Japan National Team represents Japan at the international football competitions. It is one of the most successful teams in Asia to have qualified in all the last six consecutive World Cup tournaments. It has also advanced to the second round in two editions (2002 and 2010). The team has won the Asian Cup for the record four times and has once stood second in the FIFA Confederation Cup in 2001.
Japan currently ranks 40th in the FIFA World ranking and was 9th in 1998 which the best ever ranking of the Samurai Blue. The lowest rank of Japan so far is 62nd in 1992.
Yasuhito Endō is the most capped Japanese player with 152 appearances followed by Masami Ihara in the second with 122 caps. Shinji Okazaki the highest capped and highest goals scorer in the current squad. Kunishige Kamamoto is the highest goals scorer in the history with 80 goals in 84 appearances. The team is currently managed by Vahid Halilhodžić and the current national team captain is Makoto Hasebe.
Japan made its place to the final round of the FIFA World Cup 2018 is the group B winner of the AFC Qualification ahead of Saudi Arabia.
List of players with possible chances to be in the squad for the FIFA World Cup 2018.
Goalkeepers
Eiji Kawashima
Shūsaku Nishikawa
Masaaki Higashiguchi
Defenders
Masato Morishige
Shintaro Kurumaya
Yuichi Maruyama
Yūto Nagatomo
Tomoaki Makino
Maya Yoshida
Hiroki Sakai
Gōtoku Sakai
Yuichi Maruyama
Gen Shōji
Midfielders
Keisuke Honda
Gaku Shibasaki
Makoto Hasebe
Yasuyuki Konno
Takashi Usami
Hiroshi Kiyotake
Shinji Kagawa
Hotaru Yamaguchi
Wataru Endo
Yosuke Ideguchi
Shu Kurata
Forward
Yuya Osako
Takashi Inui
Genki Haraguchi
Yoshinori Mutō
Takuma Asano
Shinji Okazaki
Yuya Kubo
