Wellington: Hinata Miyazawa scored twice and set up another as Japan stunned Spain 4-0 at the Women’s World Cup on Monday to set up a clash with Norway in the knockout stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Japanese delivered a lesson in clinical counter-attacking and led 3-0 at half-time to issue a World Cup warning against one of the title favourites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2011 champions Japan topped the group to play another former winner in Norway while Spain will face Switzerland in the last 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miyazawa’s brace took her to four goals for the tournament while Riko Ueki and Mina Tanaka bagged the others for a hugely impressive Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boasting a host of European club stars, Spain dominated possession in front of a crowd of 20,957 in Wellington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But they didn’t create a single clear chance as Japan soaked up pressure and broke with pace, with lethal effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a tactical masterclass from Japan coach Futoshi Ikeda, whose team denied space and time to Barcelona stars Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Spanish team, with that kind of offence, we decided to respond with a compact defence,” Ikeda said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Once we recovered the ball, we tried to attack to the maximum at speed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan’s three first-half attempts resulted in three blistering goals as their speedy front line took advantage of a disorganised Spanish defence missing injured captain Ivana Andres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Japan’s first win in five attempts over Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their 11 goals is the most by any team at the tournament while they’re one of four sides yet to concede a goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miyazawa is also the tournament’s leading scorer, although she was denied a chance to add to her four goals when replaced at halftime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A beaming Miyazawa said leading the race for the golden boot was a surprise and a “great pleasure”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I never imagined it. All of the goals are because of the other players giving me the right passes. So it’s everybody’s goal, not just me,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With both teams having already qualified after coasting past pool opponents Zambia and Costa Rica, sixth-ranked Spain were considered the favourites to top the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only needing a draw to do so, the Europeans controlled the ball for long periods but they had few answers when their opponents broke with speed.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wellington: Hinata Miyazawa scored twice and set up another as Japan stunned Spain 4-0 at the Women’s World Cup on Monday to set up a clash with Norway in the knockout stage. The Japanese delivered a lesson in clinical counter-attacking and led 3-0 at half-time to issue a World Cup warning against one of the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6168","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\/6168"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}