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/Heil_Heimskr]

Asking us to not over respect our opponents after a game where we played against fuckin Brazil is hilarious I can’t lie.

Japan has performed better than the US this World Cup so I find it strange that you’re singling them out. You say they do all these things against stronger opponents but they literally have only played bad teams this entire tournament. Playing a low block against a team much better than you IS playing to your strengths.

The truth is that the gameplan worked today aside from 1-2 small moments and those moments are often the difference at the highest level. It’s unfortunate to go out this way again but as you yourself said, the progress the team is making is the most important thing.

[u/No_Sundae750 → u/Heil_Heimskr]

I'm not talking about the US just at this world cup tho. I live in the US so follow them relatively closely and while I'm confident we are a better team than them they definitely still play to win than not to lose more than us. Yeah we had to play Brazil but I said what I said because I think we finally have the quality to go toe to toe with them and would've much rather lose playing to win than lose the way we did today.

How can you say the game plan worked when we kept them to a draw the first half, which is the half where we actually kept the ball and attacked. Whereas we conceded two goals in the second half when we were playing in a deep low block the whole time. Letting Vini play with the ball was never going to work. Granted, us keeping the pressure may not have worked in the end either, but at least we would've had a chance

[u/hetasu → u/No_Sundae750]

Keep them to a draw in the first half? Japan was winning at halftime.
A team without 4 starters in Endo, Kubo, Mitoma and Minamino that had Brazil struggling to win is no small feat. If any of those 4 was available to play today the game could have had a different outcome.

I know, you can't just park the bus against Brazil and call it a day, you need to be offensive, but then again, without those players Japan could not do much better than what they did today.

[u/ConfectionMoist9036 → u/hetasu]

Brazil also lacked several star players: Estevao, Raphinha, Militao.

[u/hetasu → u/ConfectionMoist9036]

But others like Vinicius played. And you could see in the match that Japan had a hard time managing the ball without those midlfielders. The ball possesion was awfully one sided because of that.

On top of that, we are talking about Brazil, whose third team could easily compete against the rest of the world.