Ancelotti's Adjustment Undoes Japan's Perfect Defensive Plan

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

Part of that was the disappointment of the loss itself, and the shock of conceding 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.

Japan played very well in the first half.

Kaoru Sano’s opening goal was exactly the shape Japan had been aiming for: winning the ball high up the pitch in midfield, carrying it forward, and scoring.

At the moment of that goal, Sano had exactly three teammates properly positioned ahead of him, about as ideal a shape as you could ask for.

Brazil struggled to raise the fluidity of their front line. Cunha mainly dropped into midfield trying to break down the defensive line, but Japan’s block held firm.

Vinicius stayed pinned to the left flank the entire time, and neither Lucas Paquetá nor Bruno Guimarães made many runs into central areas, so Brazil’s attack looked stagnant up front.

Watching that unfold, Ancelotti clearly changed strategy in the second half.

Many people have already commented on this, but I’ll lay it out here too even at the risk of repetition: Brazil relied heavily on early crosses from the flanks, and the central players—mainly center forward Cunha and the three midfielders—stopped drifting wide entirely.

In other words, Brazil accepted the battle on the flanks and loaded numbers up front instead.

This is about as un-Brazilian a style of football as you can imagine.

I’d never seen anything like it from Brazil.

Brazil’s usual identity is to hold possession and break down tight spaces, wide or central, through individual technique and combination play. Their positional fluidity makes them hard to pin down.

But Japan’s defense stayed compact, gave no space, and kept an extremely high level of concentration, forcing the kingdom of football to abandon its own style.

What struck me first was shock at Ancelotti’s coaching skill here.

The structural explanation I just laid out is condensed entirely into the scene before 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.

In that time, Japan’s defensive line got pushed back close to the edge of the box, and defensive midfielder Casemiro moved into the pocket area toward the right of center.

Then came a simple early cross.

Japan’s defensive line had gotten sloppy about handing off markers, and Casemiro was left almost completely free to head it in.

The exact same pattern repeated itself over and over in other scenes, not just the goal.

Left side, right side, it was the same thing again and again.

Let me stress this once more: this was in no way the football of the kingdom, Brazil.

Rather than leaning on Brazil’s strengths, Ancelotti came after Japan’s weaknesses instead, closer to the tactics of an underdog.

It’s remarkable, in a way, that Brazil respected Japan enough to do that. But in the end I couldn’t come to a clear conclusion about what Japan should have done in response to Ancelotti’s tactical shift.

So I can’t bring myself to blame manager Moriyasu and his coaching staff for failing to make a tactical adjustment in real time, under that kind of pressure.

Going through the commentary and general pundit takes afterward, most people point to the fact that Japan resorted to nothing but clearing the ball, without any ability to build through midfield.

At the macro level, that’s an easy fact to spot.

Everyone knows it would be better if Japan could build play, and of course that’s what everyone is aiming for.

But here’s a counterpoint: the second goal conceded came directly from Wataru Endo—no, Tanaka Ao—winning the ball and trying to build simply instead of clearing it, which led directly to the goal.

In other words, from the perspective of decisions made on the pitch, building play was extremely difficult in that moment. Japan was in a desperate situation where Brazil was picking up almost every second ball.

So “just build up play” wasn’t as easy as it sounds from the outside. It states an ideal, but I’m not sure it was a realistic solution.

So what could Japan actually have done in that moment? I think it comes down to something like building a tenacious, resilient, grinding defense—the kind Paraguay plays—and looking for the one chance on a long counter.

Brazil was never again going to play the kind of midfield build-up they showed in the first half, so the chance to win the ball in midfield and spring a short counter was gone.

As a simple example, adding height at center back would be one option: bring on Itakura for Kamada.

Actually, no—judging from his substitution against Sweden, Itakura didn’t look fit to play against Brazil.

Then what about swapping Nakamura Kaoru and Watanabe Go, putting Ito Hiroki out on the left?

That looks workable at first glance, but Watanabe has mostly played as a right center back and isn’t used to playing on the left. There’s uncertainty there.

If not that, then maybe shift Watanabe to the right and put Tomiyasu on the left.

But Tomiyasu was in the starting lineup specifically with the clear intention of matching up against Vinicius, so there’d be some hesitation about moving him to the left.

Nothing comes immediately.

There’s no simple solution.

Then what about going man-to-man on the flanks, the concept being to deny the early cross entirely?

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

I’m not confident about that either. You basically need a double team on Vinicius or he’ll beat you, and honestly even a double team might not be enough against a player like that.

The rest of Brazil’s players surely think “I won’t lose a 1-on-1” as a given.

In other words, it demands a high level of defensive intensity out wide.

I think what Moriyasu actually did with his substitutions was close to this: Sugawara on for Doan, Suzuki Junnosuke on for Nakamura.

But that came too late, after Japan had already conceded.

If anything, Japan lost its key attacking outlet and just got pinned back after that. Though this is all hindsight, of course.

Going through it like this, I genuinely can’t come up with a good idea.

When you consider the tactical depth it took for Ancelotti to make that move, all you can say is: what a master coach.

Truly frightening.

He coldly and objectively assessed his own team and the opponent, set aside pride and history, and precisely executed the right tactics. It’s like a forced-mate puzzle in shogi.

Has anyone actually solved the homework Ancelotti left behind?

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

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

In other words, first swap out Doan and bring in Watanabe.

Shift Tomiyasu into the center to secure height. Place Watanabe on the right to mark Vinicius, sandwiching him together with Ito Junya. Maeda, with his mobility, covers the opposing fullback as needed.

The left side works similarly.

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

Swapping Kamada for Tanaka Ao would generally make sense, and I’d keep that as is.

As for replacing the heavily worked Maeda, I think Shiogai would have been the choice, prioritizing speed and ball-retention ability. His fierce hold-up play and dribbling shown in the Bundesliga offer some promise there.

I think Ito Junya could have gone the full ninety.

If anything, Taniguchi looked like the tougher spot, so I’d put Seko there instead.

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

Grinding out the full ninety minutes that way might have been one plausible story.

But could that decision realistically have been made in the few minutes between the start of the second half and the hydration break? Honestly, that seems like a stretch.

And a formation change like that isn’t something you can just pull off on the spot. It needs to be anticipated, practiced, and prepared in advance.

So blaming the manager’s decisions feels far too easy for me to do.

If anyone has a more substantial tactical answer that isn’t just an easy take, 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.