Squad
At odds of 12/5 Japan are the longest odds to qualify from Group H, but I have a feeling their squad may very well surprise a few people as Japan has long been a hunting ground for Bundesliga clubs which shows as 7 of the Japanese squad play in Germany, with a few dotted around the other top leagues in Europe. It’s this pedigree combined with the organisation and technical skills of the side that makes me think Japan doesn’t necessarily deserve to be underdogs in a very equally balanced group.
Goalkeepers: Eiji Kawashima (Metz), Masaaki Higashiguchi (Gamba Osaka), Kosuke Nakamura (Kashiwa Reysol)
Defenders: Naomichi Ueda (Kashima Antlers), Gen Shoji (Kashima Antlers), Yuto Nagatomo (Galatasaray), Wataru Endo (Urawa Red Diamonds), Hiroki Sakai (Marseille), Tomoaki Makino (Uruwa Red Diamonds), Gotoku Sakai (Hamburg), Maya Yoshida (Southampton)
Midfielders: Keisuke Honda (Pachuca), Gaku Shibasaki (Getafe), Genki Haraguchi (Fortuna Dusseldorf), Shinji Kagawa (Borussia Dortmund), Takashi Usami (Fortuna Dusseldorf), Takashi Inui (Real Betis), Hotaru Yamaguchi (Cerezo Osaka), Makoto Hasebe (Entracht Frankfurt), Ryota Oshima (Kawasaki Frontale)
Attackers: Shinji Okazaki (Leicester City), Yoshinori Muto (Mainz), Yuya Osako (Werder Bremen)
Tactics
Japan will be somewhat of an unknown entity at the World Cup after manager Vahid Halilhodzic was sacked just 2 months before the start of the World Cup, with Akira Nishino was named as his replacement. Since then Japan have only played 1 friendly (at the time of writing) which was a 2-0 loss to Ghana, which may give us a glimpse into what we could expect to see in Russia. Nishino lined Japan up in a 3-4-3 formation with a backline of Makino, Yoshida with midfielder Hasebe dropped back into defence. Nagatomo and Haraguchi were deployed as wing-backs with Yamaguchi and Oshima playing in central midfield whilst Honda and Usami played just behind Osako.
I’ve really liked Japan for a number of years, and they showed glimpses of why they won my admiration. They played plenty of short passes when building from the back in a patient manner and showed some fantastic link-up play in their midfield and defence at times working their way up the pitch, eventually playing in the more attacking players for a chance at goal.
