Japanese National Soccer Team Fires Head Coach Two Months Before The World Cup 2018

The Japanese National Soccer Team has got quite a predicament on its hands after yesterday’s firing of head coach Vahid Halilhodzic.

The sacking of the Bosnian national, the former manager of Algeria’s unexpectedly successful national team that acquitted itself well at the Brazil 2014 edition of the FIFA World Cup by finishing in the Round of 16, comes just two months before the start of the 2018 edition. This development, which official sources in Japan are blaming on “communication problems,” has more than a few people – individuals high up in the hierarchy of the Japanese soccer association no less - worried about Japan’s already somewhat limited prospects going into the tournament in Russia.

“This has become an urgent situation,” Japan Football Association President Kozo Tashima told reporters in Tokyo after Halilhodzic’s firing. “For the new coach, we had no choice but to promote from within the association as the World Cup is only two months away. We thought the (new) coach should be someone who has watched this team the most from within the association.”

For the role of new manager, the Japanese team promoted Akira Nishino, who previously served as the Japan Football Association’s technical director. Nishino, whatever his merits as a coach might be – and he did serve as the former head man of Japanese professional side Gamba Osaka and the manager of the Japanese national team that played at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta – will be the first native Japanese to be put in the driver’s seat of the Japanese national team at a World Cup in years. The most recent past coaches of the so called “Samurai Blue” side have been from France (Philippe Troussier 1998-2002), Brazil (Arthur Antunes “Zico Coimbra 2002-2006), Italy (Alberto Zacheroni 2010-2014), Mexico (Javier Aguirre 2014-2015), and, most recently, from Bosnia (Halilhodzic 2015-2018).

Though it is a shame that it took so long for a Japanese head coach to take the reins of the national side again, it is hard to argue with what was working – comparatively speaking. Japan’s best result in the last 15 years came at the 2002 edition the island nation co-hosted alongside South Korea when, under the command of the aforementioned Frenchman Troussier, the Samurai Blue made it to the knockout stage. Indeed, by qualifying for the Russia 2018 FWC edition, Japan has made it into the running for the last six consecutive World Cups but has has only survived past the round of 16 twice in FIFA World Cup history: the 2002 miracle year and again in 2010, with Japanese coach Takeshi Okada at the helm.

Perhaps Tashima’s thinking was that what the Japanese team needed was an infusion of old blood – somebody the side’s players could talk to in their native language probably will not hurt the case either – in order to once again make it into the knockout stage of the competition.

“[The Japan Football Association leadership] came to this decision (to hire Nishino as full head coach) because I thought this could increase the chances of the team winning, if even if it’s just by a little,” he said.

As for Halilhodzic, his days were by all accounts pretty much numbered after a recent pair of international friendlies on the road in Europe last month against teams that had not qualified for the Russia 2018 edition of the World Cup ended in disaster or close approximations of it. The Japanese side could only manage a 1-all draw against Mali (which once failed in gloriously epic fashion to make it out of the Confederation of African Football FWC qualification season), and that in the very last kick of the game – a lucky shot if there ever was one. Two days later Japan lost 2-1 to Ukraine (the national team of which probably gets as much experience dodging landmines in the war torn Central European country as it does practice making passes and blocking kicks).

It was widely reported that the two away performances, which were way under par for the Japanese team, historically one of the better teams in the pantheon of Asian international soccer, sealed Halilhodzic’s fate as the show runner for the Samurai Blue side. The famously taciturn Tashima, a man of few words, said “communication with the players and trust (had) decline a little.”

Nevertheless, now that the Bosnian is out and Nishino is in, time is going to be of the essence if Japan wants to shape up and regain its confidence if the side wants to perform up to its ability in time for the June 19 FWC 2018 debut against Colombia. As it stands, Japan has pretty low odds to win the World Cup outright, and those odds just dropped lower at the leading legal offshore sportsbook Bovada.lv (most likely due to uncertainty over the side’s immediate future in the wake of the Halilhodzic firing). Japan is sitting on current moneyline odds of +20000, behind Serbia (+15000) and on the same level as much improved Nigeria and a same old same old Peru, but way back of Japan’s first stage opponent Colombia, which boasts moneyline odds of +4000 to win the whole tournament.

Moves like firing a head coach only a few months prior to the start of a tournament might seem like an extreme decision to take, but even Asia’s most historically successful teams, a group which includes Australia and South Korea, have not had the easiest time in the lead up to past tournaments ether. In fact, it could be argued that all three of these teams have changed tack in terms of hiring foreign coaches only to replace them with homegrown talent in the managerial spot. For instance, South Korea’s national team only just recently fired its own head coach, German national Ulrich “Uli” Stielike, before switching in Shin Tae-yong, a former Korean soccer star, though Australia did the opposite by replacing Angelos “Ange” Postecoglou (a native born Australian of Greek parentage) with Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk.

Whatever happens to the Japanese side with Nishino in charge, it will be up to Asia’s teams collectively to reverse their fortunes at the Russia 2018 edition of the World Cup as even the front running sides have had a really tough time at tournaments in the recent past. South Korea, which co-hosted the 2002 edition, remains to this day the nation with the best result so far at the FWC by making a semifinal run. Still, the last World Cup four years ago was not a good year for Asian soccer associations, as they all failed to get past the group stage at Brazil 2014. Maybe Japan’s switcheroo in the coaching department will help them eclipse their Asian region rivals in a couple months’ time – who knows? – but you can bet that the bookies will be watching their World Cup betting odds closely and, hopefully, giving the Samurai Blue a bump on the betting boards too.