Japan, Ueda Ayase and the No.9 Question: A 3-1 Win Over Uruguay With Plan B Still Unclaimed

In the 90+2nd minute, Shiogai Kento received the ball inside the Uruguay box and finished. Two minutes later, Ueda Ayase did the same. At Miyagi Stadium, an international friendly that seemed destined for a 1-1 draw erupted into a 3-1 victory within the final two minutes. Against an opponent that has lifted the World Cup twice, the manner of the win left a distinct aftertaste. But if we step back, ignore the two late strikes, and watch the full ninety minutes, a detail heavier than the scoreline emerges: almost every organised attacking move from the blue-shirted side returned to a single name, Ueda Ayase.

That is what the former Japan international striker Havenaar Mike described with a simple word: an anchor. And it was Havenaar himself, writing as an analyst for FOOTBALL ZONE, who pointed out the other side of that anchor with a very specific question about the Plan B for the lone centre-forward role. Ahead of the AFC Asian Cup and an approaching major-tournament cycle, that question deserves a serious dissection rather than a compliment to the hero of the match.

One friendly, three layers of meaning

Moriyasu Hajime entered his third term with a national team that had undergone significant renewal. The meeting with Uruguay at Miyagi was not merely an experiment. It was an occasion for the coach to test three things at once: the readiness of the new generation, the stability of the spine, and the ability to unlock physically strong South American opponents through a controlled game.

The first layer is the newcomers. In the 11th minute, Matsuki Kyosuke scored on his debut for the senior national team. A newcomer finding the net in his first cap is a signal any footballing nation wants, because it shows that the development pipeline is working. But scoring in a friendly does not automatically mean surviving at this level. That is why Havenaar, who travelled the path from a youth academy to the national team and then to Europe, always stresses the durability of form over the flash of a moment.

The second layer is control of the tempo. Japan took the lead, conceded an equaliser just before the break, then maintained their rhythm and produced the winning goals at a point when many Asian sides fade. Scoring twice in stoppage time shows that fitness and concentration were sustained to the final whistle, a quality that cannot be measured in inspiration but must be measured in running volume and pressing structure.

The third layer, and the most important one, is dependence on one individual. Ueda Ayase was not merely the man who scored the decisive goal. He was the reference point the midfield looked for, the anchor for the attack to build around, and the reason a through ball from Kubo Takefusa became dangerous. When one player holds both the role of primary scorer and the role of initiating hub, the team gains clarity in attack, but also carries a latent gap should that player be absent.

An anchor named Ueda

Last season, Ueda won the top-scorer award in the Eredivisie, the top flight of the Netherlands. He then moved to Lille in France's Ligue 1 and continued to sustain his form. This is not decoration; it is the foundational data that explains why Havenaar said the player's confidence is now clearly visible.

When a striker scores consistently in two of Europe's leading national leagues, his national-team teammates automatically adjust their passing habits. This is a real and observable psychological effect: midfielders look for the striker more, long balls head in his direction, and combinations become more direct. Havenaar described this by saying that everyone first looks for Ueda and feeds him the ball.

Based on my experience watching matches, this phenomenon is not unique to Japan. Any national team with a striker in top form in Europe falls into a similar state, and it usually produces two consequences at once. First, attacking output rises in the short term. Second, other attacking options quietly narrow, until the day the main striker is marked out of the game or cannot play.

Against Uruguay, the pass Kubo played to Ueda was living proof of the first consequence. It was a move that required both the passer and the receiver to understand each other almost by default: Kubo knew Ueda would run into the space behind the defence, Ueda knew the ball would arrive on time. That near-goal combination carried high diagnostic value, because it showed the midfield is building habits around a fixed running pattern.

But the second consequence also surfaced. Maeda Daizen started in the centre-forward role in this match, tasked with pressing and stretching the defence. Maeda's role demands running volume and sacrifice, quite different from a poacher's profile like Ueda's. When these two profiles alternate, the whole team must change the way it builds, and that change has not yet been rehearsed often enough.

Three factors that make the dependence measurable

To understand why Plan B is a problem, the dependence must be split into three separate factors. The first is receiving position. Ueda tends to move into the zones between centre-back and full-back, where a diagonal pass creates a one-on-one situation. Not many Asian strikers choose this space regularly and at high speed.

The second factor is finishing speed. In the Dutch and French leagues, Ueda has demonstrated fast decision-making inside the box. When the ball reaches his feet, the number of touches is usually low, and that is the mark of a striker who has internalised the tempo of European football. High finishing speed turns small chances into goals, and it is why midfielders keep passing to him even when the success rate is imperfect.

The third factor is the ability to create a moment from an unfavourable situation. The goal that sealed the scoreline against Uruguay carried this signature. In the first half, Ueda had missed a chance after Kubo's pass. That he did not let the miss affect his later decision-making shows an important psychological quality, and it is also what Havenaar called confidence that has taken shape.

Combined, these three factors make Ueda a link that cannot simply be swapped out by a substitution. A backup striker can replace goals, but rarely the entire system of belief the team has built around him. Dependence on a single striker is not a technical problem; it is a structural problem of belief within the team.

Plan B: the names competing for the spot

Havenaar set out three approaches to the centre-forward position for the future, each representing a different striker profile.

