by Kawamoto Munehisa

Japan, the current AFC Futsal Champions and no.1 ranked team in Asia, recently played a friendly against Croatia. The Balkan side are one of the Europe’s top sides having reached the later stages of the recent European Championships.

The game was the first international friendly held in Japan since May 2013 and it was sold out with 1,912 fans in attendance. The match was an even affair with both teams having chances in the first half but nobody was able to break the deadlock and it was 0-0 at half-time.

Japan opened the scoring with Kato getting his first goal for the national team. Croatia employed the fly goalkeeper to try to equalise. In the final minutes of the game they were successful when Grbesa managed to find the back of the net and make it 1-1. Japan then utilised the fly goalkeeper themselves but were unable to find the winner and both teams had to settle for the draw.

Mato Stankovic, Croatia’s Head Coach, commented “First of all, we appreciate the invitation for this match in Japan. We want to invite the Japan National Team to Croatia next time. About the game, there were good moments for Japan and there were good
moments for us also. So, I was satisfied with the result of a 1-1 draw.

His counterpart, Miguel Rodrigo, said “The game finished with a fair result. The first half was ours. Croatia increased the tempo in the second half. However, we were able to press and regain the initiative of the game. Our concept is to have the majority of the possession and break the opponent’s defence of. So we have to continue to do this.”








Posted by Mico Martic --> mico.martic@futsalplanet.com