This was supposed to be Asia's big day. It wasn't a huge success, but in the end, the continent's image was at least restored.

China weren't the ones to do it though. They did look in control of their game against Costa Rica, until Ronald Gomez delivered the killer blow just after the hour mark, combining well with his more illustrious striker partner Paulo Wanchope before putting the ball in the back of the net. And before the Chinese had recovered from that blow, they found themselves two down. Gomez was the provider this time, as Mauricio Wright found himself in acres of space to head home. The marking was non-existent. Chinese heads clearly dropped after that, and they will be left ruing the fact that even when they were the dominant side in the game they could not create enough chances for their forwards.

Japan are probably Asia's best bet to do something big in this World Cup. Their performance against Belgium was encouraging, but it threw up some questions as well.

Philippe Troussier prides himself on having built his side around a strong, organised defence. But against Belgium, on both the goals they conceded, the defence could have done better. First, the ball should never have found its way through to Wilmots for the game's first goal after 57 minutes of roughly level pegging between the two sides. Japan came back immediately though, Suzuki finishing with aplomb after receiving a wonderful ball from the excellent Junichi Inamoto. Inamoto may have spent most of his season with Arsenal on the bench, but certainly didn't show any signs of lacking match practice against the Belgians. And it was he who scored the next goal after a wonderful burst from midfield to put the Japanese 2-1 up. The co-hosts must have been having visions of paradise after that, and it showed when Belgium scored their equaliser. Van der Heyden broke a poorly co-ordinated offside trap and

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