Japan won the double at the recent EAFF E-1 Championships, winning both the men’s and women’s tournaments on home soil.
With the FIFA World Cup just over three months away in Qatar, this tournament represented one of the last chances for the wholly domestic based squads of Japan and South Korea, to present their case to Hajime Moriyasu and Paulo Bento respectively.
After FIFA’s recent announcement that squads for this year’s men’s World Cup would be increased from 23 to 26, there was added intrigue at this year’s tournament to see if anyone would grasp the opportunity to cement their place within that squad.
After Japan easily accounted for South Korea, we discussed the merits of the tournament on The Asian Game Podcast and whether there was anything of value to take from this for Moriyasu or Bento.
NOT MUCH CHANGE FOR JAPAN
Scott McIntyre
“I wouldn’t think (there will be much change) maybe one or two, but I think the bulk of the squad (is settled).
He (Takuma Nishimura) was the one that I was gonna mention and maybe the defender (Ryuta) Koike as well who’s versatile, can play on the right or the left. Japan I think have a problem at left back, there’s no obvious choices, my guess is it’s going to be (Yuto) Nagatomo, but he’s getting getting old and getting on, and he’s playing at right back mostly for his club FC Tokyo as well.
So the versatility of Koike might work. Nishimura was good. I think he’s a good player and could be a good squad option, again he offers positional versatility, can play through the middle, can play as a nine, can play as a ten and could probably play on either wing. Also he can create and can score as we saw in this tournament. So he could be one that could squeeze in, but I think you’re probably talking the bottom three or four spots on the roster.
Every tournament Moriyasu has had the squad’s been fairly settled. The core of the starting eleven you can pick, so you may be talking about options and a couple of players put their hands up, and I guess that was the purpose of the tournament for Japan and Korea. Different purposes for China and Hong Kong, so you can say okay, maybe it was successful.
I think it was disappointing that the the crowds weren’t really turning up, the choice of venues was strange, but I don’t know if Japan were overall worthy winners on either the men’s or the women’s side of things.
But for those young players, they’ve got a taste of international football, loads of players got their first cap, so they can take that back to their clubs, and maybe a couple of them can push into World Cup calculations.
But I really doubt it’s more than a three or four, particularly with Moriyasu, he tends to be at the same kind of clubs in the J League pretty much every weekend. We talked pre-tournament about maybe players who shouldn’t have been in the squad that were, so a couple (maybe have furthered their cause), but I don’t know if it was a great exercise overall.”
NOT TIME TO PANIC, BUT CAUSE FOR CONCERN FOR KOREA
Michael Church
“I think if I was a South Korea fan watching that, I wouldn’t necessarily be concerned, but I would certainly be wary about my team’s performance in the upcoming World Cup.
Like Japan, they didn’t have their full strength team, they went with an East Asian-based squad, and you look at the team that played against Japan in that last game, and they were comfortably beaten. I know Japan were not particularly impressive, but let’s not pretend that this was anything other than Japan’s third or fourth string eleven.
The Koreans had in goal Jo Hyeon-woo, who of course was goalkeeper at the 2018 World Cup and while he’s not starting goalkeeper anymore for the Koreans under Bento, he’s certainly an experienced keeper and will very likely be in the World Cup squad in Qatar.
You (also) had Kim Jin-su, you had Park Ji-soo, Kwon Chang-hoon and a number of others who are very much in-and-around the starting eleven, or who certainly will be part of the 26-man squad whenever they go to Qatar.
You compare that with the Japanese, as Scott was saying, you’re looking at maybe a couple of players from the squad that Japan had squeezing into the World Cup squad. Plus, of course, a player like Miki Yamane, who didn’t play in the game against against the Koreans, and and maybe Shogo Taniguchi. Beyond that it was a third or even fourth string team and they (Korea) were beaten, I thought, fairly comfortably.
I thought the Koreans, again for the second time they’ve played against Japanese in Japan and the last 12 to 18 months, and Bento has taken a Korean team to Japan and they’ve looked not just second best but a distant second best against maybe not even close to a full strength Japanese team.
It says to me that there’s not a great deal of quality and depth in this Korean squad, and yes you’re missing players like Son Heung-min, players like Kim Min-jae, Hwang Hee-chan, Kim Young-gwon, Lee Jae-sung; I mean, you’re missing a lot of talent, and there’s no denying that. But I think if they go to the World Cup and they have three or four injuries, I’d be a little worried.”
Photo: Japan Football Association
Listen to Episode 89 of The Asian Game Podcast
