FT:バーレーン0-1日本 (小笠原満男34’)
alright, i shall blog in english for the first time. cuz it's quite hard to type out wad i want to say in jap. haha. anyway, japan won!! omg!! oh well, although it was all expected. oh man, did you see! did you see how japan was dominating the whole match, outclassing bahrain players in terms of skills and technique, and thrashing them in terms of possession! Oh my, japan had so so so many golden opportunities to score, but they couldn't grab them and chances went begging time and again. At least they ended their 199min goal drought, which they last scored two months ago, and the goal was none other than.... a Bahraini's own goal! hoho... after facing two consecutive defeats by Peru and United Arabs Emirates in the Kirin Cup, which puts Japan at the bottom of the group, Japan managed to hit back and kill Bahrain off with a superb Ogasawara's goal in the 34th minute! oh my my, i wonder why japan didn't play inamoto. hmm hmm, ono broke his ankle just one day ago, and things were really looking bad for japan. if they had lost this match, they might just miss out on the trip to Germany next year! How is that possible! How can Japan miss a World Cup?? 3 times Asian Cup Champions!
Although Bahrain had 4 shots compared t0 Japan's 0 shots in the 30th min, the 4 shots Bahrain had were like miles away from the goal and they seemed destined to be going towards the spectators. And just when the japanese players saw their beautiful and tremendous build up of pressure on bahrain go to waste time after time, Ogasawara stepped forward, faked a Bahraini Defender, and took a quick shot which sent the ball into the bottom left hand corner of the net! Oh man, how beautiful was that. That goal sent all the fans, and me, off my seat and jumping around in joy! At last, after seeing their string of 10,11 passes go to waste, they finally soared into a lead with a nice one-two between Ogasawara and Nakamura (was it him?) and poof! Goal!!! From then on, Bahrain seemed to have been killed off, and it was all-Japan. The Bahraini players couldn't even manage a proper pass, and before the ball could reach the halfway line, the ball will be intercepted by the Japs! how zai man...
And in particular, Nakata (Hidetoshi) was pulling all the strings for the Japanese attack. He is the MAN! Nakamura was doing all the stepovers and fooling the bahrain defenders. Santos was quick on the left as usual, and all that they needed was one deadly striker who can finish up the beautiful set up of play. Hmm... At the back, Kaji (Akira) was the heart of the defence, who made goalkeeper Kawaguchi's (Yoshikatsu) job simple- only to pick balls and take goal kicks! haha... but kawaguchi's mistake in the 40+min almost killed japan. thankfully it hit the post and was cleared away.
But! Nakata (Hidetoshi), Nakamura (Shunsuke) and Alessandro (Santos) all recieved yellow cards and will be suspended in the match against KitaChousen! (that's north korea). but the match will be played behind closed doors in Bangkok, following the violent behaviours of fans in the previous match. Oh well, North Korea have lost all their 4 games so far and have virtually no more chance of entering World Cup next year. So, Japan will probably thrash the lacklustre North Korea team next wednesday! Hopefully Ono (Shinji) will recover by then and join the first team squad with Inamoto, replacing Nakata and Nakamura.
まあ、日本チームは勝ってよかった!