Germany-Japan: Moriyasu’s Tactics Deliver A Historic Win
The last time Japan’s manager Hajime Moriyasu was in Doha for a competitive football match was as a player in an October 1993 World Cup qualifier against Iraq.
Japan started the day in first place in Asian qualifying, all but assured a trip to their first World Cup. By the end of the 90 minutes, it would be third in the group and saddled with the worst defeat in its national team’s history after a 93rd-minute Iraqi equalizer sent its bitter rivals South Korea through in its place.
In Japan, the game is cruelly and succinctly referred to as the Agony of Doha. This is because the players—Moriyasu among them—known as the Class of Doha, were almost all excluded from Japan’s squad when it eventually qualified for the subsequent World Cup.
Almost 29 years to the day, in the same city, and having never missed a World Cup since, Japanese football reached its pinnacle when it shocked Germany with a 2-1 win in the opening game of Group E.
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Moriyasu went from being a player on the field at the nadir of his country’s failures to the coach who masterminded its biggest achievement.
Against Germany on Wednesday, he couldn’t tangibly contribute to the win since coaches are theorists, not practitioners. Yet, he should feel ownership for it because his substitutions altered the course of a game that seemed destined to be a steamrollering and instead became a reminder that underdogs don’t always have to settle for a moral victory.
The game began predictably with Germany dominating possession; its midfield duo of Kimmich and Gundogan used their superior quality to prevail in every situation in the middle of the park—build-up play, final pass, and second balls—while the athleticism of its defenders—in particular David Raum and Antonio Rüdiger—neutralized any Japanese counter attacks with their recovery runs.
However, there was a moment in the first half that presaged things to come when Ilkay Gündoğan lost the ball in midfield after being pressed by three Japanese players at once, resulting in a perfectly executed counterattack.
First, Daizen Maeda’s goal was chalked offside, and Japan spent the rest of the half taking more licks than a sparring partner in a famous boxer’s social media video. However, it showed the Japanese had a strategy they knew how to execute and that whether it succeeded would hinge on individual duels.
Whoever would get the better of their opponent in the game’s crucial moments would unlock their team’s game plan.
It’s difficult to say whether Moriyasu’s tactics included such an inert strategy in the first half. The omission of heavy hitters like Takehiro Tomiyasu and Takumi Minamino from the starting lineup, replaced with Hiroki Sakai and Maeda, respectively, would indicate a preference for players willing to sacrifice themselves as opposed to difference makers.
In any case, the Germans overwhelmed the Japanese with the volume of their play in the first half—81 percent possession in the first 45 minutes—although not always with the consistency of its quality—only resulting in 0.89 non-penalty expected goals—a lot for a single half but, not enough for that cartoonishly high amount of possession.
The most important thing to do against a low block is to unbalance the defense, which Germany could only do when it found Jamal Musiala between the lines. Defenders either had to swarm him to try and stop him from turning (he still did), which then left Joshua Kimmich and sometimes Gündoğan to fill those spaces from the second line.
On a couple of occasions, the team even managed to shift the defense entirely to one side through its ball possession rather than just relying on individual play. Shuichi Gonda’s penalty on Raum was the most notable example. Still, chances constructed as a result of the overall collective supremacy happened too infrequently for a German team with that level of possession (81 percent).
So, the first half closed with a sense that even though Germany had the ball the entirety of the time, they had only rarely done anything with it that Japan was concerned about.
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To start the second half, Moriyasu brought on Tomiyasu for Takefusa Kubo and shifted to a back three, moving Daichi Kamada to the forward line for a 3-4-3. Japan now had its best, most creative player closer to the goal. But the substitution that changed the game would happen 12 minutes later when Takuma Asano came on for Maeda.
Three minutes after coming on, Asano had a good scoring opportunity when substitute (and new icon of non-conformity for being a winger who wears number nine) Kaoru Mitoma brought the ball up the field in a virtually empty German half and laid off a pass in the box that Asano shot after a quick first touch rather than take on Rüdiger. It was Japan’s first counterattack since the disallowed goal in the eighth minute—necessary for a team playing on the break, willingly ceding possession to the opposition.
Asano might have caught viewers’ eyes for the speed with which he attacked the German backline. On occasion forcing Rüdiger into a recovery run, complete with showboating high steps and a shit-eating grin. Rüdiger was right to gloat because he had gotten the better of Asano in that instance and would continue to throughout the rest of the second half.
He would repeatedly get into great positions in the box and bring the ball down with a technique and speed of thought Japan previously lacked, only to run into the eternally frustrating experience of facing a player who’s just better than you.
Again, the individual duels prove to be decisive. It would be a recurring theme over the next ten minutes as Germany had the ball. Still, Asano repeatedly created chances for Japan, only to be stifled by Rüdiger and a vintage Manuel Neuer save in the 72nd minute.
The breakthrough came two minutes later in the 74th minute when Mitoma broke down the left-hand side to find the newly introduced and perfectly-cutting Minamino, who played a strong cross across a six-yard box to Asano. Neuer saved the cross, but the ball fell to Ritsu Doan, who battered it home. 1-1 Japan.
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Asano, not content with just changing the game in spirit, scored in the 83rd minute to give Japan the lead. Center-back Ko Itakura found him on a freekick after a slicing run between the two German center-backs. More specifically, it was a run away from Rüdiger and toward Nico Schlotterbeck.
Asano appeared headed for the corner flag until his savvy first touch took the ball goal-side, all while holding off Schlotterbeck. As he entered the box, Asano brought the ball as close to Neuer as possible without losing it and beamed it into the top of the net.
Asano first welcomed the foot race with Schlotterbeck and then sought out the contact, using his hip to shove the German’s leg and then slapping away his arms. What did we say about the individual duels?
Asano admirably went headfirst into every challenge with Rüdiger and lost. So rather than embrace stick-to-itiveness to the point of folly, he switched targets. One can’t help but wonder how much of a hand the coach played in this decision.
Did Moriyasu instruct his player to seek out Scholtterbeck over Rüdiger, or did Asano sense something imperceptible to anyone not participating in the frenzied repartee of gameplay? It’s a question that only those directly involved can answer, but that gets at the core of the symbiosis between player and coach.
Players risk being submerged by the blinding furor of competition without their coach’s guidance and coaches are, at times, impotent, relying on their players’ instincts to sense what they can’t from the sidelines.
Admittedly these lofty discussions seem esoteric and unimportant after such a historic win. But it was ultimately some combination of the eternal, inseparable relationship between player and coach that led Japan to this historic triumph. So why not ask ourselves about it?