Head coach Vahid Halilhodzic of Japan National Team recently announced his roster for the upcoming two matches against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Thailand as part of the final round of 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification later this month.<\/p>\n
The 25-man squad will face the UAE on Thursday, March 23 in Al Ain and Thailand on Tuesday, March 28 at Saitama Stadium 2002.<\/p>\n
The squad announcement sees the return of midfielders Yojiro Takahagi (FC Tokyo) and Yasuyuki Konno (Gamba Osaka), as well as the presence of familiar faces such as\u00a0midfielders Makoto Hasebe (Eintracht Frankfurt), Shinji Kagawa (Borussia Dortmund), and forward\u00a0Keisuke Honda (AC Milan).<\/p>\n
Speaking before the UAE clash in Al Ain, Halilhodzic said: “We are expected to play with big pressure in a unique environment. We also need to stay patient without being provoked by the opponents. Mental toughness and experience are important.”<\/p>\n
“We have to show everything we have, never lose our poise and play without fear,” added Halilhodzic.<\/p>\n
In order to qualify automatically, teams need to finish at either one of the top two places in the 6-team group. Currently, Japan have 10 points and are standing at the second place in Group B, trailing Saudi Arabia who are leading only on the goal difference. However, both Australia, at third\u00a0and the UAE at fourth, are closing in with nine points.<\/p>\n
Japan team to face UAE and Thailand<\/em><\/p>\n Goalkeepers:<\/strong>\u00a0Shusaku Nishikawa (Urawa Red Diamonds),\u00a0Eiji Kawashima\u00a0(FC Metz),\u00a0Akihiro Hayashi\u00a0(FC Tokyo)<\/p>\n Defenders:<\/strong>\u00a0Yuto Nagatomo\u00a0(Inter Milan),\u00a0Maya Yoshida\u00a0(Southampton),\u00a0Masato Morishige\u00a0(FC T0kyo),\u00a0G\u014dtoku Sakai\u00a0(Hamburg),\u00a0Hiroki Sakai\u00a0(Marseille),\u00a0Tomoaki Makino\u00a0(Urawa Red Diamonds),\u00a0Gen Sh\u014dji\u00a0(Kashima Antlers),\u00a0Naomichi Ueda\u00a0(Kashima Antlers)<\/p>\n Midfielders:<\/strong>\u00a0Makoto Hasebe\u00a0(Eintracht Frankfurt),\u00a0Hotaru Yamaguchi\u00a0(Cerezo Osaka),\u00a0Yasuyuki Konno\u00a0(Gamba Osaka),\u00a0Yojiro Takahagi\u00a0(FC Tokyo),\u00a0Shu Kurata\u00a0(Gamba Osaka),\u00a0Shinji Kagawa\u00a0(Borussia Dortmund),\u00a0Hiroshi Kiyotake\u00a0(Cerezo Osaka)<\/p>\n Forwards:<\/strong>\u00a0Keisuke Honda\u00a0(AC Milan),\u00a0Takuma Asano\u00a0(Stuttgart),\u00a0Genki Haraguchi\u00a0(Hertha Berlin),\u00a0Takashi Usami\u00a0(Augsburg),\u00a0Shinji Okazaki\u00a0(Leicester City),\u00a0Yuya Osako\u00a0(Koln),\u00a0Yuya Kubo\u00a0(Gent)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Head coach Vahid Halilhodzic of Japan National Team recently announced his roster for the upcoming two matches against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Thailand as part of the final round of 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification later this month. The 25-man squad will face the UAE on Thursday, March 23 in Al Ain and Thailand on Tuesday, March 28 at Saitama Stadium 2002. The squad announcement sees the return of midfielders Yojiro Takahagi (FC Tokyo) and Yasuyuki Konno (Gamba Osaka), as well as the presence of familiar faces such as\u00a0midfielders Makoto Hasebe (Eintracht Frankfurt), Shinji Kagawa (Borussia Dortmund), and forward\u00a0Keisuke Honda (AC Milan). Speaking before the UAE clash in … Continue reading “Japan announce 25-man squad for World Cup Qualifiers”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":2139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,32],"tags":[57,480],"class_list":["post-2137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-world-cup","category-japan","tag-japan","tag-world-cup-qualifiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}