Kuala Lumpur, November 09 (QNA) - Japan's Coach Hajime Moriyasu managed to reach the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 with his country, despite their struggles during the early stages of the final round in the Asian qualifiers, but they overcame the challenges to lead the team to the finals.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) highlighted Coach Moriyasu in a series of reports published by the Continental Confederation on the coaches of the Asian teams participating in the World Cup.
He had been a member of his country's AFC Asian Cup winning squad in 1992 and was on the pitch when the Japanese suffered the crushing disappointment of narrowly missing out on qualifying for the 1994 FIFA World Cup when they drew with Iraq in Doha in 1993.
Now Moriyasu returns to Qatar looking to exorcise those Doha demons from almost 30 years ago as Japan take on the daunting challenge in Group E against four-time world champions Germany, 2010 FIFA World Cup winners Spain and Costa Rica.
From there neither the Japanese nor Moriyasu looked back, the win over the Socceroos kick starting a run of six consecutive victories that delivered the Samurai Blue's ticket for Qatar. Now Moriyasu will take on the unique challenge of leading his team at the FIFA World Cup.
Qualification was vindication of the Samurai Blue coach and his methods after he risked becoming Japan's nearly man'.
The 54-year-old's time in charge looked destined to end when, after losses against Oman and Saudi Arabia in their first three games of the AFC Asian Qualifiers - Road to Qatar , the calls for a new head coach were growing louder by the day.
"We've been preparing ourselves diligently, and that led to this result," said Moriyasu, who replaced Akira Nishino as Japan coach in the aftermath of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, when Japan reached the Round of 16.
"We were under great pressure, but the players, coaches, the entire staff, came together as one and stood tall." said Moriyasu.
Early in his tenure Moriyasu oversaw a runners-up finish at the Asian Games in Jakarta in 2018 for the country's Under-20 team before leading Japan to a second place finish at the 2019 AFC Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates behind Qatar.
Even at the Olympic Games, in Tokyo in 2021, Moriyasu's Japan fell short of the hoped-for standard, the ex-Sanfrecce Hiroshima coach guiding his team to the semi-finals, where they first missed out on a place in the gold medal match and then lost to Mexico in the playoff for bronze. (QNA)