FOCUS: Football: Japan mastery of Germany, Spain shows lessons learned

Japan must reach the quarterfinals at some stage if their ultimate aim of winning the World Cup by 2050 is to be realized. Unfortunately for Samurai Blue fans, it did not happen in Qatar.But with the shock wins over Germany and Spain, who both have heavily influenced the development of the sport in Japan, the county has shown that the pupil has now learned enough to beat its teachers.The Samurai Blue's World Cup journey began with three defeats in 1998 in France when the team featured no overseas-based players. Its star performer Hidetoshi Nakata went on to sign for Perugia in Italy later t…READ FULL ARTICLE