{"id":29324,"date":"2025-07-18T15:49:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T06:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/?p=29324"},"modified":"2025-07-22T23:25:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:25:46","slug":"japans-fourth-stringers-claim-2025-e-1-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2025\/07\/18\/japans-fourth-stringers-claim-2025-e-1-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s Fourth Stringers Claim 2025 E-1 Title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite fielding what was essentially their fourth-string squad and leaving their top stars at home, Japan still powered their way to the 2025 EAFF E-1 Football Championship title, edging South Korea 1\u20130 on July 15 at Yongin Mireu Stadium in Yongin, South Korea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Much like Southeast Asia\u2019s AFF Championship, the EAFF E-1 Championship serves as a regional tournament for East Asia. However, it remains a lower priority for the region\u2019s footballing giants\u2014Japan, South Korea, and China\u2014who often opt to rest their key players and instead send reserve or domestic-based squads.<\/p>\n

South Korea, for instance, were without their talisman Son Heung-min and relied heavily on players from the K League and J.League. China rested key forward Wu Lei but still featured recognizable names such as Wei Shihao, Serginho, and Zhang Yuning.<\/p>\n

Japan, too, left their European-based stars\u2014Wataru Endo, Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate, and Kaoru Mitoma\u2014out of the squad. Even so, head coach Hajime Moriyasu assembled a capable team drawn entirely from the J.League. Veterans like Yuto Nagatomo led a side that also featured Sho Inagaki, Hayao Kawabe, Taisei Miyashiro, Mao Hosoya, Taichi Hara, and Sanfrecce Hiroshima striker Ryo Germain\u2014players who have shone domestically and flirted with national team duty.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s so-called \u201cfourth team\u201d quickly proved a class above the rest in the round-robin tournament, which featured four nations: Japan, South Korea, China, and qualifiers Hong Kong. Each team played three matches.<\/p>\n

Japan opened their campaign in dominant fashion, routing Hong Kong 6\u20131 on July 8, with Germain bagging a stunning four-goal haul. They followed that with a composed 2\u20130 win over China on July 12, with goals from Mao Hosoya and Henry Heroki Mochizuki.<\/p>\n

That set the stage for a winner-takes-all clash against fellow unbeaten side South Korea on July 15. In a tightly contested encounter, Germain once again rose to the occasion, netting the match\u2019s only goal to seal a perfect tournament for the Samurai Blue.<\/p>\n

With three wins from three and just one goal conceded, Japan claimed their second consecutive EAFF E-1 title and their third overall\u2014proof that even without their biggest names, the Samurai Blue remain a dominant force in East Asian football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite fielding what was essentially their fourth-string squad and leaving their top stars at home, Japan still powered their way to the 2025 EAFF E-1 Football Championship title, edging South Korea 1\u20130 on July 15 at Yongin Mireu Stadium in Yongin, South Korea. Much like Southeast Asia\u2019s AFF Championship, the EAFF E-1 Championship serves as a regional tournament for East Asia. However, it remains a lower priority for the region\u2019s footballing giants\u2014Japan, South Korea, and China\u2014who often opt to rest their key players and instead send reserve or domestic-based squads. South Korea, for instance, were without their talisman Son Heung-min and relied heavily on players from the K League and … Continue reading “Japan\u2019s Fourth Stringers Claim 2025 E-1 Title”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":28116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,32],"tags":[2989,2428,57,2845,95],"class_list":["post-29324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia","category-japan","tag-eaff-e-1-championship","tag-east-asia","tag-japan","tag-ryo-germain","tag-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29324","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\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29324"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29337,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29324\/revisions\/29337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}