Italy vs Japan
Football: FIFA Confederations Cup, group A
Match date: 20 June 2013 - Kick Off Time: 22:00 GMT
Venue: Arena Pernambuco (Recife)
Match date: 20 June 2013 - Kick Off Time: 22:00 GMT
Venue: Arena Pernambuco (Recife)
Referee: Diego Abal (ARG)
On Wednesday night, Italy and Japan lock horns in a Group A Confederations Cup fixture at the Arena Pernambuco both keen to get a win.
Italy won their first game of the FIFA Confederations Cup against Mexico
with 2:1. Andrea Pirlo made the first goal for Italy after 28 minutes,
the Mexican forward Chicharito levelled the score with a penalty a view
minutes later. Italys super star Mario Balotelli made the 2:1 for his
team after 78 minutes. From the last five games, the team from manager
Claudio Prandelli won three legs, for example the qualification game for
the World Cup in 2014 against Malta and the friendly leg against San
Marino. The legs against Czech Republic and Malta ended draw. If Italy
wins the game against Japan, they got excellent chances to reach the
next round of the tournament.
Japan - who recently qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup with a 1-1
draw against Australia - slumped to a 3-0 defeat against host nation and
three-time winners Brazil.They have no new injuries to report. Zaccheroni could well deploy
Ryoichi Maeda up front and push Stuttgart's Shinji Okazaki out wide.Japan have played against European opposition three times in previous
Confederations Cups, with all of those games seeing a winning side with
just a one-goal margin. In the Italy v Japan head to head, there has only been one previous
meeting between the two nations, and that ended in a 1-1 draw. That was
an international friendly all the way back in 2001 in Saitama, Japan.
Possible line-ups:
Italy (4-3-2-1)(Manager: Claudio Prandelli): Buffon – Abate, Barzagli, Bonucci, Chiellini – De Rossi, Pirlo, Montolivo – Giaccherini, Marchisio – Balotelli.
Japan (4-2-3-1)(Manager: Alberto Zaccheroni): Kawashima – Uchida, Konno, Yoshida, Nagatomo – Hasebe, Endo – Okazaki, Honda, Kagawa – Maeda.
The channels showing the match:
Turkish TRT 1, Swiss SF2, RTE One, ORF 1, Italian Sky Sport 1, Canvas (Belgium), Al Jazeera Sports - HD 1, Al Jazeera Sports +9, Al Jazeera Sports +10, Al Jazeera Sports - HD 2.