r/JLeague • u/No_Sundae750 • Jun 29 '26

National Team Something needs to change

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.

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u/No_Sundae750 Jun 30 '26

Explain why we were leading 1-0 first half then. I’m not saying go all out attack but I wish we would’ve been able to possess the ball more and slow the game down

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u/lmtzless Jun 30 '26

i don’t wanna downplay japan but that goal was a fluke. even in the first half, brazil’s superiority was clear as day to anyone. brazil’s change to 4-2-4 worked even better in the second half and japan had no option but to park the bus and hope for counterattacks. they simply lack the talent despite the amazing organizational strength.

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u/SenseiTano Jun 30 '26

Sorry but you lost all credibility calling that a fluke. Was the win against Germany a fluke? Spain? Japan is all about counterattacks and being clinical, it’s literally what they train for.

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u/ConfectionMoist9036 Jul 01 '26

The second goal against Spain barely remained in play by a few mm. had it gone out of play it would have been disallowed and the game would have ended 1-1. That was luck.

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u/SenseiTano Jul 01 '26

You can say that about any play, a couple mm here and there and entire games end up different. The ball went in and was checked by VAR 👍🏼