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The story
Japan’s national team faced Venezuela in the Kirin Challenge Cup, and on the 5ch live-commentary thread the biggest topic by far was goalkeeper Kokubo — earning his first-ever national team call-up — getting injured and subbed off just 5 minutes into his debut. The injury looked to be around his lower leg, and posters repeatedly voiced worry about how serious it might be. As for the match itself, opinions split over how high the defense should push its line against Venezuela’s fast start, while many posters also praised the performance of the squad’s 19-year-old up-and-comer.
What people said
Chi-yo-ni-ii, ya-chi-yo-ni
Sa-za-re
I-shi-no
I-wa-o-to-na-ri-te
Ko-ke-no
Mu-u-su-u, ma-aa-de
Nippon! Do-don-don-don
Nippon! Do-don-don-don
(belting out the national anthem, drawn out syllable by syllable)
Don't see this happen much anymore, huh
It's sad they don't do that one anymore
It just looks like they're focused on shipping the ball forward fast no matter what
Japan's staying calm, not getting rattled, reading the lanes and linking passes — but Venezuela's physicality is stronger than expected, so hopefully Japan starts managing the game with avoiding injuries in mind
Everyone figured Kokubo would become the starting keeper, but then Zion suddenly leveled up out of nowhere
Crystal King (a pun on the old Japanese band name)
He's got the frame for it, but he's getting muscled off and can't get under the ball's drop point
That's pretty lanky
Would like to see them push it up a bit
Moriyasu's aim here is probably testing out the young players
but if they can't use short passes to create a bit more separation from opponents, someone's going to get hurt again
If Venezuela comes out sloppy but forceful in the second half, I wonder if Japan can hold up
Would've liked to see more of Ryunosuke and Kokubo though
Not sure there's even a need to separate them in the first place
since there shouldn't be any rule against playing any position anyway
Pretty sure the registration itself is still separate
though in practice there's no real distinction between FW and MF since MFs play as the lone striker and FWs play out on the wing all the time
Was that against Uruguay?
Googled it — apparently the third goal was an own goal by Kim Min-jae, so I can kind of picture how that went down
Must've been pure panic out there
Pretty sure their FIFA ranking is below 40th
A youngest-ever record that'll probably never be broken
That's young
Nothing against the rules though
Background and Talking Points
The Kirin Challenge Cup is a friendly Japan’s national team regularly arranges as a tune-up ahead of the World Cup finals, and this time the focus was on getting younger players into the mix. With a group of 19-year-olds being tried out, goalkeeper Kokubo suffered a rare mishap — getting injured and subbed off just 5 minutes into his first national team call-up — and that dominated the early part of the thread. Some posts pointed to a lower-leg injury, though at that point in the match its exact severity wasn’t yet clear. The other major talking point was the height of the defensive line: Venezuela came out fast and pressured Japan early, splitting posters between those wanting the line pushed higher and those who felt Japan should prioritize avoiding injuries. There was also mention of South Korea’s match happening around the same time (a scoreless 0-3 loss that included a Kim Min-jae own goal), but that’s a separate game entirely and doesn’t reflect the Japan-Venezuela result — worth flagging since it’s easy to conflate the two.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Newsspeed VIP) thread “[Soccer] Japan VS Venezuela [Kirin Challenge Cup].”
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