BUKIT JALIL, Oct 4 — Japan head coach praised Jun Nishikawa for his calming presence in their second half against Australia. The forward gave Australia so much trouble they eventually lost 3-1 to give Japan their first ever finals appearance since 2006.
After going down to a Noah Botic penalty in the eighth minute — Japan who made seven changes compared to their quarterfinals against Oman — took the lead from two goals in the 59th and 69th minutes through Shoji Toyama before Shunsuke Mito added a third with 12 minutes left to play.
"Many of the players are tired after a gruelling campaign and I decided to let those who haven't played much prove themselves with some minutes under their belt today (Thursday)," said Japan head coach Moriyama Yoshiro during the post-match press conference.
"When Nishikawa came on, the level of play improved. He has a calming presence on field and the other boys followed his lead.
"We couldn't steal the ball from Australia in the first half so during half time I told the boys they have more stamina than their opponents so they need to be confident in their abilities."
Japan's had an indifferent start in all their matches except against Malaysia in the group stage.
They went down a goal in the first minute in their opening match against Thailand eventually winning 5-2. They then drew 0-0 with Tajikistan before beating Malaysia 2-0. Then came the Oman game where they took the lead through an own goal in the 14th minute only to concede eight minutes later.
It took another super-sub performance from Toyama who got the winning goal in the 81st minute to take them to the semis.
"It's not our intention to start slowly," joked Moriyama.
"That's one of the areas we need to improve. It's not easy to keep coming from behind to win but what I notice is our players know how to adjust well to different situations.
"This will hold them in good stead."
Japan await the winners of the South Korea and Tajikistan match at 8.30pm today to see who they'll meet in the finals on Sunday.
The AFC Under-16 championships — which serves as the Asian Qualifiers for the 2019 Fifa U-17 World Cup with the top four teams representing Asia in Peru — is hosted by Malaysia for the first time.
Japan will be looking to add to their 1994 and 2006 titles.
