Japan national team shirts, season by season

For decades Japan was a minor force in world football, and the professional J.League only started in 1993. That same autumn came the moment Japanese fans call the Agony of Doha, when a late Iraqi equaliser cost the team a place at the 1994 World Cup. The breakthrough followed four years later, when Japan played at its first World Cup in France. In 2002 Japan co-hosted the tournament with South Korea, won its group ahead of Belgium and Russia, and reached the round of sixteen. The team returned to that stage in 2010 in South Africa, losing to Paraguay only on penalties, and again in 2018, when a 2-0 lead against Belgium in Rostov turned into a painful 3-2 defeat. In Qatar in 2022 Japan beat both Germany and Spain by 2-1 to top a very tough group, before going out to Croatia on penalties. In Asia the record is outstanding, with the Asian Cup lifted four times, the most recent of those wins coming in Qatar in 2011. The rivalry with South Korea is the fiercest in East Asian football, and the two nations have met in many tense matches over the decades.

Kazuyoshi Miura, known simply as Kazu, was the first Japanese star and kept playing professionally well into his fifties. Hidetoshi Nakata led the move to Europe, winning Serie A with Roma, and his number 7 shirt is among the most sought after. Shunsuke Nakamura became a hero at Celtic, where his free kicks were a weapon even against Manchester United in the Champions League. Keisuke Honda scored at three World Cups and played for CSKA Moscow and AC Milan, while Shinji Kagawa won the Bundesliga twice with Borussia Dortmund and also played for Manchester United. Shinji Okazaki was part of the Leicester City side that won the Premier League, and Atsuto Uchida was a regular at Schalke. Shirts printed with Nakata's 7, Nakamura's 10, Honda's 4 and 18, Okazaki's 9, Kagawa's 10 and Uchida's 2 can all be found here. The newer generation, led by players such as Takefusa Kubo and Kaoru Mitoma, keeps the tradition going.

Japan plays in blue, a choice that has become so linked with the team that the national side is now called Samurai Blue. The badge of the Japan Football Association features Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow from Japanese mythology, and later designs often hide crow feathers or other references in the fabric. The range here comes from two makers. Asics shirts from the nineties are loved for their bold graphics and loose cut. adidas has been the supplier for a long time now, producing everything from simple blue tops to shirts with origami-style folds and patterns based on traditional Japanese art. White away shirts and player issue versions with lighter fabric are more unusual than the replica home shirts. Collectors also chase shirts from the women's team, who won the World Cup in 2011.