Japan became the first national team for the 2026 World Cup after a 2-0 win over Bahrain in Asian qualifiers for the World Tournament, played on Thursday (20) in Saitama.
Highlighting leader of the 19 -point Asian group C, with only three rounds to go, Japan has secured the ticket and joins the United States, Mexico and Canada, which automatically classifies as hosts for next year’s tournament.
Crystal Palace player Daichi Kamada (66 minutes) and Real Sociedad Takefusa Kubo midfielder (87) were the authors of the goals that ranked Japan.
The players celebrated the classification with the more than 60,000 spectators present at the Saitama stadium.
It will be the eighth consecutive participation of Japan in a football World Cup, a tournament in which he first participated in France in 1998 and in which he never surpassed the round of 16.
In the last edition, at Qatar in 2022, it surprised to beat the group and ahead of Spain, eliminating Germany and Costa Rica, but ran back in the round of 16 after losing on penalties to Croatia.
In this group C of the Asian classification, Australia occupies the second position, which also classifies for the 2026 World Cup, where they will participate for the first time in history 48 teams.
Australians add 10 points after easily beaten Indonesia 5-1, but Saudi Arabia (3rd with 6 points) could put themselves to one point if they beat China on Thursday.
South Korea, which tied 1-1 with Oman on Thursday, and Iran, leaders of the other two Asian groups, are also close to securing the ticket to the World Cup.
