{"id":47712,"date":"2026-06-26T04:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T04:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/47712\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T04:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T04:09:15","slug":"japan-and-sweden-play-to-1-1-draw-as-both-advance-at-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/47712\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan and Sweden play to 1-1 draw as both advance at World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Daizen Maeda gave Japan the lead and Anthony Elanga took it away six minutes later, helping Sweden to a 1-1 draw Thursday night that sent both teams to the knockout round of the World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elanga\u2019s impressive left-footed strike from just outside the right corner of the box in the 62nd minute was his second goal of this year\u2019s tournament. Elanga has scored only three goals in 49 games for Newcastle, but zero in 32 Premier League matches.<\/p>\n

Six minutes earlier, Maeda settled a nifty pass from Ritsu Doan with his left foot in the penalty area and easily beat Jacob Widell Zetterstrom with his right foot.<\/p>\n

It was Japan\u2019s seventh goal of the tournament, the country\u2019s most for an entire World Cup. That topped the six the Japanese scored while reaching the round of 16 in Russia eight years ago.<\/p>\n

Japan is advancing out of the group stage for the third consecutive World Cup and fifth time in seven tries since first reaching the round of 16 as co-hosts in 2002. The Japanese team finished second in Group F behind the Netherlands<\/a> and will play Brazil in Houston on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the good of football in Japan, I think it would be a very good experience,\u201d coach Hajime Moriyasu said through a translator of his 16th-ranked team facing No. 5 Brazil. \u201cWe do believe there\u2019s a chance for us to win. And then we hope that we will be able to move one step further move on to the next stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Swedes have advanced to the knockout round the past four times they\u2019ve qualified for the World Cup going back to 1994 \u2014 when they reached the semifinals the last time the U.S. hosted soccer\u2019s biggest event.<\/p>\n

Sweden will have to wait to find out its opponent in the round of 32 next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to probably recover the players first and make sure that physically we\u2019re in a good place for whoever we play,\u201d coach Graham Potter said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be on our toes in terms of logistics. I would say if you had said to me when we first came that would be the challenge we\u2019d face, I would have absolutely taken it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elanga had another chance to score in injury time, with his right-footed attempted forcing goalkeeper Zion Suzuki to make a diving deflection.<\/p>\n

On the ensuing corner kick, Suzuki deflected Alexander Isak\u2019s header off the crossbar and into the air, eventually ending the scoring chance with a leaping grab in a crowd of players.<\/p>\n

The Blue Samurai\u2019s bag-waving, chanting fans among 70,137 at the sold-out home of the NFL\u2019s Dallas Cowboys were persistent as a scoreless game dragged into the second half. Japan seemed content to sit back and play for a draw that would have guaranteed the same spot in the knockout round as a win.<\/p>\n

Just like that, things changed when Doan put Maeda in perfect position to score.<\/p>\n

Elanga wasn\u2019t anywhere near scoring range, but Suzuki appeared screened and reacted late as the shot beat him to the far post.<\/p>\n

Just three minutes later, Isak was inside the penalty area with a great scoring chance, but Suzuki deflected it wide and over the end line, angrily gesturing toward some of his teammates as Sweden lined up for another corner kick. The Swedes had eight corner kicks to only two for Japan.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See more of AP\u2019s World Cup coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Daizen Maeda gave Japan the lead and Anthony Elanga took it away six minutes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5309,5305,5084,5299,5126,32947,8,5298,33,1755,1050,5180,5304,4717,27722],"class_list":["post-47712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-alexander-isak","tag-anthony-elanga","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-graham-potter","tag-hajime-moriyasu","tag-jacob-widell-zetterstrom","tag-japan","tag-japan-national-soccer-team","tag-nihon","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-sweden","tag-sweden-national-soccer-team","tag-texas","tag-tx-state-wire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}