Japan’s men’s soccer team kicks off its 2024 Olympic campaign on Wednesday against Paraguay, and as ever the insistence heading into the Games is that the aim is to return with a gold medal.
Such targets are to an extent par for the course ahead of major competitions — nobody wants to suggest they are going along merely to make up the numbers — and with Japan having lost the bronze medal match at both the 2012 London Games and on home soil at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Games, it will of course be keen to secure a first podium finish since claiming bronze in Mexico City 56 years ago.
With Go Oiwa’s squad being the only one in Paris not to feature any overage players, however, it is clear that this competition also has a vital role to play as a building block on the road toward another grand objective of the Japan Football Association (JFA).