The Japanese team became the first team to qualify for the 2026 World Cup on March 20. This is the 8th consecutive time Samurai Blue has participated in the biggest playground in world football, so perhaps it is not surprising that Hajime Moriyasu and his team won tickets 3 matches early for the third qualifying round of the Asian region.
As Japanese football is steadily improving, their players make a strong impression in the world's top football leagues, do people care about what they did to get that result? Professional issues have been analyzed a lot, but they only started in the 1980s-1990s of the last century. Going further, the change began when the Government was interested in improving the height of the people, even lower than the Vietnamese people (according to statistics before 1950).
After World War II, the Japanese Government implemented many solutions, both educational and practical, including encouraging people to change their diet - later they even "legalized" the issue of nutrition. In particular, milk becomes a highlight. With the slogan "1 bag of milk shoots a nation", the Japanese Government provides each primary and secondary school student nationwide with 1 bag of milk for lunch...
From generation to generation, now, the height of the Japanese people has surpassed many other countries. And they become stronger, developing remarkably in many fields, including football, to attack the world arena. Of course, not just milk, nutrition and awareness play an important role in that improvement. Good nutrition also helps develop both intelligence and thinking, not just physical fitness.
With their intelligence, playing style always shows the difference, even like Yudai Ogawa is playing for the Cambodian national team. He did not make an impression in Japan to be called up to the national team, but as shown in the recent friendly match with the Vietnam team, the style of play is still something many Vietnamese players cannot have.
Vietnamese football has recently had good tall players, but they are still just individuals. There have also been milk programs calling for dietary changes, but it is difficult to do so widely. The same football environment has not escaped many bottlenecks in thinking, the development of players in particular and football in general is still difficult.
