Wesley Sneijder's second-half goal proved to be enough to give the Netherlands a hard-fought 1-0 win over Japan in Durban.
Sneijder broke the deadlock after 53 minutes when his powerful right-foot was diverted inside the left upright by Eiji Kawashima's upstretched arms.
Kawashima redeemed himself with two fine saves to deny Dutch substitute Ibrahim Afellay late on.
Japan had their best chance to level the score one minute from time but substitute Shinji Okazaki fired over from 12-yards without even testing Maarten Stekelenburg.
Lineups:
Netherlands: Maarten Stekelenburg; Gregory van der Wiel, John Heitinga, Joris Mathijsen, Giovanni van Bronckhorst; Nigel de Jong, Mark van Bommel; Dirk Kuyt, Wesley Sneijder (Ibrahim Afellay, 83), Rafael van der Vaart (Eljero Elia, 72); Robin van Persie (Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, 88)
Japan: Eiji Kawashima; Yūichi Komano, Yuji Nakazawa, Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Yuto Nagatomo; Yuki Abe; Makoto Hasebe (Shinji Okazaki, 77), Daisuke Matsui (Shunsuke Nakamura, 64), Yasuhito Endō, Yoshito Ōkubo (Keiji Tamada, 77); Keisuke Honda
Statistics:
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Sneijder broke the deadlock after 53 minutes when his powerful right-foot was diverted inside the left upright by Eiji Kawashima's upstretched arms.
Kawashima redeemed himself with two fine saves to deny Dutch substitute Ibrahim Afellay late on.
Japan had their best chance to level the score one minute from time but substitute Shinji Okazaki fired over from 12-yards without even testing Maarten Stekelenburg.
Lineups:
Netherlands: Maarten Stekelenburg; Gregory van der Wiel, John Heitinga, Joris Mathijsen, Giovanni van Bronckhorst; Nigel de Jong, Mark van Bommel; Dirk Kuyt, Wesley Sneijder (Ibrahim Afellay, 83), Rafael van der Vaart (Eljero Elia, 72); Robin van Persie (Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, 88)
Japan: Eiji Kawashima; Yūichi Komano, Yuji Nakazawa, Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Yuto Nagatomo; Yuki Abe; Makoto Hasebe (Shinji Okazaki, 77), Daisuke Matsui (Shunsuke Nakamura, 64), Yasuhito Endō, Yoshito Ōkubo (Keiji Tamada, 77); Keisuke Honda
Statistics:
| Netherlands | Japan | |
| 1 | Goals | 0 |
| 5 | Shots on target | 3 |
| 2 | Shots off target | 7 |
| 4 | Corners | 5 |
| 12 | Fouls | 11 |
| 2 | Offsides | 1 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 61 | Ball possession (%) | 39 |
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