Haraguchi, Inui strikes could make Hazard, De Bruyne proud

The purity of their shots and the quality of the goals will take some bettering.

Genki Haraguchi scored from a difficult angle, slotting the ball in at the far post.

Genki Haraguchi and Takashi Inui scored the kind of goals that the likes of Eden Hazard and Kevin de Bruyne will be proud of.

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Haraguchi, who plays for Bundesliga club Hannover, scored from an improbable angle to put the Blue Samurai ahead. Running onto a throughball that Jan Vertonghen failed to deal with, Haraguchi took a touch, weighed his best option and with a sweet right-footed strike, slotted the ball in at the far post. This strike came on 48 minutes and gave Japan the lead.

Just four minutes later, Takashi Inui, who plays for Real Betis, scored one of the goals of the tournament. From 25 yards out, Inui connected with his right foot sweetly to send the ball arcing into bottom right-hand corner, giving Courtois no chance of even getting his hands to the ball.

The debate regarding which was the better goal will rumble on, but Haraguchi and Inui will probably never strike a football as sweetly as they did here to give Japan a 2-0 lead that it has since relinquished.