The Japan national football team (サッカー日本代表, Sakkā Nihon Daihyō or Sakkā Nippon Daihyō), nicknamed the Samurai Blue (サムライ・ブルー, Samurai Burū), represents Japan in men's international football. It is controlled by the Japan Football Association (JFA), the governing body for football in Japan. Japan was not a major football force until the end of the 1980s, with a small and amateur team. For a long time in Japan, football was a less popular sport than baseball and sumo. Since the 1990s, when Japanese football became fully professionalized, Japan has emerged as one of the most successful teams in Asia; they have qualified for the last seven FIFA World Cups (qualifying for the 2002 event as co-hosts with South Korea) with knockout stage appearances in 2002, 2010, 2018 and 2022, and won the AFC Asian Cup a record four times, in 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2011. The team also finished second in the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. Japan remains the only team from the AFC other than Australia and Saudi Arabia to have reached the final of a senior FIFA men's competition. More information...
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