The frustration of spending virtually an entire year on the sidelines at Arsenal fuelled Junichi Inamoto's five-star performance that nearly brought Japan victory against Belgium yesterday. The 22-year-old midfielder played the game of his life in the 2-2 draw, scoring after 68 minutes to put Japan 2-1 ahead and then unluckily having what would have been a sensational 86th minute winner disallowed for no obvious reason. Inamoto was among a number of Japanese players urged by coach Philippe Troussier to leave the comforts of the J.League and get overseas experience. But while the likes of Shinji Ono blossomed at Feyenoord and Hidetoshi Nakata won honours in Italy, Inamoto played no part in Arsenal's Double triumph. But he put all that behind him yesterday. Japan may have missed out on a real victory and three points, but in every other way they did emerge from the match victorious.

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