March 12, 2004

Japan could be at full strength with their European-based football stars when they come down to Singapore for their Fifa World Cup qualifier match but Albirex Niigata coach Hiroshi Ohashi felt it is not an advantage if it happen.

He felt the Japanese stars could become liabilities, as the players in Europe will not have enough time to prepare with the team. They will be tired from the long flight & adapting to the humid weather in Singapore will become another problem for the European-based players.

Japan has players such as Hidetoshi Nakata (Bologna), Junichi Inamoto (Fulham), Shunsuke Nakamura (Reggina) & Shinji Ono (Feyenoord) playing in Europe.

Still Hiroshi Ohashi is confident that Japan will prevail as Singapore must depend on Indra Sahdan & Ahmad Latiff to be at their best for Singapore to have any impact.

Under Zico, Japan record is 9 wins, 6 draws & 6 losses