One year to the World Cup: How does Japan shape up?

Keisuke Honda with Shinji Kagawa

It was business as usual for the Japanese national team as they became the first team (apart from the hosts Brazil) to qualify for the 2014 World Cup, after a 1-1 draw with Australia at the Saitama Stadium last week. The same happened four years ago during qualification for the 2010 World Cup. The four-time Asian Cup winners are used to topping their qualifying group and getting to the World Cup in style. Occasional hiccups aside, there is simply no match at all for this Japanese side in Asia at present.

But put their Asian dominance aside; the question that really matters is : Are they ready to face the world’s best at Brazil 2014?

The history

After agonizingly missing out on USA’94, Japan first made it to the World Cup in 1998 and since then, they have appeared in all subsequent editions. Next year’s event in Brazil will mark Japan’s fifth consecutive World Cup appearance.

1998

Japan’s record at the World Cup has been quite good, considering the fact that the country’s professional league is only two decades old. In their debut in 1998, Japan went home after losing all three of their group games. Masashi Nakayama did, however, manage to score his country’s first World Cup goal in the final group game against Jamaica.

Japan 0 -1 Argentina

Japan 0-1 Croatia

Japan 1-2 Jamaica

2002

2002 saw the World Cup come to Asia as Japan co-hosted it with South Korea. Japan made history by topping their group and advancing to the Round of 16, where they lost out to eventual semi-finalists Turkey.

Japan 2-2 Belgium

Japan 1-0 Russia

Japan 2-0 Tunisia

Japan 0-1 Turkey

2006

Four years later, Japan qualified for the World Cup in Germany and found themselves in a group containing Brazil, Croatia and Australia. They crashed out in the first stage itself, garnering only one point.

Japan 1-3 Australia

Japan 0-0 Croatia

Japan 1-4 Brazil

2010

The 2010 World Cup was arguably the scene of Japan’s best World Cup performance till date. Keisuke Honda and Co. led the Blue Samurai to the Round of 16 for the second time, where they met Paraguay. If it was not for an unfortunate penalty shooutout loss to the South Americans, Japan would have faced Spain in the quarterfinals.

Japan 1-0 Cameroon

Japan 0-1 Netherlands

Japan 3-1 Denmark

Japan 0 (3) -0 (5) Paraguay