Talk:Japan national football team

46?

Just because he didn't make any saves and kamano missed isn't really a reason to vandalize the article is it? Also..Barca?

Current players

Why are Mike Havenaar and Robert Cullen "current players" even though they haven't played a single match for the senior side? Also, now that the final squad of 23 has been announced, does it make sense to replace the current list with the World Cup squad? Ytny 14:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

China a "principal continental rival"?

I don't see by what standard China could be considered a "principal" rival.

• As of April 2006, FIFA ranked Japan at 17th in the world and China at 66th. [1]

As flawed as the FIFA rankings may be, they do provide a good measure of roughly where each team stands internationally and it is the only official, quantifiable method of comparing nations. 66th is nowhere close to rivaling 17th.

• China has not had comparable success in the Asian Cup.

Like Japan, Iran is a three-time champion at the Asian Cup. Korea is a two-time winner. China has not won it once.

• China has not had any international success.

Iran will be making its third appearance at the World Cup in 2006, Japan its third (once as host) and Korea its seventh (once as host). Each of the three team has at least one victory in the finals, while China has yet to score a goal or record a draw. For this year's World Cup, China failed to advance beyond the preliminary stage of qualifying.

• Head-to-head records

Since 1990, Japan has a record of 6 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses against China. Against Korea, Japan is 6-4-8 during the same span, and 3-2-3 against Iran. That is to say, Japan has matched up fairly evenly with Korea and Iran, while clearly having the upper hand against China.

I don't mean for this to be a take down of China's football program. I just want the above to be considered before calling China a "principal" rival of Japan. If there is a reason for doing so, it would have to be a pretty compelling one. "Principal continental rival" is a subjective designation, but I hope you can see why Korea and Iran belong, and China doesn't. Ytny 14:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Friendly results

I would agree that in 5 years time a friendly result may not matter but a 2-2 result against Germany is worth mentioning at the moment I think...Andycjp June 2006

I have to disagree, and I don't know of any other national team article that mentions latest friendly results. I understand the result was a surprise to many fans but this isn't that noteworthy considering Japan actually has a decent record in Europe in recent years.

Surprising results happen all the time and this match, at least on its own, doesn't really change anything for the team. Maybe if you put in proper context, say, Japan's recent struggles in friendly matches or its record against higher ranked nations, it could make more sense.

Still, thanks for contributing and for discussing the issue. Ytny 06:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ytny. Friendlies are not mentioned and Japan has had better results with higher-ranked teams such as Brazil. In other words, this draw (though exciting for some) is not noteworthy in the article.--Sir Edgar 07:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that given Japan`s recent form the result against Germany wasn`t totally a surprise. But I still feel it would be useful for casual readers of Wikipedia to know of recent results, (for example Japan 1 Malta 0) without having to leave Wikipedia. The editors of the England team page seem to agree with me... Andycjp June 2006.

Like I said above, I think mentioning recent results or form might make sense in proper context, but not on its own, or even a few recent results. And I think the England article serves my point, in that the results and fixtures sections are fairly comprehensive.

But I also see that the article as a whole is more comprehensive than this one. So you end up with an article where you either have the results without context or a result section that takes up most of the article, and I'm not sure if either is that helpful. That said, I think we can make this article more complete, though it's much harder to find English-language source material for the Japanese team. Ytny 03:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

There is usually some good pre- and post-match info at http://www.crisscross.com/jp/ , although, I would tend to agree that for friendlies and even qualifiers, anything beyond scoring summaries is not all that important. For the World Cup games, I would like to see each game description be moved to 2006 FIFA World Cup - Group F, where it can be NPOV'd by fans of both teams. The same would hold true for other tournaments like the Asia Cup. In the GroupF page, the match report for each game is already there, so that seems to be the logical place to put the summary, too. But, this would probably need to be taken up on the main Football project page.

