World Cup underdogs Japan wound up their World Cup finals preparations on Thursday with another disappointing performance, a scoreless draw with Zimbabwe in a warm-up match after a match-making blunder that left the former Asian champions deeply embarrassed.
The Japan Football Association (JFA) had waited until Thursday morning to announce Zimbabwe had replaced other non-World Cup qualifiers Mozambique as their opponents.
The only semi-positive note for the Japanese was that the draw at least brought to an end a run of four successive defeats.
Japan wanted to play an African side as a tune-up for their World Cup opener against Cameroon on Monday, but Mozambique told Japan they would skip the scheduled match, only hours after losing 3-0 to Portugal in a warm-up match in Johannesburg on Tuesday night.
“We wanted to make the announcement only after confirming that the Zimbabwe team had arrived here,” JFA technical director Hiromi Hara told frustrated reporters in Japan’s World Cup base camp of George.
There was no list of players on the 20-strong Zimbabwe squad available. Hara said some of them had reportedly played in the 3-0 friendly defeat by Brazil at home on Wednesday.
The warm-up match was played over three 30-minute periods, with Japan’s first-team regulars competing only in the first one.
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