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TOKYO, Jun 22 (Reuters) - Japan will face furnace-like conditions and a hostile crowd when their under-22 side look to finish off Kuwait on Thursday and reach the final round of 2012 Olympic qualifiers.

A 3-1 victory in the home leg should be enough but with temperatures nudging 50 degrees Celsius in Kuwait during the day, Japan can take nothing for granted.

Japan's midfielder Hiroshi…
Getty Images - Jun 19, 7:09 am EDT

Players were already complaining of the heat, plus the sandy dust whipped up on the wind during training.

“I didn’t expect this,” midfielder Hiroshi Kiyotake told the Sankei Sports. “My throat and eyes hurt.”

Japan, bidding to reach their fifth successive Olympic Games at London next year, will, however, be boosted by the return from injury of striker Kensuke Nagai.

“I’m fit and want to play,” said Nagai, whose replacement Yuya Osako scored in the first leg. “The competition is pretty fierce but I want to prove worth to the team.”

Japan have flopped badly in the Middle East before, most painfully when their senior side conceded an equaliser to Iraq with qualification for the 1994 World Cup just minutes away.

Olympic coach Takashi Sekizuka insisted his side were prepared to avoid a repeat of what Japanese fans and media still refer to as the “Tragedy of Doha”.

Sekisuka said: “The mental side will be key. We’ve never been to the Middle East at this time of year but we will deal with the situation.

“We need to stay attack-minded, be aggressive and take the game to them.”

Kuwait coach Maher Al Shemmari promised Japan would be pushed to the limit.

“We gave away a couple of silly goals,” he said. “But we scored an away goal, we are at home and we still have a chance to win this tie.”

(Reporting by Alastair Himmer; Editing by John O’Brien; To comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

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Labels: Avoid, Japan, Kuwait, meltdown, Olympic, Reuters

TOKYO (AP)—The cancellation of soccer games in Japan has been extended into early April because of the devastation from the earthquake, tsunami and radiation leaks.

Japansese soccer authorities already had decided that the nation’s two top leagues would not play for the rest of March. Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that clubs from those leagues met Tuesday in Tokyo and decided to call of games for April 2 and 3.

Kashima Antlers President Shigeru Ibata was quoted as saying after the meeting that “there’s no telling when we can restart the league again.” He added: “The situation is getting worse by the day.”

Top-tier clubs Vegalta Sendai and Montedio Yamagata, plus Mito Hollyhock of J-League 2 all sustained serious damage.

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Labels: April, cancellations, early, extended, Japan, soccer

World Cup winner Spain leads the FIFA rankings, and new Asian champion Japan has moved into the top 20. The United States remains at No. 18 to lead CONCACAF teams. African champion Egypt dropped out of the top 10, down to No. 33, because its title is more than a year old. Spain heads an unchanged top nine, followed by the Netherlands, Germany, Brazil and Argentina.


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Labels: Japan, leads, rankings, Spain