June 14th

Unsuccessfull World Cup Debut for Japan and Jamaica

The first ever World Cup game for Japan, held at Municopal, Toulouse, where seemed to be full of eager Japanese fans, kicked off rather favour-
ably to Japanese side, as they finely stood with neat playing method.

But then, after a quite level matching by both sides, Argentinean clever midfielder Ariel Ortega set the dangerous ball towards the opponent goal
for Gabriel Batistuta to tap it home just before the Jananese young goal-keeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi helplessly rushed forward.

Ever since that‘Bati-goal’, Argentina kept the pace comfortably forcing young playmaker Hidetoshi Nakata and co. busy enough to hold back and try to regain thier strength. Though it looked to become promising after Brasilian blood Lopez Wagner replaced Masashi Nakayama, alas for their lack
of scoring ability, Japan could not find any sense to win back at the end.

Another Asian side, Iran, also met a regrettable defeat against Yugoslavia, the returned force from thier country's sad crisis, at Saint-Etienne.

Confronting with Croatia, Jamaica did managed once to equalize with the brilliant headder from Robbie Earle, at Lens, before they faded their confi-dence and lost sadly to the ex-Yugoslavian veterans.

Scorers

[A] Batistuta: 28min.

Ayala

Vivas

Sensini(Chamot:75min.)

Narahashi

Nakanishi

Ihara(Capt.)

Akita

Soma(Hirano:85min.)

Zanetti

Almeyda

Veron

Simeone(Capt.)

Ortega

Yamaguchi

Nakata

Nanami

Batistuta

C.Lopez

Nakayama(Lopez:67min.)

Jo

Scorers

[Y] Mihajlovic:73min.

Mirkovic

Djorovic

Mihajlovic

Petrovic

Zarincheh

Khakpour

Khani(Capt.)

Pashazadeh

Jokanovic

Jugovic

Brnovic(Stankovic:50min.)

Stojkovic(Capt.)(Kovacevic:68min.)

Mahdavikia

Bagheri

Estili(Mansourian:68min.)

Minavand

Milosevic(Ognjenovic:58min.)

Mijatovic

Azizi

Ali Daei

Scorers

[J] Earle:45min.

[C] Stanic:26min., Prosinecki:53min., Suker:68min.

Sinclair

Lowe

Goodison

Gardener

Bilic

Soldo

Stimac

Cargill(Powell:70min.)

Earle(Williams:72min.)

Whitmore

Simpson

Simic(Vlaovic:72min.)

Boban(Capt.)

Prosinecki

Asanovic

Jarni

Hall(Boyd:81min.)

Burton

Stanic

Suker