2026 World Cup (Group F): Tunisia vs. Japan Review
Emphatic win to settle the nerves & doubts
4-0 and Japan’s (and Asia’s) biggest victory at a World Cup!
All of my pre-game jitters about “new manager bounce”, players being distracted by Herve Renard on the sideline, etc. were put to bed quite quickly as Daichi Kamada scored within 4 minutes and… Japan just kept control of the game throughout! I won’t go too long in this blog post given how Tunisia were understandably bad, I’ll just highlight a few players that I thought were good.
If you want more of an audio version of a review, I hopped onto “The Asian Game” podcast to discuss the match with Paul Williams and Sean Carroll!
Let’s get started!
The big question heading into this game was who was going to replace Takefusa Kubo in the line-up. There are a bunch of different ways to shift the line-up given all the different versatile profiles in the squad, including going with a Front Two instead (Ueda partnered up with Koki Ogawa). However, Hajime Moriyasu went with a rather blast-from-the-past set-up with Daichi Kamada slotting in at the Left #10 spot and Ao Tanaka sitting next to Kaishu Sano in the double pivot.
Kamada had been playing behind the striker quite often throughout the World Cup qualifiers due to the presence of Wataru Endo and Hidemasa Morita in midfield. However, the Crystal Palace midfielder started in the double-pivot in the friendlies leading up to the World Cup and forming a great partnership with Kaishu Sano. This was something that came up after Kaoru Mitoma got injured but I was adamantly against it given how important the current double pivot were to how we played. In a game like this though where we have the majority of the ball and the lack of experienced alternatives (with Machino sick and Yuito Suzuki probably not quite 100%), it did make sense for Moriyasu to fall back on this option.
Furthermore, the introduction of Ao Tanaka into the line-up was key to this game and all of his best qualities to justify his selection were on show. For me, Ao Tanaka’s best quality is his positioning to make an impact as a passer or receiver in every 3rd of the field. His runs forward from midfield, especially for the first goal, highlighted this.
As a bonus, as we’ve seen for Japan and for Leeds United, that mid-range shooting to threaten low blocks were on display in the 46th minute. His incisive pass for Ueda also led to the striker’s assist for Junya Ito’s goal to really kill off the game.
I do think Ao Tanaka is going to be a decisive player in this World Cup when Japan needs a lot more possession and control of games. It was interesting to see him rotate positions a lot with Kaishu Sano and Daichi Kamada in the middle of the pitch. Wearing the #7 in the place of his childhood best friend, Kaoru Mitoma, he carries his hopes and many others at this tournament.
Takehiro Tomiyasu made his first competitive Japan National Team start since a World Cup qualifier against Syria over 2 years ago. He was tasked with man-marking and shutting down Tunisia’s danger-man, Hannibal Mejbri. For most of the game, this was quite successful as even when the Tunisian talisman dropped deep to receive, he would be forced backwards through Tomiyasu’s aggression. There were still a few passages of play from Tunisia that did look dangerous though like in the 48th and 57th minutes where Hannibal moved around a lot to break down Japan’s mid-block with quick passing combinations. That’ll be something to review in training before the Sweden game. Tomiyasu’s passing, just like in the Netherlands game, was very good as well with his vertical pass in the lead-up to the first goal being very important.
Ayase Ueda was the star man on the day with 2 goals and 1 assist. I really loved his first goal in particular as he really showed that “ego” needed for a striker, something I’ve long felt lacking among Japanese strikers. After letting a number opportunities to pass float by, Ueda smashed the ball into the far corner off the dribble. His second was a sublime effort too, showcasing why his nickname is “Air Ayase”. After having an anonymous 2022 World Cup where he was hauled off at half-time in the Costa Rica game, Ueda was finally able to announce himself on the World Cup stage.
One last player I’ll mention was Keisuke Goto. Although he didn’t get on the ball very much, I thought his pressing was very good. It’s the kind of thing he showed against Scotland and Bolivia which is probably a big reason Moriyasu rates him so highly. With the late substitutions, Moriyasu has used every outfield player except for Yuto Nagatomo and the sick/unwell Shuto Machino. It’s quite an achievement from a man-management sense given the competitive nature of the first two group games.
It’s easy to say in hindsight about the terrible quality of the opponent here but this was an important win for Japan, results-wise and mentality-wise. We’ve usually shown up against the big teams before but failed to take advantage when being the favorites so this was a good result.
The permutations of the group standings and potential 3rd place wheel-of-fortune placements means that figuring out the starting XI for the next match vs. Sweden is going to be quite hard. Sweden’s defense were quite poor against the Netherlands (and lest we forget that they conceded vs. Tunisia too). Watching that game I felt that Moriyasu’s defensive approach vs. the Dutch was validated given how cut open Sweden were out wide. Whereas Japan made sure to double-team on their wingers (especially Gakpo) and keep a lid on Frenkie de Jong at the same time. Isak, Gyökeres, and Elanga are all a huge threat though so it could very well turn into a shoot-out between the teams, even more so when you consider that both teams play in a similar shape. If Nakamura and Doan play (which might not happen to keep them fresh), I do think there’s a clear advantage facing off against Sweden’s Wing Backs. It’s going to be really interesting to see what exact Back 3 Moriyasu will play, especially with the need to rest Hiroki Ito given he’s played the full 90s of both games so far. Others that I’d personally want to rest are Kaishu Sano (even though he probably could play a full 90 every day), Keito Nakamura, and Ayase Ueda.
On the other hand, with Sweden likely (?) to come at us with full force as their 3 points doesn’t necessarily assure them of anything, Japan will still need to keep things tight and make sure to not lose especially by a large margin. It might be a case where if the score is 0-0 by the 60th-ish minute that both teams will kind of accept the result and not push too much for a win especially since it’s extremely unlikely that Tunisia gets any result off the Netherlands. I would still like Japan to get the win of course, for the sake of more FIFA ranking points and pride.
Thanks for reading!
