Tajikistan vs Japan
Dushanbe, 11/11/11 (1400 local, 0900 GMT)

Alberto Zaccheroni’s Japan side have been training in Doha, Qatar in preparation for this UFWC title match against Tajikistan. Doha, of course, was the venue for the Blue Samurai’s Asian Cup triumph in January, and the team is still riding on a wave of glory some ten months later, still unbeaten, still UFWC champions, and on course to reach the next qualifying stage of the World Cup.

If Japan beat Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan beat North Korea, the Blue Samurai will reach the final qualifying stage with two games still to play. That would be an impressive achievement, but wouldn’t surprise anyone who has seen Japan play over the last year or so, and certainly not those who watched the devastating 8-0 thrashing of Tajikistan in the last UFWC title match / World Cup qualifier on Osaka last month.

That eight-goal rout was the biggest UFWC title match win for more than 20 years. Mike Havenaar, Shinji Okazaki, and Shinji Kagawa scored two goals each, and Yuichi Komano and Kengo Nakamura also netted in the huge win that saw Japan extend their reign as UFWC champions to 15 games. The Blue Samurai have held the title since beating Argentina on 8 October 2010.

Japan are now ranked 19th in the all-time UFWC ranking table. A win over Tajikistan would move them up to 17th place, alongside Chile and Greece. And few would bet against Zaccheroni’s dynamic team outclassing poor Tajikistan once again.

Still without Keisuke Honda, Japan will hope that influential midfielder Yasuhito Endo can overcome a groin strain. Left-back Yuto Nagatomo will miss out, and Michihiro Yasuda has been drafted in to replace him. Nakamura and Havenaar, who both impressive in the last game, should keep their places. Kagawa, in resurgent form at Borussia Dortmund, will be looking to continue to impress, the 22-year-old having been linked with a host of other top clubs in recent weeks.

As for Tajikistan, they have the benefit of home advantage, and must surely expect to fare better than they did in the last game. To be honest, they could scarcely do worse. The Tajiks had very little possession and no shots on goal in Osaka. Alimzhon Rafikov’s side will surely want to offer at least some opposition to Japan, and the coach will hope that players like Kamil Saidov and Ilkhomjon Ortikov can play with a little more purpose in this return match.

If Tajikistan could hold Japan to a draw it would be extraordinary. If they could defeat Japan, and take the UFWC title, it would be unbelievable. A Tajikistan win would be one of the biggest upsets in the history of the UFWC. Tajikistan as Unofficial Football World Champions? It couldn’t happen, could it..?

Assuming it doesn’t happen, and Japan overcome Tajikistan, the next test for the Blue Samurai will be a trip to North Korea on Tuesday. The last time the sides met, in Saitama in September, Japan won by a single last-gasp goal. Things will be tougher away from home, and North Korea will provide a different class of opposition than Tajikistan.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Japan need to beat Tajikistan first, and surely that can not be as easy as it was last time. There is certainly no place for complacency. A win or a draw will retain the UFWC title for the Blue Samurai. Kick-off is 2pm local time, which is 9am in London, and 6pm in Tokyo. We’ll have a full match report here within minutes of the final whistle, and you can get live coverage via our Twitter feed @UFWC_Football.

Tajikistan vs Japan
Dushanbe, 11/11/11

Friday’s UFWC title match sees champions Japan again face Tajikistan. The Tajiks have been given the chance to immediately redeem themselves following the 8-0 thrashing they received in the previous match last month.

As much as the former Soviet republic would like to cause an astonishing upset, a more realistic aim would be to not lose quite so heavily. After all, Japan’s dominance in the previous encounter was absolute.

Tajikistan had just 26% of the possession and couldn’t keep the ball for more than 30 seconds at a time. Japan’s goalkeeper, Eiji Kawashima, only got his first touch in the 33rd minute.

But then again, the Tajiks never expected to be here – competing against the more skilful and successful Asian nations in the penultimate stage of qualification to the 2014 World Cup.

In the previous round of qualifying they actually suffered a humiliating 6-1 aggregate loss to Syria, but they were reinstated when FIFA ruled that the latter’s half-Syrian/half-Swedish striker George Mourad was ineligible.

And before Tajikistan were comprehensively beaten by the Japanese – the 8-0 scoreline represented their biggest ever loss – they weren’t doing that badly. In their first two group games they twice narrowly lost 1-0, at home to Uzbekistan and away in North Korea.

