Japan seal World Cup place
Japan became the first country to book their place at next year’s World Cup finals, other than hosts Germany, with a 2-0 win over North Korea today.
Goals from from Atsushi Yanagisawa and Masashi Oguro earned victory for the Asian champions, who will travel to their third consecutive finals.
The win guaranteed Japan a top-two finish in Group B of Asia’s qualifying competition and with it a place in next year’s finals in Germany.
Messina striker Yanagisawa struck 17 minutes from time after the North Korean defence struggled to clear Junichi Inamoto’s long ball into the centre and the former Kashima Antlers man slid in to score with his right foot.
Oguro guaranteed the victory for Japan just moments before the final whistle when he raced on to Makoto Tanaka’s through-ball before rounding Kim Myong Gil in the Korean goal.
With barely seconds left in the game, Tanaka was on the receiving end of a two-footed lunge from Kim Yong Su that earned the midfielder a direct red card as North Korea suffered a fifth straight World Cup qualifying defeat.
Despite earning Japan a third World Cup appearance, the victory was met with a muted response in the Supachalasai Stadium as the game was played behind closed doors in the Thai capital.
Governing body FIFA stripped the North Koreans of the right to host the game in Pyongyang following crowd trouble after their 2-0 defeat by Iran in March and ordered the match to take place without fans.
