Japan forward Yuki Otsu broke away from his marker during a corner in the 34th minute and the ball landed right at his feet for a simple tap-in past Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea. Spain, reduced to 10 men a few minutes after the goal, never managed to get back into the game after that.
“It was an important win for us,” captain Maya Yoshida said. “Spain are a very strong team in the group and we played well against them. We worked really hard and we will enjoy our victory. We can get a lot of confidence from this.”
The quick and creative Japanese took full advantage of the extra man, unleashing wave after wave of attack.
“It feels good to have beaten Spain,” Japan forward Kensuke Nagai said. “We have never beaten them before at any level. We look forward to now trying to get to the next stage (of the tournament).”
The loss was a huge blow for Spain’s under-23 team, who wants to win Olympic gold to add to the World Cup and European Championship titles held by the country’s full national team.
But the defeat wasn’t insurmountable.
Spain, touted as one of the favourites to win a gold medal, will now look to the national side’s experience at the 2010 World Cup for inspiration. Spain lost its first group stage match in South Africa to Switzerland, but went on to win the tournament.
The Olympic side has two more matches to turn it around, against Group D opponents Honduras and Morocco.
“Our aim is to win both of them. We have to,” forward Juan Mata said. “We need to improve some things and we have to play better.”
SOUTH KOREA 0, MEXICO 0
South Korea wasted a number of scoring chances against Mexico as the two teams opened Group B at the Olympics with a 0-0 draw in Newcastle, England.
With forward Giovani Dos Santos on the bench from the start, Mexico showed little promise of being a medal contender as its opponent dominated at St. James Park.
Both teams struggled to find their rhythm on the slippery turf, but the tempo picked up in the second half, which saw more scoring occasions.
Koo Jacheol came close to breaking the deadlock in the 53rd minute as the South Korea captain swiveled to send a volley off the crossbar. Koo headed the game’s best chance wide in the 80th after getting free inside the box.
Mexico next plays Gabon on Sunday, when South Korea faces Switzerland.
URUGUAY 2, U.A.E. 1
Substitute Nicolas Lodeiro scored in the second half to give Uruguay a 2-1 victory over the United Arab Emirates Thursday in Manchester.
Playing in front of a near capacity Old Trafford Stadium, the Emirates took the lead on the 23rd minute and looked the better side for much of the first half.
But with four minutes to go before the break, Uruguay’s Gaston Ramirez curled the ball into the top right-hand corner of the net from a free kick after Liverpool striker Luis Suarez was brought down.
Lodeiro came on for the second half and fired in from 55 minutes from close range following a fluid Uruguayan move down the left flank.
Uruguay is seen as possible medal contender in this year’s games. It placed fourth in the 2010 World Cup and won the Copa America title in Argentina in 2011.
MOROCCO 2, HONDURAS 2
Ten-man Morocco held on for a 2-2 draw against Honduras in Glasgow in the men’s football Group D opener at the Olympics.
Morocco opened the scoring in the 39th minute with a superb volley from Abdelaziz Barrada. Honduras equalized in the 56th with a tap-in from Jerry Bengtson, who then converted a penalty in the 65th to give the Central American team a 2-1 lead.
But Honduras’s advantage only lasted two minutes, with Morocco forward Zakaria Labyad chipping the goalkeeper from inside the area. Morocco left back Zakarya Bergdich was then shown a straight red card in the 71st for kicking Mario Martinez in the left knee, but Honduras couldn’t take advantage.
Morocco’s opener came after Bergdich’s pass was headed down by forward Zakaria Labyad near the edge of the area. The ball took a bounce before Barrada blasted it past the Honduras goalkeeper from about 20 yards.
Honduras equalized after Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa made a blazing run down the left and fired a hard shot into the penalty area that Bengtson redirected past the Morocco goalkeeper.
The first half mainly was mainly a midfield battle, with Morocco threatening several times on counter attacks.
