The Whole Delivery

Photo From Imago  Projected Lineup                              Kawashima  Uchida    Yoshida    Morishige/Konno   Nagatomo                         Yamaguchi    Endo            Honda              Kagawa         Kakitani                                    Okazaki     The Runthrough Buoyed by a comprehensive 2011 AFC Cup title, Japan exhibited at last summer's Confederations Cup its greatest collection of attacking talent in its nations' history. That was firmly evident in a contest against Italy in which they placed Cesare Prandelli's defense under constant duress with a myriad of exciting waves...

Photo from Getty Images and Fifa.com The Final Analysis: Well, this was one contest where the protagonists were clearly the managers. For Takeshi Okada, much criticism was labeled on him . And his lineup for today certainly raised a few eyebrows and garnered much criticism. It was very conservative, leaving the likes of Shunsuke Nakamura, Atsuto Uchida and Takayuki Morimoto out of the lineup. But it worked like a masterstroke. Who knows if Uchida would have gotten out of position on defense, allowing the likes of Eto'o and Webo to go into space and capitalize. And who knows if Honda would have worked that hard like he did today with that lineup, or if Japan would have frustrated the midfield for Cameroon today. He got his tactics spot on, for sure. But as Okada was the manager's man today, the opposite can be said of his counterpart. Paul Le Gren will be feeling the heart for his terrible tactics today. Eto'o in the "hole" behind Webo and alongside Choupo-Mot...