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Australia national football team
The Australian national football team is the official representative of Australia in football, and its world ranking is 35. The Australian Football Association was established in 1961, and joined FIFA in 1963. The Oceans Football Association was formed in 1966 and includes 12 teams, namely Australia, New Zealand and the Solomon Islands. Tahiti, Tonga, Vanuata, Samoa, Caledonia, New Guinea, Fiji, Cook Islands, and American Samoa. Australia qualified for the 2006 World Cup through the half-seats awarded to the Oceania and South American champions. The playoff for Australia was with Uruguay. The two-legged matches ended with one result, a 1-1 draw, which prompted the two teams to take penalties, which ended the match in favor of the Australians.
Japan national football team
The Japan national football team (Japanese: サッカー日本代表) is the official representative of Japan in football. The Japan Football Association was established in 1921, and joined FIFA in 1929.
Japan participated for the sixth time in a row in the FIFA World Cup Finals in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018. Japan's first international match was in 1917, in which it lost to China 0-5, and its biggest victory was against the Philippines in 1967, with a score of 15-0, and the harshest loss was against the Philippines also in 1917, with a score of 0-19. Japan's best result in the FIFA World Cup Finals She reached the second round in 2002. Japan reached the AFC Asian Cup 5 times and won the cup in 1992, 2000, 2004, 2011.
One of the most famous coaches of the Japanese national team was the Brazilian legend Zico, who led the team between 2002 and 2006, when he led them to win the 2004 Asian Cup. Shunsuke Nakamura is considered one of Japan's most famous players throughout its history and goalkeeper Yoshi Kawaguchi.
The beginning of the spread of football in Japan
Brazilian player Neymar in his match with Japan in the Confederations Cup 2013
Football in Japan has ancient origins related to kemari, a game similar to football, but the Japanese people were astonished in the year 1875 when they saw the first football match when British naval officer Archibald Douglas organized a match for his men on the Japanese coast, and five years later the first football match was held Between two Japanese clubs, Regita Kobe and Yokohama. After that, football began to spread, and in the meantime, the idea of establishing a Japanese Football Association arose, and indeed this federation was established in 1921. Japan’s first international participation in football was the 1936 Berlin Olympics, thus becoming the first Asian team to qualify for the Olympics, in which Japan defeated Sweden 3/ 2 and qualified for the second round faithfully losing to Italy 0/8, which won the gold medal in that tournament, then Japan participated again in the Mexico 1968 Olympics, in which it defeated Nigeria 3/1, tied with Brazil 1/1 and with Mexico 0/0, and defeated France in Quarter-finals 3/1 and lost to Hungary 0-5 in the semi-finals, and then Japan met Mexico in the match to determine third place, with Japan winning 2/0 to achieve the bronze medal. This achievement is considered the best achievement by Japan in the history of Asia in the Olympic Games The year 1993 witnessed the birth of the Japanese Professional League on May 15, and players such as Zico, Gary Lineker, Donga and Pierre Littbarsky participated in the league at that time. Development.
Indeed, the new league and the plans drawn up for Japanese football at the beginning of the nineties of the last century came to fruition at the end of the last century, when the Japanese team qualified for the first time in its history to the 1998 World Cup. One year later, the Japanese youth team won the silver medal in the World Youth Championship held in Nigeria. On the Asian football stage, the Japanese team started to achieve one title after another. It started with the 1992 Asian Cup that was held in Japan, then 2000 in Lebanon, then returned and achieved its third Asian title in the year 2004 in the tournament held in China, then returned and achieved the fourth title 2011 in Qatar and for the Cup The world has already qualified for the 2002 World Cup, which it co-hosted with its neighbor South Korea, and the Japanese team qualified for the finals that were held in 2006 in Germany, as well as the tournament that was held in 2010 in South Africa, to be a new witness to the superiority of Japanese football, among the most prominent players Shunsuke Nakamura and Masashi Nakamaya Hidetoshi Nakata and goalkeeper Yoshi Kawaguchi.
The best achievements of the Japanese team
At the level of the junior national team: its rise to the quarter-finals in the World Junior Championships in 1993 and 2011
At the level of the youth team: his rise to the final in the World Youth Cup in 1999
At the level of the Olympic team: winning the bronze medal in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics
At the level of the national team: reaching the round of 16 in the World Cup in 2002, 2010 and 2018, and winning the Asian Cup 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2011
professional players
Rio Maishi --- Arsenal (England)
Maya Yoshida - Venillo (Netherlands)
Makoto Hasebe --- Wolfsburg (Germany)
Shinji Kagawa --- Borussia Dortmund (Germany)
Atsuto Yochida --- Schalke 04 (Germany)