From: Hildegaard Beauregard [ljlife@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 4:25 AM
Subject: Little reward for great play

Reporting to you right on the heels of the event from
here at World Cup Watch Central:

Japan played one of the most exciting games of the
tournament so far, with Belgium, but came away with
only a point in the standings to show for it. The game
ended a 2-2 draw. In the first half, neither team
seemed to have any sort of finishing capability. Japan
created more chances and generally ran play against
lackluster Belgium, but had no organization at the
scoring end. They kept pissing away chances with pot
shots and long passes with no particular target. The
game, like Japan, looked to have all bark and no bite.

Then, in the second half, Belgium struck, their
patience and somewhat better organization paying off
when they got an opportunistic goal: striker Marc
Wilmots giving a deflected ball a bicycle kick past
Japanese keeper Narazaki for the goal. That seemed a
bad prospect considering Japan's inability to organize
a serious threat. But just 2 minutes later, what
appeared to be another pointless Japanese long pass
towards goal found forward Takayuki Suzuki, who broke
past two defenders and lunged through the air foot
forward to knock the ball past the Belgian keeper into
the goal! Japan cancelled the Belgian advantage
pronto, and the Saitama stadium was roaring.

With the crowd behind them, Japan's liveliness began
to congeal into a more concentrated attack, and just 8
minutes later, Junichi Inamoto dribbled through two
defenders in the box and shot the ball past the keeper
into the far corner. Belgium's goal seemed to be the
best thing that had happened to Japan, and they led
2-1.

The game had turned lively, indeed, but, as you can
imagine, there was a cost. The back and forth play,
and Japan still trying to create chances, eventually
left Belgium open for a fast break of their own, and a
long pass dropped in front of Peter Van Der Heyden and
one Japanese defender in the box. Van Der Heyden got
ahead, stretched his foot forward, and was able to lob
the ball over the advancing Narazaki into the goal.

Japan had another amazing goal in injury time by
Inamoto, who got the ball in the box and zig-zagged
his way through Belgian defenders missing at the ball,
then shot the ball home. But the Costa Rican official
ruled he committed a foul at some point. I didn't see
it, and in replays still could not make out where the
foul was. So, possibly again, a ref decides the
outcome and Japan got robbed.

But the draw is still a moral victory for Japan, their
first ever group point in World Cup play, and for the
most part they outplayed a European power. Russia and
Tunisia are the other teams in the group, and I think
Japan has an excellent chance to advance to the next
round, especially after seeing what they can do.