Japan have defied expectations to reach the knockout stages of this year’s World Cup, but despite being at the business end of the tournament and with two of the first four last 16 encounters going to penalties, coach Akira Nishino admits his team haven’t practised spot kicks.
Russia and Croatia both progressed to the quarter-finals on Sunday following thrilling and tense climaxes to their contests, with the hosts heroically knocking out 2010 champions Spain and Croatia beating Denmark from 12 yards – Real Madrid pivot Luka Modric scoring in the shootout after he had earlier seen a penalty saved by Kasper Schmeichel in the final minutes of extra time.
“We’ve never practised penalty kicks as a team,” Nishino told reporters on Sunday in Russia, the Sankei Shimbun daily said, claiming it was impossible to recreate the pressure players would feel in a real penalty situation.
“I don’t think it is really useful to practise for a penalty shootout. Individual players who wanted to be ready trained on their own, but not as a team.”
After a poor run-up to the tournament, few people expected Japan to get very far, with most predicting they would not make it out of their group.
But despite the team’s success, Nishino has endured stinging criticism for instructing players to run down the clock and settle for a 1-0 defeat against Poland, knowing it was enough to advance – even though they only progressed in place of Senegal because of a better fair play record.
They squeezed into the knockout rounds because they had picked up two fewer yellow cards.
