Straight after Japan’s 2-1 victory over Colombia they were on a flight back to their training camp in Kazan, receiving a heroes welcome from those working there. While those who featured significantly in the match spent time in recovery, others who didn’t feature so prominently such as Shinji Okazaki trained in chilly conditions using Rubin Kazan’s match-day facilities. There were beaming smiles on the faces of the whole squad and rightly so having beaten the toughest team on paper in their group but the experienced heads knew the biggest challenges were yet to come.
Left-back Yuto Nagatomo, now plying his trade at Galatasaray in Turkey, spoke to the Japanese Football Association about the Colombia game saying “Even if we win the first match, it means nothing if we lose the next two matches. It’s important to gain confidence but we struggled against a Colombian side who were a man short. We are the weakest team in our group in terms of quality. We must stay realistic and make our decisions rationally or else we may be hit hard in the next two matches.”
