The Japan national team (19th in the FIFA rankings) will play against the Paraguay national team (37th in the FIFA rankings) on the 10th.
On the 9th, an official press conference and practice were held at Panasonic Stadium Suita, the venue for the match, and coach Hajime Moriyasu (57) expressed his enthusiasm ahead of the match against a difficult South American opponent, saying, “In September's national team activities, we were unable to win with one draw and one loss, so we will fight for victory, and we will do our best to win and make our supporters happy.''
Regarding Paraguay, which had a solid defense with only 10 goals conceded in 18 games in the South American qualifying round, he said, “All the players are good players, so we have to be careful.'' Among them, he named midfielder Miguel Almiron (Atlanta United) as a player to be especially wary of, saying, “He played for Newcastle in the Premier League, and was active as one of the key players in the attack in the South American qualifiers.I want to keep an eye on his chance creation.''
We believe that the consecutive games against South American teams, including Paraguay and Brazil (14th, Ajista), will be an opportunity to overcome our weaknesses. “I feel from past data and my own experience that our winning percentage against South American teams is not good. If we can increase Japan's chances of winning against South American teams, the probability of Japan winning the World Cup will also increase at the same time. I think this is one of the points as we aim for the best format.” As we aim to be number one in the world, we are approaching this as an important battle.
