after giving Vietnam the lead, Japan surged down the left flank, Yuichi Komano sent Shunsuke Nakamura into the corner, and after sending his marker sliding off into limbo with a cutback move, Nakamura looked a ball for the far post that Seiichiro Maki chested into the net from point-blank range.

It was a knockout punch, from which Vietnam never recovered. It took another for Japan to put the contest out of reach, but after the quick equaliser, there was never much doubt about how this contest would end. Vietnam still had a score line that would allow them to progress into the knockout round without help from the UAE, so they continued to keep all eleven men benind the ball, making it a bit difficult for Japan to penetrate, but following their first goal, Japan no longer seemed uncertain, and they moved the ball with machinelike precision and complete poise. Slowly, the patient ball movement began to open up gaps in the Vietnamese wall, and the scoring chances began to come.

On the stroke of the half-hour, a quick exchange between the two Nakamura's and Takahara, in the center of the pitch, drew Takahara's marker out of the box, and with a sudden reversal of direction, the Frankfurt-based striker dashed through into space. Before he could get off a shot, the rest of the Vietnam defence came crashing in around him, but that just produced a rather ugly pileup, inches outside the box, giving Japan a free kick in a dangerous spot. Yasuhito Endo stroked a shot into the far side netting, and that pretty much ended the game as a competitive contest. Forced to come out of their defensive shell, Vietnam now were unable to stonewall Japan's offensive efforts, and clearly it was just a matter of time before Japan extended their lead.

The third goal was the gem of this contest, and indeed, the most impressive of the competition for Japan, up to this point. Seven minutes after the break, Keita Suzuki, Yuichi Komano and Yasuhito Endo put on a show of one-touch passing that had their defenders spinning helplessly like dried leaves in a typhoon. The ball never even lost momentum as it ricocheted from Suzuki - to - Komano - to - Suzuki - Komano - Endo - Komano - Endo, as all three players swept round the left flank. With the entire Viet Minh population reeling back on their heels, Endo stroked the final pass to Shunsuke Nakamura, drifting in at the top of the penalty box, and with yet another one-touch stroke, Nakamura "passed" the ball into the top left corner of the Vietnam goal.

Seven minutes later, the now tattered Vietnamese defence was overrun once more by Komano, on the left flank, and the only resort was to take him down with a foul from behind. Endo took the free kick from the left corner and placed his cross on the forehead of Maki, muscling in at the far post. This closed out the scoring, and prompted Osim to call all his JEF United favourites off the bench and make a full roster shuffle.

Naturally, Naotake Hanyu used his first touch to hand the ball right to a Vietnam player and set off a dangerous counterattack, but fortunately, Japan was able to avoid any more self-inflicted goals. Nevertheless, Osim's use of clearly ineffective players off the bench is starting to become a matter of dismay even among those who have only minimal understanding of the game. Either players like Hanyu and Koki Mizuno are going to have to make dramatic improvements in their play, or Osim is going to have to stop giving them playing time. As even the mainstream sports tabloids have begun to notice, these player's shortcomings are hurting the team. And in Japan, a person who lets down his team usually ends up dangling from his hotel room ceiling (Slicing open your own belly with a short sword apparently went out of style with Akira Kurosawa movies).

For the final 30 minutes of play, Japan passed the ball around casually, while the exhausted Vietnamese players stood and watched. The crowd, meanwhile, seemed to have lost interest, and were paying attention to their transistor radios, and the reports on the Qatar-UAE match. When Qatar scored the go-ahead goal, the stadium erupted in uproarious celebration, causing both Japanese and Vietnamese players to look around in bafflement, wondering what had happened.

When time ran out, everyone in the stadium celebrated -- Japan and its small contingent of travelling fans in recognition of a comfortable and uplifting victory -- Vietnam and its supporters for the result at the oppositie end of the country, where the UAE's 2-1 victory gives Vietnam a spot in the knockout round for the first time ever.

Japan still has a number of issues that probably deserve some discussion -- mainly, the problems created by a few obviously underperforming players. But in the afterglow of their win over Vietnam, we can afford to leave those complaints for another day. For now, we just want to sit back and bask in the satisfaction of seeing Osim Japan FINALLY play the sort of football that we all know they are capable of playing. If they can just pick up where they left off in the 60 minute of this match, they should be fine, regardless of who they meet in the knockout round.