Japan head to Germany on May 26

Japan’s World Cup squad will hold a weeklong training camp at the J. Village training facilities as predicted in an early blog, next month and leave for Germany on May 26.

According to Japan Football Federation sources, the training camp will begin May 17 or 18 and end May 24, two days before the national squad moves to its base camp in Bonn for their campaign in this year’s World Cup.

Japan coach Zico and his players will take part in the Kirin Cup tournament playing Bulgaria in Osaka on May 9 and Scotland in Saitama four days later prior to the May 15 deadline for submitting the final 23-man World Cup squad to governing body FIFA.

In its final countdown to football’s showpiece event, Japan appearing in its third straight World Cup, will play Germany in Leverkusen on May 30 and Malta in Dusseldorf on June 4 in friendly matches.