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Coach Takeshi Okada hailed a professional display after three-time winners Japan eased to a 6-0 win over Hong Kong in Thursday’s 2011 AFC Asian Cup qualifier.
Japan put January’s 1-0 defeat by Bahrain firmly behind them in convincing style at Outsourcing Stadium Nihondaira as striker Shimizu S-Pulse Shinji Okazaki scored a hat-trick on his home ground to send Okada’s side to the top of Group A on goal difference.
Defenders Yuto Nagatomo, Yuji Nakazawa and Marcus Tulio Tanaka were also on target for Japan.
“We broke them in good ways and scored six goals. It would have been much nicer if we could have added one or two more from the chances we created. But I may be asking too much,” said Okada, who will also see his World Cup finalists play Scotland on Saturday in Yokohama and Togo in Miyagi four days later.
“Okazaki has something that other players don’t have and he scored goals. That is certainly a good thing for us.
“This was the game that we’ve moved into a new phase of our preparation for the World Cup, and this was the game that we had to win.
“Our players looked at this game by setting the target on not only winning, but also to work on their own game.
“I’m satisfied that our players fought throughout the 90 minutes and functioned as a team.”
Hong Kong suffered a third consecutive defeat in Group A and while coach Kim Pan Gon was quick to praise Japan he insists his side can take something from the game despite the nature of the defeat.
“We have gained valuable experience and we need to improve a lot of things,” he said.
“So, I think for the Hong Kong national team, this is a good time to think how we should improve.”
Hong Kong entertain Japan on November 18 and Kim, who is also coach of AFC Cup semi-finalists South China, has promised a much improved display.
“As a weak team, we need to spend more time to prepare and should put in more effort than a quality team does. I think this is logical,” he added.
“We cannot prepare like a high quality team does, getting together two or three days before to prepare for a competition. We lost, not because of three players we didn’t bring in, but because we are poor in preparation.
“When we go back to Hong Kong, I will suggest to our FA that we want to have more time to train to prepare. So, I’m expecting a better game at home.”
賽後雙方教練的意見
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