Australia look to ruin Japan’s World Cup party

Defender Kye Rowles believes Australia will be energised by the hostile environment in Saitama as they look to halt Japan’s juggernaut charge towards the 2026 World Cup in an Asian qualifier today.
The Socceroos have built up a fierce rivalry with the Samurai Blue since switching to the Asian confederation in 2006, even if it has been somewhat one-sided in favour of the Japanese in recent years. Today, Rowles and his teammates will face a partisan crowd of around 60,000 at Saitama Stadium willing Japan on to a fourth straight win in Group C of the third round of Asian qualifying.
“We’ve played in some pretty hostile crowds together as a group,” the centre-half said . “I think hostile crowds really get you going in a different way than home crowds. Home crowds makes it all nice and pretty and you’ve got the support and it gives you that confidence. The hostile crowds really get your back up and you go, ‘well now I’m not letting you have a party. I’m going to try and ruin it’. So look, our mentality is to go out there and try and ruin their party.”
Japan have been in irrepressible form in the third round of qualifying as they target an eighth straight visit to the World Cup finals, thrashing China 7-0 and Bahrain 5-0 before beating Saudi Arabia 2-0 in Jeddah last Thursday. Australia, looking to lock up a berth at a sixth successive finals by finishing in the top two in Group C, have just a single win and a draw after being upset by Bahrain at home in their opener and held 0-0 by Indonesia in Jakarta.
Rowles, though, thinks they showed enough in the 3-1 win over China in new coach Tony Popovic’s first match in charge last week to suggest a first win over Japan in their last 10 meetings might be on the cards. “Obviously, the last few years they’ve had our number,” he added. “There was plenty of positives Thursday (so) hopefully we can flip the script a little bit and put in a good performance and get one back on them. We just want to go out there and know that if we put in the best performance we can, it gives us a good shot of giving them a red hot crack.”
Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu moved to quash any sense of complacency against Australia. “Data doesn’t make us win tomorrow’s match,” Moriyasu said through an interpreter. “Whatever the data shows, we have prepared best for tomorrow’s match at home. We want to make sure that we have the best performance tomorrow. Data tells us that we probably have an advantage, however, when I think about the situation of the Socceroos, even if the data says that they haven’t been doing too well until now, the head coach has changed and they will do their best; they will challenge themselves and they will probably throw themselves at us.
He added: “We have to prepare for that. And for the players, of course, it is important for players to be cautious but I also tell them to be confident. I tell them to try even more than they have been trying, and that is our challenge.”