Before this game the Denmark manager, Morten Olsen, said he did not even consider the possibility of losing to Japan. He will be regretting those words and the Danish FA might be regretting giving him a new two-year contract. Defensively Denmark were a shambles, with Thomas Sorensen as fallible as he had been heroic against Cameroon. Japan, whose manager, Takeshi Okada, came in for fierce criticism as his side staggered towards South Africa via a string of friendly defeats but has succeeded in his first aim of taking his team to the round of 16, although he has always said that the Blue Samurai have it in them to make the semi-finals. The way first Keisuke Honda and then Yasuhito Endo curled free-kicks past Sorensen does not make this prediction look totally absurd.