A depleted Cyprus fell to a 1-0 defeat in Japan on Tuesday in what was the island’s furthest ever trip from home for an international game.
Cyprus boss Pambos Christodoulou was missing seven first team players for the game in Saitama and the visitors were forced to withstand a barrage of pressure from the hosts in front of 63,000 noisy supporters.
Their resistance was finally broken when Schalke 04’s Atsuto Uchida took advantage of a mix-up between goalkeeper Panos Constantinou and Giorgos Merkis to stab home the winner minutes before halftime.
Despite bossing the game, Japan got their World Cup preparation off to a less-than-convincing start.
Alberto Zaccheroni’s side have now won three friendlies in a row but showed little sign of the quality that helped them recently overcome Belgium and New Zealand.
While Japan enjoyed the better of the first-half possession, they were forced to wait until two minutes before the break for Uchida to open the scoring.
After good work from Shinji Kagawa, Uchida finished from close range at the second attempt after a breakdown in communication between Merkis and Constantinou but the scoring ended there, despite their dominance after the interval.
Yoichiro Kakitani, Kagawa and Yoshito Okubo all went close but to no avail against a well-drilled Cypriot defence that had the hallmark of Christodoulou’s solid back-lines during his coaching days at AEL, Olympiakos Nicosia and Doxa Katokopia.
But the problems were apparent up front with Nestor Mytides unable to make an impact and Vincent Laban’s high effort the only thing Cyprus had to show for their attacking abilities in the first half.
Japan named a strong side that included Kagawa, Keisuke Honda and Shinji Okazaki but it was Cyprus who started the brighter.
Aside from an early corner, Cyprus failed to test Japan sufficiently, however, as the home side grew into the game – Honda’s shot was saved well after good link-up play with Kakitani.
The pair combined again shortly after, Kakitani almost getting on the end of Honda’s delivery, before Uchida struck the ultimate winner.
After Kagawa crafted a chance on goal with a clever flick, he was denied by an Angelos Charalambous tackle, with Uchida’s follow-up blocked. It was one of Uchida’s final contributions as he, Yasuhito Endo and Yasuyuki Konno made way for Hiroki Sakai, Maya Yoshida and Makoto Hasebe at the break. Japan almost doubled their advantage when Merkis gave the ball away to Kagawa who slipped in Kakitani. However, Constantinou saved well, with Kagawa unable to reach the loose ball.
Kagawa again forced a strong save from the Aris Limasssol keeper, who had an impressive debut [excluding the goal] following the injury to first choice Antonis Giorgallides, before Kakitani was replaced by surprise squad inclusion Okubo. After large spells of dominance from the home side, substitute Onisiforos Roushias could have secured a late equaliser had he kept his cool when played in on goal rather than blasting an effort into the side-netting while Marios Stylianou also saw his half-chance go begging late on.
Christodoulou made six changes to his squad during the game with Giorgos Vasiliou coming in for Elias Charalambous (70 minutes), Giorgos Aresti making his debut in place of Marios Nicolaou (83 minutes), Roushias coming in for Charis Kyriakou (54 minutes), Sinisa Dobrasinovic coming on for Laban (65 minutes), Valentinos Sielis coming for Constantinos Makrides (90 minutes) and Pieros Sotiriou replacing Mytides (72 minutes)
