England rest legs, Japan lick wounds

England took a well deserved break Wednesday after reaching the women's World Cup quarter-finals as Group B toppers while second placed Japan were left to rue dropping their first points. England's 2-0 win over Japan on Tuesday to reach the last eight was rated as one of the team's best performances by Jill Scott.
Scott, named player of the match, said: "There will be a lot of tired legs, but it was a team performance and we needed every one of us doubling up at times. "I think everyone ran their socks off so it was a brilliant team performance. "We said we wanted to get out of the group in the beginning of this tournament.
"Obviously to top the group is even better. We're just really pleased and now we look forward to the quarter-finals." Ellen White gave England the best start possible with a 1-0 lead after 15 minutes and Rachel Yankey sealed the victory after 66 minutes. The victory was England's first ever over Japan following a 2-2 draw at the 2007 World Cup, while Japan have yet to beat a European opponent in nine World Cup matches.
With an eye to the knockout stages England head coach Hope Powell made four changes to her starting line-up, including replacing her captain Faye White with 21-year-old Sophie Bradley. "The nature of this tournament and the teams that are in this tournament it will take all 21 players to give us some success. I take a positive out of that," said Powell. "I made a lot of deliberate changes, so that just tells me there is depth in this squad to beat a team like Japan that was great. And the changes were so that we can get out of the group and maybe move on."
Japan coach Norio Sasaki meanwhile says his team will learn their lessons from this defeat and it will help them improve down the road. "We conceded two goals and we have a lot to learn, but that is football. Even though we have not accomplished what we wanted, we cannot say that everything doesn't work.
"There were some mistakes and problems - such as too much space between players - we have to improve that. The defenders have to do better co-ordinating with one another," said Sasaki. But the coach and his Asian side remained focused on the big prize. "We have not lost our vision of reaching the final. We played against a good team. We learned a lot in that. And one lesson is that we did not play to the ability that we can," said Sasaki.