If there is a desire, I can search for past results from the last few years, and put them in the article, in the brief form as in England's page. Even the Japanese language page for the team just lists the scores for the World Cup, with no commentary. No Asia Cup or other games are listed. Neier 09:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Colours of the uniform

Why is the uniform of the Japanese football team blue? 213.66.229.162 11:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I asked a Japanese person about this and they said it might have been explained in the newspaper many months ago but they don't really recall if any reasons were specifically mentioned. The person did offer that Japanese like the color blue because it has for them many positive associations (as opposed to "Blue Monday" or "feeling so blue" in other cultures) such as the blue of the vast ocean, the blue of the sky, both of these signifying a desire for the freedom of wide-open spaces. 218.218.61.59 20:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure about "desire for the freedom of wide-open spaces", but Japanese culture has always valued connection with, and worship of nature. But it's true that "blue" is generally considered a positive because of its association with the seas and the sky. Also, recent uniform designs are meant to reflect Mount Fuji. Ytny 03:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Two Japanese people I asked about this told me today that blue was the color of the uniforms of the University of Tokyo's soccer team, and since that team was for a long time (or may still even be) undefeated and also since it was the very first university soccer team in Japan (and being the very first to do things in Japan seems to matter a lot and give you higher status) that this had a lot to do with why blue was chosen as the color for the national team as well. They seemed to have seen in on the news or in the newspaper. I am assuming you do not live in Japan perhaps or may not have seen the same newspapers or TV programs where this was discussed. I find it strange myself, not being Japanese, that a university team should influence decisions regarding the national team. This I feel would not happen in other countries. But in Japan non-professional sports are looked at in a different way somehow. Besides soccer there are the highschool baseball tournaments which don't get any attention in the U.S. but are always in the news in Japan when they are played. 218.218.61.59 13:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Ytny wrote: "Also, recent uniform designs are meant to reflect Mount Fuji."

I ran this notion by several Japanese people on a number of different occasions. Some of them knew a lot about soccer. All of them reacted with expressions of disbelief. I'd be interested where your Mt. Fuji idea came from and if you could be more specific, even if just a personal comment, as to what part of the uniform or specifically in what way you thought the uniforms "reflect Mount Fuji."

As for other aspects of the uniform, you can see some abstract blade-like forms at the sides of the jersey.[2][3] Quite a number of Japanese people told me these were supposed to represent katana which are related to the team's theme of Samurai Blue. I think if this is so that the katana forms might have been broadened somewhat on purpose by the designer as international viewers might not regcoanize them to be swords otherwise.

Looking back at what I wrote, I realize "recent uniform designs are meant to reflect Mount Fuji" was misleading, since I was talking mostly about the 2002-03 design.

The best I can do is pull up this link from Google cache in Japanese, but adidas points to Mount Fuji as a primary inspiration for the uniform designs, the primary uniform with the red piping at the sleeves and the alternate with the gray body and white sleeves.

But since I've found that link, I can give (roughly translated version of) the official explanation for the colors:

Blue: the seas and the sky that symbolize the Japanese homeland, speed;

White: the spirit of fair play, sense of trust required for teamwork;

Red: the Japanese flag, passion;

And you're right about the katana motif - there are supposedly 11 blades on the white uniform, hough I haven't counted them myself.

Ytny 17:47, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Reviving this long overdue topic ... So after all this discussion is there any actual verifiable references as to the blue color? Would really help out the article. OneiroPhobia (talk) 19:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Match vs. Australia

The World Cup section should be about Japan's play during the World Cup Germany, but it focuses on the Australia match and totally reads like it was written from the Australian perspective.--Sir Edgar 02:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I tried to redress some of what you say by adding the parts about Kawaguchi's saves, plus connections with what has been said within Japan about how they need to improve in certain areas ("shooting the ball").

The problem is that most that it is more likely for native English speakers (i.e., Australians) to visit this site and make contributions like this item, than for Japanese supporters to do so. I think the author who initiated this part also just cut and pasted his report in more than one article. That is he might have originally intended it for an Australian article and just figured he would kill two birds with one stone and copy it here.

