Football Leagues » J-League » It's Now Or Never For Samurai Blue In South Africa
It's Now Or Never For Samurai Blue In South Africa
Mike Tuckerman
Serbia, South Korea, England, Ivory Coast. That's not a list of the favourites to win the World Cup, just the four teams to have beaten Japan in pre-World Cup friendlies.
In the process, Japan has conceded nine goals and scored just once. Defender Marcus Tulio Tanaka has proved as much a menace to his own goalkeeper as he has to the opposition, and the Nagoya Grampus stopper is not the only Japanese player drastically out of form.
Goals look hard to come by, and after bursting onto the international scene in 2009, Shimizu S-Pulse striker Shinji Okazaki has suddenly found the step up in class a tough one to deal with in national team colours.
Such is Japan's dramatic fall from grace that under-fire coach Takeshi Okada has scheduled a last-minute friendly with African minnows Zimbabwe, as the Samurai Blue attempt to rediscover that winning feeling going into their World Cup opener against Cameroon on June 14.
Anything less than a convincing victory over a Zimbabwe side currently ranked 110th in the world will represent the worst possible build-up for Japan, with beleaguered coach Okada weathering a storm of scathing criticism for his team's directionless style of football.
Okada has of course seen it all before - he was in charge when Japan lost three straight games in their maiden World Cup finals appearance at France '98, before the bespectacled tactician was unceremoniously pushed aside.
The former Yokohama F. Marinos and Consadole Sapporo coach now looks set to be replaced by former Urawa Reds head coach Guido Buchwald after the World Cup, but in the meantime Okada must find a way for his team to scrape through a tough group comprised of Cameroon, the Netherlands and Denmark.
An opening clash with the unpredictable Cameroonians looks the best chance of victory, but with some high-profile critics now questioning Okada's mental health, it remains to be seen whether the embattled strategist can even motivate his side for their biggest match in four years.
"I can't imagine the pressure he's feeling now," Gamba Osaka coach Akira Nishino recently told The Daily Yomiuri.
"He's been smoking a lot recently, and I don't think he's in a normal psychological state right now," Nishino added.
Like many Japanese fans, the respected Gamba coach fears the worst in South Africa, although he stopped just short of predicting a first-round exit for one of Asian football's flagship teams.
But unless Takeshi Okada conjures one of the most dramatic reversals of form ever seen in world football, that's exactly what Japan fans can expect, as a proud nation struggles to comprehend how quickly their stocks have plummeted just days out from kick-off to the biggest tournament of all.
Copyright: Mike Tuckerman & Soccerphile.com
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