The Japan National Team took on Greece in their 2nd match in the 2014 FIFA World Cup’s group stage at Estadio das Dunas in Natal in northeastern Brazil, and played to a scoreless draw.
The day had the other Group C match between Colombia and Cote d’Ivoire and Colombia won it 2-1. Colombia, now with 6 points, has clinched a spot in the Round of 16 regardless of the outcome of the upcoming third match. Despite tied with 1 point, Japan lead Greece by goal differential and trail Cote d’Ivoire standing 2nd with 3 points.
With all these circumstances, Japan must defeat Colombia on 24 June to advance to the second stage. In addition to Japan winning their own match, Cote d’Ivoire need to record a loss or draw against Greece, and only in that case the goal differential may allow Japan to move on to the next round two World Cups in a row after 2010.

After losing the first match, Japan looked to record the first win in this World Cup with two different starters on the line-up from the last match against Cote d’Ivoire. Konno Yasuyuki replaced Morishige Masato at a centre-back as Okubo Yoshito started in place of Kagawa Shinji, which had Okubo as the right winger and Okazaki Shinji as the left.
Just after the kick-off, Japan aggressively started gaining the momentum of the match as Okubo attacked the right wing and Yamaguchi Hotaru fired a shot. At the 19th minute, Osako Yuya struck another after receiving a feed from Okubo, and two minutes later Osako dribbled into the middle from the left wing and threatened Greece again. Japan’s attack didn’t finish there. At the 29th, Honda had a freekick opportunity and a cross feed from Nagatomo Yuto at the 33rd led to a header by Okubo.

On the other hand, having lost to Colombia 3-0 in the first match, Greece craved for 3 points as desperately as Japan. FW Mitroglou and MF Kone led their counter-attack offense as DF Cholebas from the right side and DF Torosidis from the left attempted shots only to see Japan’s GK Kawashima Eiji kept saving their goal.
At the 34th minute, Mitroglou had to leave the match due to an injury and three minutes later Katsouranis got ejected with his second yellow card of the match. At the 41st, Greece already made their second substitution in the match.

At the beginning of the second half, Japan replaced Hasebe Makoto with Endo Yasuhito and at the 57th minute Kagawa Shinji came on for Osako, both in search of variety in their offense.
Japan kept on attacking hard for the first goal. At the 68th minute, Uchida with a pass from Kagawa, fed a cross to Okubo at the far side who fired a volley but went off target. A few more attempts followed after that with Okubo from the middle-range and a freekick by Endo but all were checked by the goalkeeper.

10-man Greece became even more defensive in the second half. Their only scoring opportunity in the second half came at the 60th minute when Gekas, subbed in during the match, tried to head in a corner kick from the right, but Kawashima reacted well to clear. Late in the match, most of the Greek players manned in and around their penalty box not to give a scoring opportunity to Japan.

Japan will play the final match of the group stage against Colombia on 24 in Cuiaba.

Comments

Alberto ZACCHERONI Head Coach
Of course we are not satisfied with the result. It was the match we should have won. I was expecting to score many, and we worked hard for that. Last two matches we haven’t been able to play with our normal speed. We have practiced to create more movements at wings, but we should have attacked more aggressively. We could have done that. We got initiative of the match when the match was eleven on eleven, and the ball possession was 70 to 30 in our favour. After they lost one man, we had more chances, but instead we got slower. We lacked creativity and variety of passing in our offense. Especially late in the match, we weren’t creative at all. There were some thing we did well, but we lacked speed in our finishing attempts more than anything, so I think that’s why they could protect their goal.

FW HONDA Keisuke （AC Milan／Italy）
We played very offensive, but we couldn’t break down their defence. Playing aggressively and not scoring a goal means we were missing the key idea. Just kicking simple cross balls in can’t win us a match. We lacked an idea to attack and score a goal in a different way. (The next opponent) Colombia already got through the group stage. All we need to do is playing for three points. We will score goals at all cost and get three points.

Fernando Santos, Greece National Team Head Coach
Somehow we managed to keep the balance of the team. Although one player was sent off and we had a numerical disadvantage, we backed ourselves to push harder. We kept possession and passed the ball very well. In the second half, Japan took the initiative. Despite the fact that we had a couple of goal-scoring opportunities on the counter-attack, we couldn’t score. We could have used the space and the situation better. The players were all exhausted. If we had played with all eleven players, I think we could have won the game.

Schedule

※Broadcast time is Japan time.