WCQ Analysis: Japan 1-1 Australia
Posted by Kate

The Japan-Australia rivalry again lived up to the hype, with a close and entertaining battle and two differing approaches.

Teams


Starting XI’s
Japan named a predicted line-up, with a talented attacking midfield trio of Keisuke Honda, Shinji Kagawa and Shiji Okazaki playing in behind Ryoichi Maeda, the lone striker.

Holger Osieck selected both Tommy Oar and Robbie Kruse, who looked to add pace to an ageing Socceroos side. Mile Jedinak missed the match with an injury, which saw Mark Milligan play next to Mark Bresciano in midfield.

Both sides played with a 4-2-3-1 formation when in possession, and a 4-4-2 when out of possession.

Disciplined Australia

Australia’s previous performance against Oman saw many question marks raised. Here, unlike against Oman, Australia was the underdog, coming up against a very technical, exciting Japanese side.

This suited Australia, who had a week to prepare defensively, and prepare they did. Australia’s defensive shape of 4-4-2 was compact and well-organised, nullifying Japan’s main attacking threat for the most part. Australia showed great respect to their opponent, dropping into a deep block whenever Japan had comfortable possession.

When Japan was able to breach Australia’s structure – something that was always likely to happen when facing a technically gifted side – Australia was able to scramble and get enough bodies around the ball to minimise Japan’s clear cut chances.

Nullifying Honda

One of the keys to the match was Australia’s ability to nullify Keisuke Honda. With Jedinak absent, Milligan was chosen over James Holland, and the selection paid dividends, with he and Bresciano working effectively to prevent Honda from seeing possession in dangerous areas.

One of Japan’s attacking strengths is when they are able to play a vertical ball from midfield to Honda, in between the lines, who can link up with the wingers as they move inside.


Japan’s Strength: Honda receiving in between the lines
Milligan and Bresciano were disciplined, and their positioning was often determined by where Honda moved. If Honda was in a central position, Milligan and/or Bresciano would position themselves in front of Honda, blocking off the angle for Honda to receive the ball. If Honda drifted into a wider position, Milligan and/or Bresciano would shift across to ensure Honda was unable to receive the ball until he was passed on to a teammate.


Milligan looked over his shoulder to see where Honda was moving. As Uchida moved into Milligan’s zone, Milligan curved his approach to block off a potential passing angle into the feet of Honda. This allowed Bresciano to move across to provide cover and Honda was forced into a deeper position.
This forced Honda to receive the ball in deeper positions, where he was playing in front of Australia’s two banks of four, rather than in between them.

It was a fascinating tactical battle, with Milligan and Bresciano constantly scanning and communicating to nullify Honda – readjusting their position to prevent him from receiving possession in between the lines.

Japanese Fullbacks

With both Kagawa and Okazaki moving inside, Japan gained their attacking width from the attacking fullbacks. However, in order to avoid leaving themselves exposed on the counter attack, when one fullback went forward, the opposite fullback was under strict orders to tuck in, in order to compensate for the other attacking fullback.


When one fullback went forward, the other would slide across, creating a 2-3-5 of sorts
Despite this, Australia was still looking to counter attack to expose the Japanese fullbacks.

Counter Attack

The selection of Tommy Oar and Robbie Kruse, alongside Brett Holman, gave Australia pace on the break.

Robbie Kruse made a series of dangerous right-to-left diagonal runs in the first half, looking to expose the space left by Nagatomo, whereas, Oar looked to receive the ball wide, adding width to Australia’s counter attacks.


Kruse ran in behind Konno, receiving a through ball from Holman. Moments later, a similar pattern was attempted which saw Kruse run through on goal
Oar offered a mixed bag, changing his approach throughout the game, struggling to get the better of his marker for most of the match.

For much of the first half, whenever Oar received the ball on the left, he immediately played a diagonal ball, looking for Cahill who would drifted into the space where the left-back would normally be.


Oar frequently looked to find Cahill early with diagonal passes
It wasn’t very pretty, and it wasn’t particularly effective (although Brett Holman did attempt a long distance strike on goal as a result of this combination), but it was a clear pattern that Australia had worked on in an attempt to expose Japan on the counter attack.

Into the second half, Oar was more willing to run at Uchida, however, this was again ineffective. Oar’s attempts to knock the ball past his opponent and beat him for pace failed because, simply, Uchida was aware of this threat and was able to match him for pace.

Changes

Australia made the first change of the match, with Dario Vidosic replacing Brett Holman in a like-for-like switch. Japan then made their first change, shortly before Australia took the lead.

The ineffective Maeda, who is the weak link in an otherwise solid Japanese team, was replaced by Yuzo Kurihara. This saw Japan move to more of a 4-2-4, with Kagawa and Honda both playing in the Number 10 position, and Nagatomo moved into a more advanced role on the left.


Japan’s Change – moving momentarily to a formation trialled against Brazil
This nearly paid off, with Nagatomo having a glorious chance immediately after his change of position. Although Japan suffered a setback, with Australia taking the lead soon after.

Japan then resorted back to a 4-2-3-1, with Mike Havenaar coming on as a lone striker.

