{"id":101263,"date":"2026-06-16T10:49:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T10:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tv.guardian.ng\/?p=101263"},"modified":"2026-06-28T10:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T10:50:11","slug":"discipline-and-togetherness-japans-strategy-for-football-greatness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/guardian.ng\/tv\/discipline-and-togetherness-japans-strategy-for-football-greatness\/","title":{"rendered":"Discipline and togetherness: Japan&#8217;s strategy for football greatness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"dailymotion-player\"><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/x1ee8e.js\" data-video=\"k2nAp7AklRy6e7GIuT0\"><\/script><\/div><br><br><p>\nOn Sunday, Japan sealed a 2-2 draw against the higher-ranked Netherlands in their 2026 World Cup opener. Since qualifying for its first World Cup in 1998, Japan has reached every edition of the tournament and now sits 18th in the FIFA rankings. FRANCE 24&#8217;s Adam Hancock, Alexis Bregere and Ayana Nishikawa travelled across Japan to uncover the secrets behind the remarkable rise of Japanese football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sunday, Japan sealed a 2-2 draw against the higher-ranked Netherlands in their 2026 World Cup opener. Since qualifying for its first World Cup in 1998, Japan has reached every edition of the tournament and now sits 18th in the FIFA rankings. FRANCE 24&#8217;s Adam Hancock, Alexis Bregere and Ayana Nishikawa travelled across Japan to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gam_disable_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1140],"tags":[41307,398,535,41308],"class_list":["post-101263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-discipline","tag-football","tag-japan","tag-togetherness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Discipline and togetherness: Japan&#039;s strategy for football greatness - GuardianTV<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On Sunday, Japan sealed a 2-2 draw against the higher-ranked Netherlands in their 2026 World Cup opener. 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