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Japan

The Japan national football team, also known by the nickname Samurai Blue, represents Japan in men's international football. It is controlled by the Japan Football Association (JFA), the governing body for football in Japan.

Until the end of the 1980s, Japan was a small and amateur team. For a long time, football was less popular than baseball and sumo.  Since the early 1990s, when Japanese football became fully professionalized, Japan has emerged as one of the most successful teams in Asia; they have qualified for every FIFA World Cup since 1998 (including an automatic berth in 2002 as co-hosts with South Korea) with knockout stage appearances that year, and in 2010, 2018 and 2022. They have won the Asian Cup a record four times, in 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2011. The team also finished runners-up in the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2019 Asian Cup. Japan is one of three teams from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to have reached the final of a senior FIFA men's competition, the others being Australia and Saudi Arabia.

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 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 the 1999, 2011, 2015, and 2019 editions of the tournament, although they only played in the 1999 and 2019 events.

As of October 2024, Japan is the highest-ranked AFC team at 15th, and has been since December 2022.
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