Perhaps a move to a 3-4-3 would have been more beneficial, allowing both wing-backs to go forward at the same time, to see if it would expose a solid and disciplined Australian defence.

Goals

Oar had tried playing early switches; he had then tried to beat his marker by using his pace. Neither had worked, but Oar finally used some intelligence to move inside and then outside to get a small opening of space to execute a cross. Whilst the goal was lucky, with Oar’s miscued cross going over the head of Kawashima, the build-up play from Oar was something he had failed to do all game. That kind of talent and pace has been sorely missed so far in Australia’s qualifying campaign.

A late Japanese penalty levelled the match. Ironically, it was Honda – who had been kept relatively quiet for much of the match – who was instrumental in the lead up to the penalty.

Milligan and Bresciano had worked tirelessly to force Honda into deeper areas, resulting in Honda attempting numerous long-range shots (out of frustration). One of those shots then resulted in a corner, which Japan quickly took short; it was then Honda whose cross struck the arm of Matt McKay, before he stepped forward to smash the ball straight down the middle from the penalty.

Conclusion

There has been a mixed response to the performance in Japan. Whilst some praised the spirit and courage showed by Australia, others criticised the performance, saying it was reactive and unattractive. Both are valid views.

Whilst the performance was reactive, with all counter-attacking based games reactive in nature, it was perhaps warranted given the context of the group. Australia simply could not lose (and not just for the sake of Osieck’s job) coming into the match; a draw against a favoured Japanese side would have been a good result.

The performance demonstrated the good qualities of Australian football. Whilst I would refrain from praising traits such as ‘courage’ and ‘pride’ (these should be a given when representing your country), the Socceroos demonstrated tactical discipline and an ability to perform simple, yet effective instructions.

This was something that will come in handy, should Australia qualify for the World Cup.

As for now, the Socceroos have yet to demonstrate such ability against lesser opponents, where they struggle when the initiative is handed to them. This is something that needs to be solved, and quickly, if Australia is to qualify for the World Cup.

Two must-win matches, against Jordan and Iraq, will surely see the opposition sit back.

Let’s hope we don’t see a repeat of Australia’s performance against Oman.


http://leopoldmethod.com.au/wcq-analysis-japan-1-1-australia/

Kate Cohen's analyses are always interesting and informative.=d>

Some years ago Verbeek deployed similar tactics, not losing, in a qualifier against Japan, in Japan. He set up a 1-4-3-2-1, Christmas tree formation, trying to force Japan out wide. The game plan he pursued was that a crossing game was more innocuous, than central attacking Japanese interplay. He forced their hand to cross, which Australia defended well.

Pim was castigated for it in Australia. History shows Australia qualified for the World Cup as one of first three teams for South Africa 2010, with Holland and Japan.

Now Holger has achieved a similar result, a draw in Japan, essentially playing a 4-4-2, with a flat midfield line in in BPO, and what I would argue was more of a 4-4-1-1 and 4-4-4-2 in attack, with the same flat midfield line, although Bresc ventured forward whilst MIllsy sat, this is lauded as Holger's best performance!

Sorry Kate, even though I love your analyses, the 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 formations are not as interchangeable as you suggest. The attacking formation of Australia manifests as a 4-4-1-1, with Holman often a little behind Cahill.

Another variation/interpretation was a 1-4-1-4-1. That is Millsy sitting, then Bresc playing a little behind a line of three. The two wide flankers, Kruse and Oar, with Holman in the middle, was supported by Bresc about 10 metres behind them. This is the 1:3 formation in the attacking midfield line.

One thing Holger has been weak on, is playing the midfield triangle. He is inculcated in the archaic and obsolete German methodology, that Loew and Klopp repudiate.The aforementioned, latter illustrious duo, are inculcated and trained in the KNVB inspired new German methodology.

The KNVB trained Pim, Guus, Baan and Berger have been so comfortable with KNVB, albeit with all being eclectic enough to deploy the 4-4-2 with the midfield diamond in attack.

This has been a problem for Holger, after he achieved some lucky result earlier in his tenure. With arguably weaker cattle, Holger has been a lot slower than Pim to set up a team, essentially better in BPO than BP, with superior defensive qualities than attacking qualities.

Holger may be a better player manager, an autocrat, than Pim, and deserves credit for selecting Ogger , McKay, Milligan, Archie and Brosque, but he is not as astute a tactician. The good organisation achieved against Japan, was achieved much earlier in Pim's tenure as Socceroo coach.

When one looks at the comparative win/loss record, Pim's includes a completed World Cup campaign against juggernauts like Germany.

Edited by Decentric: 9/6/2013 02:55:09 PM

Some more from the leopold method:

http://leopoldmethod.com.au/wcq-analysis-final-third-kpis/

It's very unfair of you to cut and paste Kate's entire article. It's unethical in that the Leopold Method site misses out on traffic and that will eat into their advertising income and it's stealing in that you are infringing on Kate's copyright.

This site is owned by one of the richest men in the UK and I don't think that he would tolerate a similar theft of his intellectual property.

The wholesale lifting of complete articles has already meant that we can't quote articles from The Roar here or even link to them.

I don't think they really care. I often link straight to their website as the article I'm linking wouldn't cut and paste that well into a forum post but i think what damo is doing is fine.