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The story
In the U18 Asian Championship final held at the Taipei Dome in Taiwan, Samurai U18 Japan was shut out 0-2 by South Korea, missing out on its first title since 2016 and finishing as runner-up. Japan’s lineup was held to just a single hit, coming within a whisker of being no-hit. With this marking Japan’s second straight loss to Korea after also falling to them in the Super Round, threads on 5ch buzzed with debate over the cause of the defeat — some commenters credited the Korean starter’s sheer skill, while others pointed to Japan’s shrinking pool of youth players and a coaching culture overly focused on practice hours.
◆14th U18 Asian Championship — Final: South Korea 2, Japan 0 (Sept. 13, Taipei Dome, Taiwan)
Japan’s high school national team was shut out by South Korea in the final, finishing as runner-up. It was Japan’s second consecutive loss to its archrival Korea, following defeat in the Super Round, and the team fell short of its first Asian title in ten years, since 2016.
Sports Hochi
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Aluminum bats
Japan won't win until it drops both
The roster's actually set in spring, so it's skewed toward the Spring tournament (Senbatsu), not summer Koshien
• Korea: light 1-2 hour practices
• Japan's high school ball: baseball eats up most of the day
Baseball fans love throwing around words like "player development," but they're mostly creepy nerds who never touch on stuff like this
Like Uehara (former MLB pitcher Koji Uehara) once said
apparently nobody in America's dumb enough to grind through practice like that either
instead of practice, they just play real games
Japanese baseball is just endless, pointless drilling repeated over and over
no wonder the team's weak
The effects of the youth player pool shrinking by half are really starting to show
Korea's birth rate crisis is even worse though
it's simply a gap in star talent
This
the impact of the player pool halving is brutal
it's becoming visible now
even if they lit up the summer Koshien, that's just being a big fish in a small pond (lol)
GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
lol, the Korean flag's been planted again
just kill off "baseballll" already (mocking spelling used by baseball haters)
I can just picture Japanese baseball nerds (derisive slang "yaki-buta," lit. "grilled pork") getting all misty-eyed lol
they've basically ditched soccer entirely and gone all-in on baseball
Korea's a baseball powerhouse too, after all
hope they keep learning from Japan and doing their best
not saying every kid has to be an Ohtani, but of course the odds of great talent showing up drop too
normally that'd be true, but the baseball world's been in denial with this bizarre theory that "it's fine because the elites stick around anyway"
maybe they lost motivation once Koshien ended
still, that's way too weak though
are they even trying?
Japan's just gotten weaker — they've won this 5 times before
this makes Korea's 6th title
current high school seniors were in 1st grade back in 2014
that's right when baseball's player pool started collapsing
so it's about time the on-field decline starts becoming visible
delete it, delete it, delete it, delete it, delete it
but somehow losing to Korea in U18 baseball doesn't sting at all
if Japan lost a U17 World Cup soccer qualifier though, I'd be furious
I wonder how much attention Koreans even pay to this tournament
a few years back there was a U17 soccer match with a shady call that cost them the game, and that got a million YouTube views with everyone losing their minds, so clearly there's real attention for that sport
2010 World Cup: Keisuke Honda shines!
2011: Nadeshiko Japan wins the Women's World Cup, Homare Sawa wins the Ballon d'Or!
Yep. Naturally, that's the result.
there's not even a hint of soccer here, and yet here come the "well in soccer…" guys
whoever wrote that haiku is a genius lol
how much more is "baseballll" gonna copy soccer
the "tax-funded league" (derisive nickname for Japan's pro league, NPB) copies the Home Run Derby and calls it a "Derby" lmao
lefty, 195cm, tops out at 153km/h, with excellent control
though apparently he'll get crushed once he's in the KBO (Korea's pro league)
195cm is insane
taller than Ohtani
the Korean pitcher is just that good
honestly both
but losing at this age level isn't unusual, and Japanese players tend to develop more in college and the pros
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The U18 Asian Championship pits under-18 national teams from member countries and regions against each other, and while Japan has won the title multiple times in the past, it has now lost to Korea in the final in consecutive recent appearances. This time the result was a 0-2 loss with just one hit allowed, a scoreline that undersells just how dominant the pitching performance was. Opinion in the thread split between two camps: those who argued the Korean pitcher’s skill level was simply outstanding, and those who blamed Japan’s shrinking pool of youth players and a coaching culture that overemphasizes long practice hours. Worth noting these arguments sit on different levels — the former points to a single matchup, the latter to a structural issue. Readers should also keep in mind that a single-game shutout loss can hinge heavily on how a team happens to match up against one particular pitcher on a given day, so linking it directly to long-term data on the declining youth player pool is a bit of a stretch as evidence.
*This article is compiled as excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “[Baseball] U18 Asian Championship: Samurai U18 Japan Suffers Humiliating 1-Hit Shutout Loss to Archrival Korea, Settles for Runner-Up — Came Within a Hair of a No-Hitter.”
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