Honduras plays Spain next, while Morocco takes on Japan. Both matches are in Newcastle on Sunday.
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The soccer team was hoping to bend over, take their Japanese paddy whacks and still pull out a draw. Instead, it turned into that favourite of my parents — an instructive beating.
London 2012 did just as poorly, but without the underdog pluck.
Unlike the competitors, they don’t get a couple of rest days to figure this thing out. The hurricane is right on top of them now. Strangely, it appears to have taken them by surprise.
On the first day of competition here, Canada did as they habitually do against better teams at big tournaments — they ran themselves ragged and lost.
RECAP: Cathal Kelly’s live game blog
World champion Japan tallied twice in the first half after exhausting their opponents, and then weathered a few brief bursts of Canadian mettle in the second. It had the feeling of a small, lovable creature struggling in the jaws of a snake. The 2-1 scoreline flattered the losers.
Then that old saw — it’s early goin’ yet.
“I thought Canada dominated the game from start to finish,” Canadian manager John Herdman began his press conference. As malicious, overjoyed leers began working their way across the collective face of the press corps, he added: “Just kidding.”
That was fun. But then it was back to the familiar — a big pat on the back for all involved for losing with such class. Herdman also issued an ominous warning about the games ahead: “You have to keep your expectations real.”
You know who’s never said something like that? An Olympic medallist.
Canada will now face very beatable South Africa and finish with their Scandinavian doppelganger, Sweden. They must win that first encounter and pull something from the second to ensure advancement.
“Moral victories aren’t going to get us into the next round,” that rare type on this team — a straight-talking realist — Diana Matheson said afterward. In a very meta way, recognizing that fact was itself a moral victory.
It’s probably unfair to judge this team at this juncture (though this loss feels eerily like their first loss at the World Cup last summer, and that was the high point).
Given the way their press proxies roughed us up in Vancouver, we’re not going to extend that courtesy to London 2012’s party planners.
Wednesday was their first chance to say a real ‘Hello’ to their visitors. Up here in the Midlands, it was the dinner party that started with a full-body pat-down. Then there was no dinner.
At the media entrance, the metal detector was malfunctioning. Frazzled security staff were tossing through bags like cloakroom thieves. At one point, they were poking through wallets. However, once you passed that point, visitors were allowed to wander out onto the pitch to find their seats.
“I’m dealing with a media issue,” the media handler said as he stormed past the confused media. He never came back.
This was princely in comparison to the treatment of the paying customers. Visitors were forced to upend their totes and purses so that they could be rummaged through. Then the contents were transferred to clear, plastic bags for the walk into the stadium. Once inside the doors, families sprawled across the floor, transferring all manner of objects you wouldn’t want everyone in the world to see, much less touch, back into their proper bags.
“Bit of a waste of time, really,” one British teenager shrugged.
Where was that kid when they were coming up with London 2012 mottos?
The IOC won’t care about that. They will care that 90 minutes before kickoff, all of the cash registers at City of Coventry Stadium’s concession stands were malfunctioning. Customers eyed all those delicious pastry-wrapped internal organs, but could not purchase a one. It was tragic. So much congealing. So many heart attacks only delayed.
At kickoff, perhaps only 6,000 or 7,000 of the 14,000 ticketholders were in their seats. Many were surely delayed by the 1984-style security. Many more were doubtless put off by a rail accident that delayed the London-to-Coventry route for hours.
Tragedies on the train line aren’t the fault of organizers. But it has been my experience that bad luck tends to find those most deserving of it.
This is not the time to rehash all the problems in the lead-up — no newspaper has that kind of space and it’s pointless now.
But suddenly those problems aren’t just nominal. They’re happening. And they threaten to drain a lot of the joy out of this enterprise.
Given that, London 2012 might do as an athlete does when faced with a losing game — they change it.
Having foolishly ignored so many well-intentioned warnings beforehand, changing now is probably not something the pride of the organizers of these Games could bear.
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