“Nippon: Forever in our Shadows” read the banner draped in front of the Green & Gold Army in the Great Southern Stand – now the Shane Warne Stand – at the MCG in 2009 as the Socceroos took on Japan in their final World Cup qualifier on the road to South Africa 2010.

Australia and Japan had already qualified for South Africa, but the match would decide who finished top of the group. It meant both nothing and everything. Bragging rights and a claim to supremacy were at stake. For the fans, and for the players, that meant something.

Japan were still haunted by that day in Kaiserslautern in 2006 when Tim Cahill inspired Australia to a dramatic 3-1 win at the World Cup. They exacted a modicum of revenge 12 months later at the Asian Cup, knocking Australia out in a dramatic penalty shootout at the quarter final stage, but it hadn’t fully made up for the humiliation – as it was viewed in Japan – of Kaiserslautern.

As it was, on a typically crisp Melbourne evening, Australia, coached by the late Pim Verbeek, came from behind thanks to a second half brace from Cahill, Japan’s arch-nemesis, to record a 2-1 win on a night of celebration for the national team in front of almost 75,000. They were heady days.

But back to the banner. If your heart bleeds green and gold, you probably don’t remember it. You might have chuckled when you saw it, but then quickly forgotten about it. But if you are Japanese, it’s a different story. They have never forgotten. It was almost taken as a personal affront.

Four years later, in 2013, I was in Japan for another World Cup qualifier between the two teams, as Australia, now under the tutelage of German Holger Osieck, stumbled towards qualification for Brazil 2014, and met up with some fans who were part of the ultra scene in Japan.

As we sat talking in a basement izakaya in Shinjuku, enjoying a few drinks after a J2 game between their respective teams – JEF United Chiba and Montedio Yamagata – they asked if they could show me a photo. It was the banner. Four years on it still rankled them.

“Japanese fans have little experience of receiving such humiliating messages from opposition fans,” Hikaru Tomida, one of those fans, , said at the time. “They think it’s very ridiculous to behave [that way] towards the opposite side. So they were shocked to see the banner.”

Fast forward another four years and Japanese fans decided the time was nigh to get one back on their Australian counterparts. Despite winning the Asian Cup on home soil just two years earlier, Australia under Ange Postecoglou were struggling and falling behind their nearest rivals in Asia.

Japan, meanwhile, had established thbemselves as the dominant force, not just in the rivalry between the two nations, but across the continent more generally. The national team, and their domestic competition, the J.League, were the benchmark for the rest of Asia. No longer in anyone’s shadow, they were the ones casting it.

As Australia travelled to Saitama Stadium in August 2017 for their penultimate qualifier, sitting third in the group behind Japan and Saudi Arabia, that night at the MCG was long in the rearview mirror. In fact, that was the last time they had tasted victory against the Samurai Blue. In the six games since, Japan had won three, including the Asian Cup final in 2011, while the other three ended in stalemates.

With long memories, the Japanese fans had a banner of their own: “AUS forever in our shadow,” it read. It was playful, cheeky… and eight years in the making.

But for all of Japan’s dominance of Australia in the past 13 years, a win on Australian soil remains elusive. Only two of the eight encounters since the MCG clash have been in Australia, one in Brisbane and one in Melbourne, with both ending in hotly contested 1-1 draws.

“Even though Japan hasn’t lost since 2009, I don’t think there is much difference between the two countries,” veteran Japanese journalist Etsuko Motokawa says. “This time away [from home], I think it will be a more difficult match for Japan. Matches between Japan and Australia are always competitive, and it will be a battle. But I think we can somehow leave with a result.”

As was the case in 2013 and 2017, Australia are fighting to hang on, while victory for Japan will secure their spot at the Qatar World Cup for what would be a seventh consecutive appearance. The difference this time, however, is they don’t have a capacity crowd at the intimidating Saitama Stadium to spur them on.

Winning in Australia is a mountain this era of Japanese players has yet to conquer. They have a fall back in the form of a home game against Vietnam to also secure direct qualification, but captain Maya Yoshida wants to make sure none of his teammates are taking that train of thought into the clash at Accor Stadium on Thursday night.

“We shouldn’t let there be a feeling of ‘even if we draw it’s still in our hands if we beat Vietnam in the next game’,” the Sampdoria defender, with more than 100 caps for Japan, told former teammate Atsuto Uchida on Japanese television last week.

“I’ve never won away to Australia, and neither have the team. So, I think it would be big for our growth if we are able to beat one of our rivals in Asia, and so I’m going there with the intention of winning.”

As another instalment of one of Asia’s great modern rivalries approaches, there is little doubt that Japan are the ones now casting the shadow; just how big that shadow is we’re about to find out.