On New Year's Day, the Japanese national team hosted Thailand, and the result was as expected, a resounding 5-0 victory. It was their longest winning streak since June last year after beating their opponents 5-0 in their last three international matches, totaling nine wins and 39 goals. After the match, manager Morihoichi announced his squad for the Asian Cup.
Japan adopted a conservative strategy in this match, and exchanged goals with Thailand in the first half. However, only five minutes into the match, Bea Tanaka broke the deadlock. The game went into a frenzy as Takumi Minamino's shot was blocked in the 74th minute and Keido Nakamura added the second to make the score 2-0, followed by the third in the 82nd minute when Takumi Kawamura scored the fourth in a row of headers. Towards the end of the match, Takumi Minamino scored again to seal a 5-0 win.
Japan have been in hot form of late, beating their opponents by large margins in a number of consecutive matches, including 5-0 victories against Myanmar and Syria in the World Qualifiers. In this match, Japan once again showed Thailand a powerful attacking force, beating their opponents for the third consecutive match by a score of 5-0.
After the match, Mori Baoichi announced the list of players for the Asian Cup, in which Tanaka Bea, Kamada Daichi, and Furuhashi Henwu unexpectedly dropped out. Kaoru Mitaka, who is recuperating from an injury, was unexpectedly selected. The list is as follows:
Goalkeepers: Maekawa Daiya, Suzuki Saito, Nozawa Daishi
Defenders: Akigo Taniguchi, Hwang Itakura, Tsuyoshi Watanabe, Yuta Nakayama, Hiroki Machida, Sunga Mainkuma, Kenyo Tomoyasu, Yohki Ito, Yusei Sugawara.
Midfield: Endo, Junya Ito, Takuma Asano, Takumi Minami, Hidemasa Morita, Kaoru Mitani, Daizo Maeda, Reio Hatate, Yasunori Do.
