Mali vs Japan: Preview and Predictions

March 20, 2018

Mali vs Japan
International – Friendly Match
Date: Friday, 23 March 2018
Kick-Off at 12:20 UK
Venue: Stade Maurice Dufrasne (Liege).

Mali and Japan will be involved in a friendly match which is going to take place on the neutral venue in Belgium. Mali wants to have a strong check, while Japan are looking to prepare themselves as much as possible for the upcoming World Cup.

Mali reached the final round of African qualifiers, but they finished as bottom-placed team in their group. Although they suffered only two defeats, in all other matches they managed to book only the draws. Mohamed Magassouba’s side was able to score just once and when you have such a bad attacking work, you cannot hope of being awarded with a World Cup spot. It is very interesting that Mali played three times in front of their fans which were able to see only goalless draws. They need to try out some other approaches and start scoring if they want to take wins from the upcoming matches.

Japan secured their place in the World Cup by finishing as the top team in their group, being one point ahead of Saudi Arabia and Australia. They were performing confidently, scored a fair amount of goals, while their defence was doing a very good job. Shinji Okazaki and the lads suffered only one defeat when playing away from home and their matches on away grounds were low scoring ones. This clash is a very good opportunity for them to check the readiness of their players before the main event of the season.

Mali v Japan: Head-to-head

These two sides haven’t met each other so far and this one will be their first head to head clash.

Mali v Japan: Prediction

Japan have showed much better performances recently and since they are the World Cup participants, they should be able to celebrate a win in this one.

Since Mali is playing very tight and the crowd is not able to see many goals in the matches where they are involved, this one should stay under 2.5 margin.