Oman vs Japan

Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex is the venue as Oman and Japan go head-to-head in a crunch World Cup qualifying clash.

Oman came from a 1-0 half-time deficit to hold China to a 1-1 away draw last time out, though that stalemate allowed Japan to move to third place in Group B, leaving ‘Al-Ahmar’ two points behind. That was also Oman’s solitary draw in five third-round qualifying fixtures (W2, L2), with the last three in a row seeing both teams on the scoresheet. Including the previous round, none of Oman’s six 2022 World Cup qualifying matches have ended as a draw (W4, L2), with four of those results (win/loss) seeing the winner on the day keep a clean sheet. Despite failing to beat Japan in any of their previous four World Cup qualifying H2Hs on home soil (D1, L3), they’ve at least kept it competitive, losing by a single-goal margin on all three occasions.

In the meantime, Japan have won three of their five Group B games thus far, losing the other two, with four of those matches yielding the identical 1-0 scoreline. That exact full-time score has been witnessed in Japan’s last three World Cup qualifiers on foreign soil (W2, L1), with both their wins in that period seeing the ‘Samurai Blue’ score the decisive goal in the first half of play. Sitting just one point adrift of second-placed Australia, Japan cannot afford to drop points here if they are to secure automatic qualification for Qatar 2022. Hajime Moriyasu’s men won’t have to look beyond a painful 1-0 home defeat in the reverse fixture for inspiration as they look to avoid losing back-to-back H2Hs for the first time in the nation’s history.