[Official] "Japan Shock" In 12 days after the Asian summit, the head coach retired and made a surprise announcement by the Korea Football Association, saying, "The women's World Cup standard is not met."

*This content was translated by AI.

Japan's women's national soccer team made a shocking decision to replace its head coach just 12 days after reaching the top of Asia. Coach Niels Nilsen (Denmark), who was the first foreign women's national team coach in Japanese soccer history, will step down.

The Japanese Football Association (JFA) officially announced on the 2nd that Nilsen will retire following the expiration of his contract. The Japanese archipelago, which cheered by lifting the 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women's Asian Cup trophy on the 21st of last month, was shocked by the news of the legendary resignation of the head coach less than 15 days later.

Tsunayasu Miyamoto, president of the Japan Football Association (JFA), said at a press conference on the same day, "My contract with coach Nilsen, who has led the team since early last year, expired after the Asian Cup. We finally decided not to extend the contract through an extraordinary board meeting on the 29th of last month."

The decisive reason for his retirement is also shocking. "Coach Nilsen was gentle and had a great personality, but based on his goal of winning next year's World Cup, I was impressed that the guidance for soccer was somewhat loose and soft," Norio Sasaki, the women's national team director, said at a press conference. "I decided to break up because I thought I needed more intense training." Even director Sasaki reportedly met director Nilsen in person and conveyed the reason.

When Nilsen took office in December 2024, he declared an overwhelming performance based on possession football and aimed to reclaim the world's No. 1 ranking. In fact, Japan under Nilsen showed off a scary momentum. In February last year, he beat the U.S. for the first time in 13 years to win the SheBelieves Cup in the U.S., and was praised by U.S. coach Emma Hayes for "playing football at a higher level than the U.S."

In the recent Asian Cup, the performance was even more overwhelming. Japan showed a perfect balance of offense and defense, scoring 29 goals and allowing only one run in six matches of the tournament. In particular, in the semi-finals with South Korea led by head coach Shin Sang-woo, he won 4-1 by an overwhelming margin of 21-6 shooting, humiliating South Korea with no wins for 11 years. In the final, they defeated host Australia 1-0 to reach the top of Asia for the first time in eight years.

However, right after winning the championship, Nilsen expressed regret over the low popularity of women's soccer in Japan and the lack of terrestrial broadcasting, saying, "It is regrettable that Japan lacks heat compared to Europe or Australia." In the end, coach Nielsen failed to meet JFA's standards even after winning the Asian championship title, and took the helm about a year before the Women's World Cup in Brazil in June next year.

Japanese women's soccer, which has been under Takakura Asako and Ikeda Futo since Norio Sasaki, who led the team to the 2011 World Cup, will play away games in the U.S. for the time being under coach Michihisa Kano.

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*This content was translated by AI.