On 25 June local time at the base of the national team in Itu, Sao Paulo, Japanese players talked regretfully about their thoughts on their early exit out of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and assignments being carried over to their future.

It was the fifth consecutive appearance in the World Cup for Japan, but they could not advance to the second round in the same fashion as they did four years ago. Japan lost to Cote d’Ivoire 1-2 in the first match, had a scoreless draw against Greece and was defeated by Colombia 1-4 in the last match, which left them at the fourth place in the Group C.

It seems to have been a very inspiring experience for Sakai Daisuke of Oita Torinita U-18 and Sugimori Koki of Nagoya Grampus U-18, who travelled with the team as training partners.

Sakai said “Every day was so full of good things, so I didn’t feel the trip was long at all. The result was disappointing, but I observed their attitudes to play hard and clearly remember that, so I will put it all out in the next World Cup and Olympics.” Sugimori talked about his new determination for the future by saying “I learned so much by watching them so close. I will take advantage of it and I will work hard to play for the national team as soon as possible.”

Comments

FW KAGAWA Shinji（Manchester United/England）
Last four years we haven’t been very good at gaining our momentum when we struggled to play the way we wanted to play, just like the first match. I have been aware that it’s our problem that we tend to lose goals when we were losing our momentum or the opponents were outpowering us. That showed in the first match against Cote d’Ivoire. I felt we had so many deficiencies to improve, including the ability to read the course of the match. The deficiencies show when we play against truly great players and great teams in the world which can overwhelm the opponent. The only way to improve that is every one of us plays among a tougher competition of each club and wins the competition. First we have to accept past four years and this result, organise our thoughts, and then start building up good results so that people will start expecting good things out of us again.

FW HONDA Keisuke（AC Milan/Italy）
I thought about many things last night. The hardest part is we have to admit that what we have believed right things to do actually turned out to be wrong when you see the end result of it. The way we played was worse, and even we can’t be satisfied with how we played, so that means we have to start from taking time to create our new standard. That’s what I thought. The reality is they are better than us in both quality and accuracy. To make up for that, we have to outnumber our opponents in each situation. We know we have to do that to play our own style. In the first match, we couldn’t do that. It is difficult to swallow when we couldn’t get a good result out of it. But I can’t give up being the best in the world. I would rather try to come up with a different solution, if the solution we have sought after last four years was a wrong one.

FW KIYOTAKE Hiroshi（1.FC Nürnberg/Germany）
I never thought we would go out like this, so when it actually ended, I was so blank and couldn’t think anything. I didn’t have much playing time, but it’s part of the strength of a team for players on the bench to keep working hard. I think everyone worked hard for this team until the last minute. I kept telling myself to do my best in every single practice so that I would get a chance to play. There are so many things I thought about during this World Cup. I want to take advantage of this experience to get better, and in Russia, our generation has to be the core of the team. That’s how I feel about it most. The journey to that has already begun, so even this morning I practiced with that group of guys. Our team strength is as good as any other country, but in terms of our individual strength the gap hasn’t been filled. I think that’s why we lost. Advancing out of the group stage will always be difficult unless our individual level gets as high as that of other good players in the world. Every team has a go-to guy. I felt I had to be one.

MF ENDO Yasuhito（GAMBA OSAKA）
Our end result is nothing to be satisfied with. Literally we have worked hard for four years for this World Cup. Last four years, Japan’s football overall has improved, and we have shown that to the world. Our conditioning wasn’t bad and we were well-united as one team for this Cup, so I think there was nothing wrong in that process. At the same time you never know how a match turns out until you actually play it. Everyone is disappointed that we couldn’t do well in this World Cup, and we were convinced that there is a big gap between us and good teams in the world. We don’t play together with this group any more. It would have been better if we had had more time, but nobody but us is responsible for this result. All we have to do now is to accept that and every one of us has to start working to get to the next level.

DF YOSHIDA Maya（Southampton FC/England）
The level of Japanese players have been better. We have more players playing in Europe than before, but including myself we can’t play to our full strength in matches. Great players do that in important matches like these. We have to do that, playing as close as possible to our best under any kind of pressure, as regularly as possible. Our coach wanted us to play very offensive-minded football, but we haven’t taken our defence lightly, either. But we have allowed too many goals throughout these four years. It’s a difficult thing to do to maintain a good balance between the two, but defensive players have to pay more attention to minimise goals allowed. I think our coach have had a hard time playing the players who haven’t had many opportunities to play with their clubs. We have to make it more normal to play against top players in Europe week in week out, and we have to get even better, and better than our opponents. Otherwise we can’t fill the gap. We need to gain more experience under our belt.