Dallas
\nJapan showed their battling qualities to salvage a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands in their World Cup Group F opener on Sunday as Hajime Moriyasu\u2019s side backed up their desire to make an impact at the tournament with a gritty display.
\nDaichi Kamada was credited with his side\u2019s all-important second goal in the 88th minute when the ball deflected off the Crystal Palace midfielder\u2019s head to beat Bart Verbruggen after Koki Ogawa had powered his header towards goal.
\nThe equaliser was Japan\u2019s second of the match. The Samurai Blue had gone behind to Crysencio Summerville\u2019s curling strike having seen Keito Nakamura cancel out Virgil van Dijk\u2019s 51st-minute opener.
\n\u2018Solid job\u2019
\n\u201cThe players did a solid job of carrying out what we had targeted and prepared for,\u201d said Moriyasu.
\n\u201cThere had been various incidents even before the opening match. But in that first match, there was a real sense of unity.
\n\u201cEven with unexpected accidents and situations we had not anticipated, I think the players stayed calm and composed and overcame the reality in front of them.\u201d
\nJapan needed to show their composure from the early stages with Zion Suzuki forced to deny Donyell Malen, the Japan goalkeeper palming the ball over the bar in the third minute.
\nThat early warning jolted Japan into taking control of possession, a move that limited openings for both sides.
\nHiroki Ito\u2019s defensive work frustrated Malen in the 34th minute and, from the resulting Tijjani Reijnders corner, Suzuki kept out the forward\u2019s header.
\nNakamura almost put Japan in front late in the half, pulling his shot wide of Bart Verbruggen\u2019s right post having been found by Ritsu Doan\u2019s searching cross, while, moments later, Ayase Ueda hit the side netting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dallas Japan showed their battling qualities to salvage a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands in their World Cup Group F opener on Sunday as Hajime Moriyasu\u2019s side backed up their desire to make an impact at the tournament with a gritty display. Daichi Kamada was credited with his side\u2019s all-important second goal in the 88th …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":99136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99144,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99123\/revisions\/99144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}