The wind coming in from the Pacific Ocean was chilly, but the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom outside the Nagai Stadium in Osaka on Wednesday evening. The national team should be approaching the same state soon as the match with Serbia on Wednesday was the last prior to coach Takeshi Okada naming his squad for the 2010 World Cup.
It didn’t quite work out that way. 2010 has been a long winter in East Asia and it hasn’t been kind to the coach. Goalless draws against Venezuela and China and a defeat at the hands of South Korea in February put Okada under pressure. The boos stopped after a 2-0 win over Bahrain but Wednesday night saw the jeers and the fears about South Africa return.
Serbia arrived in Kansai armed only with players from their domestic league with not a Vidic, Stankovic or Zigic in sight. The term second-string was a little polite. As a warm-up for games with Denmark, Netherlands and Cameroon it didn’t look to be the best option but when you arrange a game on April 7 when the European season is building to a climax then options are limited.
Japan were also restricted to a squad drawn from the domestic league but unlike the Serbians, whose first line-up against Ghana in South Africa will feature none of the players in action in Osaka (Serbian coach Radomir Antic even allowed his assistant to take control of the team for the night), there should be five or six J-Leaguers on the field against Cameroon in Bloemfontein.
The local fans didn’t mind as they took the Midosuji line to Nagai station to fill the stadium's 47,000 seats 20 minutes before kick-off. Not much more than 20 minutes later, they were shocked to see the visitors race into a two-goal lead.
Much has been made of whether Japan will be able to score the goals necessary in South Africa but on the display in Osaka, Okada has his work cut out with the backline. None of the Serbian goals were special – simple through balls or crosses that caught the defense flatfooted. Marcos Tulio Tanaka was suspended and missed and will not be worried that his red card against South Korea in February has cost him his starting spot.
Yuto Nagatomo may have been linked to Bologna earlier in the week but the left-back was more interested in attacking than defending and was caught out of position a number of times. Yuji Nakazawa looked less authoritative than usual without his national team partner Tanaka though as he was playing with club team-mate Yuzo Kurihara, that should not have been an excuse.
The midfield offered little protection to the back and not much in the way of support for the strikeforce. This was a disjointed effort from the hosts and they had no answer to Serbia’s early goals.
“The team needs to dig in and try to get the win especially when we are losing, and I think we were lacking in spirit tonight,” Okada said after the match.
"I wasn't able to take away many positives from tonight, but I did find out some things about the players. When our key men are missing we really need to find some way to work it out."
Serbia’s second was the killer blow as the hosts had started to recover from the early setback and had started to pressure the Serbians. Any momentum was killed as captain Radosav Petkovic lobbed an easy ball over the Japan defenders for Mrda to latch on to and put his side two goals ahead.
The fans continued to support the team though the gusto was slipping away, especially as both Shunsuke Nakamura and Yasuhito Endo failed to make free-kicks count.The half-time whistle spawned whistles of its own as many fans allowed their displeasure to be known.
Once again, Japan started to put a little pressure on the visiting defence in the second half and had their best chance just before the hour only for FC Tokyo midfielder Naohiro Ishikawa to fire straight at the goalkeeper.
Seconds later, Serbia made it three and it was game over. Japan went through the motions, the fans, to their credit, stayed in numbers and continued to roar the team on though once again, when the whistle went on the pitch, it was echoed from the stands
Positives may be hard to find but the problems are pretty clear.
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