In an interview with the media, Japanese striker Keisuke Honda described his disappointment with the result of Japan's match against Singapore, but gracefully heaped praises on the Singapore side.
"The result was what it was, so there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Honda, who hit the crossbar from a free kick midway through the second half. “If anything, I think they took it easy on us."
Japan came up against a brilliant performance by Singapore goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud, who pulled off a string of incredible saves to deny a Samurai Blue a victory.
Despite being ranked 102 places higher than the Singapore team, Japan's lackluster performance earned jeers from its 57K strong home crowd in Saitama Stadium.
On the booing, Honda says that fans were right to boo him and his Japan teammates, and insists he would have had no complaints had they voiced their displeasure louder.
“There were two aspects to the game. One is that we needed someone to make the individual difference and score, but also we weren’t given easy shots and the opposition did very well. I think it was a combination of both. Of course it’s a shock, but we have to get over it. We’ve just started (the qualifying campaign), and this has reminded us how hard the World Cup qualifiers are.”