McNeil was criticised for conceding soft goals against Rangers and Hearts during the closing month of last season and the 20-year-old committed two errors against Japan which were damaging blows to Scotland's hopes.

However Scotland were generally poor in their Group F match in Victoria, and McNeil made several decent saves before and after gifting Yasuhito Morishima the opening goal, when his attempted kick clear after Scott Cuthbert's defensive slip was charged down by the Japan striker.

Scotland coach Tommy Wilson, serving as boss Archie Gemmill's right-hand man in Canada, particularly rued McNeil's second mistake - letting a speculative 30-yard shot from Jun Aoyama slip through his fingers.

It gave Japan a 3-0 advantage with 10 minutes remaining, after Tsukasa Umesaki had earlier hit their second goal.

And even though Ross Campbell pulled one back with a scuffed shot, Scotland had left it too late to mount a serious comeback.

Steven Fletcher came close but Wilson admitted the goal from Campbell might have been far more important if it came with Japan 2-0 up.

"It could have been," he told BBC Radio Scotland. "'Fletch' had a couple of chances and if we had made it 2-1 rather than 3-1 then it could have been an interesting finish, because I thought we finished better than we started."

The match was Scotland's first at the tournament since they bowed out in the 1987 quarter-finals to West Germany.

Scotland qualified on the back of finishing runners-up to Spain at last summer's UEFA Under-19 Championships, and Wilson was aware of the attention on yesterday's game.

He added: "It's been a long time and there's been a lot of that in the build-up and obviously the players were affected by it.

"But I think more than anything we made mistakes because of the stage of the season we're at. That's our first competitive game this year."

Their next comes on Wednesday evening, again at the Royal Athletic Park in Victoria, when Nigeria are Scotland's opponents (kick-off 0345 BST Thursday). Nigeria beat Costa Rica 1-0 in a game which followed the Scotland match, thanks to a second-half header from Brown Ideye.

Japan came to Canada fresh from competing at the Toulon Tournament in the south of France, whereas Scotland's players were allowed to rest after the end of the season, joining up with their international colleagues on June 20.

Wilson said: "I think at this stage of the season we're at, and the stage of the season they're at, they're obviously that bit sharper and I think that showed in the game. That's what we were worried about going into the match."

Japan coach Yasushi Yoshida told www.fifa.com: "We knew in one-on-one physical conflicts that we couldn't win, so our goal was to move the ball around quickly and avoid those match-ups."