Japanese superstar Kubo's decision to win the World Cup? If you don't do this, it's impossible

Sep 04, 2025

Japanese next-generation superstar Takefusa Kubo thought there was something Japan had to do to win the World Cup.

Japan will play a friendly match against Mexico at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, the U.S. on the 7th (Korea time). Japan will face Mexico and then prepare for a second friendly match with the United States, which fought against South Korea.

Japan, like South Korea, will gain hands-on experience against the U.S. and Mexico, the host countries of the 2026 North American World Cup. With the World Cup just 10 months away, both Korea and Japan will continue to experiment with the World Cup mock test.

Japan is aiming to win the World Cup in this tournament. Japan has never been to the quarterfinals of the World Cup, and the Asian country has never advanced to the World Cup final at the adult level. It can be said that it is too early for Japan to call for a World Cup victory, but Japan is seriously moving toward its goal.

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Before meeting with Mexico and the United States, Kubo met with Japanese players and played soccer on the system in the first place. Rather than being a three-back, I think he's trying to deploy more aggressive players now, and be aggressive with wing-backs almost like a winger. I think we're trying to build a numerical advantage in front of us to launch an attack"We are preparing to launch a Japanese-led attack against North Korea, China and the U.S.," he said.

Kubo then left a short but intense message. "Winning." If you say winning, wouldn't it be impossible to win if we didn't show what we wanted to do against this level of opponent?" he said, adding that any country that calls for winning the World Cup should implement a tactic to lock up and attack opponents against the United States and Mexico.

It's easy to say, but not many countries can meet the U.S. and Mexico to maintain their color. The U.S. ranks 15th and Mexico 13th in the FIFA rankings. Asia's No. 1 Japan is ranked 17th in the FIFA rankings. Except for the strongest soccer countries such as Argentina, France, Spain and England, virtually no team can easily take the lead when they meet the United States or Mexico. In other words, Kubo made a realistic judgment that he could approach the great goal of winning the World Cup only when he showed the appearance of the strongest country in soccer.

In fact, the World Cup qualifying round was easy for Japan, the strongest team in Asia. As the number of countries advancing to the finals expanded, there were more World Cup tickets given to Asia, so it was not difficult to advance to the World Cup. Kubo said his performance in the World Cup qualifying round was meaningless.

Kubo said "I don't think there will be a situation in the future where I come down that far and build up the ball like when I face Asian teams. It will be difficult to that extent, but I think it can play a role in actively getting involved and buying time and increasing our team's ball possession when we have the ball. I want to focus on that part"We have to approach it in a different way because we meet different levels of opponents at the World Cup."

This article was translated by Naver AI translator.