Nakajima and Morita are out injured. Inui and Shiotani called as replacements. No better replacement for Nakajima than Inui tbh. Not too worried about it.
Unlike Nakajima Inui is not really in great form so I am a bit worried because of the injury of Nakajima
Nakajima was supposed to be the "star" this time, sad to see him out. But Inui is a good replacement.
The loss of Nakajima is devastating. I'm not sure we can maintain our great chemistry up front without him. And we need a long shooter like him to break down teams that are going to bunker like Iran. He got injured 3 days ago in a league match. The JFA should have called up him earlier. Their arrogance damaged our chance as expected. By the way, the reserves are disastrous. We lost the best back-ups in FW, DMF and CB. lol at Shiotani. When was the last time he played for the national team? Players that were expected to get called up but didn't make it. DF Shoji (transfer) MF Nakajima (injury), Misao (injury), Morita (injury) FW Suzuki (injury), Kobayashi (injury), Asano (injury)
I am quite sure that Shiotani was not part of Moriyasu's plans until Moriyasu saw his performance in the Club World Cup, and I think he kind of regret calling-up Sasaki instead of him. So when the chance came out to call him-up Moriyasu done so although at the expense of an injured player playing different position.
Shiotani is currently at an UAE club, it's faster for him to join the team on time. Besides, he would play an utility role as back up for CB, LB, RB, DMF positions. It's a logical call. I'm more concerned of the preparing as a whole team. No serious friendly matches, players join too late... How do they find time to form any kind of understanding with each others? Maybe the coach sees the group matches far too easy and consider them as chances to practice, the players will gradually gel with each others. If that the case, it's too reckless. I don't know about Turkmenistan, but Oman is no joke, let alone Uzbekistan. The disaster may happen not because of players' quality, but because they may not have play properly as a team.
I share the same fears. All of JNT direct competitors have played at least one preparation match. Moreover, as previously mentioned in another thread, some ex-member of the JFA had predicted JNT has 80% chances of winning this tournament!!! The F***?!! I'm not so sure with this minimal kind of preparations. But, what do I know?! Hopefully, the team proves me wrong.
The team which doesn't take the opponent seriously enough A good team (or dare I say a good generation) is screwed over by an unfit manager Hope JNT avoid all that
Nakajima OUT (injury) Shoji OUT (transfer) Can't think about a worst set back than this. Inui IN (why?) Shiotani IN (Club WC) Better than nothing. I hope Inui will be on fire to deceive (lol) his coach he's good enough.
The earliest that Nakajima (and Muto, Yoshida) could have been called up is 12/31 (the Monday before the beginning of the tournament), according to FIFA regulations. Since the domestic camp ended on the same day and the team didn't arrive in Abu Dhabi until 1/3, what would be accomplished by calling him up earlier?
The TV coverage of the Asian Cup in Japan is shocking. The normal channels don't care as usual and the satellite ones have shown only 2 games (the opening game and Australia-Jordan) so far. No Korea/Iran/Saudi games. What a joke.
So you would call him up early and make him fly to Abu Dhabi by himself when the rest of the team is still in Tokyo? Seems pointless. Don’t forget that players get injured in training as well, as in Morita’s case.
That's just disgraceful. Why does Japan put a good chunk of money into that tournament and the AFC if not to show the match on normal TV?
Guess the 80% chance of winning the tournament statement got into their heads So, they only show what they deem important matches + JNT matches.
Yeah, that's Japan for you. Not that countries like USA etc is much better, especially during Olympics and other big, international events. But someone must have the rights to show these games, so why aren't they broadcasted? If they were on DAZN I would have watched them all.