The focus on the first match is probably due to the let-down after giving away that match so badly in the last moments, that is Japanese probably wanting to forget things, and Australians excited about their big win. And a lack of time, now that the World Cup is well underway and people have so many matches to focus on. In time, this may change. Especially, if Japan pulls of a miracle against Brazil's substitutes and gets into the next round. I'd like to work on what you said but am not sure I can find the time for a while. I just might add something about Kawaguchi's stop in that early PKO, just to get things going. At the World Cup Yahoo! site it made Moment of the Day. And there was another diving stop of a Nakata shot from midfiled by the Crotian goalkeeper that deserves mention.218.218.61.59 20:04, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I am a Japanese supporter and I've made my share of edits to this article, but I haven't edited any of the match report, partly since I haven't had the time and partly because I'm not sure about the value of these reports in the national team articles.

If I can add a critique though, while I realize the standard for objectivity is lower for sports articles, I don't think descriptors like "great" and "stunning" belong in Wikipedia entries. Ytny 03:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, those are just quotes from the articles I cited. I don't think the idea of what an "article" really is can be said to be "fixed". I know some people are thinking that it is like a book "article", but that is only because they don't yet have a frame of reference for a medium (wikipedia) that can be more extensive than offline articles. Those are offline media are limited due to physical things like paper and space. Obviously the person who started this thread came here with the idea of finding out more about the matches. Since they seem to be having trouble with funding the idea of limiting articles might have to do with memory capacity though which does impose a kind of limitation. For sports I am not even sure how certain standards should apply. If you saw the matches there is a lot that the available "sources" don't report about that you saw and know happened and that other people would like to know about probably and be interested in reading. It seems strange that you can't include what you saw in an article and have to search around for some newspaper article that confirms what you saw. A lot of times those articles are very limited and also they don't give you an overview of things relating things from one match to another, in most cases. A lot of who read Wikipedia just come to find answers to things and I don't think they are so worried as to whether it meets certain criteria of book-like qualities. I read elsewhere in Wikipedia the founder himself started out saying his goal was to publish a hardcopy of Wikipedia someday. I think that was naive. He himself did not realize how big the project would get and how impractical the idea was, and also how useless many articles are once you take them offline and cut them off from their many hyperlinks. But I understand he might at first have wanted to compete against books using book-like standards, and, of course, the need to start somewhere (with a book model). Like with a model based on books or offline models. That's only a starting point. It doesn't necessarily mean we have to be locked into only that model int he future.218.218.61.59 13:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

While I'm not quite sure exactly what to make of your response, I concede that match reports themselves are useful as long as the World Cup remains a current event. But my critique about subjective descriptors still stands. My problem with "great" and "stunning" isn't so much that they're subjective per se, but because they're subjective and not that helpful in explaining what happened. At the risk of channeling my old journalism professors, nouns and verbs are better friends than adjectives and adverbs - value judgements like "great" and "controversial" should either go without saying or be treated as matters of opinion.

And if they're direct quotes as you say, why are they presented as facts. I realize you linked to the cited articles, but they should still be framed as opinions, not objective observations. Your point about Wikipedia's mission notwithstanding, the article still has to meet some degree of journalistic standard.

As an aside, I can easily make a joke here that neither the series of acrobatic saves nor the blunder on the first Australia goal are particularly surprising to anyone who has watched Yoshi Kawaguchi play. Ytny 15:13, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

On value of match reports.

The same can be said for reports on many kinds of current event: They're useful for people who may have missed the televised match or seen it in a language they do not understand which happens a lot with international events like the World Cup. They're also useful for people wanting to reflect on the current state of things and relate them to past reports and draw connections between different times. When such events have summaries that include supporting hyperlinks this is actually quite useful to such users. You used the subjective adjective "useful" in a subjective time frame. But there are other users unlike yourself who use wikipedia not only to get current information (on a soccer match), but for these uses as well, who would not agree with your definition of "usefulness" in this context.

I would caution you on attempting to impose your limited personal and subjective opinions of whay you consider "useful" on others. Obviously the people who initiate the reports and contribute to them and come to them to read (such as the reader who commented on their incompleteness) may have different ideas about usefulness than you do. Writers and editors while forming their own personal standards, which is quite a normal thing to do, also need to consider the needs of their audience and the motivations of that audience for coming to read what they have written.

