World Cup 2010: Teams – Japan
Japan have qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The country will be playing in their 4th FIFA World Cup Tournament. Japan played in their first FIFA World Cup tournament in 1998 in France. They were co-hosts with South Korea for the 2002 FIFA World Cup and made it into the round of the last 16. Japan also competed in the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. The country has also played in 4 FIFA Confederations Cup Tournaments (in 1995, 2001, 2003 and 2005) and in various Asian Cup Tournaments (which they’ve won 3 times). Japan has competed in 8 Olympic Games. In 1968 Japan won the Bronze medal for Football at the Olympic Games in Mexico. FIFA currently ranks Japan as the 40th best team in the world. Masami Ihara is most capped player in Japanese football history, he represented Japan 123 times between 1988 and 1999. Kunishige Kamamoto is the top goalscorer in Japan football history, he scored 75 goals for them between 1964 and 1977. In Japan the team is known as “Soccer Nippon Daihyō”, translated as the “Japanese representatives”. The current Japanese football coach is Takeshi Okada. The team is currently captained by Yuji Nakazawa. It’s still unsure if Japan will play in Cape Town, Johannesburg or another South African city in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
