Japan Opens Moriyasu's Third Era Against Uruguay With a Shapeshifting System

The training session on September 22 in Miyagi left one detail that television almost missed. Matsuki Kuryu, 23 years old and called up to the Japan national team for the first time, stood on the right flank, dropped back, then pushed up again. Every time the ball changed direction, he changed both his position and his job, from full-back to wing-back. Nobody shouted. Nobody clapped. A new system was being tested, and it was being tested in silence.

In my notebook, a session like that is always worth more than a three-goal win. That is where you see what the coach is afraid of. Moriyasu Hajime is not afraid of Uruguay. He is afraid of a national team standing still while world football shifts around it.

On September 24, at Miyagi Stadium, Japan host Uruguay. It is the opening match of the third Moriyasu era, starting a cycle aimed at the Asian Cup and the next World Cup finals. Speaking before the game, he said: "This match is the start of the journey toward the Asian Cup and the next World Cup. We want to continue what we have done, and at the same time accumulate, grow and evolve."

On the other side stands Uruguay, led by Diego Forlan, a young coach carrying the instincts of a striker who won the 2026 World Cup Golden Ball. A Uruguay less pragmatic than in the Oscar Tabarez years is a suitable opponent for an experiment: strong enough to punish mistakes, new enough to be unpredictable.

The most interesting part is not the scoreline. It is the line about personnel: "Basically, I want to build the squad around the players who arrived before Monday." Only 16 players had reported by September 21. In other words, Japan's starting line-up is partly written by the flight schedules of European clubs.

For anyone who follows the V-League, that detail is uncomfortably familiar. Every time a national team gathers, the first question in the press room is who arrived late, who leaves early, who played a full match at the weekend. Tactics are the visible part. The calendar is the submerged part.

What Moriyasu wants to test has a clear name: a shapeshifting system. Japan start with four defenders, but in-game, when the ball is deep, the back line collapses into three centre-backs, the two full-backs push up as wing-backs, and one midfielder drops to guide the line below. "I will refrain from saying whether we start with a back four, but in terms of shapeshifting, we want to try it during the match," he said.

In the expected back three, Ito Hiroki is on the left, Itakura Kou in the middle, Seko Ayumu on the right. The trio share a trait few notice: all three like to step forward. Ito and Itakura are used to carrying the ball out of pressure; Seko came through midfield and reads the game with a holding midfielder's instinct. Place the three together and Japan can turn their own half into a three-man passing net against Uruguay's two strikers.

That is also the trap. When all three centre-backs lean forward, the space behind them swells exactly as both wing-backs have pushed high. Uruguay need only one long diagonal and one runner. The system gives Japan an extra man in midfield while taking away exactly one man in the space behind — any team that dares to step up must accept being stabbed in that spot.

On the right flank, Matsuki Kuryu is the clearest gamble. A first-time call-up, tried as a wing-back after a single session on September 22. The role demands 60 to 70 metres of off-ball running on every surge, plus the awareness to drop into a back four the moment possession is lost. At international level, positional adaptability is often mistaken for quality. Those are two different things.

The hottest zone is midfield, where the brothers Sano Kaishu and Sano Kodai may start together. Kodai played the full 90 minutes in the league on September 20 and is in good form; in the September 22 session the two stood side by side as the central pair. He said: "There are special feelings, but that has nothing to do with the match. I just hope the two of us can contribute to a win for the team."

The last time the Sano brothers appeared together for Japan was against Indonesia in the third round of Asian qualifying for the World Cup last June. Before that, you have to go back to the 2026 Asian Cup qualifiers and the Sato brothers, Hisato and Yuuto, roughly 19 years earlier.

Two brothers side by side in midfield is a beautiful media story. From a tactical angle, two players from the same family tend to share the same habits on the ball, the same rhythm when escaping pressure, and the same blind spot: when pinned in their own half, they turn the same way.

Higher up, the expected attack has Suzuki Yuito and Doan Ritsu in the two No. 10 roles, with Maeda Daizen as the lone striker. Suzuki is in striking form: 4 goals in 4 Bundesliga games this season, including a hat-trick on opening day. Doan wears the No. 10 and also plays at Freiburg, where both were coached by the same manager. "If each of us just does what we want, it will work. Because we were developed by the same coach at Freiburg, our base is fairly similar," Suzuki said of the understanding between them.

This is where careful analysis matters. Four goals in four games is the output of a league where many teams accept a high line and leave space behind. Uruguay in Miyagi will not play that way. They will sit deep, squeeze the centre, and let Japan have the ball. What is then required is not running into space but breaking a block that has closed inside the final 25 metres.

And this is where possession statistics become the most deceptive. A team with 65 percent of the ball through sideways passes in front of the box creates no pressure. It creates the feeling of control. With three attackers who all like receiving on the edge of the box, Japan risk falling into exactly that state: pretty, safe and harmless.

The media narrative around this match is easy to predict: Moriyasu evolves, Japan switch to a back three, it is a step toward the next World Cup. That narrative reads cause and effect backwards.

The shapeshifting system was born from a very specific problem: Japan lack wide players good enough to play 90 minutes in a back four with two pure wingers. Pushing full-backs into wing-backs is a way to patch a squad gap before it is a way to show off new thinking.

The same applies to the Sano brothers. The two stand together simply because they are there: one played a full 90 minutes in Europe, one is fresh and has trained with the team from the start. In the first friendly of a cycle, with only 16 players available, personnel decisions are sometimes made by an attendance sheet rather than a tactics board.

Matsuki Kuryu is the same. He is the man present at the session that mattered, in the position that was empty. A tactical gamble can begin as a staffing necessity.

Anyone who has followed Vietnamese football long enough recognises the pattern. Every time a national team changes shape, most of the explanation sits in the medical room and in the time budget, not on the whiteboard. Fans remember formations. Team managers remember who is injured, who is suspended, who has to fly home early.

On the evening of September 24, the first signal I will look for is not a goal. I will watch how Japan stand in the first ten minutes of the second half, the moment when experimental teams most often reveal whether the coach dares to keep the system intact.

If the back three hold good distances when they lose the ball, the evolution story has a foundation. If the centre-backs still push up at the exact moment Japan lose possession in midfield, Miyagi is only a fitting session.

And the most telling detail may sit on the bench: who comes on in the 60th minute. The ball has not rolled yet, but the bench has already spoken for the tactics board.