Singapore's U23 squad, preparing for June's Southeast Asian (SEA) Games on home soil, were handed a 8-1 thrashing by Japan's U22 side in an international friendly at Singapore's Jalan Besar Stadium on Saturday.
Aide Iskandar's charges were eager to show how far they have progressed since their two-week training stint in Turkey earlier this year. But the gap in quality was too big as the visitors dominated the match from start to finish.
After a series of missed chances, Japan broke the deadlock in the ninth minute when right-back Ken Matsubara sent a ball over the Singapore defence to find Shoya Nakajima whose rasping volley flew past Syazwan Buhari in goal.
With Jamaican-born forward Suzuki Musashi sitting at the pinnacle of the Japanese attack, the young Samurai Blue continued their fluid, pass-and-move style. It troubled the Young Lions backline, in particular Al-Qaasimy Rahman and Ali Hudzaifi on the flanks.
True to form, Makoto Teguramori's men in blue doubled their advantage in the 21st minute when left midfielder Yuta Toyokawa found Nakajima with a through ball and the striker slotted home for his second on the night.
The impressive Musashi then got his reward when a well-worked move down the left saw Kamekawa Masashi's shot channelled into the path of the giant forward. He made no mistake to make it three goals to the good for the visitors.
Teguramori's men still had more goals in them before the break. Toyokawa broke down the left flank in the 41st minute before putting in a delightful cross for an onrushing Ide Haruya to glance a header past Syazwan. The scoreboard read 0-4 with half-time in sight.
And then Toyokawa's cross found an onrushing Ide Haruya. He glanced it past Syazwan before Ryota Ohshima sent a thunderous shot into the net to cap it at 5-0 as referee Mohd Farhad blew for half-time.
The second period saw the Japanese dominate proceedings in a similar fashion. The visitors increased their tally to six in the 55th minute when a precise cut-back by Masashi Kamekawa saw substitute Takuma Arano slot it under Syazwan.
Singapore's golden opportunity to get on the board came in the 67th minute when a Shahfiq Ghani free-kick sailed across the penalty box only for the charging Amirul Adli to miss his header. The home side were finally starting to find their groove in the attacking third.
22-year-old Syazwan put in an heroic performance for his team but the Singapore stopper could not prevent Sei Muroya from making it seven when man-of-the-match Nakajima connected with him after a defence-splitting ball.
The Jalan Besar faithful broke into rapturous applause with 12 minutes left when Safirul's free-kick found Irfan in the box. The protégé of LionsXII coach Fandi Ahmad glanced it home to salvage some pride for the tired Young Lions.
Syazwan's reliability suffered a blip in the 83rd minute to hand Japan their eighth goal when he came out too early and allowed Arano to flick the ball into an empty net.
A sigh of relief rang around the stadium as referee Farhad put the Young Lions out of their misery with the full-time whistle, handing Japan a confidence boosting 8-1 victory ahead of their AFC U22 qualifiers next month. They serve as the Asian qualifying round for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Singapore U23 coach Aide was quick to lavish praise on his opponents. He admired what he described as Japan's "next golden generation" of players. While the heavy defeat was less than ideal, he admitted that he was pleased that his side could learn from the best.
He said: "For me, it was a painful defeat but at the same time, the boys can learn from this. The gap between us and Japan, who are one of the best teams in Asia, was clear but these are the type of games that our boys need to play to gain experience from. One big thing for me to work on now is our lapses in concentration. We will sit down and build the team morale up while looking at video analysis of where we went wrong and what we can do better."
Japanese U22 coach Teguramori was elated that his young team managed to score eight goals away from home. He felt that this was the perfect result ahead of the AFC U22 qualifiers.
He said: "One of the biggest challenges is people in Japan are talking about how the national team could not score as much as we should have at the Asian Cup. So it was good that we were able to score eight goals tonight. I was satisfied with the different variations offensively and the different attacking moves that we put together. With the qualifiers coming soon, this is a positive sign and I am looking forward to the team performing even better."
Aide's men will now regroup and step up their preparations for the SEA Games taking place on home soil in June. Despite being four time winners of the AFF Cup, Singapore have never claimed the men's football gold medal at the SEA Games.
Singapore U23: Syazwan Buhari (GK), Shakir Hamzah (C), Al-Qaasimy Rahman, Ali Hudzaifi (Safirul Sulaiman 65'), Amirul Adli (Fadli Kamis 75'), Afiq Noor (M Anumanthan 34') , Shameer Aziq (Suria Prakash 45'), Shamil Sharif, Faris Ramli (Amy Recha 61'), Shahfiq Ghani (Iqbal Hussein 68'), Sahil Suhaimi (Irfan Fandi 52')
Japan U23: Kushibiki Masatoshi (GK) (Ayumi Niekawa 45'), Ken Matsubara (Sei Muroya 45'), Endo Wataru (C), Iwanami Takuya, Ueda Naomichi, Kamekawa Masashi, Ide Haruya (Takuma Arano 45'), Ryota Ohshima (Kyohei Yoshino 59'), Yuta Toyokawa (Riki Harakawa 48'), Suzuki Musashi (Takuma Asano 45'), Shoya Nakajima