Why has Moriyasu called Kawashima and Okazaki especially. Mentor for the debutants? For Musashi or Kubo? This is a ridiculous squad. Is Kawashima in to be a mentor? Does he even get minutes in France?
Kinda. He did say he wanted to play at Tokyo 2020 - which would make him a good candidate for one of the "veteran" slots at the Copa alongside the U22 players, especially given that he's out of contract and may want to put himself in the shop window. MLS front offices will be taking a close look at the tournament as well. Yes, Moriyasu pretty much said that Okazaki and Kawashima are there to provide mentorship, hence the large squad of 27.
I think we should treat Olympic NT and Copa America as different kettles of fish. I hope we don't call up Honda for the Copa America. He retired on a relatively high note with his status as a JNT legend in tact. He doesn't need money, he'll find a job somewhere probably in SE Asia in the Thai League or somewhere. Basically his position is that he needs a club that is willing to let him leave all the time to coach the Cambodian NT which is unlikely to be MLS.
I forgot about Honda’s cryptic retirement. In any case Moriyasu is going to treat the Copa as mainly an Olympic squad tournament, with some veterans sprinkled in as their club situations permit. The likes of Okazaki and Usami should be available, and perhaps Kagawa if BVB thinks it will help them find a buyer. I’m not sure the coach could do much better given the rules.
Okazaki I agree probably will go eh, Usami too. I dearly hope Kawashima doesn't go. A Japan NT at Copa which is too inexperienced as opposed to old-guard I'd prefer. The fact is Okazaki I'm pretty sure is still capable of putting in a good game for Japan, but I'd rather he's not around for the next 3 years in the NT unless he starts doing the business at club level properly whichever new team he goes to.
Copa América roster: GK Eiji Kawashima Ryosuke Kojima Keisuke Osako DF Naomichi Ueda Ko Itakura Tomoki Iwata Yugo Tatsuta Teruki Hara Daiki Sugioka Daiki Suga Takehiro Tomiyasu MF Gaku Shibasaki Shoya Nakajima Yuta Nakayama Koji Miyoshi Tatsuya Ito Taishi Matsumoto Kota Watanabe Hiroki Abe Takefusa Kubo FW Shinji Okazaki Daizen Maeda Ayase Ueda
this is both exciting and depressing. takefusa kubo... whether he is ready for copa america it really doesn't matter. jfa (and the j league) simply see him as the golden cash cow of japanese football for the next 15 years and they will milk every single yen from him. the obsession is sickening. keisuke osako, tomoki iwata, daiki sugioka, koji miyoshi, taishi matsumoto deserve their call ups given their form this season. ayase ueda needs to join kashima asap. he's wasting his time in university with so much potential. daizen maeda and daiki suga are 100% effort with no end product. yugo tatsuta and hiroki abe would be great... if copa america was last year. they are both in terrible form, especially the latter. give them a break. ryosuke kojima and tatsuya ito definitely have photos of an intoxicated moriyasu engaging in strange things in kabukicho. what waste.
hopefully this team will surprise us. even if deep down I was a little disappointed as soon as I learned that it won't be the senior team that would play. this tournament will allow the european club to discover new japanese talent. if kubo makes a great tournament there will be a great chance to be in a great team after the copa
The JNT managers should give more chances to these players : Hiroto Yamada, Taiki Hirato, Yuta Toyokawa, Shimpei Fukuoka, Daichi Kamada, Atsushi Zaizen, Masaya Okugawa and Ryotaro Meshino.
I think it depends. I remember watching Frontale - Antlers in march this season and defensively he was a monster in that game.
We have a university player going to debut likely in the Copa America......never played pro yet... No doubt though within this team you can put a very competitive starting XI on the pitch. This will be a weird NT training camp I would've thought. "Right lads....you're the only f**ks the clubs would give up.....it is what it is"
I'd like to see this starting XI for copa america: -------------------------Ueda--------------------- Ito-------------------Nakajima------------Kubo -------------Shibasaki-------Itakura------------ Sugioka---Nakayama---Tomiyasu---Iwata ---------------------Kawashima-----------------
if Japan ever reaches the quarter-finals with an Olympic team, Japan will have a great reputation because when it comes to this level with young players everyone will be impressed. the world was shocked to see Japan almost beat Belgium in the World Cup, why not see this young team surprise the whole world. especially since Japan when we expect nothing from them it is at this moment that they make us beautiful surprises
It's quite different since the opponents will be South American NTs and not a European side full of talents but w/o any achievement in his history that played far from home (and that at the end still won against one of the best JNT ever). Plus if Kubo will play 90 minutes per match as the guest star of the show probably it will turn into and handicap especially if the opponents will bullied him with the typical south american thug football. Correct me if I'm wrong but historically Japan never did something good in Copa America, probably the best chance to reach the playoff could be with Zac Japan but then Fukushima happened. The only positive aspect is that they will play without any pressure as the weakest underdog in the whole tournament and any goal/point will be a victory while any loss nothing to be ashamed of.
The fact that Japan’s Olympic team candidates will take part in 4 different competitions/friendly series in the short space of 1-month means a lot for their development and Tokyo Olympics aspirations. A total of 61 U-22 players will play in Copa America, U-20 WC, Toulon tournament, and Kirin Challenge friendlies combined. The level of experience and exposure they will get is unbelievable, and I think Moriyasu will have a great chance to asses those 61 players, not to mention injured GK Tani, and excluded players due to clubs commitments such as; Keita Endo and Tsukasa Morishima. I did not remember during my 23 years of following JNT that such thing happened, what is more exciting is that if we consider other players who are one year or two older than this Olympic generation (such as: Daichi Kamada, Hidemasa Morita, Kosuke Nakamura, Kento Misao, Yuma Suzuki, Masaya Okugawa, Yosuke Ideguchi, and Kyogo Furuhashi) Japan will have huge talent-pool for both 2022 and 2026 WCs. Not to count players born between 1992-1994 such as: Shoya Nakajima, Ryota Oshima, Wataru Endo, Gen Shoji, and many others, who will be -supposedly- among the talent-pool even for the 2026 WC. So, let’s hope of great things to come in the next 7 years!
Yep, the development of japanese football has been remarkable. I believe that by 2026 the JNT will be on par with the world's best national teams, while China will still take some 20-30 years to achieve that, despite its huge investment.
Well, I don’t think they will be “on par with the world’s best national teams”, but they will surely be a Worl Cup last 16 and QF material.
Gen Shoji should deserve a call up imo. He has been performing decently for his club plus they could use this opportunity of build up a Shoji-Ueda pairing for 2022 since Yoshida-Shoji which is the default starting CB pair may not be realistic in 2022 as Yoshida is not performing as well as he used to recently.
Oh, here it comes. It's time for another 2005 JFA Declaration aka the joke of all the jokes in football history? Fly down, actually I'm happy for what he stated but actually there's nothing as good as the Zac Japan Era was with the like of Klopp's Kagawa, 2010's Honda TOGHETER or new prospect as Feyenoord's Miyaichi or Bayern's Usami were in those years. Let's hope JNT can reach the level of a Mexico NT and maybe par with nations as Chile who can beat the Top Teams w/o being part of them. Other Captain Tsubasesque goals are utter BS, imo.