UAE naturalized a couple of Brazilians recently, and this is what gave them the edge over Vietnam in their second round qualifying group. Hence, they are more improved offensively, but their team lack stamina and tend to concede play and goals late in their matches. Oman remind me of Japan in the 1990s and in the period from 2004-2010; much possession and created chances with poor finishing skills. They completely dominated Qatar in the second round qualifying group, only for some controversial refereeing decisions gifting the match to Qatar.
It will be the same old story with Saudi Arabia and Oman: beating the eleven players on the pitch PLUS the referee. Australia is definitely beatable home and away. They barely have any players in the big four European leagues. Not convinced their manager is cut out for international football. China as always will look terrible 99% of the time but suddenly look good against Japan. Just need to make sure our players aren’t injured when it’s not going China’s away. Looking forward to playing Vietnam.
lmao China has five naturalized players! Elkeson (Brazil), Alan (Brazil), Fernandinho (Brazil), Nico Yennaris (England), Tyias Browning (England) Quite surprising that a nationalistic country like China is resorting to such a strategy.
Well, in the old and conservative Europe, countries well known for their racist behaviour naturalized black (african) players to improve their (low) chance to achieve some remarkable achievement. China mimic Qatar is not a surprise in 2021.
Qatar is getting better though, it's not practically the whole team anymore. But more than Europe, here the fitting comparison really is old and conservative Japan, well known for its racist behaviour. If Japan did it, then why not China? Not trying to start shit, but if you're going to call a whole continent "old and conservative", better make sure you're not in a glass house... Nothing of value in your post (not in mine either) so let's drop it...
China vs. Japan 2022 World Cup Qualifiers match on 7/Sep/2021 will be played at Doha, Qatar. The match is regarded as China's home fixture, but China choose to play at Doha as they will play their first away fixture against Australia there as well, due to COVID-19 restrictions in Australia.
Good. Don't want to play in that hostile environment a.k.a China. It should increase the odds of Japan winning the match. China always have difficulties playing away.
But now Japan will be forced to travel for longer distance and face jetlag, while the Chinese will be fully rested and ready, as China will play against Australia 5 days earlier in Qatar.
Japan national team squad for the upcoming WC qualifiers: GK: Kawashima, Gonda, Tani. DF: Nagatomo, Yoshida, Sasaki, Sakai, Yamane, Muroya, Ueda, Nakayakma, Tomiyasu. MF: Haraguchi, Shibasaki, W. Endo, Ito, Minamino, Morita, Kamada, Itakura, Doan, Kubo. FW: Osako, Furuhashi.
Thoughts: Glad to see Tani getting his first senior NT call-up ahead of Nakamura and Schmidt. Glad to see Furuhashi getting called-up ahead of Asano, Musashi Suzuki, and Onaiwu. The only negative is seeing Sasaki called-up AGAIN! Apart from this, the squad is almost perfect.
FK Sasaki, no comment. Need to get rid of Nagatomo and Kawashima and it’s a good team. They can always be called up last minute if we qualify for the WC.
I hope they'd play well. Winning the 1st match at home is a must. Happy to see Kyogo or "Kayogo" as some Celtic fans say his name being included.
No suprises really. Biggest one maybe no Asano, that's a positive surprise. Would have like to see Shoji though, but ok, no idea how he's been playing for Gamba. Defensive midfield, Endo-Shibasaki-Morita (Itakura), I expected Hashimoto to be called again, but no problem that he wasn't. Japan's problems aren't there anyway. Getting rid of Nagatomo? Absolutely not, even at 35 or whatever age he is, he still is better than any alternative. LOOK for an alternative, sure, but as long as Nagatomo delivers, there is no reason to get rid of him. If he now declines very rapidly, then yes, bench him, don't call him up anymore, but last time he played for the NT he was still better than Sasaki. Or Nakayama. Kawashima, yeah.. I suspect he's there for the locker room, third keeper usually doesn't get to play in a WC, even less likely in 2 qualifiers.. But don't really see the point either, if anything keep Nishikawa around.
I don't mind seeing older players being called up. I think that a lot of people are forgetting that the World Cup is next year, these players should still be good by then. But if Kawashima and Nagatomo are still being called up after that then there are serious questions that need to be asked.
When was Sasaki good? I found this one pretty funny (probably because it's true) Yeah, most likely about the coach.
Gamba's defense is a joke even against 2nd-tier teams in AFC Champions League. Personally I don't like the CB who has the habit to showboat unnecessary tricks like Shoji. In the WC, Yoshida played the role of tactical CB, so Shoji was forced to play more orthodox role, and he was rather good. However at times, especially at club level, he tends to relax too much and it always leads to unstable defense system. I also think an ideal CB pair consists of a technical, tactical one and a more physical, no non-sense one. For this reason Ueda always has his place in the team although he is not rated highly as Tomiyasu or Itakura. Tomiyasu and Itakura should keep their play simpler too in my opinion. Recently I feel they start to rely too much on their tactical judgement, so they tend to let the opponent's CF too many spaces. You need someone to stick to the CF, and at current level clearly its not Yoshida's job.
Hashimoto is playing in a more-attacking position at Rostov, and whenever he drops to defensive midfield he has been very week. At his current form, Ao Tanaka, Hayao Kawabe, and Sho Inagaki shall be ahead of him in the pecking order.
I predict a tough match against the Omanis whom I expect will resort to parking the bus tactic. I wonder if our offense have got what it takes to penetrate that double layered defense. Off-topic: Congrats to the JNT beach soccer team for reaching the WC final as the first Asian country to do so. A historic moment indeed.
Just a question: some of the european players will be quarantined for some days after these match right? What about japanese players back in Japan from foreign asian countries doha?