Japanese goal-machine Shinji Okazaki believes he has unlocked the secret to scoring success just in time for next month’s World Cup in Brazil.
The FSV Mainz 05 striker’s 15 Bundesliga goals set a new benchmark for Japanese players in Europe and Okazaki is keen to continue his rich form in Brazil and erase the disappointment of being benched before the last World Cup in South Africa four years ago.
“I’m no target man,” the 28-year-old told Kyodo news agency at Japan’s pre-World Cup training camp in Kagoshima Prefecture. “I don’t hold up the ball or play with my back to the goal. I score goals by getting behind the defense, by beating the [offside] trap.”
Okazaki, who has scored 38 goals in 73 appearances for the Asian champions, believed he just needed to stick to what he was good at.
“What I discovered is that if I play to my strengths, I can score goals. I don’t see the season I had as a sign of improvement. I see it as a season in which I figured out how to make use of what I had all along, and that’s what led to the 15 goals,” he said.
A favorite with coach Alberto Zaccheroni, the former VfB Stuttgart player is almost certain to start Japan’s Group C opener against Ivory Coast on June 14 in Recife.
However, the 28-year-old was not taking anything for granted as Japan bid for a first quarter-final appearance.
“There’s obviously what we built over the last four years, but the next month is an entirely different story,” he said. “It’s what we get done with the 23 who are here now that counts and the way I see it, none of us should be promised a place in the team.”
Japan will also face Colombia and Greece in Group C.
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