When will you learn that friendlies mean nothing? No wonder some of the fans here still miss the Zaccheroni era. There was a difference in the approach to the game between Japan and Venezuela. Venezuela skipped the first match day of this month's international match window and they were already training in Japan when Japan was preparing for the match against Kyrgyzstan away from home. They were more fit than Japan. Plus Japan fielded an experimental team against Venezuela. I don't see that Moriyasu will use them in serious matches with the exception of Shibasaki and Nakajima. Speaking of Moriyasu, his lack of tactical flexibility is a problem but the same goes for the previous Japan managers. Nishino was just watching after Belgium started to use Fellaini as the target man. Zaccheroni relied on Honda too much and didn't have a single alternative plan. My point is that coaching Japan isn't an attractive job for world class managers. Japan belongs to the worst confederation outside of Oceania and the salary they can offer is just 3M dollars at most. Moriyasu is one of the best managers Japan could realistically get. Face the reality. It wasn't even the best U-21. Only 9 out of the 23 players joined the U-21 squad at the Asian Games. Please do some research.
Now Japan has to play extra 6 games to qualify compared to the 2006 edition. Thanks to the current garbage format, the JFA is struggling to arrange friendlies in Europe and it really hurts European-based Japanese players' fitness. Exciting? That's why the ACL games in Japan have had lower attendance than the mid-week J-League games and the J-League teams often field second-string sides lol. It's a crap competition. Just look up the prize money. Only 3M dollars. FYI, the J-League winners receive 20M dollars. Imo the J-League should withdraw from the ACL and then expand the top division from 18 to 20 teams.
So every time you lost you claim it's not even your best team? What's next? Losing the Olympics and claiming it's because you left out Kento Nakamura, Yuki Abe... or some other names (sure would happen since you can only bring 18 players) ? It's the potential problem with your u23 team. Too much experimenting, too few comprehensive, lacking winning mentality, easy and lazy excuse.
Well, since my national team may join various tournament to compete with both senior and junior JNT team in the future so I take this argument of "not even the best team" with a lot of skeptic. I admit that I admire the Japanese football style and achievement as an Asian top team. They can bring whatever squads to Asian tournaments as they want, but if they lose, they should face it with proper attitude. You bring the younger ones or lesser ones as your choice, no one forces you to not field your best squad. If you lose, it's your fault and the other team's achievement. If you use it as an excuse, it's the lose for various sides: an insult to Asian football, an insult to other teams' effort, and an insult to your players who actually fight on the field, like you are telling them "no one expects you to win anything". This leads to the situations: you win nothing in Asian because "it's not even our best team", while (for now) still winning nothing in International scope since the managers are busy training and evaluating up to ~50 players a year. Keep doing that for a long time, and you will face a negative result: you forget the winning mentality, and you may not even know what your best team is.
Squad for the EAFF to be announced tomorrow. It seems that Kensuke Nagai dislocated his shoulder and might not make the squad, thankfully. The squad is supposed to consist wholly by J-Leagures, but knowing Moriyasu, I won’t be surprised if he calls-up Shibasaki given he is rarely used by his club in Spain.
Would be a bad sign for Shibasaki if Deportivo were cool with releasing him from like 5 matches for no reason.
Moriyasu called-up Olympic team members + some overage players for the EAFF. Thankfully, among the overage players are Nakagawa, but unfortunately there is no Furuhashi, who I think Moriyasu left because of Vissel Kobe’s involvement in the Emperor’s Cup semifinals. Full Squad: GK: 1- Nakamura. 12- Kojima. 23- Osako. DF: 19- Sasaki. 2- Mouroya. 5- Miura. 4- Hatanaka. 15- T. Watanabe. 21- Koga. MF: 10- Nakagawa. 6- Oshima. 18- Hashimoto. 9- M. Suzuki. 8- Ideguchi. 16- Soma. 14- Morishima. 3- S. Tanaka. 7- K. Endo. 17- A. Tanaka. FW: 20- Ogawa. 13- Ueda. 11- Tagawa.
Sasaki, Ideguchi, and Musashi called-up again? Seriously? Let’s hope Moriyasu will use Musashi as a winger (side-attacker) rather than a striker.
Hoped that the likes of Daiki Hashioka Sugioka,etc. would feature. Not that bad of a list overall, however.
He played as a winger/attacking midfielder in his early career as coaches sought to utilise his pace. Afterwards, he was used as a striker because of his height, not because of his scoring abilities. In my opinion, Musashi Suzuki is more suitable to play as a winger/attacking midfielder than striker.
I was wandering around this thread and found this ridiculous sentence. Never trust the opinion of someone who said that reaching the AC final -for Japan- is a noteworthy accomplishment (especially given its context), and that easily dominating our second round qualifying group with such inferior opponents is an accomplishment too. I never knew that the following things can be regarded as an accomplishment: beating the mighty Turkeministan by 1-goal margin, conceding play against Oman and only won thanks to a dubious goal while the Omanis were deprived from a PK, conceding play against Saudi Arabia and risked losing a knockout match, narrowly defeating Vietnam by a PK, and then losing against the legendary Qatar 1-3 in the final. Guys, please, don’t make yourselves look silly by saying such things just to be the cool and wise guys in the forum, or just arguing for the sake of arguing (trolling), and being contrarians. Don’t ever try such thing. This is not an order, it is a friendly advice.
