JAPAN vs RUSSIA
Match Report below
Match Stats: -
| Japan | 1-0 | Russia |
| Inamoto 51 |
MAN OF THE MATCH: Junichi Inamoto (JAPAN)
Teams:
Japan:
12-Seigo
Narazaki
3-Naoki
Matsuda
17-Tsuneyasu
Miyamoto
16-Koji
Nakata
20-Tomokazu Myojin
5-Junichi Inamoto (15-Takashi Fukunishi 85)
21-Kazuyuki
Toda
7-Hidetoshi Nakata
18-Shinji Ono
(6-Toshihiro Hattori 75)
11-Takayuki Suzuki
(10-Masashi Nakayama 72)
13-Atsushi
Yanagisawa
Russia:
1-Ruslan Nigmatullin
2-Yuri
Kovtun
3-Yuri
Nikiforov
7-Viktor Onopko
5-Andrei Solomatin
8-Valery Karpin
9-Yegor
Titov
4-Alexei Smertin (11-Vladimir Beschastnykh 57)
6-Igor
Semshov
20-Marat Izmailov
(21-Dmitry Khokhlov 52)
19-Ruslan Pimenov
(22-Dmitry Sychev 46)
Referee: Markus Merk (Germany)
Linesmen: Heiner Muller (Germany) & Evzen Amler (Czech
Republic)
Attendance: 66,108
Match Report: -
A great performance all round for Japan as
they hung on at the end to claim a victory over top of the group Russia. Russia
were clearly not at their best as their finishing was poor all the way through
the match.
It started off quiet and there were no real chances, Inamoto sending the ball
well wide of the mark, was the closest to the target as any other shot. But
after the half time break, it was clear that the game had suddenly gained a
spark as both teams pushed forward and used the ball much more like a team
worthy of a place in the finals.
It was Japan who struck first as Inamoto found himself with ball 8 yards out and
he sent the ball into the top right hand corner of the net for the only goal of
the game. They may have gone 2-0 up as Nakata struck a shot from 25 yards out
and it smacked of the crossbar, very unlucky.
Towards the end of the match Russia had most of the possesion but could not find a way through the Japanese defence. A good finish from arguably the man of the match, sees Japan go into a great position to qualify for the next stage.
