Welcome!

I would like to welcome everyone to Japan’s new blog for World Cup hopes. As you may recognize, I write the J-League blog for The Offside and am very honoured to continue my efforts with the Nippon Daihyo.

Led by Manager, Takeshi Okada, the Japan’s squad is made up primarily of Footballers from the J-League with Junichi Inamoto and Makoto Hasebe of German Bundesliga squads Eintracht Frankfurt and VfL Wolfsburg respectively as well as Celtic’s Shunsuke Nakamura. The present squad for the upcoming Uzbekistan match is as follows:

Goalkeepers—Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi (Jubilo Iwata), Seigo Narazaki (Nagoya Grampus), Eiji Kawashima (Kawasaki Frontale)
Defenders—Yuji Nakazawa (Yokohama F. Marinos), Kazumichi Takagi (Shimizu S-Pulse), Marcus Tulio Tanaka (Urawa Reds), Yuichi Komano (Jubilo Iwata), Yuki Abe (Urawa Reds), Yuto Nagatomo (FC Tokyo), Masato Morishige (Oita Trinita), Atsuto Uchida (Kashima Antlers), Shuhei Terada (Kawasaki Frontale)
Midfielders—Shunsuke Nakamura (Celtic), Junichi Inamoto (Eintracht Frankfurt), Yasuhito Endo (Gamba Osaka), Kengo Nakamura (Kawasaki Frontale), Takeshi Aoki (Kashima Antlers), Yasuhiko Konno (FC Tokyo), Makoto Hasebe (VfL Wolfsburg), Shinji Kagawa (Cerezo Osaka)
Forwards—Keiji Tamada (Nagoya Grampus), Seiichiro Maki (JEF United Chiba), Hisato Sato (Sanfrecce Hiroshima), Yoshito Okubo (Vissel Kobe), Shinji Okazaki (Shimizu S-Pulse), Shinzo Koroki (Kashima Antlers), Yasuhito Morishima (Oita Trinita)

I will be providing a full match preview against Uzbekistan shortly but wanted to first welcome you to our new blog for Japan and to remind readers to please stop by the J-League blog at The Offside.