OSAKA, Japan — Tunisia head coach
Jalel Kadri believes
his side can reach the World Cup knock-out round for the first time in six
attempts after pulling off an impressive 3–0 win over Japan on Tuesday.
اضافة اعلان
The North Africans have never made it past the group stage
of a World Cup but Kadri thinks this could be their year after second-half
goals from
Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane, Ferjani Sassi, and Issam Jebali saw off
Japan in Osaka.
Tunisia also beat Chile 2–0 in Kobe last Friday and Kadri
thinks they are building momentum before taking on holders France, Denmark, and
Australia in Qatar later this year.
"Our aim was to get to the
World Cup, but now that we
have achieved that we want to get to the knock-out round for the first time —
that's our goal," said the 50-year-old.
"We have France, Denmark, and Australia in our group
and that will be very difficult, but we want to make our dream come true and
get through to the knock-out round at the sixth time of asking."
Tunisia made
Japan pay for a profligate first half when
Romdhane opened the scoring from the penalty spot in the 55th minute.
A defensive slip-up from Japan let in Sassi for the second
goal in the 76th minute, before substitute Jebali rounded off a productive
night for the visitors with a break-away goal in injury time.
Tunisia arrived in Japan after playing two African Nations
Cup qualifiers this month and Kadri was pleased with how his players dealt with
the tight schedule.
"We've played four games in 12 days and that has been
very tough, but it's great that we were able to win," he said.
"Japan are a great team, especially technically and
tactically, and their players are very fast. Tactically we were very good
today, and we needed a lot of patience."
Japan have also qualified for the World Cup and went into
the game on the back of 4–1 friendly wins over
Paraguay and
Ghana and a narrow
1–0 defeat to Brazil.
Defensive mistakes cost the four-time Asian champions dearly
against Tunisia, with captain Maya Yoshida at fault for the visitors' first two
goals.
Manager
Hajime Moriyasu preferred to focus on the positives
from the four games and said he has "options" as he plans towards
Qatar.
"We were determined not to lose at home and give the
fans here something to cheer about, so it's disappointing that we couldn't do
that," he said.
"The result is very disappointing but I've been using a
lot of players in a lot of systems, so it's not the players' fault that the
circumstances have been difficult.
"The players have tried hard and we will take the
lessons from today and learn from them," he added.
Tunisia's victory meant they won the four-team Kirin Cup.
In the day's earlier game between the beaten semi-finalists,
Ghana beat Chile 3–1 on penalties after a 0–0 draw.
Ghana, who have also qualified for the World Cup, finished
the game with nine men after Alidu Seidu and Mubarak Wakaso were sent off.
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