2011 Asian Cup – Japan will win it!

The football fan in me doesn’t only get excited every four years when the FIFA World Cup of rolls around. I keep up to date with most major regional tournaments like the Africa Cup of Nations, European Championships and my region’s own CONCACAF Gold Cup – which should start later this year. The 2011 AFC Asian Cup will start this week and are you surprised and who I biasly (not a word)  predict will win in? JAPAN!

Japan had an excellent world cup last year, they qualified for the last 16 by beating Cameroon and clobbered Denmark before falling to Paraguay on penalties. The Asian Cup though should be a tournament they can win as they have done it in 1992 (as hosts), 2000, and 2004. Their main rivals are expected to be South Korea, Iran, Australia and Saudi Arabia, but with the way the groups are set up things should go well if they win the matches when they are supposed to.

More on Jamaipanese.com:  Japanese High School Kids enjoy visit to Jamaica

Japan’s Group

Japan is in group B with Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, below are the group stage matches for Group B:

9th January – Japan v. Jordan
9th January – Saudi Arabia v. Syria
13th January – Jordan v. Saudi Arabia
13th January – Syria v. Japan
17th January – Jordan v. Syria
17th January – Saudi Arabia v. Japan

According to my blogging pal Lee, this Blue Samurai supporter looks like an angry sperm!

Players to watch

Keisuke Honda has emerged from the World Cup in South Africa as Japan’s best player and it can be argued that Japan has the best midfield in the entire tournament. One of their young strikers Shinji Kagawa seems to have come into form at the right time with his 12 goals in 27 appearances this season helping is club side Borussia Dortmund to sit atop the competitive Bundesliga after 17 games with a 10 point cushion.

More on Jamaipanese.com:  Operation Visit Japan - a lesson about Personal Goal Setting

Will you be following the 2011 Asian Cup? Who do you think will win? I know I have a few readers from Australia, do you think the Socceroos stand a chance against the Blue Samurai?

[japan]

4 thoughts on “2011 Asian Cup – Japan will win it!

  1. lol The Red Devils have a fighting shot…Park Jisung ftw. lol of course I also love my Japan. no doubt.

  2. still recovering from the angry sperm image.

    being an aussie i should naturally say socceroos ftw! but they play iraq tonight and i am still suffering trauma from when i traveled to thailand to watch them play in the 2007 asian cup at rajamangala national stadium bangkok where they were slaughtered by the iraqis!

    1. wooohooo! thanks to the wizard of oz harry kewell, australia are now on the path to a showdown with the japanese in the Asian Cup Final. just one more hurdle… uzbekistan… that is where borat comes from, right?

Comments are closed.