Japan learns from Qatar World Cup defeat, plans penalty shootout after international friendly

According to reports from Japanese media (ゲキサカ: Gekisaka), following Japan’s defeat in the top 16 of the World Cup in Qatar, the Japan Football Association Committee recently held a technical committee meeting to formulate the Japan Football Association’s medium and long-term goals and plans for the future.

Japan's medium-term goal is to reach the top four in the 2030 World Cup , and its long-term goal is to win the World Cup in 2050.

On the other hand, based on Japan's outstanding performance in this World Cup, they defeated Germany all the way, Spain advanced to the round of 16, and they were evenly matched against runner-up Croatia to enter overtime. However, due to Japan's lack of ability and experience in the penalty shootout, Japanese players Maya Yoshida, Takumi Minamino and Kaoru Misaki were all saved by the 27-year-old Croatian goalkeeper Dominic Livakovic. Poor penalty kick ability missed a good opportunity, lost to Croatia, which has rich experience in penalty shootouts, and was once again rejected by the top 8 of the World Cup.

And after the game, some celebrities were disappointed and regretful about Japan's performance in the penalty shootout, because Japan's performance in this World Cup is quite good and can be called one of the dark horses, but the penalty kick technique and ability are unexpectedly bad, and they are To put it bluntly, Japan may not have practiced penalty kicks at all.

Indeed, compared to the Croatian team that won several penalty shootouts in the last World Cup, the Japanese team lacks experience, ability, technology and confidence. This is also a lesson that Japan needs to learn from the failure of the World Cup in Qatar . Sure enough, Japan is also planning to learn from its failures and begin to consider how to improve the Japanese team's penalty kick skills and abilities in international competitions.

Koji Sorimachi, chairman of the technical committee of the Japan Football Association and a former Japanese player, expressed in an interview that he hopes to draw up a plan for Japan to conduct 12-yard penalty shootouts after future international friendly matches to strengthen the team's penalty kick technology and experience.

Koji Sorimachi further revealed, "The Japanese team does not want to rely on luck in penalty shootouts. Obviously, this is not practical at all, so in order not to let the team feel unfamiliar with penalty shootouts in the World Cup in the future, we only have By conducting penalty shootouts with different countries, we can get familiar with and deal with different penalty kick tactics of other countries and the characteristic height of goalkeepers, etc., so that we can better master the knack of penalty shootouts.”

However, as we all know, international friendly matches usually last 90 minutes. In fact, they generally do not enter overtime or penalty shootouts. Therefore, Koji Sorimachi revealed that he plans to apply to the opponent for penalty kick training after the game.

He said, "If the opponent agrees, the Japanese team will take a penalty shootout in the international friendly match, and we will be fully prepared so that we will not make the same mistake that the Japanese team made when they challenged the penalty shootout for the first time in this World Cup. In the face of football, we sometimes need to use reverse thinking to prepare and play this game, so it is imperative to enhance the self-confidence of Japanese players at critical moments in international competitions."