Match № 14

The match № 14, group C, fourth tournament day

GREECE – JAPAN 0:1 (0:0)

January 6th, 2014, St. Petersburg, Peterburgsky SCC, 200 spectators

Referees: Gennady Anoshin, Igor Korotkov, Pavel Novikov

Greece: Kotsaris, Saliakas (c), Toufas (Koutsopodiotis, 90), Oikonomou, Gialamidis, Tzanoulinos (Deligiannidis, 57), Koulouris (Athanasiadis, 86), Neumann (Piastopoulos, 90), Tsolakidis, Ktistopoulos (Margaritis, 70), Kanavetas (Fasidis, 57)

Head coach: Theodoros Pachatouridis

Japan: Hayashi, Yamaguchi, Motegi, Matsubara (Kitagawa, 59), Uryu (Nakano, 68), Takagi (Sugimoto, 81), Watanabe (Okugawa, 88), Sakai, Misao (c), Shindo, Miyamoto (Suzuki, 75)

Head coach: Atsushi Uchiyama

Goal: Shindo (90)

Failed penalty kick: Watanabe (74, goalkeeper)

Yellow cards: Saliakas (10), Koulouris (63), Neumann (77)

Best players: Marios Tzanoulinos, Ryosuke Shindo

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After match comments

Head coach of the team Greece Theodoros Pachatouridis:

– I can't say our performance was worse. We made rather good passes, though we lacked effectiveness in finishing attacks and accuracy in striking the gate. But unfortunately, in football the fact you control the ball doesn't mean you will win.

– Your number 9 took the position of an obvious central forward, but, in fact, he played more as a midfielder, receiving balls with his back to the gate and passing them down to his partners. The partners, however, failed to receive these passes and there was nobody to strike the gates. Can it be the reason of fail in scoring?

– I don't quite agree with you. First of all, we can't play with one forward when we have eleven players on the pitch. And second, I've counted at least six scoring attacks which just lacked the final point.

– In the last match – against Azerbaijan – you managed to score during the added time, playing ten. Now, again during the added time, you missed a goal. Which of them was fairer?

– In that game, although shorthanded, we played to the end and we managed to level the score. And today it was a great pity. Our goalkeeper has cleared the penalty kick, but we let in another ball and couldn't help it. It was a very good free kick, and the goalkeeper just couldn't save.

Head coach of the team Japan Atsushi Uchiyama:

– It often happens in football, having many scoring chances does not mean that you will score. Today we had such game. We had scoring moments, failed them, but continued to play and finally we caught the luck.

– Your team played very nice football in the first match: fast movement, trained schemes of play and passes in one touch. Today the style of your team changed. Why did it happen?

– Today we tried 6 new players on the field. All aspects you are talking about depend on individual skills, so with the changes in the line-up we changed the style.

– Your player failed the penalty kick, was it overexcitement?

– It is normal for players on the tournament of such level to be nervous and excited. So let's think it was overexcitement.

– Your players weren't so active today, may be the reason is your long flight from Japan and the acclimatization of the team?

– The championship in Japan ends in the middle of December. So there was a break and physical conditions are not perfect. We improve our physics step by step, but players for sure cannot show their best right now. The difference of time zones doesn't matter much.