Nakamura ready for Australia test

February 5, 2009

Shunsuke Nakamura has said he is ready for a tough battle against Australia next week in what is a vital game for qualification for the 2010 World Cup .

“I don’t mind if we have to get ugly. We will go for three points for a win,” the 30-year-old midfielder.

“Most of the Australian team have played in strong European clubs for many years and they are at high levels,”

“I don’t think we will have such a beautiful formula in which we can make a number of good passes and score goals.

“We’ll go back to the defensive as soon as we lose the ball. We will be quick in starting set plays. We want to care about such small details,”

Nakamura was allowed to miss Celtics Scottish Cup game on Saturday so that he has longer to prepare for the match with Australia.

In Asian qualifying Group A, Australia leads the table with a perfect nine points from three wins without having conceded a goal. Japan is in second place with seven points and Qatar has four points. Bahrain and Uzbekistan each has one point.

Nakamura said he well remembered how Japan lost to Australia 3-1 at the group stage in the 2006 World Cup finals when all the Socceroo goals came in the final nine minutes.

“We will never repeat the same mistake,” said the left-footed master of place kicks.

He thanked Celtic for allowing him to skip the weekend tie at home against second-division side Queen’s Park.

“The sooner I start training with the (national) team the better I can communicate with them,”

Okada is under a bit of pressure after Japan lost to Bahrain in the qualification for the 2011 Asian Cup on Wednesday. He only called up Japan based players but he has now called up 4 Europe based players for the game with Australia.

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