FIFA World Cup 2010 Qualifier - Asian Zone: Japan vs. Oman

Japan 3 vs. Oman 0 (FIFA World Cup 2010 Qualifier Asian Zone)

Nakazawa, Okubo and Nakamura scored all the goals in the competition. Nakazawa is still hot in the set piece situations by heading the ball from the corner kick; Okubo did a great job answering Tulio Tanaka’s pass with a smart goal. Nakamura took advantage of Oman’s defense by converting a cross into a sharp low kick. Naohiro Takahara didn’t play that match.

Japan continues to play out their accurate passing and amazing tactical attacks and defenses. Yuji Nakazawa definitely is the man in defense along with goalkeeper Seigo Narazaki. Shunsuke Nakamura delivers great crosses and one of them led to a goal by Okubo set up by Tulio Tanaka.

Oman on the other hand didn’t do that bad but their defense was taken advantage of too much which gives Japan too much chances in return.

After 3 matches - 2 wins against Thailand and Oman and 1 loss against Bahrain - Japan’s performance is convincing enough for them to qualify to the next stage. Bahrain seemed to be the only team to be reckoned with.

It’s nice to watch Asian football once again. This is the first one since the Asian Cup 2007 which took place last summer - Iraq was the champions of that competition beating favourites Saudi Arabia. But the team I really saw play crazy matches was Japan who went out of the tournament with memorable matches against the UAE, Qatar, Vietnam, Australia who have just arrived in the AFC as a strong team and most especially Saudi Arabia which was their fiercest rival in the AFC.

Here’s the video of all the happenings - this time, the commentary language is Japanese… enjoy the commercials in the end as well.