Ancelotti's Tactical Shift Leaves Japan Without an Answer

After watching the Japan-Brazil World Cup match, I sat stunned for a while.

Part of that was simple disappointment at the defeat, and at how it happened: crushed by a goal conceded in second-half stoppage time.

But what really left me stunned was that I couldn’t immediately figure out what Japan should have done differently.

In the first half, Japan played extremely well.

Kaishu Sano’s opening goal came in exactly the shape Japan had been aiming for: winning the ball high up in midfield and carrying it forward to score.

At the moment of that goal, three Japanese players were positioned ideally ahead of Sano.

Brazil’s front line struggled to generate fluidity. Cunha mainly dropped into midfield to try to break down Japan’s defensive line, but Japan’s block held firm.

Vinicius basically stayed put on the left flank without moving, and Lucas Paquetá and Bruno Guimarães didn’t cut inside much either, so Brazil’s front line looked stagnant.

Ancelotti clearly saw this and changed strategy for the second half.

Many people have already explained this, but let me lay it out here too, even at the risk of repetition: Brazil started using early crosses from the flanks extensively, and the center players — mainly center forward Cunha and the three midfielders — stopped drifting out to the flanks entirely.

In other words, they gave up on the battle out wide and added numbers up front instead.

This is extremely un-Brazilian football. I’ve never seen it from them before.

Brazil is fundamentally a possession-based team that breaks down tight spaces, wide or central, through individual skill and combination play.

Their positional fluidity is high and hard to pin down. But because Japan’s defense stayed compact, gave no space, and kept an extremely high level of concentration, Brazil abandoned the very football that defines the kingdom of football.

I couldn’t help but be shocked at Ancelotti’s skill in making that call.

The structural explanation above is all condensed into the scene of the first goal: Vinicius, as always, drifted wide to receive the ball, but instead of trying to beat his man out there, he simply played it back.

Meanwhile, Japan’s defensive line had been pushed back near the goal area, and defensive midfielder Casemiro had moved into the pocket toward the right of center.

Then came a simple early cross. Japan’s defensive line got muddled on who was picking up whom, and let Casemiro head the ball almost unmarked.

Even outside that goal, exactly the same thing happened over and over.

The same pattern repeated identically on both the right and the left.

Let me stress this again: this is by no means the football of the kingdom, Brazil.

Rather than leaning on Brazil’s own strengths, they came after Japan’s weaknesses, a tactic closer to what an underdog would use.

It’s wonderful that Brazil respected Japan enough to do that, but in the end I couldn’t reach a conclusion about what Japan should have done in response to Ancelotti’s tactical shift.

So I have no intention at all of blaming manager Moriyasu and Japan’s coaching staff for not managing a tactical countermeasure in real time under that kind of pressure.

Looking through the subsequent commentary and comments from various pundits, most people point out that Japan fell into clearing the ball wholesale and couldn’t build up play through midfield.

Seen at the macro level, that’s an easy-to-grasp fact.

Everyone knows it would have been better if Japan could have done that, and of course everyone was aiming for it.

But as a counterargument, the second goal conceded came about precisely because Kō Tanaka, after winning the ball, tried to link play rather than simply clearing it.

In other words, on-field judgment was happening in conditions where building up play was extremely difficult, a desperate, suffocating situation where Brazil was picking up almost every second ball.

So I don’t think “just build up play,” as easy as it sounds from the outside, was actually simple to do in that moment. It sounds like a statement of an ideal, not a realistic solution.

The option actually available in that moment, I think, was something closer to what Paraguay does: build a stubborn, resilient, persistent defense.

Then aim for a single chance on a long counterattack.

Since Brazil was no longer going to allow the kind of midfield build-up play Japan had going in the first half, there was no longer any chance to win the ball in midfield and launch a short counter.

To take a simple example, adding height at center would be one countermeasure.

Swap Kamada for Itakura.

No, actually, judging from his substitution against Sweden, I don’t think Itakura was in a state to play in the Brazil match.

Then, say, swap Keito Nakamura and Go Watanabe, and bring on Hiroki Ito on the left flank.

This looks like it could work at first glance, but Watanabe mostly plays as a right center-back and isn’t used to playing on the left. There’s uncertainty there.

In that case, move Watanabe over to the right and put Tomiyasu on the left.

But Tomiyasu had been in the starting lineup specifically to mark Vinicius, so there would naturally be some hesitation about moving him to the left.

There’s no simple solution you can just pull out.

Then, say, make the flanks close to man-marking. The idea would be to stop Brazil from getting early crosses off at all.

On the right, Doan and Junya Ito on Vinicius and Douglas Santos; on the left, Nakamura and Maeda on Raphinha and Danilo.

Uneasy. Against Vinicius, you basically have to double-team him or you’ll get beaten. Even with a double team, he’s the kind of player who might still beat you.

The rest of Brazil’s players surely think, “one against one, I won’t lose,” as a matter of course.

In other words, the defense out wide needed real intensity.

The substitutions Moriyasu actually made moved in this direction: Sugawara on for Doan, Junnosuke Suzuki on for Nakamura.

But they came too late, after the first goal conceded. If anything, Japan lost the key men for switching to attack and just got pinned back from then on. Though this part is admittedly hindsight.

Going on like this, I simply cannot come up with any good idea at all.

To think that Ancelotti pulled off that move with this depth of tactical thinking behind it, all I can say is, that’s what makes him a great manager.

Truly frightening. He coldly and objectively evaluates his own team and the opponent’s, and regardless of pride or history, executes the appropriate tactic precisely.

It’s like a chess problem worked out to mate.

Is there anyone who has properly solved the homework Ancelotti set?

It’s a bit of an unconventional idea, but after a day had passed, I arrived at one answer: a back four, 4-5-1.

Defense from the right: Watanabe, Tomiyasu, Taniguchi, Hiroki Ito. Midfield: a double pivot of Kaishu Sano and Kamada, Junya Ito on the right, Nakamura on the left, Maeda in the shadow role, Ueda up top.

In other words, first swap Doan and Watanabe.

Shift Tomiyasu into the center to secure height. Put Watanabe on the right to mark Vinicius, sandwiching him together with Junya Ito.

To help cover the opposing full-back, the mobile Maeda drops in as needed. The left side takes a similar shape.

For the double pivot, watch whichever two of Casemiro, Lucas Paquetá, and Bruno Guimarães push forward. It’s rare for all three to come at once, but if all three do come, hand them off in coordination with the defensive line.

Swapping Kamada for Kō Tanaka is roughly reasonable as it stands, so leave that as is.

If you’re going to substitute for the heavily worked Maeda, I think it should have been Shiogai, given the priority on speed and ball-retention ability. His demon-like ball-holding and dribbling shown in the Bundesliga is something to expect there.

I think Junya Ito could have gone the full ninety minutes. If anything, I suspect Taniguchi was the one struggling, so bring on Seko there.

Ueda was the only player who could compete with Gabriel up top, so the premise would be to keep Ueda on for the full ninety minutes.

Surviving the full ninety minutes that way was one plausible story.

But whether that could realistically have been decided in the few minutes between the start of the second half and the hydration break is, honestly, asking too much.

And a formation change like that isn’t something you can just spring on the fly. It has to be anticipated, practiced, and prepared in advance.

So blaming the manager’s decisions is far too easy a thing to do, and I can’t bring myself to do it.

If anyone has a substantive tactical answer that isn’t a facile one, I’d like to hear it.

Originally published in Japanese at https://clazytech.com/2026/07/1694/. Translated with LLM assistance and reviewed before publication.