United States vs Japan 12/03/20

12 March 2020

The United States W will look to make it three from three at the SheBelieves Cup when they lock horns with Japan W at the Toyota Stadium this week.

The United States have won two of their opening games at the tournament, both of which have yielded a clean sheet, with all three of their goals scored coming in the second half of play. The Stars and Stripes go into this clash on a run of nine consecutive victories, with the last eight all seeing them keep a clean sheet. Notably, Vlatko Andonovski’s players had netted over 2.5 match goals in seven straight games before the tournament, managing over 1.5 first-half goals on six of those occasions. Also, the US Women’s Team boast an intimidating H2H record against Japan in the 21st century (W9, D5, L1), with five of their last seven wins in such fixtures yielding a margin of at least two goals.

In the meantime, the ‘Nadeshiko Japan,’ who entered the tournament on a run of five consecutive triumphs, have lost both of their opening two matches, scoring just one goal while conceding four. Interestingly, none of their last ten games has ended in a stalemate (W6, L4), with seven of them seeing the winner on the day keep a blank sheet. Yet, if they concede the opening goal here, as they’ve done in seven of their 15 previous outings, Japan could find themselves in a bit of trouble – they lost six out of those seven fixtures, with the lone exception of a 1-1 draw with Spain back in summer 2019. But, they seem unlikely to keep a clean sheet here, considering they’ve failed to shut out the USA in all eight of their previous H2Hs, conceding over 1.5 goals on seven of those occasions.