'Predicted to finish 3rd in the World Cup,' the 'dark horse' drawing global attention

*This content was translated by AI.

Ahead of the 2026 FIFA North America World Cup, the Japan national football team is being watched by the world as a dark horse. In fact, experts have even predicted that Japan could finish third in this tournament.

Global sports media DAZN surveyed 40 experts worldwide on the 4th (Korean time) to forecast the results of the 2026 FIFA North America World Cup. According to the experts' evaluation, Japan's power ranking for this North America World Cup was 13th, indicating they have the strength to reach at least the round of 16. No separate explanation was provided for South Korea. Rankings up to 16th were disclosed, but South Korea was placed 17th or lower.

Furthermore, in the dark horse vote for this tournament, Japan received the second-highest number of votes with 10, trailing only Norway with 12 votes. The order was Turkey (8 votes), Ecuador (4 votes), Sweden (3 votes), and Switzerland, Austria, and Scotland (1 vote each). This indicates that many experts view Japan's strength as a dark horse that could shake up this tournament.

More notably, there was a prediction for the top four. One expert predicted Japan would finish in the top four, and that expert specifically forecast Japan would take third place. This prediction surpassed the forecasts for the Netherlands (2 votes for 4th place), Colombia and Norway (1 vote each for 4th place). Japan's projected third place would also exceed Asia's best-ever result, the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup quarterfinals (4th place).

The background for such high praise for Japan is not limited to their FIFA ranking, which has climbed to 18th. Last year, Japan defeated Brazil 3-2 in a friendly match held at home, and in March, they secured two consecutive 1-0 away victories against Scotland and England, surprising the world. During the group stage of the 2022 FIFA Qatar World Cup, Japan had also defeated Germany and Spain in succession. Hajime Moriyasu, who was the coach at that time, will also lead the team in this North America World Cup.

Under Coach Moriyasu's leadership, the team has long built strong organizational cohesion, and the recent upsets against world-class strong teams like Brazil and England, in addition to the Qatar World Cup, have naturally led to higher evaluations of the Japan national team. Coach Moriyasu himself has repeatedly mentioned "winning the World Cup" as the goal for this tournament, showing great confidence.

Japan is in Group F of this North America World Cup, along with the Netherlands, Tunisia, and Sweden. If Japan advances to the round of 32 as the second-place team in Group F, they will face the likely Group C winner, Brazil, right from the first round of the tournament. Japan's best-ever World Cup result was reaching the round of 16 in the 2002 Korea-Japan tournament, the 2010 South Africa tournament, the 2018 Russia tournament, and the 2022 Qatar tournament.

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*This content was translated by AI.