Japan defeats Bahrain 1-0 in World Cup qualifier

Japan have sucked in front of goal for the last few seasons. The midfield is quite excellent at times but where are the strikers?

90 minutes of running around for nothing. Game settled on a free kick = boring.

bobbafett: "Japan has sucked in front of the goal for the last few seasons..."

Exactly! Japan puts up a pretty wicked offense in general, and even does a good job in many cases of getting the ball TO the net, but they can never fire in any goals and just like to try and pass the ball off to someone else. In fact, they often seemed RELIEVED to lose the ball so long as they don't have to try and shoot it. It's frustrating as hell to watch, and very hard to justify cheering for Japan when they fail so badly.

In this case they won... but if they want to do anything this time in the World Cup, they really need to do better than a 1-0 win over Bahrain. Get those strikers working!!!

smithy,

you would think that the shame of missing a strike on goal must be too much of a burden. perhaps the dinosaur establishment needs replacing rather than the strikers.

Congratulations to the Japanese team, there's little doubt they'll make it to the World Cup. However, this only goes to show that even mediocre teams can make it to the finals, providing they're in the Asian group. Asian fottball, in general, has a long way to go yet.

Congratulations to Japan. However, as was said by several people before, Japan will need more strikers if they will have any chance of competing in the World Cup. Personally, I like Takayuki Morimoto of Serie A team Catania. He is currently his team's third leading goal scorer and is very strong and fast. He would be the only player I see who has a shot of being considered a first-rate striker for Japan. They should call him up and let him see some action to get his feet wet.