Ueda inspires Japan to eliminate Tunisia in landmark 1,000th World Cup match
Perhaps the manager was not the problem after all. Tunisia sacked Sabri Lamouchi after the 5-1 defeat against Sweden last week, appointing Hervé Renard as their seventh manager since qualifying began. But it turned out a diffident side lacking defensive conviction are a diffident side lacking defensive conviction whoever has to do the press conferences. Tunisia were well beaten by a Japan side inspired by the Feyenoord centre-forward Ayase Ueda, who scored twice and led the line with intelligence and imagination.
Renard had only three days with his players. He may have performed heroics to win the Africa Cup of Nations with Zambia in 2012 and three years later become the first manager to win a Cups of Nations with two different teams as he ended Côte d’Ivoire’s 23-year trophy drought. But he is not, as he has stressed, “a magician”.
Attempts to break into the mainstream of French football with Sochaux, Lille and the France women’s team have faltered and the 57‑year‑old seems to have accepted that his role now is with aspirant nations in Africa and the Middle East rather than at the apex of the European game. Renard still wears his trademark white shirt but whatever luck it may once have brought seems to have worn off. Not that this mess could, in any realistic sense, be blamed on Renard. He’s just the well-remunerated sap paid to try to explain how Tunisia are out of the World Cup already.
In the end, Renard simply seemed resigned. “We were hoping for a better reaction, a better performance,” he said. “Unfortunately the score was heavy, but this reflects the difference between the teams. Today we were lacking good defensive organisation. In the first 20 minutes of the second half we were more rigorous but this was not enough.”
This was a landmark game for the World Cup, the 1,000th game in its history. What began in chilly Montevideo with simultaneous matches between France and Mexico and the USA and Belgium has arrived, 96 years later, in steamy Monterrey with the largest victory for an Asian side in the tournament’s history.
