Myanmar vs Japan 10/09/19

10 September 2019

Japan travel to the Thuwunna Stadium to take on Myanmar in the opening match of their 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign.

The hosts have suffered a narrow 1-0 away loss to Mongolia last time out, which was their third defeat in the previous five outings (W1, D1, L3). Myanmar’s struggling in the final third has been their main issue over the past ten months, as they’ve failed to find the back of the net in five of six games in that sequence. Another decisive factor in this affair can be that Myanmar’s last competitive home match dates back to 2015, a 3-0 win over Kuwait. They have pulled off just two wins in their previous eight home games for the past two years (W2, D3, L3), with only one of their last six home matches seeing both teams score.

Meanwhile, fresh from a 2-0 win over Uruguay in a friendly, the visitors will look to kick off a new winning cycle after failing to pick up a win in three preceding games (D2, L1). Still, the Samurai Blue enjoyed a pretty solid form in 2019, having won nine of 15 matches since the turn of the year (W9, D3, L3). Notably, seven of those triumphs have been accompanied by a clean sheet, with the majority of them (4) ending with the same 1-0 scoreline in Japan’s favor. Also, they have not lost a single away game since exiting the World Cup (W3, D2), with Hajime Moriyasu’s side scoring precisely one goal per match on three occasions in that period.