Colombia vs Japan Preview: Group H favourites take on underdogs

Group H the final of the World Cup group's are in action tomorrow, with the favourites in the group, Colombia taking on Japan

Colombia vs Japan Preview: Group H favourites take on underdogs
Colombia vs Japan: Group H favourites take on group underdogs
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By Adam Stenning

Colombia begin their World Cup campaign when they take on Japan in Tuesday's lunch-time kick-off.

José Pékerman's men drew their two warm up games heading into the World Cup, against Australia and Egypt.

Japan head into the tournament having won one out of their three warm up games, beating Paraguay 4-2 a week ago.

Falcao will be key to their campaign

Colombia captain, Radamel Falcao will be key to how their World Cup goes. The striker has tons of experience of playing for top clubs across the world in Chelsea, Manchester United, AS Monaco, Porto and Atletico Madrid.

He has been in terrific form this season for both club and country, scoring 24 goals in 36 games for AS Monaco. He has also appeared for Colombia once this year and scored one goal. 

Falcao is Colombia's top scorer with 29 goals in 73 games and will be hoping to feed off all the services he gets from Colombia's wingers and their playmaker, James Rodriguez.

Colombia have the talent to go far in the tournament

La Tricolor ​have a very talented squad with plenty of players that have the quality to be match winners.

They have players such as Falcao, Rodriguez, Jose Izquierdo and Juan Cuadrado ​who are all quality players who have the skill and talent and experience to turn games in Colombia's favour.

The mix of young and experience will also be key compared to some sides who have gone with very youthful inexperienced team's. 

One of the team's that they have a more experienced squad than is England, who only have only one player with more than 50 caps in their squad in Chelsea central defender, Gary Cahill ​who has made 60 caps.

Okazaki will be the one to watch for Japan

Despite the sheer quality in the Colombia squad, Japan also have a few quality players who could pose a threat to the Colombian defence.

The main man for Japan is Leicester City ​striker, Shinji Okazaki. Okazaki has scored seven goals in 31 games for the Foxes this season. 

He is the most experienced player in Japan's squad and the fourth most capped players in their history with 113 appearances to his name.

Okazaki is also Japan's third highest scorer with 50 goals in the 113 appearances he has made for his country.

Group H could be tight

Group H looks to be one of the tightest of the World Cup groups, as despite Colombia and Poland be the favourites any of the four teams in the group could qualify. 

This is due to the fact that all of the teams in the group have a handful of quality of players that will be key to how they get on. For example Senegal have Liverpool Midfielder, Sadio Mane ​and Kalidou Koulibaly to name a couple.

Then you have Poland who have Robert Lewandowski ​and Kamil Gilk who are key figures in their squad.

This will make it really interesting to see how the group pans out in terms of who will qualify for the knockout stages.

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About the author
Adam Stenning
University Sports Journalism student, who has a real passion for sport especially Football. Am a huge Brighton and Hove Albion fan and season ticket holder there for the last eight years.