Ivory Coast vs Japan

Sun 15 June, 08:00 am Bangkok time GMT+7 - Match Thread

Venue: Arena Pernambuco, Recife

Group Stage: Group C

Take part in the pre-match build up, match discussion, goals and more with Thaivisa

Kick off your Sunday morning with this, the opening fixture of Group C.

Perhaps not widely regarded for their footballing prowess, Japan have improved significantly over recent years and played some excellent football in the 2013 confederations cup so they could be ones to watch out for this time round.

Didier Drogba is still very much the main man for Ivory Coast, especially since there are question marks regarding the fitness of Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure, who needs to be firing on all cylinders if the Africans are going to have a successful tournament.

2am in the morning BST. I am knackered after watching 3 games and keeping an eye on the US Open. I am going to record this game and run it at 6 the times the speed in the morning. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ..

Could be interesting this one. Japans intricate passing, movement and technical play against Ivory Coasts strength power and pace.

And afterall, watching football isn't a bad way of spending a Sunday morning

...and certainly not as exhausting as playing it.

1-0 Japan

What a goal!

Pokemon is going mental in the crowd

Entertaining match this.

yeah 2 goals in 2 minutes, kind of copy / paste ones and Ivory Coast is now ahead 2-1.

Maybe the effect of the entering of oldy but goody Drogba...?

Final score IC 2 - 1 JPN

Good luck to Ivory Coast but also well played Japan. The Japanese will come again.

Good luck to Ivory Coast but also well played Japan. The Japanese will come again.

Pretty poor defensively Japan I thought. Very bad keeping on that second goal. Still, not a super intimidating group so I suppose so they still have a shot at getting out of it...but it won't be easy.