Hajime Moriyasu announced the squad for the FIFA World Cup on Friday, 15 May amid high anticipation and increased scrutiny as Japan hopes to break barriers to get past the Round of 16 in this tournament.
Amid much speculation over injury concerns, especially that of Kaoru Mitoma, Moriyasu selected a squad where half (13) of the members had previous World Cup experience, while the other half will be making their debuts at this year’s tournament.
Here I’ll cover three big topics that came up that have elicited much discussion in the weeks since the announcement.
Yuto Nagatomo
The left back was included for an unprecedented fifth World Cup journey with the Samurai Blue. It’s been an interesting journey since Nagatomo was welcomed back into the squad after the disastrous AFC Asian Cup two years ago.
With the expanded squad selections, even though he was chosen, he would not actually make a bench appearance as part of the 23-player matchday squad throughout the entirety of the World Cup qualification cycle (aside from a bench appearance in a Second Round qualifier against DPR Korea in March 2024).
His only minutes over the past two years have been at the EAFF E-1 Football Championship, and then in a heavily rotated side in a friendly against the United States, both bizarrely out of position as the left centre back in a back three.
The 39-year-old then suffered a medium-term hamstring injury in mid-March that put his potential selection in jeopardy. He was able to return, however, in early May and then proved his fitness with Moriyasu in the stands at the Tokyo Derby on 10 May, starting at left back in a 2-1 win for his FC Tokyo over Tokyo Verdy.
In my own squad prediction, I had actually taken Nagatomo out of the running after that injury a few months ago. I also thought that the addition of both Shunsuke Nakamura and Makoto Hasebe to the coaching staff would, in theory, take up Nagatomo’s role as a World Cup experienced veteran in the camp.
However, considering Nagatomo’s status as an active player and what he brings to training day-in and day-out it does make sense to bring him as a player instead of as a coach or some other ‘support member’ role.
I’d still prefer that he doesn’t make it onto the pitch, but I’m not completely blind to what he can bring outside of the actual matches. After all, while Nagatomo certainly divides opinion among fans and media alike, the response from his fellow teammates and staff has always been unanimous in support of the veteran’s presence.
Hidemasa Morita and the relative lack of midfielders
Another big surprise was the exclusion of Hidemasa Morita, although this shock was somewhat attenuated by the fact that he wasn’t picked for the March friendlies either.
Inevitably, there has been lots of noise doing the rounds across social and news media about how Morita’s post-Asian Cup outburst criticising the national team coaching staff after the Iran game was the reason for his exclusion. However, I find this notion to be both completely irrelevant and flat out wrong.
Firstly, both Morita and Moriyasu have come out in the media saying they had made amends. Even if you don’t want to believe in words, Moriyasu continued to call up Morita and utilised him as a key starting player across the World Cup qualifiers in the months after the tournament.
Morita even joined Moriyasu in front of the media for the pre-game press conference ahead of the Australia game in October 2024. Morita’s last game for the national team was when Japan secured qualification against Bahrain in March 2025. However, he came off at half-time due to injury and this concern is what would plague him for the next year.
Even in times where he was technically fit, he wasn’t completing the full 90 minutes at club level so he was not chosen due to his condition after discussions between Moriyasu, Morita, and the medical staff.
It was during this time in the post-qualification friendly games in late 2025 that Morita’s once unassailable position in midfield came under threat from Kaishu Sano and Daichi Kamada. Then fast forward to the March 2026 friendlies where finally Moriyasu’s reasoning for Morita’s exclusion shifted to ‘competition in the midfield positions’.
From my point of view, given Sano and Kamada are locked in as the starting pair, there are some reasons why one could justify not picking Morita in the squad. The Portuguese-based midfielder has always been a player that starts games, and provides you with a lot of control throughout the field.
He’s never really been a player you bring on to ‘change gears’ and you can look at how he has been used at the national team level on Transfermarkt. Under Moriyasu, Morita rarely came on as a substitute. He’s almost exclusively been a starting player or simply rested on the bench entirely.
With Morita now not an assured starter, he doesn’t quite fit the profile of player Moriyasu seemingly wants to have as the third or fourth choice midfielder in a double-pivot, one that comes on as a substitute. In general, Moriyasu usually has a very set, locked in partnership in central midfield from the start of tournaments and plays both of those players as much as possible, with examples seen in previous Olympics, Asian Cup, and World Cup journeys.
There is also a tactical perspective that needs to be discussed here.
A common hurdle for Japan in recent World Cup cycles is how their play style must change significantly between qualification matches compared to the actual tournament. Throughout the qualifying journey, the team needed a more attacking and game-controlling approach on the ball against very deep set low-blocks across the Asian continent, which is where Hidemasa Morita shines.
Although Japan has become stronger, and in recent times don’t necessarily need to be stuck in a low block against the best teams, a tactical shift to a more defensive, counterattacking approach is still needed at World Cup level which may have influenced Moriyasu’s selections in midfield.
My own rebuttal to this would be that Morita has shown that he can certainly play in a defensive block against elite opponents, examples include the previous World Cup as well as more recently in the UEFA Champions League semi-final against Arsenal. However, it is also clear that he lost out on time with his teammates on the training ground and in tactical sessions over the past year that would impact his chemistry and understanding within Japan’s low-to-mid block 3-4-2-1 shape.
