dragon1231 comments

Not surprising. Relying on non starter quality players like Doan, Kubo, Ueda, H. Ito, and Itakura. Where was the playing time for Minamino, Maeda, Nakamura, Taniguchi, Mitoma who are proven performers? For the amount of playing time Doan, Kubo, Ueda, H. Ito and Itakura receive overall, they produce very little in true scoring chances, opportunities, goals, and set pieces. Doan, Kubo, Ueda, H. Ito and Itakura are depth players and should come on as spot subs or play only exhibition matches--not knock out games? Compared to Korea, Japan's play has not evolved and the coach's tactics and player selections are sorely lacking. Not surprised with the result when the best players are not on the pitch... I don't think the coach can objectively evaluate his players after the games.

I think the Coach's selection of players and tactics is the cause of the team's close games. The coach starts players who are not prime time players (Kubo, Doan, Ueda, H. Ito, Itakura) and gives them loads of minutes with low production against quality opponents--sure they score against lower caliber opponents, but against stronger teams their production is low (goals/assists/quality passes vs turnovers/bad passes/scoring opportunities created or nullified) and the offense looks inept. Where was the playing time for Maeda, Minamimo, Nakamura, Mitoma, Taniguchi? These players should have seen more minutes in the group and knock out matches. They are starters and quality players who can apply pressure and attack with pace--not Kubo, Doan, Ueda, H. Ito, Itakura who should be playing lesser roles as subs or filling out the roster or only starting in exhibitions or lower quality opponents. Watching South Korea's organized offense, pressure, and passing makes me wonder how is the Japanese team evolving. Japan looks worse than ever at set pieces with Doan/Kubo delivering poor free kicks and corner kicks and their offense looks too slow paced to fool well organized and coached teams.

Who plays in front of Yoshida? Japan has a weak central midfielder in Endo who can not generate enough through balls or attack with the dribble. This game was Yoshida's fault, but Endo has cost them during big matches in the past. Shibasaki is just as horrible. Their formation and tactics needed to change to give a very defensive Tunisia a different look. Asano/Osako/Maeda should be up top and Junya Ito/Kamada/Minamino at Midfield and Yamane/Yoshida/Tomiyasu/Nagatomo in back in 4-3-3, maybe an experienced goal keeper and not Schmidt should be in there.

I think allowing dual citizenship might boost some of Japan's population numbers and allow the government to tax new citizens who work in Japan, recruit workers who have family ties to Japan, and boost the options of dual nationals to stay in Japan (instead of being forced to choose...) since Japan is risk averse, maybe this could be a partial solution and a way to adapt to the current issue and a way to partially address the declining population numbers and future workforce issue.

Japan needs to stop starting Honda. He has not delivered in a while. They should also relook at their mid fielders as they were not able to provide consistent service to the forwards or into any gaps in the backline. They should also scrap some of their exotic formations and play a 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 and never play a single forward high as they don't have anyone who can win in the air or take defenders on 1 v1 as the lone forward high. They should try anything exotic with their formations again as they don't have the talent in the back and at mid-field and looked lost compared to teams in the past whose roles seemed better organized/designed.