Starting line-up: Kawashima. Nagatomo - Yoshida - Shoji - H. Sakai. Ideguchi - Yamaguchi - Hasebe. Asano - Osako - Inui.
There was a confusion about the 4 excluded players. They are officially: Ueda. Takahagi. Muto. Sugimoto. Miura and Kobayashi are in (surprised to see Miura picked up ahead of Ueda). This list makes more sense.
But giving this three players form, their alternatives form and the importance of this game; It makes sense and there is NO big surprises.
Aaron Mooy and Tomo Juric not fit to play. Massive omissions. WTF Asano (with no Muto), please prove me wrong.
Well, that seems fairly subjective... Asano played two matches, and in the second he played just '27 as a sub, and didn't do anything significant. So I'd say he and Kubo had fair chances. Honda of course unfit. Ideguchi instead of Shibasaki also wasn't to be expected give one plays in La Liga now. Inui instead of Haraguchi does make sense to me, but the coach in the past hasn't hesitated to use players who have been playing less, so... Osako also just came back from injury while Okazaki did well (but I can understand going for the more physical player)
It might look like that as there's not much creativity in the central midfield. But I expected that seeing Yamaguchi/Ideguchi combo there. The times when Honda could do fine things with Endo are gone. Australia looks even worse.
It wasn't exactly an easy situation ... It's a composed performance so far, not so much in using the ball but mostly in staying focused to close down the gaps. However the way the players remain appalling, constantly losing the second ball or simply staying in front of their opponents never trying to bite their heels or go for a steal. The Australians pass the ball rather well because we simply follow them around. Hopefully we can add a football player in this midfield and start using the ball a bit better when we get it back. Captain Hasebe also needs to wake up, he's look old at times.