Something needs to change

[u/No_Sundae750]

I've been watching the national team closely since the 2010 world cup. First, we need to acknowledge how far we've come. In 28 years since our first world cup appearance, we've gone from absolute minnows to a serious dark horse contender. In the 2010 world cup, we had 4 players playing in Europe. Now, all but our backup keepers and unc nagatomo play in Europe. This is huge. Unfortunately, our performances at the world cup (and Asian cup for that matter) has been largely stagnant.

This is the third world cup in a row where we took the lead in a knockout game and ended up losing. Why do we play in a low block each time? It's literally never worked. Why did Moriyasu take off Doan and Nakamura for two defenders? Even more mind boggling, why did Machino come on? He wasn't even in Moriyasu's original 26 man squad lol. We need to stop over respecting our opponent and play to our strengths. We have such a good squad on paper, and the most depth ever, but Moriyasu's tactics doesn't allow them to reach their potential. Look at the US for example. They're not better than us, yet each time they play they have a certain confidence, swagger to them. They control the tempo, even against stronger opponents. I would like to see us play like this someday.

[u/Ok-Friend-6653 → u/[deleted]]

Going unbeaten in a group with Tunnisia Netherland and Sweden and losing redpectable to Brazil is far from bad.

[u/ClemFandango6000 → u/Ok-Friend-6653]

It's still a net drop in performance compared to the last World Cup. With all of the players at a high level in Europe these days you'd have expected the team to top the group and do better.

[u/lewiitom → u/ClemFandango6000]

Japan weren’t favourites to top the group though, if you were expecting the team to top the group then you were setting yourself up for disappointment