Brazil Handily Beats Japan in Match of World Cup Also-Rans

SINGAPORE — If the heat and humidity reminded anyone of the World Cup back in June, the absence of intensity at the Singapore Sports Hub made it clear that the friendly between Japan and Brazil, two teams that underachieved at that tournament, was anything but passionate.

The game ended Tuesday night with a comfortable 4-0 win for Brazil and another reminder that Japan has a way to go before it joins the elite soccer nations.

To start with, the Asian team does not have a Neymar, but then every soccer nation would love to have that 22-year-old sensation to call upon. The Brazilian scored all four goals to thrill most of the 55,000 fans in the sold-out arena, despite a patchy playing field that had worried both teams before the game. Even before kickoff, the name of the Barcelona attacker received more cheers than any of the other 21 starters, and at the end, Neymar received a standing ovation as he left the field, with the only disappointment among his army of admirers that he did not manage to score more.

Japan has never beaten Brazil, losing nine out of the now eleven meetings. It never even threatened in Singapore, especially after Coach Javier Aguirre opted to start with a relatively inexperienced team, leaving the star player Keisuke Honda on the bench. That was especially surprising after Shinji Kagawa of Borussia Dortmund was ruled out because of injury.

“We started well and in the first half, we matched them and only conceded one goal and made chances of our own,” Aguirre said at a news conference after the game. “However, when we conceded the second goal, that was a major blow and we started to make a lot of mistakes,” he said, adding that “Neymar is a dominant force at the moment.”

It was all a little reminiscent of Japan’s final game of the 2014 World Cup, when Japan crashed to a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Colombia.