Japan Zeros In but Still Can’t Score
It might have been Masashi Nakayama, but it wasn’t.
It might have been Shoji Jo, but it wasn’t.
It might have been Naoki Soma, but it wasn’t him either.
In the end, after 90 minutes of battling Croatia in what Davor Suker called the “hellish heat” of Nantes, it just was not to be for Japan.
Croatia, more physically powerful and more experienced internationally, defeated Japan, 1-0, in a Group H game on a 77th-minute goal by Suker to all but clinch a berth in the World Cup’s final 16.
Japan, meanwhile, has one game left to accomplish what Nakayama, Jo, Soma and the rest of the team so narrowly failed to do Saturday afternoon at the paper-strewn Stade de la Beaujoire: score Japan’s first-ever World Cup goal.
Four nations made their debut in France 98 and three of them--Croatia, Jamaica and South Africa--have netted their historic first goal.
Mario Stanic did it for Croatia in a 3-1 victory over Jamaica. Robbie Earle did it for the Reggae Boyz in the same game. And Benedict “Benni” McCarthy wrote his name in the record books by scoring South Africa’s first, in a 1-1 tie with Denmark.
Still Japan waits.
A 1-0 loss to Argentina, followed by the loss to Croatia has ended Japanese World Cup ’98 hopes, but there still are 90 minutes left to get that first goal.
“Our aim was to reach the second round, but there is little chance now,” said Japan’s coach, Takeshi Okada. “Today was flattering for our players, but we wanted to win. But this is not the end for Japanese football.”
Indeed, neutral observers of Japan’s two games regard the Japanese showing as the positive surprise of the tournament so far. Spain’s dismal showing to date--a loss and a scoreless tie--is the negative surprise, of course.
French coach Arsene Wenger, who led Arsenal to the English league and cup championships this season and was named coach of the year in England for his efforts, didn’t hesitate in praising Japan’s effort.
“Japan are a good side,” Wenger said. “They’re disciplined and they’re young. Four years from now, when they organize the World Cup finals [in conjunction with South Korea], they are going to be a dangerous side.”
Croatia, like Argentina before it, almost found that out to its cost Saturday.
On an afternoon when the temperature soared into the 90s, causing Croatia’s players to pour water over themselves at almost every opportunity, the Japanese players were as cool as could be.
Their nonstop running, their fine positional play, their experimentation with the off-beat move and the unusual pass--all evidence of Brazilian influence in the J-League--made them an attractive team to watch.
But they simply could not find the back of the net.
The closest they came was in the 34th minute, when Hidetoshi Nakata stole the ball from Croatian playmaker Robert Prosinecki on the left wing, and sent a fine through pass into the Croatian area that left Nakayama one-on-one against goalkeeper Drazen Ladic.
Nakayama’s shot was hard and to Ladic’s left, but the goalkeeper managed to get a hand on it and deflect the ball wide of the net.
Had Nakayama taken only a second or two longer and been able to place his shot a little wider, Ladic would have had no chance, Japan would have had its first goal and the game might have taken a different turn.
But near-misses were all Japan got the rest of the way.
The diminutive Jo sent a superb bicycle kick well wide of the right post, apparently not knowing quite where he was in relation to goal.
Soma launched a couple of blistering shots that were unfortunately equally off target.
Near the end, Wagner Lopes flashed a header inches wide of the left post off a pass from the red-haired (via a bottle of dye) Nakata, who has received a lot of publicity before and during the World Cup but has not really risen to the occasion.
It was left to the 30-year-old Suker from European champion Real Madrid in Spain to show how it is done.
First, he put a scare into the Japanese by lobbing a shot over goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi’s head, only to see the ball bounce harmlessly off the crossbar in the 72nd minute.
Four minutes later, he finally earned his reward for a tireless afternoon’s work.
Japan lost the ball at midfield on a poorly conceived back pass. The defense failed to clear it properly and Aljosa Asanovic took possession and floated a cross in from the left. Suker controlled the ball with one touch and then fired a low, hard shot toward the near post.
Kawaguchi got a hand to the ball, but was unable to stop it crashing into the net. Japanese heads immediately dropped in despair.
“I’d missed two chances and I aimed for the near post when I scored,” said Suker, who also scored against Jamaica. “The goalkeeper wasn’t expecting that.
“It was tough out there today because the weather was against us. All the players are very tired.”
Miroslav Blazevic, Croatia’s coach, was more relieved than anything else.
“We are very proud of our achievement because we come from such a small country,” he said. ‘This was a difficult game for us but we have achieved our first aim of qualifying for the second round.”
Well, not just yet, but it’s a almost a done deal.
Japan, meanwhile, has to wait until 2002.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
SUMMARY / GROUP H at Nantes
Croatia 1,
Japan 0
SCORING SUMMARY
Japan: 0 0--0
Croatia: 0 1--1
First-half scoring--None.
Second-half scoring--1, Croatia, Suker 2, 77th minute.
Shots--Japan 13. Croatia 17.
Shots on goal--Japan 5. Croatia 4.
Offsides--Japan 2, Croatia 8.
Fouls--Japan 19, Croatia 11.
Yellow cards--Japan, Nanami, 41st; Nakanishi, 70th; Akita, 89th. Croatia, Prosinecki, 26th; Stanic, 83rd.
Red cards--None.
Referee--Ramdhan, Trinidad and Tobago. Linesmen--Salie, South Africa; Gonzales, Trinidad and Tobago.
Attendance--N/A
LINEUPS
Japan--Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi; Akira Narahashi (Hiroaki Morishima, 79th minute), Yutaka Akita, Masami Ihara, Naoki Soma, Eisuke Nakanishi; Hiroshi Nanami (Wagner Lopes, 84th), Hidetoshi Nakata, Motohiro Yamaguchi; Shoji Jo, Masashi Nakayama (Masayuki Okano, 61st).
Croatia--Drazen Ladic; Zvonimir Soldo, Igor Stimac (Goran Vloavic, 46th minute), Slaven Bilic, Robert Jarni, Dario Simic; Krunoslav Jurcic, Aljosa Asanovic, Robert Prosinecki (Silvo Maric, 67th), Mario Stanic; Davor Suker.
