Moriyasu was at the helm four years ago when Japan lost to Oman in their first game of the third round of the preliminaries for Qatar 2022, but there were to be no such issues as the hosts launched their AFC Asian Qualifiers™ – Road to 26 campaign in emphatic fashion.
Not even the presence of Ivanko Brankovic, who oversaw Oman’s shock win, could insulate the Chinese from a rampant Japan as Wataru Endo, Kaoru Mitoma, Takumi Minamino – who scored twice – Junya Ito, Daizen Maeda and Takefusa Kubo all found the net.
“In the previous Asian final round of qualifying we lost the first match, so there were a lot of learnings from that,” said Moriyasu, who is now in his sixth year at the helm. “We didn’t want to do the same this year.
“Through the meetings we had we tried, as a team, to discuss how we were going to fight in this qualifier and to have a clear image of what we wanted to do. In previous World Cup qualifiers I was just simply sharing the image of what I wanted to do with the players, we were not able to train together because the timing of when we able to get together was different.
“But with the Japan Football Association’s support we were able to have all the players here on Monday and I think that made a great difference in how we were able to prepare for today’s match.”
Japan’s extra groundwork paid dividends in front of a crowd of more than 52,000 as Endo put the hosts in front with a 12th minute header and Mitoma doubled that advantage on the stroke of halftime.
But it was in the second half that Moriyasu’s side cut loose, Minamino netting a pair of top class finishes before substitute Junya Ito hit the target with a deflected effort and then set up Maeda to head in the sixth. Kubo smashed the seventh home with seconds remaining.
The result means Japan sit on top of the early Group C standings alongside Bahrain, who handed Australia a late loss on the Gold Coast on Thursday to reinforce Moriyasu’s sense that there will be numerous challenges for the Samurai Blue along the Road to 26.
The Japanese travel to Manama to take on Dragan Talajic’s Bahrain side in their second qualifier of the current international window on Tuesday.
“The win in today’s match doesn’t guarantee that we will qualify or mean anything before the Bahrain game,” said Moriyasu. “We should not forget to prepare at our best going into the remaining matches.
“(The Australia-Bahrain) result confirms how difficult the first match in these Asian qualifiers can be and we should never feel relaxed. That’s how I feel.
“Ranking wise Australia should have won, but that doesn’t guarantee that you can always win. We always need to focus on the next game and do our best. And then repeat that exercise. I think the loss of Australia has given us that lesson again.
“In the next match, Bahrain will have momentum with that win today and it’s going to be a home game for them, so we just need to aware of that going into the match.
“Sometimes we need to play aggressively but sometimes we have to be very tolerant and play until the end, doing our best until the final whistle. It depends on the flow of the match.
“We have to be very flexible and maximise the ability of the individual players on the pitch.”
