If I were in FCT's (or Kashima's) shoes I would probably refuse to release Take (Abe) from league matches for a YNT tournament. That might be more the crux of the issue.
According to Sponichi, JFA would like to send 15 U22 players + 8 older players for the Copa America. The best candidates in the under-22 age group would be: Iwasaki (Sapporo), Osako, Morisaki (Hiroshima), Hashioka (Urawa), Sugioka (Shonan), Abe (Kashima) and Kubo (FC Tokyo). https://twitter.com/Mario_GCC/status/11 ... 2651104261 https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=2019 ... annex-socc
At least it sounds like they have a proper plan, although not sure it's a good thing to treat Copa as a somewhat glorified friendly cup.
It's a shame though. Copa América is a marketing operation w/ Japan and Qatar (despite for Japan makes more sense, since the competition will take place in Brazil and there will be a lot of fans, especially in Sao Paulo); with those names for the U-20 WC, you would have faced some chances of win it all.
What's the proper plan? Since I can't understand it. Send u20 players in Copa America with 8 older for what? Try something? Something what? At the same time weaken the u20 team giving no respect to an official World Cup. And at the end I bet Japan will be raped and kicked out from both the competitions asap.
If Kubo is the only exception, it's weird. But actually it's a large group of players, so it's a plan. Treat Copa as a glorified friendly tournament to train a large group of high profiles u20 players; avoid conflict with domestic clubs about calling other senior players. If my memory is good senior team's coach is also next olympics team's coach. So they want to let them work with others as much as possible. Other u20 players are supposed to be enough for U20 wc. In other words, Kubo, Abe and co. are considered 'above' u20 level now. Or they don't bother compete for high place in U20 wc, just focus on next olympics. That's their plan as I understand. Not sure a good one, but a plan.
if japan wants to continue to have a good image in the eyes of the world after a great world cup, it should not be ridiculous at the copa. otherwise it would have been better not to participate
The JFA can't force any club to release players for the Copa, since it's not a continental tournament for Japan. Just because they are focusing on the youngsters doesn't mean that the coaches and players (not to mention the other teams) aren't trying to win.
Well, since last year JFA hinted that they might send the U-22 team to Copa America, but after the WC reports started to suggest that they might send an A-Team with some exclusions due to club commitments. However, it seems they are now back to plan A, or to put it in a more accurate way, they mixed both options, and will send a mixed squad consisting of some A-Team players and players from the U-22, which is better than sending just the U-22s. I am all with this decision, as the U-22s need this opportunity to experience how it looks like to play in such competition. One of the problems that Japan NT experienced since the 2002 WC is the difficulty in incorporating young players into the senior team, not because they lack talent, but because they lack experience at the highest level. So please spare your cries and complaints, and look at the positives, and I don’t need to remind you that Japan most probably will not have a chance to win the tournament even if they send their strongest squad.
I agree that Japan will probably not win the tournament but it can reach the quarter-finals or even semi-finals with a good team from Japan
Players announced for June friendlies (Trinidad and Tobago, El Salvador): GK: Kawashima, Gonda, Schmidt, Osako DF: Nagatomo, Makino, Sakai, Shoji, Muroya, Ueda, Hatanaka, Nakayama, Tomiyasu MF: Kagawa, Haraguchi, Yuki Kobayashi, Shibasaki, Ito, Hashimoto, Nakajima, Minamino, Morita, Doan, Takefusa Kubo FW: Okazaki, Osako, Suzuki
One has to wonder what Kawashima and Makino are doing in this squad? At this point they literally has nothing to add to the NT, while the same could be said -to a lesser extent- about Okazaki’s inclusion.
You see Japan go far in the competition? Of course we'll know a little more when we see the final list.
The squad will be announced after 12 hours from now. The list will be basically an U-22 side + few established senior team players (8 as some sources reported).
I thought Koki Anzai deserved a callup personally but the squad looks decent. Not so sure about Suzuki... and I think it's too early for Takefusa Kubo.
Anzai is good offensively but horrible defensively for both Kashima and the NT. He was exposed time after time by Bolivian players last time when he played for the NT, and only the left-back position improved after Sasaki was subbed in for Anzai.
With the old guard being invited to the team Honda must be feeling some FOMO while gunning for the Olympic OA spot.
Won’t we be seeing Honda at Copa América in any case? After all he is exactly the kind of unemployed veteran who will be easy to call up.