Still, chances are, there's a happy upshot for the rest of us.

The draw not being of any particular use to either side should mean an energetic encounter, not that Japan are ever inclined to provide anything else. Shinji Ono still isn't matchfit but we're likely to see more of him today than we did in Kaiserslautern, even if his entry did coincide with the Japanese collapse.

This is likely to hinge on their opponents, however.

If Croatia can get past the fact that they left a World Cup win over Brazil behind, they showed enough on Tuesday to suggest there's a decent tournament in them. But they need a quick and confident start.

Anything else, and Japan will hamster-wheel them into submission.

Verdict Japan

GROUP G FRANCE v KOREA Leipzig, 8.00 Live, RTE Two, BBC1, 7.25 The more you watch France, the harder it is to work out how Raymond Domenech is at the World Cup while Brian Kerr is getting the runaround from the likes of South Africa and India.

The France manager couldn't be more at sea if he was kept out of today's match by scurvy.

Increasingly little effort is made, either by him or his players, to hide the fact that the only opinions that really matter in the party are those of Thierry Henry and Zinedine Zidane.

Their public pronouncements of dissatisfaction have apparently done for Franck Ribery and should bring the recall of David Trezeguet here. Maybe it will sort out their chronic scoring problem (their only kindred scoreless spirits from 2002, Saudi Arabia, at least managed two in their opener against Tunisia) and maybe it won't.

Whatever, it's not just Zidane who'll be taking his leave at the end of the tournament.

That thought in itself, that these are the final days of a shining career, prompts the schoolboyish thought (hope? ) that he'll find a way to carry his side out of the group.