InsideJapan News Network

The Japanese international football team have won a friendly game against Togo.

Japan beat the West African nation 5-0 in the warm-up friendly in preparation for next year's World Cup, with Shinji Okazaki scoring his second hat trick in a week during the game.

Okazaki put Japan ahead in the first five minutes of the match and then scored again just two minutes later.

Takayuki Morimoto, who plays for Catania, then scored a third goal for the Japanese side, leaving them 3-0 up within the first ten minutes of the game.

Togo previously lost a game against Cameroon over the weekend and arrived in Japan half a day late with only 14 players, noted Reuters, after suffering eight player pullouts.

"The West Africans scrapped their only scheduled training session on Tuesday and their lack of preparation showed," the source noted.

Meanwhile, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki recently announced they are to make a bid to host the Olympics in 2020.

Written by Susan Ballion.