For information on the Japan National Football Team/squad and the World Cup 2010 list of players, browse through the article.

Japan Team for 2010 World Cup

One of the strongest teams to come out of Asia, Japan will be making their fourth appearance at the FIFA World Cup, this time without their iconic midfielder Hidetoshi Nakata. The midfielder starred in all three world Cups that Japan qualified for before making it to the 2010 edition of the World Cup before retiring from international football aged 29.
 
Out of the eight matches they played in Group 1, Japan won four, drew three and lost one to book a berth at the World Cup right below Australia. Even though Japan beat Bahrain, Qatar and Uzbekistan, it wasn’t enough to stop a 2-1 loss at Australia and then a frustrating 0-0 draw at home against the Aussies. Nevertheless the wins were enough to guarantee a ticket to the finals at South Africa.
 
Former Celtic playmaker Shunsuke Nakamura will be leading the attack from the Japanese side with the help of another left-footer Keisuke Honda from the midfield. The defensive line is held by Captain Yuji Nakazawa who with 113 caps is Japan’s third-most capped player of all time.
 
Coached by Takeshi Okada, who is known as one of the best Japanese coaches of all-time, the Samurai Blue are back for another World Cup. Okada was at the helm of the Japanese team that made it to the World cup finals in 1998. Takeshi Okada held the coach’s post at Consadole Sapporo and Yokohama F Marinos taking the latter to the J.League titles in 2003 and 2004. He was asked to coach the National team for the second time in 2007 after Ivica Osim, the national team coach at that time suffered a stroke.
 
Japan’s fourth consecutive World Cup and the Samurai Blue are looking to better their performance from the 2002 World Cup where they had advanced to the knockout stages. 
 Japanese Football Team for FIFA World Cup 2010
 
The Pre-World Cup list of players for England is given below.
 
Player
Position
Seigo Narazaki
 Goalkeeper
Eiji Kawashima
 Goalkeeper
Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi
 Goalkeeper
Yûichi Komano
 Defender
Marcus Tulio Tanaka
 Sweeper
Yuto Nagatomo
 Defender
Atsuto Uchida
 Right Wingback
Daiki Iwamasa
 Centre back
Yasuyuki Konno
 Midfielder, Defender
Yuji Nakazawa
 Defender
Yuki Abe
 Defensive midfielder
Yasuhito Endô
 Defensive Midfielder
Daisuke Matsui
 Midfielder
Shunsuke Nakamura
 Midfielder
Kengo Nakamura
 Central Midfield
Makoto Hasebe
 Midfielder
Keisuke Honda
 Midfielder
Junichi Inamoto
 Midfielder
Shinji Okazaki
 Striker
Keiji Tamada
 Forward
Kisho Yano
 Striker
Yoshito Okubo
 Striker
Takayuki Morimoto
 Striker


Date - Time Venue
Detail
Results
14-June 23:00 Mangaung / Bloemfontein Japan Japan vs Cameroon Cameroon Japan won by 1-0
19-June 20:30 Durban Netherlands Netherlands vs Japan Japan Netherlands won by 1-0
25-June 03:30 Rustenburg Denmark Denmark vs Japan Japan Japan won by 3-1
29-June 23:00 Tshwane/Pretoria Paraguay Paraguay vs Japan Japan Paraguay won by 5-3 (penalty shoot-out)


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