Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu has an anxious wait on the fitness of star forward Kaoru Mitoma before naming a World Cup squad on Friday.<\/p>\n
Mitoma limped off with an apparent hamstring injury Saturday in the second half of Brighton\u2019s 3-0 win over Wolverhampton in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
One of Japan\u2019s standout players at the 2022 World Cup, Mitoma scored in a 1-0 win over England in March at Wembley Stadium.<\/p>\n
His World Cup tournament is in doubt five weeks before Japan faces the Netherlands on June 14 in Arlington, Texas.<\/p>\n
“I hope it\u2019s a minor injury. I was told by staff, \u2018It doesn\u2019t seem minor,\u2019” Moriyasu was reported telling Japanese media Sunday about Mitoma.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kaoru Mitoma of Brighton & Hove Albion leaves the pitch after sustaining an injury during a Premier League match against Wolverhampton on May 09, 2026. (Photo by Warren Little\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n
Brighton coach Fabian Hurzeler said “it looked like a hamstring injury” but the club would await scan to clarify the severity.<\/p>\n
Seventh-place Brighton is still in contention to qualify for the Champions League with two rounds left in the Premier League. England could get a record-tying six entries.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s World Cup plans are already missing another key forward Takumi Minamino, who tore an ACL playing for Monaco in December.<\/p>\n
Japan also plays Tunisia on June 20 in Monterrey, Mexico then returns to Texas to play Sweden on June 25. The top two in Group F advance to the round of 32 and the third-place team also could join them.<\/p>\n
Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu has an anxious wait on the fitness of star forward Kaoru Mitoma before naming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5171,15657,8,33],"class_list":{"0":"post-20581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-japan","8":"tag-brighton","9":"tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","10":"tag-japan","11":"tag-nihon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}