Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu and his players left for Australia on Sunday, knowing that a win in their final qualifying match would confirm the country’s seventh consecutive World Cup final appearance.
Iran and South Korea have already secured their places from Asia’s Group A for the World Cup to be held in Qatar later this year, while Saudi Arabia, which leads Japan at the top of Group B, once again Then on the verge of moving forward.
“Australia is the deciding game, but there were also leading games for it,” Moriasu said last week while announcing his squad for Thursday’s crunch match in Sydney.
“With our two losses, we had to keep winning or face a very difficult qualifying situation.”
Japan was heavily favored to breeze through qualifying, but had a poor start to the campaign, losing their first three matches against Oman and Saudi Arabia to sit at a good pace.
However, a late win over the Australians at Saitama Stadium in October kick-started Japan’s campaign and Moriyasu’s team barely looked back.
The Japanese have won five matches in a row and sit second in Group B, three points ahead of Graham Arnold’s Socceros with two games to go.
A win at Sydney’s Olympic Stadium would be enough to book tickets for Samurai Blue to Qatar.
“We’ve gotten to this point only because we’ve won every game, because we’ve taken the pressure off,” Moriyasu said.
“Australia are physically strong, technically talented, well-organized.
“It will be a tough game for us, but we have very good players and have built up a lot of experience during these qualifiers.”
Football Australia said on Friday that Australia coach Arnold has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time in as many months.
His team needs to win both their final matches against Japan and Saudi Arabia to qualify directly for the final.
Japan’s last match is against Vietnam on March 29.
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