It's not the time to rotate player selections anymore. If any players wanted to impress, they should do it last 2 years. The coaches were pretty generous when calling up players, as I remembered the U23 team could feature 2 complete different selections in consecutive tournaments. I'm sure the coaches already have the imagine for next Olympics' official squad. Now is the time for these core squad to gain understanding playing with each others. If anything, the team has its huge talent pool to blame. But they can not fit all the talents in a 18 members squad(is it 18 or 23 ?). It happened all the time with top teams, why xxx is not called up instead of yyy... Sometimes the coaches have to say f*ck that and prioritize the team's comprehension for the next 6 months.
4 players were excluded from this squad due to a “claimed” injuries: Koki Machida Tsuyoshi Watanabe Ao Tanaka Keita Endo The were replaced by: Ayumu Seko Yoichi Naganuma Takahiro Ko Toichi Suzuki
Starting line-up for the friendly against Colombia (set start after less than an hour from now) : GK: Osako. DF: Iwata - Tatsuta - Itakura. DMF: S. Tanaka - Nakayama. SMF: Sugawara - Suga. AMF: Doan - Kubo. FW: Ueda. 【スタメン発表！】GK 大迫DF 立田,板倉,岩田MF 中山,菅,堂安,田中,久保,菅原FW 上田キリンチャレンジカップ2019🇯🇵#U22日本代表 vs U-22コロンビア🇨🇴📅11/17(日) 12:50📍エディオンスタジアム広島📺フジテレビ系列（一部地域除く）https://t.co/jrqyb5I9Ss#jfa #daihyo #キリチャレの日 pic.twitter.com/q6kAMNUJ1v— サッカー日本代表 🇯🇵 (@jfa_samuraiblue) November 17, 2019 Just missing Tomiyasu and Ao Tanaka to be a full-strength starting line-up. One might argue here that Hashioka and Sugioka shall replace Sugawara and Suga respectively, but I think Sugawara and Suga deserves to get their chances.
Miyoshi shall start instead of Kubo. Kubo is like a black hole on the pitch, active, magical touches, but no end product. I feel I’m beginning to grow hatred towards Kubo. He is given more chances than he actually deserves just based on his potential not the value he adds to both senior and Olympic teams.
please. are you serious. don’t hate the teenager. he should’ve stayed in spain this week. hate the japanese football association and the national media who get wet every time kubo touches the ball. the honda/kagawa generation is over. kubo is the perfect poster boy to bring in money. sponsors don’t care how bad he plays... as long as he plays. how many times did honda/kagawa and others play in friendlies horribly out of form...only to sell out the stadiums and please the sponsors. and don’t get me started on moriyasu. he’s such an idiot that he thinks playing kubo anywhere will solve his tactical deficiency.
Kosei Tani, Higashi Shunki (he is a lefty version of Sugawara), Mitsuki Saito, Yamato Wakatsuki and Taichi Hara must be in this team ASAP.
Kubo and Doan are a couple of shitbags. They are useless. They can’t play simple football, always complicating things and trying to do too much by themselves. Miyoshi is a better team-player than both of them, his pressing, passing, link-up play is far more better than these two retards. I have a new nickname for Kubo, the “black hole”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#/languages He is playing like a black hole, attracting balls and never do something really useful from them. The way the JFA and Moriyasu are treating him is unbearable and counter-productive. He shall not be a starter until he does something to justify it,,he shall not be the team’s default set-pieces taker, when his delivery from dead-balls are below-average and Japan have more equipped player to do this job than him. This painful farce has to end.
you know this is japan we are talking about? ritsu doan can play like horse sh!t for the next twelve months and he will continue to start for the national and olympic team. takefusa kubo needs to be left alone at mallorca. the relentless travelling back and forth between spain and asia is not doing him any good. i feel for the players though. yes, they were poor today. but their manager is moriyasu. it would help if moriyasu actually had game management. what exactly does he do? why does he only decide to make subs when his team are behind? he just chucks all the "big name" guys on the pitch and hopes for the best until he makes a 89th substitution when they're behind.
I didn't watch the match, but do you mean Kubo is turning to the new Doan? And this mean we had 2 Doans on the pitch? Joking aside, I will try to rewatch this match, one positive point was jnt used 343/361 which I think is best suit for current squads (well, if the AMFs actually performed)
I couldn't find a full match video :\ But did Iwata actually play as DF and Sugawara as SMF? I think if these 2 switches positions, it would be better, although I know Sugawara was tested as MF in his club, but he also has experiences playing as DF, and Iwata seems to be more comfortable in the wing. Nakayama and S.Tanaka sounded too defensive mind. Replace one by Ao Tanaka or Mitsuki Saito and we had more balance team. My national team also play with 3 DFs so I have some opinions for this formation to work: - The wingbacks must provide wide options, by crossing or dribbling (a lot). A more attacking mind wingback is better, since you have 3 DFs and MFs to cover for you (Hashioka is a good one on the right, Iwata is decent, don't know about the left) - The MFs should be extremely dynamic. I don't like the idea to label them as DMFs, no, in 3 backs formation the midfielders must provide more, not just defending. Nakayama never convinces me as a good one (to the point that I was disappointed, since he is the captain). He may be more suitable as a DMF in 3 midfielders formation. - The AMFs should utilize the wingbacks for crossing, and move closer to CF or even the goal for more scoring chances. If AMF keeps the ball too much, he will be forced to the wing, CF is separated in the middle, the opponents bulk the penalty box, after that, good luck on trying to score. In short, one dynamic MF, push the wingbacks more advance, cross more, AMFs play more quick passes in order to move closer to CF, and we're good to go. About Kubo and Doan, I think we should get over it. After some good ~30 minutes in the match with South Africa (and a little bit with Uruguay) at the U17 WC 3 years ago, the idea of 2 of them leading the Olympics team's frontline with slick skills seemed to be fixed in the managers and Japanese fans' mind. From now on, all they will do are to force this reality happens. We can only hope for the best.
