Â
Choking is a relative term, of course. Seventy-two years have passed since Brazil, fresh from trouncing Sweden 7-1 and Spain 6-1, led in the de facto final against Uruguay only to concede twice in the space of 13 minutes in front of a disbelieving 173,000 crowd at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro and, in doing so, pass up a first World Cup crown. In 2010, the reigning world champions Italy needed to beat Slovakia to avoid the ignominy of a group stage exit after draws against Paraguay and New Zealand and proceeded to collectively collapse under the pressure.
So others have had it a lot worse than Japan here and all is not yet lost but there are unlikely to be much bigger missed opportunities at this tournament, even if we will not know until Thursday - when Group E concludes - just how costly this latest entry into the World Cup hall of chokes proves to be.
By the end, Japan's players, true to their customs, lined up in a row and bowed solemnly in front of their supporters, who applauded their apologists with a quiet, dignified decorum when, internally, they must have been wanting to scream, self-combust and a whole lot in between. After a 2-1 victory over Germany in their opening match, Japan qualified for the last 16 with one game remaining. The Costa Rican side, who lost 7-0 to Spain in 7-0, was on the line as they failed to find a shot and saw only 18% of his ball. In other words, this was as welcome as one could realistically expect at this level, but football loves to tear up scripts and Japan is overly complicit in its own downfall.
Not all throttles follow a set formula, but this has affected both managers and players. With everything exploding on Japan's face from now on, Hajime Moriyasu wondered why himself when Costa Rica's particular anti-football brand should never have emerged with a three-point confirmation and (weak) advance to the round. One must wonder why was so cautious.16's. Over 180 minutes of football, Costa Rica's only shot on target led to an accidental second-half goal from right-back Keiser Fuller's joint attack, sinking Japan. Don't stay too long on the bench.
Brighton fans still know Kaoru Mitoma, but he's a frenetic winger who has scored five goals in his ten appearances for Japan and has plenty of tricks to overwhelm defenses. Takumi Minamino, now from Monaco, knew all too well the big game and pressure at Liverpool. And Takuma Asano scored the winning goal against Germany and was full of confidence. However, none of the trio started and had to wait until various points in the second half before being introduced and asked to save the situation. The underutilized Santo took less than 30 minutes. "We pray to some extent," Moriyasu said. "It was a disappointing result and we have to think about it, but I don't think it was a total mistake on our part."
The entire Costa Rican team camped in their own half for so long that they had opportunities for lock-picking and loading attacks, but Japan and their coaches were too reluctant to routinely put their opponents to greater physicality and war. I was annoyed. - Hound's attitude. Costa Rican defender Francisco Calvo was ready to pull the trigger over the edge, coming so close to escaping a red card for sneakily yanking Junya Ito's shirt. of the box.
It was very flimsy from Japan, putting together a goal when Shuichi Gonda got the ball, but with enough power to prevent Fuller's deflected shot from dribbling overhead and into the net. There was not. There were other decisive chokes, but this one really was an open goal that Japan missed.
Tags:
Football