So, with three losses already to their name, it seems unlikely that Tajikistan will progress to the final hurdle of World Cup qualification.

They have, in fact, never made it to the World Cup finals and are yet to qualify for an Asian Cup. But this is hardly surprising considering the national team was only formed when Soviet Russia fell in the early 90s.

Their only considerable achievements have come in the AFC Challenge Cup – a tournament specifically designed for the ‘developing’ football nations in Asia. In the inaugural competition in 2006, Tajikistan lifted the trophy following a 4-0 victory over Sri Lanka. In 2008, they finished runners-up behind hosts India, and in 2010 they claimed third place. Tajikistan have made the cut for next year’s event in Nepal, and a triumphant campaign would guarantee them a spot at the 2015 Asian Cup in Australia.

But before all that, they have a World Cup qualifying group to complete. Tajikistan don’t have any star players like Makoto Hasebe and Shinji Kagawa, who will line up against them on 11 November. In fact, they don’t have any recognisable faces at all.

The squad that faced Japan in Osaka last month was made up entirely of players from the Tajik domestic league. Those most likely to threaten the Blue Samurai are midfielder Ibrahim Rabimov, who won the 2006 Challenge Cup player of the tournament at just 18, and captain Yusuf Rabiev. Rabiev is the country’s all-time highest scorer and was last season’s top finisher in the Tajik league.

Rabiev’s team, Istiqlol, won the league and cup double last season, hence the reason why their coach, Alimzhon Rafikov, was given national team duties following the departure of Pulod Kodirov after the 4-0 home defeat to Syria.

Tajikistan have yet to score under Rafikov, and this looks unlikely to change any time soon. While they technically lined up 5-4-1 in Osaka, Japan’s supremacy saw it altered to a 9-0-1 formation. Predictably, the Tajiks failed to register a shot.

However, we can all dream. If Tajikistan were to somehow grab a goal and hold out for a victory, we would surely have witnessed the greatest UFWC upset of all time.

Follow Jordan on Twitter: @JBlackwell92

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Followers of the UFWC will know that the lineage of the unofficial competition goes back to 1872, when the first official international football match was played between Scotland and England. Current UFWC champions Japan didn’t play their first international football match until 1917 (against China), and didn’t play a UFWC title match until 1998 (against Argentina). But, as the above image shows, football was played in Japan much earlier than that, around the time that international football was first established.

The engraving dates from 1874, and was published in the Graphic newspaper in London. It shows a match involving Yokohama FC, a team founded by British expatriates, who, the accompanying text suggests, were the first to introduce the organised game to Japan. (The club in the image has no connection with the current Yokohama FC, which was formed a full 125 years later.) The engraving was made from a sketch by A H Abell, who worked as a merchant banker in Yokohama.

The image clearly depicts a more rough-and-tumble version of football than we are now accustomed to, with association rules yet to be properly implemented, and football existing in many places as a hybrid of what we now know as the separate games of rugby and ‘soccer’. It’s interesting to note that, while the players all appear to be expatriates, the enthusiastic spectators all seem to be Japanese locals.

The accompanying text, from the 18 April 1874 edition of the Graphic, reads:

‘Wherever they go the English cling to their national peculiarities with a remarkable tenacity, and whether John Bull settles in the polar regions of thick-ribbed ice or under the blazing sun of the tropics, or in the more temperate regions which by comparison resemble his own misty island, he carries with him a passion for plum pudding, pale ale, cold baths, horse-racing, cricket, croquet and newspapers. There is a British colony at Yokohama, Japan, and they have introduced the mysteries of football into the Far East… The Japanese are a very go-ahead race, the Government has introduced all sorts of innovations… but we are not yet aware that they have issued an edict compelling every male over sixteen to join an athletic club, and exhibit his prowess at least twice a year at the local Lillie Bridge, under the shadow of the lovely snow-mountain Fusiyama.’

Lillie Bridge was an athletics ground in West London, near to the present Stamford Bridge. Fusiyama is an alternative spelling of Fujiyama, or Mount Fuji.

137 years later, the Japanese national team is enjoying perhaps its most successful period. The fast-approaching match against Tajikistan on 11 November provides the opportunity for the Blue Samurai to move closer towards World Cup qualification, and extend their run as Unofficial Football World Champions.