Date: 09-06-2002
Stage: first round
Place: YOKOHAMA
Running time: 99 min.
Colour: PAL
Quality: HD 1080 60fps (10)
Commentary: MULTI: italian/spanish
My rating: **
Notes: Nakata,Inamoto, Onopko,Karpin
MATCH SUMMARY
Sunday, 9 June 2002, 20:30
International Stadium, Yokohama
Attendance: 66,108
Meteo: Clear, warm, 25°C
JAPAN
Seigo Narazaki
Naoki Matsuda
Koji Nakata
Tsuneyasu Miyamoto (c)
Junichi Inamoto
Tomokazu Myojin
Hidetoshi Nakata
Shinji Ono
Kazuyuki Toda
Takayuki Suzuki
Atsushi Yanagisawa
Coach: Philippe Troussier (FRA)
15′ Tsuneyasu Miyamoto
42′ Koji Nakata
90′ Mashshi Nakayama
72′ ↓Takayuki Suzuki ↑Mashshi Nakayama
75′ ↓Shinji Ono ↑Toshihiro Hattori
85′ ↓Junichi Inamoto ↑Takashi Fukunishi
RUSSIA
Ruslan Nigmatullin
Yuri Kovtun
Youri Nikiforov
Viktor Onopko (c)
Andrei Solomatin
Marat Izmailov
Valery Karpin
Igor Semsov
Alexei Smertin
Yegor Titov
Ruslan Pimenov
Coach: Oleg Romantsev (RUS)
13′ Ruslan Pimenov
38′ Andrei Solomatin
60′ Youri Nikiforov
46′ ↓Yegor Titov ↑Dmitry Sychev
52′ ↓Marat Izmailov ↑Dmitri Khokhlov
57′ ↓Alexei Smertin ↑Vladimir Beschastnykh
Referee: Markus Merk (GER)
Goals:
51′ Junichi Inamoto (JPN)
Match overview
Japan secured a historic victory over Russia with Inamoto’s second-half strike, booking their place in the knockout stages. The midfielder’s composed finish six minutes into the second half proved decisive as Russia struggled to create clear chances despite their possession advantage.
Trivia
This victory marked Japan’s first knockout stage qualification as World Cup co-hosts. The match was played in front of the largest crowd of the tournament so far, with 66,108 spectators creating an electric atmosphere at the International Stadium Yokohama.
