I watched a soccer game on television. The soccer game was a friendly match of Japan and South Korea. We say a friendly match, but the game of Japan and South Korea always has not been friendly.
It is a serious game, because these two countries have had a history of hatred. Korea was a colony of Japan before the Pacific War. The team of South Korea has been strongest in the East Asia. The world has recognized the strength of South Korea.
Japan national team has engaged an Italian as a new manager. The first game of a new manager was against Argentina, and Japan won against Argentina for the first time (1-0). But it was a friendly match.
The game of Japan and South Korea was drawn (0-0). Japan national team has become strong recently. I think that the cause was in the World Cup of South Africa. It was to realize weakness of Japan national team itself.
Although the FIFA world rankings put Japan quite a way ahead of Korea. I think the Japanese team has a lot of potential....I honestly believe Japan can be a Top 20 team, but I think the team has to start believing it too. When I compare the U.S. (ranked 18) and Japan (ranked 30) the big difference I see is that the U.S. believe deep down that they are a great team.
Sometimes after a loss, I watch the Japanese team and I don't see shock on their faces....it's kind of like they were expecting to lose. Then I look at the U17 girls who very recently lost to South Korea in the U17 world cup and I think these girls can teach the seniors a thing or two.
>Probably a lot of the professional players have gone back to their teams and aren't able to represent their nation for simple 'friendly' matches?
Not that that's even relevant to this discussion, but you're totally wrong to begin with. All of Japan's international players (Nagatomo, Honda, Kagawa, etc) were in the starting lineup.
Oh, wait, you're Australian, you don't know how international soccer works
SK had Park out due to injury and I don't think they even have that many international players to begin with... but Argentina came with Messi and the rest. The players may only have been in it for the paycheck (hell, I think I recall seeing that Argentina's FA got $100k for bringing Messi), but they were still there and Japan put on a convincing display obvious to anyone who actually watched the game, which I sincerely doubt you did.