Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Tokyo: The J.League has announced the members of its 'Team as One' which will take on the Japanese national team at Nagai Stadium next Tuesday.
The charity match has been hastily arranged after New Zealand last week pulled out of their scheduled friendly with the Samurai Blue, and the game will look to raise money for the relief efforts in the Tohoku region of Japan, which has seen much destruction as a result of the earthquake and tsunami which struck on March 11th.
Despite the fact that the match is no longer classed as a FIFA 'A' international, the JFA has called up a dozen of its European-based players - including Eiji Kawashima, Keisuke Honda and Yuto Nagatomo - with each player being granted special permission by their respective clubs to participate.
As well as featuring a full strength national team the match will now also be graced by J.League greats including Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, Shinji Ono and Kazuyoshi 'Kazu' Miura.
J.League chairman Kazumi Ohigashi announced that the latter was the first player to confirm his readiness to pull on the shirt of the 'Team as One', and the 44-year-old Yokohama FC striker, who was also present at the official squad announcement at JFA House on Tuesday, expressed relief at the fact that he was finally able to help out in some small way.
"After the earthquake I was thinking 'what can I do to help?” Miura said.
"This was a very difficult question for me. I wanted to do something to improve the situation through football, and so when I got the offer to join this charity match I was delighted to have the opportunity to cooperate with the Japanese soccer world."
The full J.League 'Team as One' squad is: Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, Seigo Narazaki; Toru Araiba, Takanobu Komiyama, Yuji Nakazawa, Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Teruyuki Moniwa; Kunimitsu Sekiguchi, Ryang Yong Gi, Mitsuo Ogasawara, Kengo Nakamura, Shunsuke Nakamura, Shinji Ono, Yuichi Komano; Genki Haraguchi, Mike Havenaar, Shoki Hirai, Yoshito Okubo, Hisato Sato, Kazuyoshi Miura.
- Sean Carroll