Japan lose to USA in first of 9 games leading to World Cup Finals

Japan lost 3-2 to USA in San Francisco yesterday in the first of 9 games that the team will play in the build up to the World Cup Finals in June.

Japan is taking its football seriously in the lead up to the World cup finals and the fact that they have the opportunity to start preparing for the finals now will be very beneficial to the team. I remember that Gus Hiddink’s South Korea used the same rigorous approach in Japan/Korea 2002 and it paid off in the finals with the team coming fourth.

Japan has a training camp set up in Miyazaki, a city that enjoys pleasant temperatures at this time of the year.

The only dilemma for the Japanese coach is the fact that most of his European based players might not be able to enjoy the intensive training programme set up as they are still playing with their clubs and wouldn’t be available until much later in the year.