Japan
Japan are the most decorated national team in Asian football history, with four AFC Asian Cup titles and seven consecutive FIFA World Cup qualifications stretching from 1998 to the present day.
The Samurai Blue play a high-tempo pressing game built on positional discipline and technical precision, a style refined through years of J.League development and a generation of players who came of age in European leagues. Midfielder Wataru Endo anchors the midfield from Liverpool, while Takefusa Kubo provides creativity and directness from Real Sociedad. Ritsu Doan, who won back-to-back Bundesliga titles at Freiburg, operates in the wide channels with a directness that unsettles deeper defensive blocks.
Japan’s coaching setup has prioritised European-style pressing since the 2018 cycle, and the results have been visible in major tournaments. At Qatar 2022, Japan defeated Germany 2-1 and Spain 2-1 in the group stage, two results that announced a genuine shift in Asian football’s ceiling. Both wins came from composed second-half performances after going a goal down, which says something about the team’s tactical maturity and belief under pressure.
The 2022 group stage run, however, ended at the last-sixteen against Croatia, where Japan led 1-0 at half-time before being pegged back to 1-1 and then eliminated on penalties. That result remains the clearest measure of where Japan still want to go: technically and tactically competitive at the knockout stage, but yet to reach a World Cup quarter-final.
Japan’s home matches are played mostly in major cities including Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka. For fans tracking kickoff times, a 20:00 Japan Standard Time (JST) start is 12:00 CET, 11:00 GMT, and 07:00 on the US East Coast the same day. Check Japan time for your local conversion. International visitors should note that JST is UTC+9 and does not observe daylight saving.
When does Japan play? World Cup qualifying matches in the AFC are scheduled across several windows per year. Group stage matches in major tournaments typically kick off in the afternoon or evening local time at the host venue. Convert all times via Japan time if you are following from East Asia, and from London or New York if you are tracking from Europe or the Americas.