Although Qatar is believed to be the second strongest team in Group B, history does not seem to agree with such statement. Qatar always has a problem in confidence as shown by 2004 Asian Cup matches. Qatar was flattened 2-1 by Indonesia whose quality was far below Qatar. And it was not only one match, in fact Qatar finished at the fourth place which was even lower than the weakest team in the group Indonesia.

Although the team has shown incredible performances all along the road to Asian Cup, it seems that the team needs to forget the traumatic 2004 Asian Cup experience which resulted in the dismissal of Coach Phillippe Troussier. Qatar will depend on former Manchester City forward Hussain Yasser and phenomenal Uruguay striker who was naturalized, Sebastian Soria Quintana. In fact Ivica Osim himself stated that Sebastian Quintana is one of the watch lists for Japan. Osim even went further by stating that his team was not stronger than Qatar and will need to work hard to defeat Qatar. Japanese midfielder, Shunsuke Nakamura also admitted that Sebastian Quintana along with a couple of Qatar midfielders have superb technique.

Whether this is a hidden taunt or a warning to his squad, Osim’s statement made it clear that Japan’s first game won’t be a walk in the park. The Japan squad itself is clouded by lack of confidence as well. Osim was still furious that several of his important players were injured because of the league matches. Osim complained about the general fatigue of his squad and wanted to tone down the public hope that they will be the champion of Asia once again. Armed with a couple of superstars such as Nakamura, Takahara, Endo, and Kawaguchi, Japan have the winning edge over Qatar. Both teams need to overcome their biggest obstacles which are fatigue and confidence in order to display a superb game. In a more positive note, Qatar has reported to pay 10,000 Vietnamese to support Qatar in this match. Let’s hope this plan will not backfire by putting more pressures to the Qatar squad. Japan v Qatar will take place on July 9^th and feature live on our site.