Kolkata, November 17: At Qatar 2022, Japan will be heading to their seventh straight FIFA World Cup finals which means that they have rightfully established themselves as a regular in the quadrennial extravaganza.

They did exceptionally well last time around at Russia 2018 as they were just moments away from reaching quarterfinals.

They have a significantly stronger side this time out and have a lot more stability with manager Hajime Moriyasu being in charge of the Samurai Blues for four years already.

At Russia 2018, Japan became the first Asian team to beat a side from South America as they beat Colombia and advanced from the group stage, but they lost out to Belgium in the Round-of-16 - the third time they have been eliminated at that stage.

They have been drawn in an exceptionally tough group through with Germany, Spain and Costa Rica in Group E. It will be an uphill task for them to make it to the round of 16 this time out.

FIXTURES (all times IST)

Vs Germany, November 23, 6.30pm at Khalifa International Stadium.

Vs Costa Rica, November 27, 3.30pm at Ahmed bin Ali Stadium.

Vs Spain, December 2, 12.30am at Khalifa International Stadium.

SQUAD

Goalkeepers: Eiji Kawashima (Strasbourg), Daniel Schmidt (Sint Truiden), Shuichi Gonda (Shimizu S-Pulse)

Defenders: Hiroki Sakai (Urawa Red Diamonds), Miki Yamane (Kawasaki Frontale), Ko Itakura (Borussia Monchengladbach), Takehiro Tomiyasu (Arsenal), Maya Yoshida (Schalke 04), Shogo Taniguchi (Kawasaki Frontale), Hiroki Ito (VfB Stuttgart), Yuto Nagatomo (FC Tokyo)

Midfielders: Junya Ito (Stade de Reims), Ritsu Doan (SC Freiburg), Wataru Endo (VfB Stuttgart), Hidemasa Morita (Sporting), Ao Tanaka (Fortuna Dusseldorf), Daichi Kamada (Eintracht Frankfurt), Takefusa Kubo (Real Sociedad), Takumi Minamino (AS Monaco), Kaoru Mitoma (Brighton & Hove Albion), Gaku Shibasaki (Leganes), Yuki Soma (Nagoya Grampus)

Forwards: Takuma Asano (VfL Bochum), Daizen Maeda (Celtic), Ayase Ueda (Cercle Brugge), Shuto Machino (Shonan Bellmare)

FORMATION:

Japan usually play a 4-2-3-1 system and while they like to play an attacking game, they are likely to deploy a counter-attacking system in the World Cup given the group they are in.

PREDICTED XI

Schmidt; Sakai, Tomiyasu, Yoshida, Nakayama; Endo, Morita; Minamino, Kamada, Kubo; Maeda.

KEY PLAYERS

Daichi Kamada, Takumi Minamino, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Takefusa Kubo will be the players to watch out for in the World Cup.