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Japan - Team Profile
30/03/2006
This is Japan's third World Cup Finals appearance and it looks like being their most successful. Disappointing in 1998 they lost all three group matches to Argentina, Croatia and surprisingly Jamaica. Improvement followed in 2002 when they were joint host nations with South Korea. A draw with Belgium followed by an important success over Russia meant a draw with Tunisia would have seen them through to the next stage. A confident win against the African champions saw them face Turkey in the second phase of the competition. Sadly for the hosts they were beaten 1-0 by the team would eventually finish in third place.
Still coached as in 2002 by legendary Brazil striker Zico, the team going to Germany for this year's tournament is a vastly more experienced group of players - many of whom play in the great European leagues.
From their defence only Koji Nakata (FC Basle) plays in Europe but it includes players with vast international experience including their captain Tsuneyasu Miyamoto. In midfield they will be able to call upon players such as Hidetoshi Nakata (Bolton), Shunsuke Nakamura (Celtic), Junichi Inamoto (West Brom) and Daisuke Matsui who plays his football in the French league while Shinji Ono is having a renewed career back in the J-League
In attack German-based Naohiro Takahara (Hamburg) looks set to lead the line with Atsushi Yanagisawa.