Wataru Endo, for all his lack of playing time for Liverpool and his own ongoing injury issues, at least has the role of a ‘closer’ to come on and shut things down in the last 10-20 minutes of games at club level, and this will be his role at the World Cup (if he’s actually fit enough to play).
Meanwhile Joel Fujita, although he also was ultimately not chosen for the squad, has continuously been called up by Moriyasu as the St. Pauli man can play multiple roles in midfield and would have been the type of player that would be useful in a tournament squad (all the more surprising to me that he wasn’t picked).
In the presser after the squad announcement, Moriyasu mentioned alternatives were available in the squad who can fill in with specific references to both Ayumu Seko and Ko Itakura, who have both filled in at central midfield this year for their club teams.
I would also add that Takehiro Tomiyasu also has experience playing in midfield for Moriyasu at the start of the Asian Cup in 2019 due to injuries in the squad. I also think that Moriyasu has prioritised spots for additional centre backs due to the various fitness question marks there and has made that calculation of Seko or Itakura being able to fill in, whereas Morita can only play in midfield.
Of course, there are several tactical changes that can be implemented as well, such as the 3-1-4-2 formation that was trialled in the Scotland match, although this is more of a formation for late in the game when desperate for a goal. Also, a shift into more of a 4-4-2 with one of the three central defenders stepping into midfield, with substitutions to take off one of the attackers, can also be done given the versatile profiles across the squad.
Despite the potential, probable, logical reasons I’ve written out here, I’m still not completely convinced by some of them. To be clear I am adamant that Morita’s outburst was not the reason for his exclusion but the other footballing reasons are still a bit flimsy especially with Endo’s fitness concerns and squad composition/balance in general.
I personally feel that Morita should have been in the squad in some capacity, even if he’s fourth in line, and even if I do understand it’s then hard to swap him out for somebody which will leave other positions slightly bare.
Filling the Mitoma hole in attack
Perhaps the biggest shock was the omission of Kaoru Mitoma due to his hamstring injury the weekend prior to the squad announcement. There were lots of rumours about the severity of his condition, so it was quite hard to predict whether he might be included (at least initially to assess his recovery) but in the end the Brighton winger was not called up at all.
Rather than the potential replacements in the form of pure attacking midfielders like Ryunosuke Sato, Kodai Sano, or even Joel Fujita (who played a lot behind the striker for St. Pauli this season), Moriyasu picked additional strikers in Keisuke Goto and Kento Shiogai.
This brought the total number of strikers in the squad to five, much to the surprise of many. However, it does look likely that Goto and Shiogai will instead play more as one of the No.10s behind the striker, or Moriyasu will simply be more open to going with a front two more regularly (like against Scotland, below).
Instead of looking at that attacking unit as five out-and-out strikers, I do think the main men up front will be Ayase Ueda (obviously) with Koki Ogawa as the main back-up. While the NEC Nijmegen man has lost his place in the starting line-up for his club side in the second half of the season, he is still the only striker that can play Ueda’s role in a somewhat similar fashion compared to the other options in the squad.
With all that said, it does make sense that Shuto Machino was left out. Machino is a player that’s straddling the line between an attacking midfielder and striker but never really impressed at either role (despite having some utility in a tournament setting with his long throw abilities). So Moriyasu has decided to make a big bet on youth instead.
Throughout the past two years, Moriyasu has tested many different combinations in attack (as many as 60 according to Tatsuya Takeuchi of GekiSaka) but most of them involved one of Takumi Minamino or Mitoma in some way.
When Minamino was able to play as the left-sided No.10, this allowed Japan to rotate at least one of Mitoma or Keito Nakamura to keep them fresh as extremely threatening options off the bench. It was also really intriguing to watch Nakamura and Mitoma switch between the left-sided No.10 and wing-back positions throughout a match to scramble defences.
The person to step up in Mitoma’s absence is Nakamura, who will now have to start the majority of the matches. However, Daizen Maeda is now the only other left wing-back option that has played significant minutes there which is rather alarming. Despite being a huge fan of Maeda and the energy he brings, he’s never quite looked convincing in that position and I’d prefer if he were to play more in attack instead.
One of the strengths of the Japan national team in the past few years was the amount of depth available from a large pool of players in decent-to-very-good European leagues, but the top end quality needed to go far at the World Cup level has definitely been thinned out in both the attack and at wing back.
One piece of positive news that has popped up since the announcement is that Minamino will be joining up with the team as a ‘mentor’ in addition to continuing his rehabilitation work separately with his own team of physios.
In less than three weeks, Japan’s opening game against the Netherlands will kick-off at Dallas Stadium. Will some of Moriyasu’s gambles succeed? What legacy will Moriyasu leave, as this may be his last games as the manager?
Of course, given the lack of domestic alternatives and lack of appetite for a foreign coach across the JFA set-up, there’s some potential that barring a complete disaster (i.e. finishing last in the group) Moriyasu might extend his stay as national team manager. Nonetheless this squad announcement was a huge turning point in Moriyasu’s career as the Japan national team manager.
There’s lots more questions to be asked. The answers will be revealed in the coming weeks and months.
