Japan’s head coach, Alberto Zaccheroni, had a press conference in Itu, Sao Paulo, Brazil on Wednesday 25 June local time after exiting the group stage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and announced his intention to resign from the head coaching position of the national team.

After losing the first match to Cote d’Ivoire 1-2, Japan ended up with a draw in the second match against Greece. With a narrow window to the second round, they took on Colombia in the group stage’s last match on Tuesday 24, but were denied with a 1-4 loss. The end result of no win, one draw and two losses gave a single point and the fourth place in the Group C to Japan, which couldn’t advance to the knockout round two World Cups in a row after the 2010 event.

Zaccheroni said with a stern look on his face “I chose the roster, strategies and game plans, then this is the end result. It’s all on me and I take full responsibility for that. I think it’s time for a new head coach to come in with a new culture and make this team even better.”

Speaking of the first World Cup in his coaching career, he said “To sum up the last four years, I wanted to go as far as possible in this World Cup, but we stumbled at the start when we had three matches in ten days. We couldn’t play as we wanted for the rest of the way, either.”

He added “he has put everything he had into the development of the Japan national team, but apparently it wasn’t enough and in this World cup the team couldn’t come up with the good result as they had in the Confederations Cup.” He also kept on saying that “The Japan national team should maintain their own identity and they should keep their attitude not to back down even against the best teams in the world. It takes time, but by keep doing that I believe they can fill the gap between the world’s greats and themselves.”

After the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Zaccheroni took the position with the goal of this year’s World Cup. The team won the AFC Asian Cup in January 2011, the first official tournament under Zaccheroni’s lead. They kept marching through World Cup qualifiers until winning the spot in the Cup for the fifth straight time for Japan. The total record of the team with Coach Zaccheroni is thirty wins, twelve draws and thirteen losses. The team was dismissed at the camp site in Brazil and headed home.

Comments

Alberto ZACCHERONI Head Coach
I studied the football culture in Japan and the general characteristics of Japanese people. I thought our technique was good enough even at the international level to make up for the disadvantage in our physical abilities. So our development plan has been to play football with full of speed and intensity, and I have tried to instil courage and attitude not to back down against better teams than us. I would like to thank all the players who have understood my belief and executed it. They have gradually showed improvements. In the press conference four years ago right after I arrived in Japan, I said that I wanted to leave some kind of legacy in four years. I think I did that. I want to thank Japan for the great four years. In these four years, I had such an intense time concentrating on my work without any inconveniences. It has been a fulfilling and touching four years in Japan. ARIGATOU GOZAIMASHITA.

DAINI Kuniya Japan Football Association President
Unfortunately we lost in the group stage, but I think the team including Coach Zaccheroni, players, coaching staff and all other staff did their best. It was such a fantastic team. I want our Technical Committee to analyse why we lost, but in short I think we still have a gap between the top countries in the world and us. In football we can’t get better in one day or two. We look forward to four years later and we start working from today. I would like to express my warmest appreciation to the local Japanese communities for cooperating with the local states and cities to welcome all the fans from Japan, to provide safe environment and cheered enthusiastically for our team.

HARA Hiromi General Secretary
I am so sorry that we couldn’t meet all the expectation from our fans. We have worked with Coach Zaccheroni and his Italian staff for four years and with these players together we have thought we would be able to show what we do best, but it turned out to be this kind of end result. There should be many factors, but above all I am now deeply realised the difficulty to play to our full strength at a big stage like the World Cup. We must calmly analyse this outcome. Nobody is satisfied or convinced with this outcome, but what this team have done will certainly be passed on and work well for the benefits of each player and Japan’s football overall.