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Not for the first time in this tournament, there were long periods when Brazil did not impress. And not for the first time in this tournament, they got away with it. It may be inexplicable but the Carlo Ancelotti method that worked at Real Madrid is working again: stay in games and eventually either opponents will make a mistake or brilliant players will do something brilliant.
Brazil were 1-0 down at half-time and struggling. Their earliest ever exit form a World Cup seemed entirely possible. Five players in the Brazil starting lineup were aged over 30, five of the six most defensive players – and they looked it. Japan were quicker, slicker, sharper and more imaginative. But the introduction of Endrick and a change of shape and approach at half-time changed everything. Brazil started slinging crosses into the box and Japan wobbled. Casemiro, barely a pedestrian in the first half, headed the equaliser and, deep into injury time, Gabriel Martinelli squeezed in the winner.
Japan had never won a World Cup knockout match, something that their manager Hajime Moriyasu acknowledged has become a psychological issue, so much so that his insistence before the tournament that Japan should be thinking of winning it was seen by many as an attempt to shock them over that issue. They still haven’t, but this is surely the best they have ever performed at a World Cup.
And this was against Brazil, the only team to have appeared in every World Cup, the most successful side in the competition’s history. They’d never failed to make the last 16, and had only twice failed to be ranked in the top eight at a tournament.
But to say Japan froze in that second half, that they tightened up with the line in sight, would be unfair. They just found themselves facing a side whose manager had worked them out. It may have been a fifth World Cup exit in the first knockout round, and they may have won only one game at the tournament, but this is clearly a very gifted Japan side even with the injuries to three of their most effective creators. There is no shame in losing a hard-fought knockout tie against another high-class side, no matter the round.
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