Women’s Asian Cup: Matildas’ rivals Japan prepare to begin tournament with first of three group games in Perth

They are the tournament favourites, the Matildas’ biggest rival in the hunt for Women’s Asian Cup glory and boast a star-studded squad littered with players from England’s biggest clubs. And as they prepare to play the first of three straight games in Perth, a powerhouse Japan side is ready to prove the hype is real. The two-time Asian champions will launch their campaign on Wednesday against Chinese Taipei at HBF Park in their first Group C encounter. Their highly-regarded Australian assistant coach Leah Blayney, who joined the Japanese set-up after five years as Australia under-20 coach, said they had one, grandiose goal for the tournament. “We have high aspirations for Japan and expectations on ourselves coming into the tournament, and we’re looking forward to competing with the ambition of winning the Asian Cup,” Blayney said. “We’re focused on the last 12 months that we’ve been with the group. We feel as though we’ve added another layer of cohesion to Japan’s play — some external, foreign influence around a few things in and around the camp environment we think are going to help us progress further in tournament football. “We know we have a good core group, but this tournament is about Japan putting that together and being ruthless in key moments and then walking away hopefully with a trophy as a result.” Only a year ago, Japan smashed the Matildas 4-0 at the SheBelieves Cup and at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, they thrashed eventual champions Spain 4-0 with a clinical performance. The world No.8 side enter the tournament as the highest-ranked team, and have the strongest squad on paper to boot. Midfielder Yui Hasegawa, goalkeeper Ayaka Yamashita and forward Aoba Fujino are all regulars for Women’s Super League leaders Manchester City while full-back Risa Shimizu is on-loan from City at Liverpool alongside national team teammate Fuka Nagano. Veteran defender Saka Kumagai plays for cashed-up London City Lionesses after stints at Bayern Munich and Roma, Maika Hamano is a former Chelsea teammate of Sam Kerr who now plays for Tottenham and Manchester United midfielder Hinata Miyazawa is an embedded first team player. In total, 16 of their 26-player squad ply their trade in the WSL and Blayney said the exporting of players to the world’s strongest women’s league was a result of a strong development pathway in Japan. The Japanese system has helped craft technically-refined players in both their men’s and women’s games, but after two major tournaments in a row without silverware, Blayney said the next step was to produce winning football. “We certainly have our Japan way, and we’ll be looking to control games through our collective work, with and without the ball,” she said. “Tournament football is a funny thing; one chaotic moment, one player who takes their opportunity at the right time can win you a tournament. “We’re certainly very comfortable with where we are at but we also look forward to some of our players at different times, stepping up and having that ruthlessness about them in and around the box.” “Definitely improving that mentality is something that’s been a target for us...it’s that ruthlessness we’ll be looking to see more of this tournament.” By luck of the draw, Japan will not have to travel until the knock-out stages in the likely event they reach the quarter-finals, with all three of their Group C matches to take place at HBF Park as they size up a potential semifinal clash with Australia in Sydney. “We understand that wherever it is in Australia, Australia has world class fans, so the opportunity to play in Western Australia in front of hopefully a packed crowd in Perth is something we really look forward to,” Blayney said. “It’s definitely nice we will be grounded in Perth for the group stage. It’s something we think is going to help us in the tournament in the day-to-day, just to reduce a little bit of that travel, for sure.”