{"id":23036,"date":"2026-05-15T13:44:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/23036\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T13:44:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:44:31","slug":"premier-league-winger-mitoma-out-of-japan-squad-for-world-cup-as-26-player-squad-named-pro-national-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/23036\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier League winger Mitoma out of Japan squad for World Cup as 26-player squad named | Pro National Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Injured Premier League winger Kaoru Mitoma was left out of Japan\u2019s World Cup<\/a> squad on Friday when coach Hajime Moriyasu named his 26 players for the tournament starting next month in North America.<\/p>\n

Captain and Liverpool defensive midfielder Wataru Endo and veteran fullback Yuto Nagatomo were included.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old Mitoma suffered a hamstring injury during Brighton\u2019s 3-0 win over Wolves in the Premier League last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe medical team assessed that it would be difficult for him to get back to fitness during the tournament,\u201d Moriyasu said.<\/p>\n

Monaco forward Takumi Minamino also missed out after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in December.<\/p>\n

In 2022 in Qatar, Japan won its group after upset victories over Germany<\/a> and Spain<\/a> before losing in the round of 16 on penalties to eventual semifinalists Croatia.<\/p>\n

Japan is on a five-match winning streak heading into its final pre-World Cup friendly against Iceland in Tokyo on May 31.<\/p>\n

The streak started last October with a 3-2 win over Brazil<\/a> in Tokyo when the home side came back from 2-0 down to beat the South Americans for the first time.<\/p>\n

It was also the last time Japan conceded a goal. Japan also beat England 1-0<\/a> on March 31 at Wembley after defeating Scotland 1-0<\/a> at Glasgow three days earlier.<\/p>\n

Japan qualified for its first World Cup at France in 1998 and co-hosted the event with South Korea in 2002. This year marks Japan’s eighth World Cup tournament in a row.<\/p>\n

Japan squad:<\/p>\n

Goalkeepers: Zion Suzuki, Keisuke Osako, Tomoki Hayakawa.<\/p>\n

Defenders: Yuto Nagatomo, Shogo Taniguchi, Ko Itakura, Tsuyoshi Watanabe, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Hiroki Ito, Ayumu Seko, Yukinari Sugawara, Junnosuke Suzuki.<\/p>\n

Midfielders\/forwards: Wataru Endo, Junya Ito, Daichi Kamada, Koki Ogawa, Daizen Maeda, Ritsu Doan, Ayase Ueda, Ao Tanaka, Keito Nakamura, Kaishu Sano, Takefusa Kubo, Yuito Suzuki, Kento Shiogai, Keisuke Goto.<\/p>\n

AP World Cup coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/fifa-world-cup<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Injured Premier League winger Kaoru Mitoma was left out of Japan\u2019s World Cup squad on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8,9583,9584,1050],"class_list":{"0":"post-23036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-japan","8":"tag-japan","9":"tag-pro_national_sports","10":"tag-pronational_sports","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23036","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=23036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}