If Japan's friendly against the United Arab Emirates was designed to give a confidence boost ahead of this week's World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan, it is difficult to see how it achieved anything but the opposite.

Japan dominated Thursday's match in Niigata, but it took 72 minutes and an awful lot of wasted chances before Shinji Kagawa finally made the breakthrough, only to see the UAE equalize five minutes later with virtually its only attack of the game.

Takeshi Okada's men then missed several gilt-edged chances to score a late winner, raising more questions than answers ahead of a game against an Uzbek team likely to adopt the same defensive attitude.