Episode 231 - Japan World Cup Preview

Following Japan's final two pre-World Cup friendlies against Switzerland and Paraguay, Shintaro Kano from Kyodo News guested on this week's podcast to review the two games and look ahead to the Samurai Blue's Russian adventure.

As we recorded immediately after Japan's 4-2 win over Paraguay, we begin with that game, and the questions it posed to Akira Nishino - with his supposed second stringers outperforming the lineups that suffered defeats against both Ghana and the Swiss. Did Shinji Kagawa and Takashi Inui do enough to make their case to start against Colombia on June 19, what is Shintaro's preferred central midfield pairing in that game, and what of the goalkeeping situation, with Eiji Kawashima failing to convince (to 29:10).

We then look back at the Switzerland game, with other selection decisions for Nishino also discussed (which Sakai at right back?) (to 42:30), before we finish with Shintaro's thoughts on the Halilhodzic to Nishino coaching change, and some players he was surprised to see not make the final squad of 23.

Follow Shintaro on twitter @shintarokano