Japan vs Sweden: High-flying Japan look to take next step towards final
A high-flying Japan side will be full of confidence as they prepare to face Sweden in the quarter-finals on Friday. Futoshi Ikeda’s team have been one of the standout performers at this summer’s competition, as they sailed through the group stages with wins over Zambia, Costa Rica, and Spain. Impressively, Japan scored a whopping 11 goals during that run, while conceding none, including their stunning 4-0 thrashing of Spain on matchday three to head into the round of 16 as winners of Group C.
Japan were one of a few sides to qualify for the round of 16 sans conceding a goal, but unlike Switzerland, who also kept clean sheets throughout but whose style of play hardly provided any entertainment, Japan’s counter-attacking strategy kept fans entertained from start to finish. The Asian nation, who are the only one from their confederation to have won a World Cup, were unfortunately not necessarily given the due respect they deserved from some quarters when the lists of title contenders were being drawn.
However, that’s no matter. Japan are into the quarter-finals, and have looked largely unstoppable. Despite finally seeing their solid defense breached, they still beat Norway 3-1 and have sent a signal to the rest of the field that they are here to challenge for the title. Upcoming opponents, Sweden, meanwhile, will now be hoping for a much improved performance after being largely pinned inside their own half by a relentless USWNT, who fired 22 shots on goal to no avail.
The USWNT were left frustrated largely thanks to the heroics of Sweden’s shot-stopper, Zecira Musovic’s titanic performance between the posts. Musovic made a whopping 11 saves to block the reigning champions, and in doing so, set a new World Cup record – prior to this, the most number of saves made by a goalkeeper in this competition was seven. She’ll have to come up big again to stop a Japan side spearheaded by Hinata Miyazawa, who has netted five goals so far in this competition and will be looking to add more to her total as she hopes to finish the competition as the top goal-scorer.
In short, it’s set to be an interesting matchup starring one of the tournament’s best goalkeepers versus one of its most prolific forwards. Will high-flying Japan take another huge step towards the finals? Or will Sweden, who’ve never won this competition, thwart their plans by knocking out yet another World Cup winner, just a few days after eliminating the USWNT and denying the Stars and Stripes a chance to make history.