That said, I have to consider from the other side, what would I do if it were decided that this team page were just for the essentials. I understand this kind of thinking comes from the limitations of writing on paper which involve cost and space. Ease of reading is sometimes given, but a dubious reason as the links in the content box allow you to focus on what interests you. You are not forced to read about the match reports if you do not wish to. However, if some members were to insist that the page require this kind of minimalism I'd simply suggest moving match reports to an entry about match reports that can be accessed via a link from the team page like "for match reports see etc...) . I myself find the conciseness of the upper sections of the team page good thing, yet not necessarily something that means that having match reports "somewhere" is a bad thing, or that one thing has to be sacrificed for the other.

There are entries for TV programs which summarized every episode over periods of over 10 years. That way people coming to show later can catch up on past events. Also, and this cannot be known in advance, but if the series is issued on DVD later, it serves as a handy reference if you cannot afford to buy the whole series but would just like to choose the disks you find most interesting according to their summaries. In some ways, sporting events may be different than this, but the point I am making is that a "current" event (or series broadcast) can often have a usefulness that goes beyond its original intent (to bring you news of the day, or the latest weekly episode).

Simply because you personally seem to use the Internet in a more limited way (to treat a current event as one that won't matter to anyone again later after it is no longer current), doesn't mean that everyone does.

On the use of adjectives.

You wrote:

My problem with "great" and "stunning" isn't so much that they're subjective per se, but because they're subjective and not that helpful in explaining what happened. At the risk of channeling my old journalism professors, nouns and verbs are better friends than adjectives and adverbs - value judgements like "great" and "controversial" should either go without saying or be treated as matters of opinion.

I question whether what we are doing ought to be confined to offline notions about "journalism" (that exclusive either/or choices always need to be made between what happens and qualitatively how it happened at the expense of the latter) in the sense that many offline notions come in large part from restrictions on space (on a page made of paper which involves cost and weight) and time (the productivity of staff writers, the time readers have in a given day before they discard that day's edition, the limited attention span of a reader during a given average session of reading). If your old professor is now dead, then all the more reason, due to age, why those of his generation carrying with them all the legacy notions of offline writing, would have left you ill-prepared to deal with a different media (wikipedia) where time and space are not similarly restricted to same degree.

You wrote:

And if they're direct quotes as you say, why are they presented as facts. I realize you linked to the cited articles, but they should still be framed as opinions, not objective observations. Your point about Wikipedia's mission notwithstanding, the article still has to meet some degree of journalistic standard.

Framing those parts by more explicitly adding several more words (adding who said what or frames such as "what was described by one reporter as") would have made those sections, too cumbersome. They were meant to be presented, not as personal observation, but as wording quoted from the cited articles, in quotation marks. However, my main purpose, rather than to absolutely include those specific adjectives, was simply to add some balance to the article and offer links to sources that presented the match in a different light from was originally on the team page. I think I accomplished this even in the current version so I am satisfied.

I don't think it prudent to make the assumption that everyone who visits the team page is a jaded soccer supporter who already knows all the players thoroughly. (In fact, you would think that those jaded fans would stay away having less of a need to consult the page, unless it is for some kind of narcissistic reason such as showing off what they know.) Wikipedia sometimes seems to attract, as contributors, people who have a higher than average involvement with a topic but who seem unable to imagine that many in the audience that comes to Wikipedia are not like them. It should not be assumed that a lot of that audience has ever seen certain players play very much. For all we know, they might be seeing those players for the very first time. This kind of audience is natural to see for any of the major sporting events. They come because they have may have less experience than many of the contributors but would like to learn more from them. 218.218.61.59 14:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to apologize ahead of time for not reading your response completely and I'll probably come back to it later. But I should clarify a couple of points:

1. I feared you would interpret "my old journalism professor" the way you did. I didn't mean that Wikipedia should strictly follow journalistic conventions. But there are goals that good journalistic writing achieves - readability, informative and descriptive writing without excess - tht also make for good Wikipedia entries. They're good guidelines for any sort of informative writing.

2. You wrote:

"I don't think it prudent to make the assumption that everyone who visits the team page is a jaded soccer supporter who already knows all the players thoroughly."

Yeah. I think you'll notice that I wrote, "As an aside..." and "I could easily make the joke. As in, the last paragraph was besides the point and not to be taken seriously.

