ARLINGTON, Texas – While there was no memorable upset this time, Japan once again showed resilience against heavyweight European opposition Sunday as they drew 2-2 with the Netherlands in their opening World Cup match.<\/p>\n
Hajime Moriyasu’s men stunned the world with 2-1 comeback wins over Germany and Spain four years ago in Qatar, having trailed at the break both times, but they faced a different challenge at Dallas Stadium after falling behind twice during the second half.<\/p>\n
The Samurai Blue nevertheless delivered another performance to remember, helped by their team mindset, personal drive and a message from departed captain Wataru Endo.<\/p>\n
“We prepared for all sorts of scenarios, and I didn’t think this team would crumble,” said Eintracht Frankfurt midfielder Ritsu Doan, Japan’s captain on the night.<\/p>\n
“We gathered after conceding to talk things through, and aside from technique and tactics, we’ve become a mentally very mature team.”<\/p>\n
Doan, who previously played for Dutch sides Groningen and PSV Eindhoven, was up against several familiar faces in the Group F opener.<\/p>\n
“I was facing so many former (Dutch club) teammates, and while it was frustrating playing defensively on many occasions, getting a point was big,” he said.<\/p>\n
World Cup debutant Koki Ogawa, currently plying his trade with Dutch side NEC Nijmegen, created Japan’s late equalizer when his header went in off Daichi Kamada’s head, but he still dreams of getting his name on the scoresheet at the tournament.<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t officially recorded as my goal, and I don’t know what would have happened had Daichi not touched it,” the 28-year-old said. “We have a long way to go, and I’ll try to score a real one.”<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old recounted his time toiling in the J-League second division on his way to becoming a key player with his Eredivisie club.<\/p>\n
“My career hasn’t been plain sailing. I had a spell when I couldn’t get involved in matches even in the J2,” he said. “But I began by doing little things, always believing that I can make my mark and there will come a time when I flourish.”<\/p>\n
While Endo left without speaking to the entire squad Thursday, following Moriyasu’s decision to replace the injured skipper on the advice of medical staff, the Liverpool man sent a video message that was shown during a team meeting on the eve of their World Cup opener.<\/p>\n
“Just seeing Wataru’s face looking like that made us feel as if he’s beside us and watching over us,” Ogawa said of Endo, whose No. 6 shirt was hung at the side of Japan’s bench during the match.<\/p>\n
Junya Ito, whose lively cameo off the bench included the corner kick that led to Kamada’s equalizer, said the players were motivated to do their best for all their injured teammates, including stars Kaoru Mitoma and Takumi Minamino, who were ruled out before the tournament.<\/p>\n
“Wataru was saying in the message that there’s no need to say things like ‘we have to do our best for him,’ but do it for yourselves and for Japan,” Ito said.<\/p>\n
“Kaoru and Takumi can’t play with injuries either, and we have to give our best for the teammates who we’ve been playing together with.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas – While there was no memorable upset this time, Japan once again showed resilience against heavyweight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-336705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}