Zaccheroni under attack after Japan's 2nd straight loss

Would have loved to see Miyaichi have a run.

Two poor results and they want the manager's head? Are they serious? How would they cope if they were English? Please, let's have a little perspective on the situation here>

blame foreign game rather than a foreign coach !

Sack Zac (now try saying that 5 times really fast)

Losing at home to Uzbekistan!!!!

but coming runner-up means they could be thrown in with Australia or other top group finishers in the next round

Is that accurate? I thought the final round groups were to be seeded based on current FIFA rankings. As Australia and Japan are 1 and 2 in Asia respectively they would be in separate groups...

As Australia and Japan are 1 and 2

The loss will likely drive them behind South Korea when the next FIFA rankings come out. They were only 4 spots ahead previously.

The problem is the Japanese players rather than the coach. A classic example of the English syndrome. The Japanese male players make a good living, domestically, giving a weekly mundane performance in the J League, like the domestic star players in the Premier League, that there is no motivation to give it that little extra for international games.

Compare this with the Japanese female soccer players who are often forced to seek their fortunes on foreign shores and are World cup holders.

It's really a story that can be applied to most things in Japan. With competition the Japanese can compete with the best (high tech industries), but without it, they become flabby spoilt and slow (Japanese agriculture).

but lacked the instinct to shoot

Japanese soccer players aren't encouraged to shoot, "it's a team game that needs passing" is the mentality drilled into players since they start. Can anyone name a premier Japanese striker? Having top class midfeilders and backs are great but you still need points to win. Don't blame the national coach blame the structural system soccer is taught under.

where is Morimoto?

I feel for coach Zac. Here he goes out, and spots all kinds of wonderful home grown throughout Japan and once they get on the pitch, they fall apart, because of there ingrained mentality.then he figures, the overseas based players will be diffrent, only to see them fall back into a cronie like style of play, where no one takes risks, and pass on critical moments for fear of embarrasment. Its not something he can rebuild so quickly. I am sure he is diapointed. Well at least he dresses well. And the players only have themselves to blame. not the coach. i hope the JFA realizes this. i say zac the whole starting lineup, promote the second string and bring in the best of the u-18 team to fill i. The holes and let Zac have his way, by 2014, best 8 for sure.

Same old problem for Japan - no strikers. Get a Japanese manager in - having a manager who has to communicate through an interpreter just doesn't work. Has it worked for any country, ever? Also, have Japan ever even had a prolific striker apart from Kazu Miura? He was hardly that prolific either.

Has it worked for any country, ever?

It worked for Greece who won Euro 2004 with the German coach Otto Rehhagel. But I agree - its usually a complete disaster to have a coach who can't communicate directly with the players. No major, successful, footballing nation would even consider it. When things go wrong, they go wrong big style.

How would they cope if they were English?

Exactly the same, wanting to sack the manager.

The loss will likely drive them behind South Korea when the next FIFA rankings come out.

One of the problems was the win over Iceland and the points allocated to the win. The JFA shouldnt have scheduled the fixture and now they probably feel quite silly.

But still, they were grouped with Australia last time and Australia was a stronger unit then.

Japan 2002 WC team had a foreign coach. End of discussion. Japan has never done better. Korea same year Dutch coach, best results ever. You guys born yesterday?

banz10Mar. 02, 2012 - 07:51AM JST

Is that accurate? I thought the final round groups were to be seeded based on current FIFA rankings. As Australia and Japan are 1 and 2 in Asia respectively they would be in separate groups...

Only initial groupings for the qualifying and the World Cup finals are determined by FIFA current ratings. In the elimination stages the winner of group A will play the runner-up of group B and the runner-up of group A will play the winner of group B. Australia won its group and Japan was the the runner-up in its, therefore...

Japan was never gonna win their group and Australia was sure to win theirs, therefore Japan v Oz was always on the cards and its only Japan's inflated sense of worth that stopped Japan seeing this from the beginning.

zurcroniumMar. 02, 2012 - 10:26AM JST

Japan 2002 WC team had a foreign coach. End of discussion. Japan has never done better. Korea same year Dutch coach, best results ever. You guys born yesterday?

The 2002 was good because it had good players, Nakata, Inamoto and Nakamura (although he didn't play), the present team, apart from Honda is pretty mediocre.

Japan 2002 WC team had a foreign coach. End of discussion.

Not really. I mean they got out of their group in 2002, but until SA in 2010 I think every host nation has done that, mainly because the seeding for hosts helps a lot. It was far more impressive to get out of a group with Holland, Denmark and Cameroon away from home than it was to beat Russia and Tunisia at home.

In the elimination stages the winner of group A will play the runner-up of group B and the runner-up of group A will play the winner of group B. Australia won its group and Japan was the the runner-up in its.

It isnt going to elimination round just yet. There is still another round-robin, home and away group stage left. There will be 2 groups of 5 teams selected from the following pots based on their FIFA ranking.

Pot 1 Australia Korea Republic

Pot 2 Japan Iran

Pot 3 Uzbekistan Iraq

Pot 4 Jordan Qatar

Pot 5 Oman Lebanon

The top 2 teams from each group will qualify, the two third placed teams play off against each other.

This is not a problem of coaches, it's the problem of the team, but this system won't change be it in soccer, baseball, or even corporations in Japan.

