Japs eye knockouts

Four years ago Paul Le Guen was among the most highly rated young football managers in the world, his Lyon team was dominating French football and he had quickly built a reputation at Lyon for finding and developing stars such as Michael Essien, Florent Malouda, Éric Abidal, Mahamadou Diarra and Karim Benzema. He resigned as manager of Lyon on the day the club won their 4th straight league title, but disappointing spells with Glasgow Rangers and PSG have since tarnished
his image. He took over African Cup of Nations runners-up Cameroon last summer, with the short term objective of 2010 World Cup qualification and 2010 African Cup of Nations success.

Cameroon have arguably the best squad of all the African teams, Kameni, Assou-Ekotto, Song, Bassong and Makoun are all household names in households that know their African footballers and in Samuel Eto'o they have arguably the best striker in world football for the last 5 years, a player who for his international side is much more willing to sacrifice personal glory for the benefit of the team, a tactic employed best under Le Guen's predecessor Otto Pfister who used Eto'o
as a decoy, often taking 2 or 3 opposing players out of the game.

But using Eto'o as a decoy will only work if the opposition fall for it, and devote players to follow him, using the best striker in the world as a right winger (as Guardiola at Barcelona and Mourinho at Inter often did) will work if you have quality players to replace him, but Cameroon do not have a Lionel Messi or a Diego Milito, and so Le Guen's decision to play Eto'o wide on the right against a disciplined, pragmatic and well-drilled Japanese side is baffling.

Japan were far from impressive as an attacking force and provided very little to what was a truly awful game, but they must be praised for their tactical discipline and goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima was impressive when called upon during a late Cameroon flurry of chances which coincided with Eto'o being moved to his preferred central position.