Ikoli Victor
doha
Kazuyoshi Miura, a Japanese football icon who will return to Doha for the first time since 1993, expressed optimism about the national team’s progress under manager Hajime Moriyasu and believes Japan will reach new heights at the first Arab World Cup, which will take place from November 20 to December 18.
Japan will compete in Group E alongside Germany, Spain, and Costa Rica. Following Japan’s exit from the 2018 tournament in Russia, where the country threw away a 2-0 lead in a late 3-2 comeback defeat to Belgium in the round of 16, Miura said he received a harsh assessment of the country’s performance from a friend in Brazil. He said that a Brazilian acquaintance said, "Japan are ignorant and doesn’t know football.”
But, at 55, Japan’s oldest active professional player, now with the fourth-tier Suzuka Point Getters, is an ambassador for a World Cup sponsor in Qatar,said "We have a team with players at big European clubs, centreed around captain Maya Yoshida,” he said. "It’ll be about whether we can control the game in genuine terms. I hope Japan can show the world they have matured over the past four years.”
Blue Samurai are a familiar face in every World Cup final round, and Japan has seven appearances in the biggest football showpiece as of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. They first went to a World Cup in 1998, and they haven’t missed one since. The Japanese team’s best results have been reaching the round of 16 in 2002, 2010, and 2018. Japan is currently ranked 24th in FIFA and is one of Asia’s three strongest teams.
Miura, who missed two World Cups (1994 and 1998), recalled how, just minutes after clinching the country’s first World Cup berth for the 1994 tournament in the United States, Japan’s hopes were dashed when Iraq scored a stoppage-time equaliser to tie the game 2-2 in Doha.
As a result, Japan missed out on qualification due to goal differential. He recently told Kyodo News that the event of that year inspired the current team.
"Regarding the World Cup, I believe it all began with, and has been built on, the Tragedy of Doha.” Hajime Moriyasu, the current manager of Samurai Blue, was also on the field in Doha in 1993, and Miura said his former teammate exhibits the same traits as Samurai Blue boss that he did as a defensive midfielder.
"He always supported the team while staying a step back,” Miura recalls. "As a manager too, he’s giving credit to the players, letting them perform. (His strengths) remain the same.”
Miura, who had 55 goals in 89 games for Japan, was controversially dropped from the World Cup squad just over a week before the tournament began in France in 1998.”I can still dream about (the World Cup) the same way as I used to, even now at 55,” Miura said. "The sense of its scale never fades. It’s a tournament that can keep a player forever longing for it.”
Japan has a group of talented players who can be considered the second golden generation, including names like Minamino Takumi, Kamada Daichi, Doan Ritsu, Tomiyasu Takehiro, and Takefusa Kubo who play in Europe.