Socceroos v Japan: World Cup qualification on the line tonight

JAPAN has scored a 2-0 win over Australia in their World Cup qualifier tonight. See how we covered the game in our blog here:

JAPAN outclassed the Socceroos to win 2-0 in their World Cup qualifier in Tokyo tonight.

Goals in the 41st and 81st minutes put the game out of reach for Australia. The Socceroos are still a chance of automatic qualification for Russia and now head to Melbourne where they will play Thailand on Tuesday night in the final match of qualifying. WORLD CUP QUALIFIER JAPAN 2 (Asano 41’, Ideguchi 81’) def AUSTRALIA 0 At Saitama Stadium Crowd: 59,492 LINE-UPS SAMURAI BLUE (4-3-3): Kawashima; H. Sakai, Yoshida, Shoji, Nagatomo; Hasebe, Yamaguchi, Ideguchi; Asano (Kubo 89’), Inui (Haraguchi 75’), Osako (Okazaki 87’). SOCCEROOS (3-2-4-1): Ryan; Milligan, Sainsbury, Spiranovic; Leckie, Smith; Irvine (Amini 86;), Luongo; Troisi (Juric 61’), Rogic (Cahill 70’); Kruse. MATT WINDLEY’S MAN OF THE MATCH YUYA OSAKO (JAPAN) Could have gone to plenty of his Japanese teammates, but opening goalscorer Osako was a livewire all night. GROUP B STANDINGS - / P / W / D / L / GD / Pts Japan 9 6 2 1 +11 20 Saudi Arabia 9 5 1 3 +6 16 Australia 9 4 4 1 +4 16 UAE 9 4 1 4 -2 13 Iraq 8 1 2 5 -3 5 Thailand 8 0 2 6 -16 2 * Top two qualify automatically for 2018 World Cup. Third place team goes to playoffs WEDNESDAY UAE 2 def Saudi Arabia 1, Al Ain OVERNIGHT Thailand v Iraq, Bangkok TUESDAY Australia v Thailand, AAMI Park Iraq v UAE, Amman Saudi Arabia v Japan, Jeddah SEE HOW WE COVERED THE MATCH IN OUR LIVE BLOG BELOW

Originally published as Socceroos v Japan: World Cup qualification on the line tonight