Japan Faces Tough Challenge Against Uruguay In Thursday Copa America Action

There is definitely a ‘pecking order’ to the world soccer hierarchy and teams looking to move up that ladder invariably have to ‘take their lumps’. That is what Japan and to a lesser extent Qatar are doing at this iteration of the South America soccer championships, better known to the masses as the Copa America. Qatar won the Asian Confederation championship by beating Japan but both teams are not expected to make it to the knockout rounds. That is not the case with Uruguay who often gets overshadowed by South American heavyweights Brazil and Argentina but is a very accomplished team in their own right.

Uruguay had no trouble with Ecuador in their opening match of the Copa America. They opened the scoring six minutes in, led 3-0 at halftime and coasted to a 4-0 victory. Japan lost 4-0 to Chile though they played better than the final score would indicate. Despite Chile having significantly more high level international talent the game was scoreless until the 41 minute mark and Chile took a 1-0 edge into the locker room at the half. Chile made the score 2-0 in the 54th minute and that’s where the score stayed until the final ten minutes of the game which is when the scoring floodgates came open.

With all of the hype around Argentina and Brazil it’s easy to forget just how good a team Uruguay is. They are downright loaded with talent and the Copa America futures odds now show them as a +400 second choice to win the tournament. There was some concern heading into the opener about Luis Suarez’s fitness for this tournament but he looks fine and scored a goal in the win over Ecuador. They may no longer be the ‘dark horse’ but probably deserve a lot more mainstream media attention than they’ve been getting.

Japan is viewing the Copa America as a learning experience which is no doubt an intelligent decision. The hope is that the experience they gain here will benefit them in next year’s Tokyo Summer Olympics and they’ll be able to put on a good showing there in front of their home fans. Even with this realistic attitude toward their performance here they’re not a team that will just roll over. For that reason, the handicap price on Uruguay is tough to lay. Uruguay is capable of scoring goals in buckets but Japan will likely want to focus on defense and at the very least they could make the two goal handicap line tricky. That also gives us pause on the total. The O/U 3 looks almost too easy.

For that reason, we’ll look at Uruguay’s defense. They’ve won with a clean sheet in four straight while Japan has had problems scoring goals since the end of the Asian Confederation Championships. We’ll bet this one accordingly.

BET URUGUAY CLEAN SHEET -205

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