Japan Friendly Tomorrow!

On Thursday Ecuador will try to improve on its 0-1 defeat to the Netherlands earlier this month as La Tri take on Japan in an international friendly in Oita. Truth is, Ecuador will be missing too many important players for Coach Luis Suarez to learn much from the match apart from rounding out the roster and experimenting with substitution patterns.

Ecuador will be without all but one of its players who play outside the country. Ivan Hurtado, Carlos Tenorio, and Ulises de la Cruz all play abroad and will not make the trip. Striker Augustin Delgado is injured, and Ivan Kaviedes did not ultimately receive permission from his club to join the team in Japan.

But Japan will be without its European stars as well, including Hidetoshi Nakata of Bolton and Shunsuke Nakamura of Celtic. Still, I expect Japan’s pace and fitness to be a nice test for Ecuador.

If one team will be depleted, it’s probably best that both teams are depleted. Look at the recent Germany-USA game for an ugly example of when one weakened team plays a team at nearly full strength. In the end, I look for a scorline of Japan 1-0 Ecuador.