Kyogo and Hatate join Japanese national team, Maeda stays in Scotland due to injury…
JFA announced squad for the friendly match to be held in October in Japan, and this time, Celtic’s Japanese Bhoys, Hatate, Kyogo and Daizen, were all called up.
Unfortunately, Japan national team announced that Daizen will not attend the team due to injury, but Kyogo and Hatate arrived safely at Haneda Airport and have been in training since yesterday. The national team is scheduled to play against Canada (including Alistair Johnston) on Friday 13 October, and against Tunisia on Tuesday 17 October.
In this article, I will provide some insight into our Bhoy’s performance in the national team based on interviews of the manager, Moriyasu, and a former national team player.
Announcement/media conference held on 4 October, Moriyasu said as follows…
“From November, Asian qualifying for the next World Cup will start, and at the beginning of next year, we will participate in Asian Cup, which we aim to be the number one in Asia. This time, we are going to do our best in these two games, not only to level up individual players, but also to develop link up in the team, expand the range of our tactics, and implement tactics to the team.
“I have been able to grasp that Canada has many highly capable players since before Qatar World Cup. Also, we played against Tunisia last June, and they are characterised by very solid defence and switch from defence to attack, and through the match against them we can simulate matches against Asian teams.
“I want to try some options by letting our players play as much as possible according to some of our tactics. In Asian games, which starts in November, it’s conceivable that opponents will prepare stronger defence, but we can make quick attack and attack while changing tempo, so even if opposing teams put a lot of pressure on us aggressively, it’s possible for us to dominate games with our various offensive options. We need to grow further as one team this time so that we can definitely do such things.”
As Moriyasu said “options”, some FW, WG, and IH play in various clubs in Europe, and he probably recognises Celtic’s Japanese Bhoys as important players.
Major changes in the current Japan national team and the addition of excellent analysts who can analyse video to the team and scouting based on that analysis. Moriyasu stayed in Europe for about a week in September, and both he and the analysis team watched some games in person at the stadium on tight schedule, and this time he selected players based on them.
In fact, he also watched Celtic’s first game of Champions League, against Feyenoord, in person at the stadium, and he must have been able to grasp recovery of Hatate and performance of Japanese bhoy under the tough game.
And, according to Japanese journalist, it seems that Moriyasu had a plan to make Daizen play as right winger, which means that Moriyasu firmly analyzed Daizen’s role and performance at Celtic. Moriyasu also talked about this big change that it has become possible to analyse performance of players more precisely based on stats and videos in this media conference, and I am glad that our Bhoys has started to be evaluated based on such analysis.
Also, after the Friendly Match against Turkey held in Belgium on 13 September, while many Japanese media focused on performances of Kaoru Mitoma and Takefusa Kubo, Kengo Nakamura, a former Japan national team player, told the Japanese media his expectations for Celtic’s Japan Bhoys as follows….
“Japan national team had 10 players replaced from the match against Germany, so linking up must not have been easy for players to play. We commentators and media who analyse their performances feel the same difficulty about how to evaluate the match.
“Having players who can produce a good performance by linking up between players is the strength of the team, but many of players who played on the pitch were ones who had never played together in the game.
“In such games, players who scored goals tend to be featured by media, but there are elements that are overlooked if they are analysed based only on such results. One of elements was how our team would use Furuhashi.
“In 19′, Furuhashi created space by his own movement and Kubo sent a pass to that area. In that scene, the partnership between the two of them created a chance to score a goal. In the end, Furuhashi couldn’t score a goal in this game, but he fully performed his own characteristics in the tough game.
“In 2nd half, Furuhashi continued to make movement to create space, and created another chance from link up with Daizen. In addition, the partnership with Kubo, which allows you to take good look at the movement of Furuhashi and send him an accurate pass, is the partnership with great potential in Japan national team, and this game may be recognised by people as “germinated of the partnership” game in the future.
“Moriyasu is in the fifth year since he became the manager of the national team, and he is at the stage of building the team even stronger for the next World Cup, but based on performances of the game against Germany, it may be unlikely that the order of players will change significantly. However, I feel that the game against Turkey was the game that we learned a lot to build team in anticipation of the next World Cup three years later.”
Japan national team basically uses 433 system, but tends to flexibly change to 4132 system depending on situation. In the case of 433, there is high possibility that Hatate will play from the start as left IH.
This time, Mitoma stayed in England due to poor health, so we can’t see link up of the two of them, but I expect Hatate to play important roles in attack and build-up. On the other hand, as for Kyogo, he has not yet been able to make clear results in the national team, so I don’t know how Moriyasu will judge it, but if Moriyasu thinks that he will use Kyogo’s off-the-ball movement and link up as the team’s strengths as Kengo Nakamura said, Kyogo will also be able to play from the start in 433 system.
In addition, Kyogo began to play a role as second striker flexibly according to situation under Brendan at Celtic, so he will be able to perform well on 4132 system as well. At this stage, Celtic’s Japanese bhoys are not an absolute presence in the national team, but for them, their performances in these two games may be turning point. I’m reported in training and games in my article earlier today on The Celtic Star.
Yatao
Come and join The Celtic Star live at the Kerrydale Suite at Celtic Park during the International break…
John Hartson will be just one of many special guests at a huge and unique Celtic Star event to be held in the Kerrydale Suite at Celtic Park on Thursday, 19 October 2023. Tables for 10 at £180 or individual tickets priced just £20 for this special evening can be purchased now via Celtic Star Books.
Meanwhile here’s Matt Corr talking about his latest Celtic Star book on The Celtic Exchange Podcast…
Majic, Stan and the King of Japan is out in Friday 20 October and is available to order now HERE.
The Celtic Star presents a night with John Hartson, Stephen McManus and Tommy Callaghan at the Kerrydale on Thursday 19 October…
There’s no Celtic action for a few weeks due the latest international break, but you can still come along to Celtic Park on Thursday 19 October – on the anniversary of Hampden in the Sun, Celtic 7 Rangers 1…to join The Celtic Star team live in the Kerrydale with special guests John Hartson, Stephen McManus and Tommy Callaghan as we launch Matt Corr’s new book ‘Majic, Stan and the King of Japan’ which tells the story of Gordon Strachan’s first season at Celtic and we’ll have the trophies Celtic won that season there too!
There’s live music from the wonderful Boolavogue and many more Celtic guests coming along which we’ll start to announce tomorrow. Tickets are selling fast so get yours now, just click on the image below and we’ll see you in the Kerrydale. it’s going to be some night and a great Celtic fix during the international break!
