Japan off to a winning start
Japan won its first World Cup match outside Japan when they beat Cameroon 1-nil in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Group E match.
The goal scored in the first half was enough for a team that had failed to win in all its five pre-World Cup friendlies.
In that same group the Netherlands scored two second half goals against Denmark to top the group on goal difference.
In Group F, the defending champions Italy managed a draw having gone a goal down in the first half. The other match in that group will see New Zealand play Slovakia.
After the New Zealand/Slovakia Group G fixtures will kick in with with Ivory Coast playing Portugal and Brazil entertaining North Korea.
The most popular scoreline so far has been 1-nil and so this is confirmed with the goal margins in the following table:
Goal Margin | Frequency |
---|---|
0 | 4 |
1 | 4 |
2 | 2 |
4 | 1 |
With just five matches in this round to go, no losing team has so far managed to score a goal.
All the winning teams have maintained clean sheets and lets see if the remaining five matches can maintain that.
Japan certainly wouldn’t have had my vote before the World Cup, but they may do quite well.
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Yes, Japan surprised a few people with this win and maybe the most surprised were Cameroon themselves.