Japan, South Korea celebrate World Cup qualification with big wins

AFP | Osaka

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Crystal Palace forward Daichi Kamada scored twice for Japan and Paris Saint Germain’s Lee Kang-in netted for South Korea as the Asian giants rounded off successful World Cup qualifying campaigns in style yesterday.

Japan romped to a 6-0 thrashing of Patrick Kluivert’s Indonesia in Osaka, while South Korea cruised to a 4-0 win over Kuwait in Seoul where fans were treated to a late appearance by their idol Son Heung-min.

FA Cup winner Kamada struck twice in the first half for already qualified Japan, who finished as Group C winners.

Takefusa Kubo, Ryoya Morishita, Shuto Machino and substitute Mao Hosoya were also on target against Indonesia, who came fourth in the group and moved on to a further qualifying round.

Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu has set the ambitious target of winning next year’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

His side will play friendlies against teams from outside Asia over the next 12 months and Kamada is looking to learn from the experience.

“Playing against Asian teams and against the kind of European teams who will be at the World Cup is totally different,” said the 28-year-old.

“As we play these games, we will start to see a lot of areas where we need to improve. We need to come together as a team and overcome these problems when they crop up.”

Moriyasu said his players need to keep improving “in all departments” and praised their attitude against Indonesia.

“The challenge for the players is to break past their limits and grow,” he said.

Iran and Uzbekistan are already through to next year’s finals from Group A and Jordan will finish second in Group B to South Korea, who secured qualification last week with a game to spare. Jeon Jin-woo, who plays in the K-League for Jeonbuk, gave South Korea a 1-0 half-time lead against Kuwait in Seoul.

The Koreans took control after the break with strikes from European-based trio Lee Kangin of PSG, Oh Hyeon-gyu of Belgium’s Genk and Lee Jae-sung of German Club Mainz 05.