Well, the Asian Cup IMO would be the best argument for firing Moriyasu so far. Won't happen and of course it shouldn't happen. But if Japan goes out in the first round in the Olympics, then it probably should. Asian Cup, he was caught out by injuries. And was completely unprepared for it. Nakajima out, of course that will hurt, regardless of who's the coach. Problem was he hadn't tried anybody really until then. He had his frontline of Osaka, Nakajima Minamino Doan, that's it. Without seeming to think any further, or if then to the World Cup 2026, guys like Asano and Kitagawa certainly won't be useful before then.... So got back Inui. Which of course is ok, not much time, he knows what Inui brings, no need to test him out... can work. But doubtful it works with Minamino-Doan. Those 2 without Nakajima are close to useless. Osako out of service for most of the tournament and Minamino-Doan are even closer to being useless. As much as I like Haraguchi, he can't replace Nakajima. Inui neither. Japan had a frontline of Muto-Kitagawa-Minamino. Asano injured (he shouldn't have been there in the first place), so he did the same, call Muto. Which was an upgrade. But here too, he had his Osako, or thought he had him, then brought Kitagawa, who everybody knew wasn't ready, he might be in a few years (ok, maybe even 2022, right now most definitely isn't) tried to bring Asano who simply isn't that good, the second Nagai basically (who is better than Asano right now).. Instead of trying out more players that are not projects for the future. Like he actually did in defence, rotated Yoshida, Makino (good to keep him for the Asian Cup IMO) Miura and Tomiyasu nicely. Would have liked to see more Shoji and Ueda, but Shoji then was there for the Asian Cup, so ok. Why didn't he really do that in the offence? Morita injured, again, unprepared, called Shiotani, who played well actually. But those 3 call ups really show how unprepared he was. All 3 seemed kind of "shit, what do I do now?" call-ups. The result was a good second place in a very underwhelming manner, they looked good vs Iran, that's it. EAFF: Expected call up of rather unexperienced players, who for the most part I don't know. No problem, that's what this is for. But Sasaki? What's wrong with Kurumaya and Yamanaka? They are younger, they are better. Only explanation I can come up with is that he wants somebody with experience. J-League (not that Kurumaya is that much more inexperienced, but roughly 147,75 times better) and Moriyasu tactics. To guide the youngsters.. we saw how well that worked versus Venezuela.... Left back, a position that urgently needs a backup for Nagatomo, age wise, and he sticks with the 30 year old Sasaki? Who in addition to his age is not very good either?
you are delusional if you think Japan is OWED the Asian Cup, they've lost it more often than not. It's a case of classic cognitive dissonance, most people expect Japan to walk over Asia but the reality is not hitting. It is not the Brazil of Asia that you're following. The story of Japanese football has been one of ups and downs and it will continue for the time being. In that context, reaching the final is not a bad result at all. Most of you are really setting yourselves up for disappointment.
Guys, help me! Who’s this guy is answering to? Did anyone said that Japan shall take winning the Asian Cup for granted? Sorry mate, you are arguing against nobody but yourself. You are assuming that “A” says something which he doesn’t say, and you just jumped and started arguing against your own assumption. This is the real meaning of “delusional”. Try to understand what others are actually saying before posting arguments about your own assumptions that other didn’t say. I advise you to write an article, or even a book titled: “How to argue against yourself 101”, since you seem to have a mastery in such thing. I will try to explain what I said in my last post, and I will try to simplify it as possible in hope that you will understand it. When someone says that anything but winning the Asian Cup is not an accomplishment, it does not mean that Japan winning Asian Cup shall be taken for granted. Understood? OK, I will give you another example. I hope you will understand it. For Japan when it comes to WC qualification, anything but securing one of AFC’s automatic qualification spots shall not be regarded as an accomplishment. For example qualifying through the play-offs shall not be regarded as an accomplishment. Yet, this does not mean that we shall take Japan qualification to the WC for granted. You got it mate? Again, try to understand what people are actually saying, don’t be delusional, as I (and other mates here) don’t have time to waste on teaching you how to understand simple statements and arguments as if you are an elementary school kid.
No one said it was an accomplishment, take a look at the sentence you quoted. Your premise was wrong so there's no point even arguing at this point. The only thing you can understand from what I said is that there is no need to fire who reached the continental cup final and who's doing just fine in the qualifiers. Above, I simply reacted to your attempt to ridicule their path to the Asian Cup final. My last post on that for now, we'll touch the subject again when we lose the EAFF.
FFS why the ******** is Sho Sasaki called up again? Complete waste of time. Kojima has genuine dirt on Moriyasu or someone in the JFA. What has he achieved this season to deserve a call up? The fact he is younger than 23 years of age? Wow 0 minutes for Oita Trinita. Even Yohei Takaoka deserves a call up ahead of Kojima. The strikers need to step up big time. Exciting to see Keita Endo, Ao Tanaka and Tsukasa Morishima.
It seems Moriyasu sees Sho Sasaki as a player who understands his philosophy very well, given he played under his stewardship at Sanfrecce Hiroshima. In addition to Sasaki’s ability to play in the left side of either 3 or 4-back defence. As for Kojima, he was the first-choice GK for this Olympic generation even before Moriyasu was appointed to manage the team, and lately he is gradually failing out of favour. He has been already overtaken by Osako this year, and between here and next summer if Kojima didn’t improve his game, I think Moriyasu will either call-up an overage GK (Nakamura) or another alternative such as Tani as Japan’s second-choice GK in Tokyo Olympics. Takaoka is over 23, and Moriyasu is clearly giving priority to the Olympic team with just 8-months left to the main event.
If age is an issue then why not call up someone who has played first team football. Tomoya Wakahara and Yuki Kato have at least played J2. Anyway, he will be second choice at best in EAFF.
Kojima is the third choice in the EAFF, there is no way he can leapfrog either Nakamura or Osako. Kato only played 10 matches this season (he didn’t play a single match in the last 3 months), and Wakahara only played once this season and he was the 3rd choice GK at Kyoto Sanga. Not enough playing time to merit their call-ups, but surely both could be called-up based on other grounds.