Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Brisbane: Man of the match Keisuke Honda's penalty helped Japan to their second straight AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015 Group D victory as the defending champions eked out a 1-0 win over Iraq on Friday.
Match highlights: Iraq 0-1 Japan
Click here for match summary
Honda netted from the spot midway through the opening half as Javier Aguirre's side stayed on top of the group with the maximum six points, three points more than Iraq and Jordan, who defeated Palestine 5-1 earlier in the day.
Japan's qualification for the quarter-finals rests on their last first round game on Tuesday in Melbourne against the Jordanians, who are third behind Iraq on goal difference.
Honda was involved in all of Japan's best moments in the first half, starting with a through ball for Shinji Kagawa that the Borussia Dortmund man fired wide in the 11th minute.
Iraq returned the favour four minutes later from a corner, Ahmed Ibrahim calling Eiji Kawashima into action with a soaring header the Standard Liege custodian managed to keep out.
Honda headed off the bottom of the right-hand post in the 17th minute before Yasuhito Endo, making his 150th appearance for Japan, started a sequence through the box that Kagawa should have finished on 21 minutes from close range.
A minute later, though, Aguirre's men managed to put themselves on the scoreboard as Honda was taken down in the area by Ali Adnan. Honda stepped up to the spot himself, converting for his second goal of the tournament to push the holders in front.
Shinji Okazaki, said to be on the shopping list of several Premier League clubs this winter, should have doubled Japan's lead after 33 minutes but missed a free header that kept the Iraqis within one goal going into half-time.
Two minutes after the break, Honda picked up where he left off in the first half, smashing against the crossbar with his weaker right foot from 20 yards out, and he had the best chance of the game four minutes past the hour that should have all but ended the contest.
Substitute Hiroshi Kioytake, who gave Japan a lift after coming on, set up Honda with a slick pass across the face of the goal but the AC Milan man, despite being completely free at the far post, somehow uncharacteristically missed, hitting the upright.
Japan continued to flirt with the idea of scoring a second but came up short before the final whistle ended what turned out to be a relatively tame meeting between the winners of the last two Asian Cups.
Photo: WSG