Both Kubo and Doan were trying to do too much by themselves, holding the ball too much until it is too late to pass it to a teammate. They never back-passed the ball even if there is no good options going forward. They never tried to involve the central midfielders (S. Tanaka and Nakayama) with them, which ended up in leaving a big gap in Japan’s midfield, and this was translated into Colombia having more ball possession and controlling the midfield. They isolated themselves from the central midfielders and the striker, and in return isolated the central midfielders and the striker from being involved in the build-up. Their selfishness is killing the team and damage its shape. If you watched the game against Brazil you will know what I am talking about. Attacking midfielders exchange of passes and positions with the central midfielders, striker, and wingbacks were very crucial in breaking Brazilian defensive shield and creating chances for Japan. Koji Miyoshi was tracking back in many occasions to positions deep into Japan’s defensive end to support his teammates, he sometimes dropped back and let Hashioka, Ao Tanaka, and Nakayama play into the attacking zone, while he was providing defensive cover for them. This positional switching can confuse any team in the world and leave them in tatters, and this is the style this team was built on. On the contrary, Doan and Kubo are 2 selfish dogs, playing static and predictable style of football, which makes the opponents task of breaking Japan’s attacks easy, as they just need to mark 2 players (Doan and Kubo), as they know the others are rarely involved, or will not be involved until they close down on both Kubo and Doan and make it too late for the others to make an impact. As for your question about Sugawara and Iwata, yes, Iwata played as the right-side defender, while Sugawara played in front of him in the midfield.
After watching it, I think the worst player was Nakayama. At this rate, this team may commit a mistake entrusting the crucial position in the team's skeleton to a player who doesn't have enough skills for the task. He tried too many fancy touches which lead to nothing, and losing too many possession, which is a taboo for a modern DMF. He may look comfortable with the ball, but everytime Colombia pressed aggressively, he lost it. It made me question his actually calmness and skills. And what quality makes him the captain? The guts to foul opponents in physical matches? I'd rather see Tomiyasu with the armband. Heck, even Miyoshi is better. About Kubo and Doan, they were not good, but not as bad as I imagined. Colombians marked them aggressively, and every decent teams with a brain will do it from now on. It's up to them to step up. I also give credits to Colombia, they are good team with physical and technical balance.
Nakayama did not play a good game since last year’s Toulon tournament. He was shaky last season for Kashiwa Reysol, and both him and Nakatani’s lose of form was the reason behind Kashiwa’s defensive struggles last season and their eventually relegation to J2. His performance today reminded me of his performance against Chile in Copa America, when he lost balls and possession in situations which led to 3 Chilean goals. He had his bad touches and decision too against Brazil last month, but was saved by Ao Tanaka and Miyoshi who were covering up his shortcomings. As for Doan and Kubo, it is still their fault. If you are marked closely you have to do some positional switching by dropping back and let the players behind you to surge forward and break the opponents threshold. Japan did that successfully against Brazil, and all of Japan’s 3 goals came from the 2 defensive midfielders (Ao Tanaka and Nakayama) as a result with assistance from the right wingback Hashioka, and the ever-impressive Miyoshi. As Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. This was what both Kubo and Doan trying to do all afternoon, trying to dribble past the opposing defenders by themselves and keep the ball for too long instead of playing it simple and plain to one of their teammates. I don’t know what is exactly the problem with Kubo and Doan, but I think they are way too confident of their abilities to take down defenders by themselves and ended up losing the ball and halting Japan’s attacking thrusts. Daiki Suga was poor today too, he is weak defensively, but his contributions offensively were not good either, especially compared to Sugawara in the other side of pitch.
I don't blame Kubo or Doan. At least they tried to spark something. None of their team mates tried to do anything. At the end of the day we can have all these younger players starting in European league or look excellent in the J League but if the manager is incompetent then there is little hope.
Japan will play a friendly tomorrow (Saturday 28/December) against Jamaica. The squad for the AFC U-23 championship in January/2020 will be announced one day later, on Sunday 29/December/2019. JFA announced two friendly matches in March/2020 against two African teams which had already qualified to Tokyo Olympics: 27/March/2020: vs South Africa @ Kyoto. 30/March/2020: vs Cote d'Ivoire @ Fukuoka. https://www.jfa.jp/national_team/u22_2019/news/00024066/
The squad for tomorro's (today's) match: GK 1 Louis Yamaguchi. 12 Kosei Tani. 23 Leobrian Kokubo. DF 3 Yuta Nakayama. 2 Tomoki Iwata. 22 Takuma Ominami. 21 Makoto Okazaki. 15 Ayumu Seko. 20 Yuki obayashi. MF 6 Yoichi Naganuma. 7 Kaoru Mitoma. 11 Reo Hatate. 8 Takahiro Ko. 13 Yuto Iwasaki. 17 Taishi Matsumoto. 5 Daiki Sugioka. 10 Hiroki Abe. 16 Yuya Fukuta. 4 Toichi Suzuki. 14 Shunki Higashi. 18 Daiki Matsuoka. FW 9 Daizen Maeda. 19 Kazunari Ichimi.
Joke of a match. Stopped watching at 5-0, which didn't even take half an hour. I see the final score was 9-0.