The result from last night’s World Cup qualifying game.
Japan 1 Oman 0
As bad as that result looks (although admittedly Japan did secure the 3 points), it was even worse as the goal came in the final minute of injury time. And against a team of young amateurs. That’s hardly acceptable.
The performance was dire even compared to recent games. And that’s saying something, believe me. It would seem that Brazilian coach Zico is trying to implement some kind of year zero policy. He has already managed to dismantle everything built up by the previous coach, and arguably the team is now at a pre-France ’98 level. How far he will be allowed to take this bizarre policy remains to be seen, but somebody needs to stop him. And quickly.
billy says
…and ingerland’s performance was dire…I don’t understand the point of friendlies – especially friendlies that are refed (reffed?) by an 18 year old who has no knowledge of the rules…not that I’m bitter or anything :^)…
Lee says
I heard that we weren’t all that impressive. But like you said, friendlies are a bit pointless. Especially with ridiculous amounts of substitutions.
Was the ref really that bad?
billy says
…he was very young (youngest ref for an international? dunno)…but he got sucked into the whole “it’s a friendly” thing and was willing to let play carry on…of course within minutes there were people being kicked up in the air…people diving about…portugal’s free kick (from which they equalised) came from a portugese player handling the ball, realising he’d done it, so he fell over…wins free kick…ref places ball, turns round to move the wall, player moves the ball a yard to the right to get a better angle – at the same time the whole ingerland wall are shouting “look behind you”…it was a bit of a pantomime :^)…
Lee says
Sounds like i didn’t miss much. And I hear Sepp Blatter has been complaining about the number of substitues used.
I just hope Sven gained a lot more out of it than everybody else did.