Video: All the highlights from the absolutely brilliant Italy v Japan game last night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOLvmrkfX7c

If you stayed up for Italy v Japan last night, you caught was arguably one of the games of the year so far. If you didn’t, worry not, here are all the best bits.

Some will deride the Confederations Cup as merely a series of meaningless friendlies at the end of the season but it has been the source of some great entertainment so far, whether through Neymar’s skills, Tahiti’s pluck or the absolutely brilliant game between Italy and Japan last night. By all accounts Japan were unlucky to end up on the losing side after playing some brilliant football against the Azzurri, who ended up as 4-3 winners thanks to goals from De Rossi, Balotelli, Giovinco and a Uchida own goal, with Manchester United’s Shinji Kagawa, Keisuke Honda and Shinji Okazaki getting on the scoresheet for the losing side. The goals were only part of the story in what was a truly thrilling game that featured dubious penalties, some sublime skills and a particularly unfortunate passage of play for Japan when they hit the post and the crossbar within about five seconds of each other. We’re not expecting a similar result when Spain take on Tahiti tonight, but if we can get more of this from the rest of the tournament then we’ll be very happy indeed. Video via YouTube/HQAllGoals