The last manager to experiment properly at EAFF was Zaccheroni in 2013. Last two editions under Halilhodzic weren't that good.
There were many videos on YouTube from channels that live-streamed the match, but most of them now are deleted, especially the ones with Japanese commentary. You can check this one (with Chinese commentary) : Or you can enter these 2 keywords (中国 日本) in the YouTube search bar and filter the results by length (more than 20 minutes) and upload date and you can find some videos of the full match.
Thanks guy, appreciate that. To tell the truth I feel nothing after the final. This tournament was already decided after the match with Thailand imo. Next Asia U23 is the real deal.
The youngsters: Ueda, Morishima were quite impressive. Morishima had tidy skills with quick response. Ueda showed improvement in his post play. His grow isn't rapid but quite stable. Keita Endo had good work rate and fight for the team, but everything about him is bang average. He can run quite well, he can dribble quite well, passing, shooting is quite good... nothing stands out. Not sure what to say about Hatanaka. For a CB, his skill with the ball is impressive. But I think his marking and physical contact are too casual at time, not my type of CB. (very similar feeling with Shoji) (Talking about 2 Yokohama guys, why their captain Kida is not called up? Too similar with Hashimoto?) Other members are so so. A little disappoint with Hashioka. And Sasaki, despite the captain with most experience, were very sloppy at times.
Nagai is ruled out of action for 4 months, which means he will miss the NT matches in March: 1205423568244236288 is not a valid tweet id
Ideguchi’s off-the-ball movement was awful against China, he had very bad zonal marking as he was responsible of letting the Chinese player next to him free for couple of times or more. This just shows how he lacks positional awareness, and reminded me of some of the matches he played for Japan in 2017 and made the team concede silly goals against Brazil and South Korea. He was poor defensively and always slow to commit himself to defence, which made him launch late challenges on opposing players which led Japan to conceding fouls. Lastly, he seemed to lack understanding with the other teammates (with the exception of Genta Miura), as he couldn’t sync with them properly. This made Hatanaka ignoring him and passing the ball directly to either Hashioka or Suzuki, and in addition to this, Suzuki’s below-par build-up skills made the right side of Japan much weaker and less lively that the left side, which witnessed 4 players (Sasaki-Hashimoto-Endo-Morishima) playing with very good harmony and creating most of Japan’s chances and breakthroughs. Honestly, as long as Ideguchi is playing for Japan, the team will play with 1-player disadvantage.
Ironically, Ideguchi who is Japan’s most capped player in this squad was the team’s worst player against China. If the opponents were a team stronger than China, Ideguchi’s poor positional awareness, poor defending, and his other shortcomings would have been exposed and caused Japan to concede one or two more goals.
Suzuki can't even hold up play due to terrible technique, especially his first touch is catastrophic for a professional footballer. Unfortunately he chose a wrong sport.
Moriyasu fielded a completely different line-up today. Japan are 4-0 up at HT and completely controlling the game. Do they really need to play the 2nd half? Even if it is only Hong Kong, but Oshima’s passes, interceptions, and positioning are in another universe compared to the inept Ideguchi. Lets hope Moriyasu will take notes from the first 2 games of this EAFF and starts Oshima in the next match (and never call-up Ideguchi again).
The difference between playing HK and China is quite a bit, it is only natural that Oshima played better than Ideguchi. Even Koki Ogawa scored a hat-trick against HK today.
It's only HK but Shoma shows the difference when you have a WB who can actually beat the defender and cross. Remind me of a young Nagatomo but on the right. He used to play on the left at Toulon. With Hashioka, Sugawara, the right side is pretty redundant so I think he should be used more on the left. The one on the left didn't impress me although he scored. Tagawa scored but his first touch and ability with the ball were on par with Suzuki. These 2 guys were only good in the movement off the ball. It's pretty hard to balance the positions behind the CF though. If you use both Morishima and Nakagawa, the physical and heading ability is a little bit lacking.
Trivia. Who is, with Shunta Tanaka, the only player to be capped with the National Team before even playing a professional game ?
This year Ayase Ueda was capped with the senior NT before playing a single professional game during Copa America.
Note: Football during Pre-J.League era was not practiced professionally in Japan, and all of Japanese players (with rare exceptions) were not playing professionally, and were capped without being professionals.
Kazuya Yamamura in January 2010 in the Asian Cup qualification match against Yemen. Actually, he and Kensuke Nagai were the first University players -when they both played in this match- to play for Japan senior NT since the introduction of J.League in 1992. However, Nagai played some professional matches for Avispa Fukuoka in 2009 as a special designated player. Hence,Yamamura is the one who fits the criteria you had mentioned.
Kento Hashimoto injured himself during a training session prior to the match against China, and he left the squad 2 days later. If Moriyasu insists on using Ideguchi as a starter, either Oshima or Ao Tanaka will start alongside him. Let’s hope Ideguchi won’t start, as Koreans can slaughter him easily.
Ideguchi just helped the Koreans again to score against Japan. He left Hwang In-Beom completely unmarked, and when he tracked back he didn’t mark Hwang but instead tried to close-in on another player which already had a Japanese player to cover him. As I said and predicted, Ideguchi’s shortcomings will be punished by a team like South Korea. How biased is Moriyasu to not see how Ideguchi’s off-the-ball movement, positional awareness, and defensive abilities are terrible and he does not belong to this level. I don’t like to wish people harm, but I hope Ideguchi gets injured during this match and gets replaced by Oshima. The sooner the better. I just cannot tolerate watching him anymore.
Embarassing. Even an usually cool headed Tanaka Aoh looks lost in this system. Everyone caught ballwatching endlessly. If there's some positivity, it's Ueda. He need to learn how to lead the press, though. Korean AM is having a great time, thanks to acres of space behind our MF. Our MF structure being appaling even made everything easier for them.
... and Ideguchi just received the first yellow card of the match for a reckless tackle (as usual). I hope he will learn a lesson from Ao Tanaka on how to make tactical fouls without getting a yellow-card.
the whole team doesn't appear to really value possession much. so careless in the middle of the field. Ueda only good at running around. Doesn't seem like he can do anything right.
Ao Tanaka was shaky against China, and even he admitted this fact in front of the press, which made me puzzled why did Moriyasu choose an Ideguchi-Ao Tanaka combination? You have to expect that a midfield with Ideguchi being part of it will see such flaws and allow opponents to have possession, you cannot blame anybody but Ideguchi and the one who called him up.