Japan vs Colombia Prediction - Will Japan Manage To Disturb The Powerful Colombian Team?

Next Tuesday, Japan will go head-to-head with the group leaders, Colombia, at Arena Pantanal in Cuiába on a match during which the Asian team will need to go in for the kill if they still want to keep dreaming of a place on the next stage of the competition.

After losing to Ivory Coast on the first match, Japan failed again to claim the three points when they met Greece last week. The Japanese team was not able to overcome a hermetically closed Greek defensive wall and ended up by conceding a boring goalless draw. Japan were the most dangerous team for greater part of the match, especially after Greece became reduced to a ten-men squad when Katsouranis was shown his second yellow card in the match still in the first-half. After the red card, Japan pilled on the pressure but the Greek goalkeeper Karnezis managed to frustrate all of the Asian team's attempts to score.

For the match against Colombia, the Japanese manager Alberto Zacheroni will need to put up something very special to help his team grab the three points against Colombia, who have been proving to be one of the best teams in the competition so far.

As for Colombia, the match against Japan will probably only serve them to confirm their position at the top of their group. After reducing Greece to dust during the opening match of the group more than one week ago, Colombia obtained yet another win in the middle of last week, this time against a fairly stronger opponent, Ivory Coast. José Pékerman's boys showed some class in their match against the African Elephants as they managed to control the match during large periods of the game. After James Rodríguez' and Quintero's goals, Colombia obtained a comfortable lead, but there was still plenty of time to play for the second-half and the goal from Gervinho (on a brilliant solo effort from the AS Roma's player) got the Ivorians back into the match. Colombia experienced some difficult moments after the goal, with Ivory Coast desperately trying to, at least, snatch the draw but they managed to secure their lead until the end of the match, thanks to the players' high concentration levels and the team's excellent defensive positioning.

Colombia should be considered firm favourites for the next Tuesday's match, as they have proven to be a far better and more consistent team than Japan so far.

Japan

Stats: W-3 L-1 D-1

Recent Form - DLWWW

Possible Line-ups

Colombia

Stats: W-2 L-0 D-3

Recent Form - WWDDD

Japan (4-2-3-1) - Nishikawa - Ushida - Nagatomo - Konno - Yoshida - Endo - Yamaguchi - Honda - Kagawa - Okazaki - Kakitani

Colombia (4-4-2) - Ospina - Zúñiga - Perea - Yepes - Armero - Aguilar - Sanchez - Cuadrado - Guarin - Quintero - Carlos Bacca

Prediction: Japan 1 Colombia 3