J-League stars lead Blue Samurai to victory

Lead by goals from Urawa Red Diamonds Tatsuya Tanaka and Marcus Tulio Tanaka and Nagoya Grampus Keiji Tamada, Japan defeated Qatar 3-0 in World Cup qualifying. Takeshi Okada’s Blue Samurai opened the scoring at the nineteenth minute as twenty year-old Atsuto Uchida (Kashima Antlers) crossed to Tatsuya Tanaka (Urawa Red Diamonds) who nutted Qatar ‘keeper Mohamed Saqr. Showing great patience the Blue Samurai controlled play and didn’t allow a reasonable goal scoring attempt towards veteran ‘keeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi (Júbilo Iwata) throughout the balance of the half. Two minutes after the restart Wolfsburg’s Makoto Hasebe found an open Keiji Tamada (Nagoya Grampus) who drove the ball to the back of the net from the top of the area. The Nippon attack thirsted for more goals, with Yoshito Okubo (Vissel Kobe) narrowly missing just before the hour mark but with twenty-one minutes remaining Celtic’s Shunsuke Nakamura crossed perfectly to Marcus Tulio Tanaka (Urawa Red Diamonds), who subsequently nodded into the back of the net to make it 3-0. Japan continued to press for more goals but they fell short and the match concluded with a powerful 3-0 victory.