After the humiliating 3-0 defeat to Cameroon sustained last weekend in the World Cup qualifiers, Togo have lost hope and a few of the players went back to their respective clubs instead of traveling to Japan for this international friendly.

On other hand the Japanese have been taking these games very seriously, and they will have been disappointed to find a depleted Togo team for their midweek match up.

The Sparrow Hawks started the match in disastrous fashion, conceding three goals in the first 10 minutes, with Shinji Okazaki scoring in the 4th and 6th minute to begin the landslide before Takayuki Morimoto made it a trio of goals with a dream start for the home side.

Okazaki scored a hat-trick for Japan against Hong-Kong recently, and he seemed to be on the road to another one in this encounter. After the shaky start Togo got to grips with the situation and began to close up the gaps that had previously been exploited. The half ended with the score at 3-0 to Japan.

The second half showed little promise for the African visitors, with Japan controlling the game, sitting comfortably on a three-goal advantage. The neutral supporter would have wanted to see a fight back from Togo, but instead Okazaki scored his third of the match in the 66th minute to put the game beyond any doubt.

Japan were absolutely cruising to victory, but to make sure that the statistics and score gave a true account of their supremacy on the day, Keisuke Honda made it 5-0 in the 86th minute, and that would be the final score on a disappointing day for Togo, minus Emmanuel Adebayor.

Japan coach Takeshi Okada recently announced that he planned on using these friendly matches to help raise his team’s level, but perhaps the Asians could have chosen a better opponent in the first place, as a Togolese team with little determination and discipline made for a disappointingly easy encounter.

New Togo coach Hunert Velud is unlikely to have much time in charge of the African side, as he only signed a contract for two international games and there is already talk of him getting fired, and this result will only add fuel to that fire.