Soccer

Recently, Japan has played many soccer matches. There were two friendly matches (against Chile and Belgium) and two World Cup qualifiers, against Uzbekistan and Australia. In both friendly matches, Japan won 4-0, and many people were very pleased and excited to see that they could play attacking football and score goals. The forward Okazaki (from Shimizu S-Pulse) was a revelation, and the first time for a long time that Japan has had a "real" striker (striker-rashii striker) in the national team. But in the World Cup qualifiers, Japan had  a 1-0 victory, and then a defeat against Australia, and all the old questions about the quality of the team resurfaced. The match against Australia in particular was a concern because, just as in the 2006 World Cup, Japan took the lead but then conceded two goals.