Japan

Nickname(s)	サムライ・ブルー	The Japan national football team (Japanese: サッカー日本代表, Hepburn: Sakkā Nippon Daihyō), nicknamed the Samurai Blue (サムライ・ブルー, Samurai Burū),represents Japan in men's international football and 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. 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 with advancements from the group stages in 2002, 2010, and 2018, (the most of any Asian team) and won the AFC Asian Cup a record four times, in 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2011. The team has 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. Japan's progression in a short period has served as an inspiration and example of how to develop football. Their principal continental rivals are South Korea, North Korea, China and, most recently, Australia; they also developed rivalries against Iran and Saudi Arabia. Japan was the first team from outside the Americas to participate in the Copa América, having been invited in 1999, 2011, 2015, and 2019 editions of the tournament, though they only played in the 1999 and 2019 events.
	(Samurai Blue)
	Since 19 October 2009
Association	Japan Football Association (JFA)
Confederation	AFC (Asia)
Sub-confederation	EAFF (East Asia)
Head coach	Hajime Moriyasu
Captain	Maya Yoshida
Most caps	Yasuhito Endō (152)
Top scorer	Kunishige Kamamoto (75)
Home stadium	Saitama Stadium 2002 (almost matches)
FIFA code	JPN