Ytny 18:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Takayuki Suzuki

Why was Suzuki not playing for Japan in the 2006 world cup? --Science Lord 06:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think he should be (in relation to his most recent results at the time in his club play or in any of the games for the national squad leading up to the World Cup)? Was it because he was on the last World Cup that you thought so? My impression was that there was not much in his results of late and so he was not chosen. And then you might ask, "but then, well why were a number of other players who had made good contributions, but maybe not for a number of years, included on the team?" For the answer to that question, you might want to take a look at this article from the Daily Yomiuri and see if you think it is a fair judgement about the way Zico selected some or most of his team.

Copa América

Japan played Copa America in 1999. What about mentioning it? Copa America 1999 at Conmebol: http://www.conmebol.com/competiciones_evento_partidos_previo.jsp?evento=1055&ano=1999&slangab=E Digodf 17:09, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Added it to the history section. Neier 04:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Digodf 21:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Under age teams

This article is building up a large amount of info about other teams, viz the various underage sides, including the Olympic team. This is not the subject matter of this article. This article should be about the team described in the infobox. A separate article should be created if editors wish to collate achievements of underage teams. Kevin McE (talk) 09:52, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

No voice to the contrary in 3 months, so I have deleted the section. Kevin McE (talk) 09:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

As articles already existed for the U-20 and U-17 teams, the deleted section content have been moved to the respective pages. I would request that you consider moving information rather than simply deleting them in the future, as to not put to waste any efforts by past contributers. Cheers. TakTak (talk) 01:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Video Games

I removed it becuase it kind of goes off-topic.--Villa88 (talk) 03:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Biggest win

Japan's biggest win of 15-0 against the Philippines was an Olympic Games qualifier. Any Olympic football match including qualifiers aren't considered full international matches and therefore not FIFA recognized. The matches listed in the infobox are only for full or FIFA recognized matches right? So, shouldn't it be changed?? I have also raised this point in the discussion page of the Philippine national team article as well since it is also considered the Philippines' biggest defeat. Banana Fingers (talk) 19:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

