ARLINGTON, Texas — Japan booked a World Cup date with record five-time champions Brazil after a 1-1 draw with Sweden on Thursday that sent both teams to the knockout stage.
Daizen Maeda gave Japan the lead in the 56th minute and Anthony Elanga took it away six minutes later.
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Japan are advancing out of the group stage for the third consecutive World Cup and fifth time in seven tries since first reaching the round of 16 as co-hosts in 2002. The Japanese team finished second in Group F behind the Netherlands and will play Brazil in Houston on Monday in the round of 32.
“For the good of football in Japan, I think it would be a very good experience,” coach Hajime Moriyasu said through a translator of his 16th-ranked team facing No. 5 Brazil. “We do believe there’s a chance for us to win. And then we hope that we will be able to move one step further move on to the next stage.”
The Swedes have advanced to the knockout round the past four times they’ve qualified for the World Cup going back to 1994 — when they reached the semifinals the last time the U.S. hosted soccer’s biggest event.
Sweden will have to wait to find out its opponent in the round of 32 next week.
“We have to probably recover the players first and make sure that physically we’re in a good place for whoever we play,” coach Graham Potter said. “We’ve got to be on our toes in terms of logistics. I would say if you had said to me when we first came that would be the challenge we’d face, I would have absolutely taken it.”
Elanga’s impressive left-footed strike from just outside the right corner of the box in the 62nd minute was his second goal of this year’s tournament. Elanga has scored only three goals in 49 games for Newcastle, but zero in 32 Premier League matches.
Six minutes earlier, Maeda settled a nifty pass from Ritsu Doan with his left foot in the penalty area and easily beat Jacob Widell Zetterström with his right foot.
It was Japan’s seventh goal of the tournament, the country’s most for an entire World Cup. That topped the six the Japanese scored while reaching the round of 16 in Russia eight years ago.
Elanga had another chance in injury time, with his right-footed attempted forcing goalkeeper Zion Suzuki to make a diving deflection.
On the ensuing corner kick, Suzuki deflected Alexander Isak’s header into the air and eventually ended the scoring chance with a leaping grab in a crowd of players.
The Blue Samurai’s bag-waving, chanting fans among 70,137 at the sold-out home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys were persistent as a scoreless game dragged into the second half. Japan seemed content to sit back and play for a draw that would have guaranteed the same spot in the knockout round as a win.
Just like that, things changed when Doan put Maeda in perfect position to score.
Elanga wasn’t anywhere near scoring range, but Suzuki appeared screened and reacted late as the shot beat him to the far post.
Just three minutes later, Isak was inside the penalty area with a great scoring chance, but Suzuki deflected it wide and over the end line, angrily gesturing toward some of his teammates as Sweden lined up for another corner kick. The Swedes had eight corner kicks to only two for Japan.
The Netherlands won the Group F thanks to a 3-1 victory over Tunisia and will face Morocco in the next round on Monday in Monterrey, Mexico
“We’re really happy about [topping the group] because that’s what our aim was,” Dutch defender Jan Paul Van Hecke said.
“I am not sure Morocco is going to play the same as Tunisia because they were with 11 men behind the ball, but we need to be more secure on the ball and make sure we don’t make mistakes,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
