Japan Women vs Scotland Women Predictions

Despite being massive odds-on favourites ahead of their opener against Argentina, Japan failed to come up with the goods on match-day one, as they laboured to a 0-0 draw. They’ll be looking to do much better this time around, though a game against a Scottish side that didn’t do too badly at all against the English won’t be easy.

Japan’s opening effort was all too disappointing. Despite playing against inferior opposition, who hadn’t featured at a World Cup for some time, the 2015 finalists struggled through the first half without ever testing the opposing keeper, while other than a few brief periods of dominance, Asako Takakura’s side failed to make much headway in the second half either. All round, the Japanese failed to get serious in the final third, creating only 0.68 expected goals for, which given that they started the game as long odds-on favourites, is simply not good enough.

Frankly, Japan appear to have declined since they reached the final four years ago. Not only did they fall massively short against the Argentinians last time out, but they’ve now gone five games without a win. They recently received a battering from England, who Scotland performed well against less than a week ago.

They were beaten by England on match-day one, but having seen Japan’s lacklustre efforts, Scotland will certainly fancy themselves ahead of this match and rightly so. The Scots did come up short in the first half against the Lionesses, but once they got themselves together, they performed with promise on the second half. After the break, Shelley Kerr’s women showed plenty of attacking intensity, which lead to them worrying the England back-line on numerous occasions before they finally netted with little more than ten minutes to go. Such efforts bode very well ahead of a game against a Japan side that looked toothless last time out.

Much as they were ahead of their first game, Japan come into this game as heavy favourites, though it’s easy feel that they’re somewhat short. This isn’t the side of four years ago, while Scotland are improving all the time. Additionally, while Japan failed to create anything clear-cut against a reasonably negative and ultimately weak Argentinian side on match-day one, Scotland put up a decent fight against one of the best teams in the world.

At the end of the day, there was plenty to like about Scotland’s efforts first time out and absolutely nothing to like about what Japan came up with in Paris, so it’s not difficult to conclude that the Scottish have a better chance of getting something from this game than the current prices suggest. ‘Scotland Draw No Bet’ gets the nod.