FIFA don't have this on their records, so your correct to challenge it. It should be removed as it is not classed as a full international. Druryfire (talk) 21:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Hhhmm. Well I looked at the national team template guide and it only states international. The same concept could be said for Olympic tournament achievements, records and tables (pre-1992) that exist in many other national team pages. Also I noticed that caps and goals from these tournaments (pre-1992) are included in teams and players' statistics. And actually FIFA does recognize Olympic football tournaments as official FIFA final competitions. OneiroPhobia (talk) 02:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If the template only states international matches, then I think it needs to be pointed out at the discussion page that only full international matches should be placed. Because non full international matches are considered "unofficial", and I believe putting unofficial data would not be encyclopedic. With regards to other national team articles putting stats on Olympic football, I think that is fine, because pre-1992 Olympic football, these matches are still national team matches but just not full international/FIFA recognized matches. As odd as that may sound, that is the case. Caps & goals shouldn't be credited for these matches as well. Finally, does FIFA really recognize the final tournament as an official FIFA competition? Even if they do, matches are still not full international matches. Any Olympic match, either a qualifier or at the tournament proper, are not listed in the Fixtures and Results page at FIFA.com which confirms they're not full international matches. Banana Fingers (talk) 06:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, I might have made a slight mistake with what I said, there are some tournament proper Olympic matches that are listed at the Fixtures and Results page FIFA.com. Although other matches aren't listed. But in this case of Japan's biggest win, it's a qualifier and its not listed. RSSSF also states that FIFA doesn't count the match as a full international. Banana Fingers (talk) 06:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well yes that is very odd not to mention terribly inconsistent and not encyclopedic. In the sense that the achievements and stats are deemed "official" and listed but the vital matches and the events that make and lead up to said listings are "unofficial" and omitted. I can see where you're coming from but "unofficial" is really a strong word. Besides "unofficial" information and tidbits are considered encyclopedic as long as they can be verified. Well for whatever reason those caps and goals are credited. Yeah some Olympic matches are listed at the FIFA.com Fixtures and Results but others aren't. It is inconsistent and I tested it using other teams as well. Note at the bottom of the page "FIFA's information does not stem solely from official information from the associations or confederations, but also from third parties (media, private individuals). FIFA can therefore not vouch for the accuracy of the data in every case (especially regarding friendly matches). However we make it our duty to constantly verify unofficial data". Also this case is by no means an isolated one. National team pages such as Italy, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia and India just to name a few have (pre-1992) Olympic matches in their biggest wins and first international respectively. This seems to be a much more consistent pattern across the board. These sets of data have been around here for a long time and would have been examined before being entered and afterwards. Furthermore the Hungary golden team of the 50s, the Magical Magyars, whom are widely renown for their then world record of 31 unbeaten matches includes several Olympic matches. Finally the Elo rating system which has a very comprehensive, up-to-date list of matches (just click on the country names) from which it states "ratings take into account all international "A" matches for which results could be found" lists all of these matches. OneiroPhobia (talk) 13:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh and I also noticed that on the Germany and Belgium national teams their biggest loss is from the England Amateur team. Now these are definitively not full internationals yet they exist. Using the FIFA, RSSSF or Elo sources yields no results for these matches although there are references to a German site. From the England national amateur team page it states "Some games not considered full internationals by The Football Association are so by their opponents. Thus, the England amateur side delivered Germany's biggest defeat, beating them 9-0 in 1909. It also delivered the Netherlands its biggest defeat ever (12-2), Sweden's biggest ever defeat (12-1) as well as Belgium's biggest defeat (11-2) and Hungary's joint biggest defeat (7-0)". It does make more sense now that it is to be the country and the organization in charge of the country's national team that decides whether matches are "official" or not. It which case is why Olympics are counted including the caps and goals. OneiroPhobia (talk) 14:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I sent an email to FIFA regarding Olympic matches I actually got a reply. They said that FIFA recognized Olympic matches up to 1948 ONLY. They said they need to remove the match data from 1952 & 1956 on the fixtures and results page at FIFA.com. With regards to those England amateur matches... If The FA does not consider those matches as full international but their opponents do, that's not possible. A match can only be a full international first and foremost is if both FA's consider it to be one. Therefore, caps and goals cannot be awarded for those matches. Having said that, I'm still a little confused if it automatically becomes a full international just because both FA's consider it to be. I'm sure the JFA and the PFF would consider the 15-0 match that Japan won as a full international as it is their full national teams that are involved, yet FIFA doesn't recognize it and caps and goals cannot be awarded for that match. In my email to FIFA, I also asked them about China's matches from 1913 to 1923, and they said they don't recognize their matches in that period as full internationals. Therefore, Japan's first international, Japan 0 - 5 China, is not FIFA recognized as well. Anyway, so what now? Leave things as is? It would be a bit weird to leave things as is after all this discussion. Should their be a note tagged to infobox matches that are in question? Or anything else perhaps? Banana Fingers (talk) 10:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sigh... Wow just wow. Best just to leave it all together. FIFA.com 's fixture and results as you and was previously stated is terribly inconsistent and out of date. Also note that there are alot of matches stated as friendly when indeed they are tournaments of some sort. Besides as previous stated this is by no means an isolated case and many others sharing similar situations. As with those pages and consistency across the board there are generally no notes tagged. Furthermore tagging would draw unnecessary clutter and attention and possibly add more confusion than clarity to these points that are not of particular significance or question in the 1st place per se and when infoboxes are generally only meant to be a quick clean skim rundown. Ultimately yes they are recognized and credited by the JFA and various other 3rd party sources as full internationals towards the full national team similar to the scenario about achievements and medals you stated above. Caps and goals are awarded by the country's FA. Japan's leading goal scoring, Kunishige Kamamoto, credited with 75 goals has 20 of those goals in Olympic related matches. Best just to leave things after this long discussion that has yielded barely any progression. Things probably will change in the future in regards to more clarity about matches. Until then there is no rush. Regards. OneiroPhobia (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Should it be changed to Japan national soccer team?

