Motivation

Asia Football Cup is going on at the moment and Japan has been favorite to win the Cup. If they do win, it will be their fourth and third successive title. Quite amazing when you look at Japanese soccer history, but that is something to write on different occasion.
Current Manager Ivica Osim, a Sarajevo Native has been coaching in Japan for over 5 years. He has transformed a lowly, JEF United Chiba-Ichihara to Title contenders - They have won the Nabisco Cup Two successive years, but not this year, they were ousted in the group stage of the League Cup. Now he is the Manager of the National team, second year, and they are through the group stage of the Asian Cup - top of their Group.
He is famous for his quotes, not because they are good and valuable, but also with A LOT of Sarcasm. For Japanese it is bit too hard to grasp but I had a chance to hear his interview live when he was still a manager at JEF and to me, he is just too smart for some of the journalist here. He answers questions with questions, when the team wins, he bemoans about lack of something, and when loses, he praise certain things. Of course, he do get critical.
One comment I have been curious and he's been saying this quite a lot and it is about "motivation." Motivation of opponent, looking to dethrone Japan, Motivation of home team. Japan have to match its motivation to opponents' level. Heaps of Mental aspect of the game. Kind of reminds me of JoePa of Penn State. Humble, ready to praise opponents.
In listening to Ivica, I think of our team and our lost to Tasaki. You could say that Tasaki's Motivation to win and continue their winning streak alive, compared to ours.
I heard before that in a close game little things counts; skills and tactics, but what kind of mentality you have can be decisive. I guess, we weren't committed to win the game. We were rather happy to see the draw.
It would be interesting what motivates our players for Urawa Lady Reds.