Japan held the Netherlands to a 2-2 draw Sunday after a late equalizer in their Group F match at the 2026 FIFA World Cup at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Netherlands controlled much of the first half, pushing Japan back and repeatedly looking to use their height advantage through crosses and headers, but the Japanese defense held firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dutch captain Virgil van Dijk broke the deadlock in the 51st minute, heading in a pinpoint cross from Ryan Gravenberch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan responded six minutes later when Keito Nakamura drove toward the edge of the box and fired a shot into the corner to make it 1-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dutch regained the lead in the 64th minute through Crysencio Summerville, who dribbled across the top of the box before hammering the ball into the bottom corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan then took control as the Netherlands dropped deeper to protect their lead, patiently probing the Dutch defense for another equalizer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their pressure paid off in the 88th minute when Daichi Kamada delivered a cross for Koki Ogawa, who headed home to rescue a point for Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result left Japan top of Group F, with the Netherlands in second.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japan held the Netherlands to a 2-2 draw Sunday after a late equalizer in their Group F match at the 2026 FIFA World Cup at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Netherlands controlled much of the first half, pushing Japan back and repeatedly looking to use their height advantage through crosses and headers, but the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}