Since サッカー　literally translates to soccer, wouldn't that be more accurate then football. Not trying to start up a soccer/football war, just trying to get the best translation.--75.65.145.0 (talk) 08:33, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it should stay to football as all the other articles written in wiki are set to this. I think we have been here beofre aswell on other articles and they have stayed the same. Druryfire (talk) 09:18, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The sport is called サッカー, or sakka, in Japanese, which derives from the English "soccer", but the authorities translate it back to English as "football" in names such as Japan Football Association. However, Japan (1) has other "national football teams" playing different types of football, and (2) is not an English-speaking country, so it has no national variety of English. There isn't really a set consistency across Wikipedia for what to call national teams; while most do use "national football team", we use "national soccer team" for countries that call it that (Canada, the U.S.), and use "national association football team" for countries where other types of football are also popular (Australia, American Samoa). In a case like this it's better to disambiguate to avoid confusion.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Nicknames

"日本代表" (Nippon Daihyō - Japan representatives) cannot be listed as "nickname" since is the way every national team is called, not just Japan (England, Spain, France, Argentina...) So since the even Japanese Wikipedia does not show that "nickname", and until someone can show some evidence that "日本代表" is really a nickname for the Japan National Football team (and they alone, not other sport) I am deleting that and leaving just the "Samurai Blue". --Voj 2005 (talk) 05:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

most successfull asian team?

why are they considered the most successful asian team? south korea reached the semifinals in 2002 and north korea has reached the quater finals in 1966. Saudi arabia is also a successful football team their highest ranking ever was 7th in the world in 2004. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.25.102.156 (talk) 03:20, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Where does it say they are THE most successful team in Asia? It only says they are ONE of the most successful teams in Asia. That means they are part of the top grouping of successful teams in Asia. Teams with consistent success over the years, with multiple World Cup Qualifications and with multiple Asian Titles eg South Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Japan etc. in no particular order. OneiroPhobia (talk) 04:08, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

if you look at the italian national football team page it says it is the second most successful team in the history of the world cup. and this is done because it has won 4 titles compared to brazils 5. so if i write japan is the second most successful team from asian in the 'world cup' isnt that a fact? i mean they are the most successful in the 'Asian Cup', but who watches the asian cup ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.12.144 (talk) 11:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

'the second most successful team from asian in the world cup' may not be easy to argue and should be eliminated; North Korea's quarterfinal appearance in 1966 makes your claim vague. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.102.174.243 (talk) 02:55, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I think 110.174.12.144 / 138.25.102.156 means second best overall record but yes it is vague and borders on original research. I have rephrased it. OneiroPhobia (talk) 04:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

And if you look at the German page it will say "Germany is historically one of the three most successful national teams at international competitions, having won a total of three World Cups and three European Championships. They have also been runners-up three times in the European Championships, four times in the World Cup, and further won four 3rd places." and the Saudi Arabian page has "Considered one of Asia's most successful national teams, Saudi Arabia has won the Asian Cup three times 1984, 1988, and 1996 and qualified for the World Cup four consecutive times ever since debuting at the 1994 tournament" (go ahead and change them). There are over 200+ team pages and every team page is written differently e.g. some team pages will use FIFA rankings. Your original point raised was "successful Asian team". World Cup qualifying and Asian Cups are direct competitions between Asian teams with the Asian Cup being the continental competition used to determine the Asian Champions. It isn't just the record at the World Cup finals. I have rephrased it. OneiroPhobia (talk) 04:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Germany IS one of the three most successful national teams. They have won the world cup 3 times. Brazil 5 Italy 4 Germany 3 Argentina/Uruguay 2 England/France/Spain 1

in fact. Japan is the most successful on the regional stage. but on the world stage. they arent even second since north korea reached the semis in 1966. if you go by ranking Saudi Arabia was ranked the highest EVER in the asian region but they didnt perform in the world cup.

whats the point of winning the regionals 100 times if you fail to perform on the world stage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.12.144 (talk) 12:25, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

recognition of the ASIAN CUP

it is ridiculous to use the regional cup to insist they are one of the most successfull teams in asia.

slovakia has won the euro cup once. and portugal has never won it.

does that mean slovakia is more successfull team than portugal? absolutely not.

france has won it twice but italy only once. does that mean france is more successfull than italy?

we have to go by the facts. and to claim that japan is one of the most sucessfull teams from asia is just an opinion. this is an encyclopedia not a journalistic piece of article.