The World Cup Qatar tournament of soccer ended with Argentina's third victory for the first time in 36 years.
Four years later, in 2026, the next soccer World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico for the first time in history, will expand the quota from 32 to 48 teams.
Japan will need to win the Asian qualifiers in order to participate in the next World Cup, but the number of Asian qualifiers for the final tournament will increase by 4 to a maximum of 9.
For example, at this year's Qatar Games, excluding Qatar, the host country, five Asian teams from Japan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and South Korea participated, and up to four teams can participate in addition to these.
Japan, ranked 24th in the world, is second in Asia after Iran, which is ranked 20th.
On the other hand, this tournament
While the quota for the World Cup is expanding, there is a possibility that the number of matches in the tournament format will increase, and it is expected that the importance of penalty shootouts, which is an issue for Japan, will increase.
Regarding the 2026 tournament where 48 teams will participate, FIFA = International Football Federation President Infantino will consider whether the primary league method will be 16 groups of 3 teams or 12 groups of 4 teams. It shows the idea of moving forward.
If the primary league were to be held in 16 groups of 3 teams each, and the top 2 teams would advance to the finals, 32 teams would participate in the final tournament, and there would be penalties before Japan achieves its goal of reaching the top 8. It is also assumed that you have to come to the kick battle twice.
Japan has advanced to the knockout stages in four tournaments so far, but two of them have been eliminated in penalty shootouts.
The Japan Football Association has made it one of the tasks to acquire the strength to compete in penalty kick battles, and is already trying to increase the number of penalty kick battles in international competitions by age group. We are beginning to take measures such as