Okada's team did nothing but lose (in the same manner as now) until they squeaked by in their first WC game. Then suddenly Okada was a big hero, but he himself admitted he had done "nothing different before this game than (he) was doing before and when the team was losing".

Likewise Zacch, who seems a pretty decent coach to be, is taking the blame for the lack-lustre performance of the Samurai Blue. The J-players NEED to start shooting the ball more and shooting it better. A coach can help with that to an extent, but a coach CAN'T help them with it when they revert to the style of playing in which they just fumble the ball around without taking many shots. It's also more a confidence issue with the players. When they won that first WC game THEY THEMSELVES became better and more spirited (without the help of the coach).

Ever since the J-league started Japan hasnt had any good strikers, the odd player shined some but only VERY rarely for an international game, unless these guys can decide to take some shots Japan will never amount to a hill of beans.

What they shud do is fire all the forwards & bring in the forwards from the womens team, then maybe we wud see some scoring!!

Zac him!!!

Sack Zac (now try saying that 5 times really fast)

Losing at home to Uzbekistan!!!! aš mielai sumažinti gerklę

Japan 2002 WC team had a foreign coach. End of discussion. Japan has never done better. Korea same year Dutch coach, best results ever. You guys born yesterday?

Japan got an easy draw in 2002 because they were hosts - their performance at the 2010 WC was much more impressive. S.Korea with Hiddink, fair enough that worked - but bear in mind that Hiddink is possibly one of the best managers in the world. Zaccheroni on the other hand is a journeyman manager (like Hiddink), but has won barely anything (unlike Hiddink), save for a Serie A title with an AC Milan team that picked itself. Hiddink had a lot of experience working in different countries with different players - Zaccheroni on the other hand has only ever managed in Italy, in a league that is pretty much just Italian players. There are a lot of reasons why Zack is not the man for Japan. Bad choice of manager, and more importantly no decent strikers on show mean Japan will keep struggling. Perhaps Arsene Wenger will turn Ryo Miyaichi into a striker like he did with Henry, and maybe Morimoto will come good.

@Geoff Gillespie I think Japan is expecting a bit too much from their football team. They only two and a half players who can keep up with real football, which are Kagawa, Okazaki, and Nagatomo. The others may have secured places in Bundesliga or Premier League, but they rarely get chosen to play.

Because of Kagawa, many European clubs thought "Oh, we have to tap this Japanese talent, there are some hidden gems!", and with the help of sleazy managers they bought a lot of Japanese players, only to find out they can't keep up with the speed of European football.

Another example of the Japanese delusion - because there is one exceptional talent (Kagawa), suddenly they expect their national team to go to the World Cup semi-finals or something.

@GW I don't think the coach has anything to do with it. The Japanese mentality gets in the way. It's not compatible to the mentality a good striker has. Which is, be very direct and macho with the ball. Japanese players are technically good, but they don't have this certain "let's go score a goal" attitude to their play.

It's the coach's job- don't know much about the technical aspects of coaching in soccer,being a rugby(league)tragic..but all aspects of play are usually trained for and drilled in that 'other' sport according to the coach's game plan for the day..if that's the case in soccer, you'd think the coach would be working on their obvious weakness in scoring goals..yet nothings changed in that department over the last 3 coaches..if Zico couldn't help,only God can ,they're going to have open the purse strings and get Pele !!

@HansNFranz - that's quite the generalisation to make. I think it's more that although Japanese strikers want to score, they're just terrible. Can you give me some of examples of these 'macho strikers' you speak of? Mario Balotelli doesn't count, because he's just a lunatic.

@cubic I spoke of a "macho attitude" towards striking, as opposed to the Japanese way to get as close to the goal as possible and then just let it roll in. That doesn't work with robust defenses. But I don't feel like discussing football with a bunch of American here anyway.

It is always like that in pro sports. When a team does good, it is because of the players, & when a team does poorly, it is because of the coach.

Japanese hate losing - 2 games lost and they want to get rid of the coach. Soccer coaches and prime ministers have tough jobs in Japan.

Maybe, just maybe, the players didn't play well on the day? Isn't that possible?

Everybody hates losing!

Japan's football media and public are idiotic. The guy wins them the Asian Cup, and now loses a friendly and a match that didn't have a bearing on whether they progressed or not, and he's under fire?

Massive ingrates with a huge entitlement complex, the Japanese media and fans are.

Bring back Nakata

Also, have Japan ever even had a prolific striker apart from Kazu Miura?

Yes, Kunishige Kamamoto. He was the top scorer of the Mexico Olympics with 7 goals, when Japan finished 3rd. He had 55 goals in 61 national appearances. Kazu also scored 55 goals, but in 89 games.

@HansNFranz I don't think the problem is the Japanese attitude or the Japanese 'psyche' or whatever, I just think their current crop of strikers aren't good. And the manager definitely doesn't help.

@bicultural Good point - Kunishige Kamamoto was indeed prolific. It's a shame Japan have only had 2 good strikers in the last 40 years though! With how football is getting more and more popular in Japan now, it's only a matter of time before we get the next Kamamoto or Kazu though.

Bring back the Sushi Bomber! He will find the net for the misfiring Zac-Japan...