Tunisia 0-4 Japan: Blue Warriors make statement victory in Mexico
· Yahoo Sports
Ollie Whitmore, Chief football news reporter
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Tunisia crashed out of the World Cup with another heavy defeat as Japan impressed with a 4-0 victory in the tournament’s 1000th game at the Monterry Stadium.
The African side conceded after just four minutes through Daichi Kamada before Ayase Ueda doubled the advantage with half an hour played, as new boss Hervé Renard watched his side capitulate for a second time in the group stage.
Junya Ito rounded off a flowing move forward to make it three and Ueda bagged another, showing no mercy to a sorry Tunisia side whose fortunes weren’t resolved with a new man in charge and wait for a knockout appearance continues.
Kamada ghosted into the penalty area and bundled a low ball across goal over the line for Japan’s opening goal, and it took a sprawling save from Aymen Dahmen to just about claw Takehiro Tomiyasu’s glanced effort off the line.
Centre-back Ko Itakura would then gather a searching kick up the pitch from the goalkeeper and slot the pass through to Ueda in all kinds of space, running 20 yards unchallenged up to the penalty area and firing low into the bottom left corner.
It was rinse and repeat with just under 70 minutes to go when Ueda dropped deep to receive the ball and found Ito with a first-time flick over the Tunisian defence, allowing the Genk midfielder to run in behind and find the net with ease.
Ueda capped off a fantastic individual performance by meeting Kaishu Sano’s cross from the right with a great header that seemed to loop over Dahmen in slow motion to make it three goal involvements for the Feynoord striker.
Tunisia had marginally improved and could have grabbed one back before Japan’s fourth had Hannibal Mejbri managed to steer a promising ball into the penalty area towards goal, but once again were second best throughout the contest.
Japan’s victory is a real statement of intent to Group F as it takes the Blue Warriors up to second and back level on points with the Netherlands, guaranteeing third place and look very likely progress through to the round of 32.
As for Tunisia, Renard was unable to get his new team running after the dismissal of Sabri Lamouchi, who oversaw their 5-1 thrashing by Sweden, and instead saw them exit the tournament having conceded for a ninth time at this World Cup.
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