Naohiro Takahara and Shunsuke Nakamura are proving why they have made the grade in Europe after guiding Japan to a 3-1 victory over the UAE to finally wring a smile from coach Ivica Osim.
Frankfurt striker Takahara struck twice in Friday's victory while Celtic star Nakamura orchestrated from midfield.
"Takahara is not playing in Germany just by chance. That is the killer instinct that helps him do so," said an unusually elated Osim.
PHOTO: AFP
Nakamura set up Takahara's first goal and scored himself from the penalty spot as Japan bounced back from a disappointing 1-1 draw with Qatar in their Group B opener last Monday.
The performance of Takahara, who also bagged a goal against Qatar, was all the more impressive given he was ill.
He asked Osim to take him off after an hour due to weariness in the hot and humid tropical weather and because he had a fever.
PHOTO: AFP
"If he cannot play, it will be a big problem for us," admitted the 66-year-old Osim, who is not known for explicit praise of his players.
"I have to fill it in and I have a number of options," he said.
The victory signalled a shift in the mood of the Blue Samurai who Osim called a "bunch of amateurs" after they squandered several chances and allowed Qatar to salvage a point with a last-gasp free kick.
Japan face co-hosts and Asian Cup revelation Vietnam tomorrow in the battle to top the group, with both sides on four points.
"I had a fever but it's coming down now. I couldn't sleep at all the night before and my throat got sore," revealed Takahara.
"I will definitely prepare for the next match. I won't rest up at all," said the 28-year-old, whose career has blossomed with 11 Bundesliga goals since moving from Hamburg at the start of the last season.
"Vietnam are a team who play to the limit. They move well as they are used to the weather. They have individual skills and pass the ball around," he said. "We need to closely study them and play a kind of football they feel as nasty."
Nakamura, whose dead-ball skill helped earn Celtic their second straight Scottish Premier League title last season, said Takahara had "already gone beyond the Japanese level."
"He looks like strikers in Italy," said the former Reggina midfielder.
Osim, who took over from Brazilian legend Zico after Japan's winless exit from the World Cup in Germany last year, said his squad ran the Gulf Cup champions into the ground, a tactic he has long emphasized.
"We moved the ball more than the opponents and made them run more to tire them out," said Osim, a former Strasbourg star who led the former Yugoslavia to the 1990 World Cup quarter-finals.
"We managed to play the game at our pace and won as a result," he said.
The match was played in 30oC heat with 85 percent humidity.
"Most of all, I am happy that it has ended without any of our players and staff suffering a heart attack," quipped Osim. "It was such harsh weather conditions."
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier