Dedication, competitive fury, tactical sense: Japan among the greats

Japan’s evolution is in the faces of its fans. In apnea, for two interminable minutes, while in the Var room they rack their brains over which ball is in play or not. In the stands there are the usual colors, the usual hachimaki – the traditional white bandanas with the rising sun – which have always distinguished the matches of the national team. But they all tremble. There are even those who cry out loud, in defiance of the proverbial emotional demeanor, when the referee validates Tanaka’s goal. And it’s the same on the pitch: dedication, competitive fury, tactical sense. Everything you need for a global enterprise. He also senses it Hajime Moriyasu. “Times have changed”, declared the 54-year-old coach who created the masterpiece, after the 2-1 win over Spain: “These guys are playing in a new era of our football”.

Goodbye exotic charm, facade curiosity for a sport that until thirty years ago – zero appearances at the World Cup, zero continental successes – smacked of western fashion at best. Goodbye balloon safari, hunting for extraordinary compatriots to immortalize with Nikons around their necks in some remote stadium in Europe. And goodbye rhetoric from Holly & Benji, hallelujah. Kaoru Mitoma’s extreme slide – almost mitama, which in Japanese means “spirit of divinity”: just enough for the ball to be in and Germany out – is the perfect passing of the baton from the hyperbole of the famous anime, where he defends standing over the crossbar and the fields stretch for miles, Moriyasu’s game. Polished and concrete. His Japan is the first team from Asia to beat two international world champions – not later than eight or twelve years ago – within the same competition. She deservedly won a group where everyone gave her up for a goner. And they almost laughed, when on the eve of the tournament in Tokyo it was said that “fourth place is an achievement within reach”. Instead round of 16 for the fourth time, the most sensational: in the past he has never overcome them and the semifinals remain a chimera, also by virtue of the potential meeting with Brazil in the quarterfinals. But for sure, the entire football planet has understood that they have to take the Blue Samurai seriously.

I agree sympathy. The admiration for the common code of conduct, almost bushido, applied to sport: the cleaning of the locker rooms and the stands left by the Japanese at the end of the matches preceded their fame, complete with Fifa’s “domo arigato”. But now two epochal and sister victories have arrived. Advantage of Gundogan or Morata in the first half, deadly one-two from Japan in the second half. Always a moment after Ritsu Doan entered the field, Freiburg’s offensive joker and author of the equalizer in both games. Where Moriyasu’s men have racked up 18 and 26 percent of ball possession: masterpiece of cynicism and high pressing, leaving the spectators the impression of an authentic showdown instead of the “smudging” suggested by the statistics. Feeling of déjà vu. “I’ve studied a lot of Juve matches in recent years”, admitted the coach: “They are masters in this type of situation”.
Japan’s problem, notes for future opponents, is when it comes to playing the game. Against Costa Rica he held the ball almost 60 percent of the time, shooting three times as many as the Ticos. But he lost, without being able to score a single goal against a team that conceded 11 in the other two matches. Same music in 2019, in the challenge that perhaps most of all deceived the hierarchies of the World Cup that it would have been: in the Asian Cup final, the blue Samurai dribbled, grind game and chances. But it was Qatar who won 3-1 – in retrospect, the classic match of a lifetime, complete with a goal from Almoez Ali in a bicycle kick.

“In the final minutes against Spain”, smiles Moriyasu now, “I was afraid that the tragedy of Doha would repeat itself”. Which in local history means another joke, the year 1993, when the draw in extremis against Iraq ousted Japan from its first participation in the World Cup. Moriyasu was also on the field that day. “My whole career flashed before me for a moment”, at Sanfrecce Hiroshima, first as a midfielder and then as a coach. Before picking up the reins of the national team in 2018, and winning 41 games out of 62. “But just then I saw my boys attacking the Spanish setters, with fire inside and the last energy left. I understood that we would make it”. And that the country has become football.