The first approach is Goto Keisuke. This is the young striker profile that Havenaar judged to be full of energy and learning a great deal from Ueda. For a young player to choose a senior teammate in the same position as a role model, watching how that man moves and finishes, is a sign of a self-directed development process with clear direction. Youth brings an advantage in absorbency, but also carries the risk of instability in big matches.

The second approach is Tanimura Kaina of Yokohama F. Marinos, called up for the first time but yet to play. A newcomer with no minutes still has his own value: his presence in the squad shows the coaching staff is actively widening the pool in the striker position, rather than waiting on a single option. For a nation with a football culture built on squad depth, calling up different striker profiles is a way of accumulating internal data.

The third approach, and the most intriguing, is Shiogai Kento. This is the very player who broke the deadlock in stoppage time. Havenaar described Shiogai's quality with a very specific phrase: a healthy greed. That is the type of striker who always wants to solve the situation himself, dares to break away, and does not wait for teammates. In the lone centre-forward role, this mentality can be a precious asset, because it produces goals that a system cannot draw up.

But Havenaar also gave Shiogai a cold warning. At his club, the player is not getting enough playing time. A striker can only develop through minutes on the pitch, and if he cannot claim a starting spot at club level, shining in a national-team friendly will remain an isolated bright spot. The goal against Uruguay, in Havenaar's view, could build psychological momentum for Shiogai to return to his club and fight for his place.

A contrarian angle: a striker's value is not his goal count

Here a paradox appears. People usually judge strikers by goals, but for the lone centre-forward in a possession-based system, the goal count is the most misleading metric of all.

A lone centre-forward must do three things at once. He must hold the ball so the midfield can advance, he must move to drag centre-backs out of position, and he must finish when the chance arrives. A player can score few goals and still be an irreplaceable link, because his value lies in the spaces he creates for others. Conversely, a player who scores many goals can still make the whole system less effective if he forces his teammates to serve him excessively.

This is the point that reading a match through the scoreline often misses. Ueda scoring easily leads observers to conclude that Japan should build everything around him. But analysed closely, his role and Maeda's role serve two different tactical purposes, and a team that wants to go far in a major tournament needs both, not one.

A missed shot can teach us more than a trophy, if we are willing to look at our own gaps. Ueda's miss after Kubo's pass in the first half is precisely the most valuable data point of the match, because it shows that even the team's anchor still has situations that are not optimal. And on the other side, the fact that the team needed two stoppage-time goals to beat a Uruguay that was not at full strength partly shows that the efficiency problem remains.

One point deserves particular caution when analysing a friendly. These matches carry diagnostic value, not conclusive value. Matsuki scoring on debut is a positive signal, but it must be verified over a run of competitive games. Japan conceding an equaliser before the break is a problem, but it must also be placed in the context of squad experimentation. The difference between a signal and a conclusion is exactly what data helps clarify.

Regional context: why Plan B matters more than one win

The AFC Asian Cup is always a tournament where fixture density and the ferocity of the calendar place high demands on squad depth. In a tournament played in a centralised format, with matches a few days apart, a team cannot rely on a single striker for the entire journey. Injury, suspension, and fatigue are variables that can occur at any moment.

The history of regional tournaments reveals a recurring pattern: the champion is usually the team with a backup plan in the most important position. When the main striker is marked out of the game, a different option with different characteristics can unlock the match. When the main striker is injured, a replacement of sufficient quality can sustain the attacking rhythm.

This explains why Havenaar's assessment of Plan B is more topical than an ordinary pundit's comment. He was not merely talking about the current squad. He was talking about systemic risk within a major-tournament cycle. And as a man who has experienced both sides of glory and disappointment in the national shirt, his assessment carries the weight of experience rather than mere observation.

A few personal observations on reading a match

Over many years of watching football, I have realised that public attention usually pours onto the goalscorer, while the important tactical decisions lie with the players who do not score. This holds true for both men's and women's football. When a match ends, people remember the final shot, but the real work of the coaching staff is managing the spaces a player leaves behind when he cannot play.

For the current Japan national team, the question of Plan B is not a doubt about Ueda's ability. It is preparation for a scenario any professional team must account for. Having a striker of sufficient quality as a replacement does not diminish Ueda's value. It increases the value of the whole team.

What is happening and what remains open

Japan beat Uruguay with the composure of a team that knows how to find goals in the closing minutes. That is a positive quality, and it comes from a collective with a clear structure. Ueda Ayase is at the peak stage of his career, and his sustained form at Lille is the foundation for the national team's ambitions in the new cycle.

But football does not reward teams that have only one plan. When Havenaar asks who will be the next to take on the centre-forward role, he is asking exactly the question that a major-tournament cycle forces a team to answer. Goto Keisuke, Tanimura Kaina, and Shiogai Kento are three potential answers, each with a different technical profile. Which of them makes the most of the coming matches in this international window will decide the shape of Japan's attack for years to come.

Equality is not about levelling passion, but about giving everyone the right to burn for it. That is true in how football is viewed, and true in how a team builds squad depth. Japan currently has an excellent striker. The real challenge is creating a system in which one man's excellence does not become the condition for the whole team's existence.

When the final whistle blew at Miyagi, the 3-1 scoreline was the result. But the question left behind after the match is what shapes the future. Who will be Plan B? And will they be given enough time and opportunity to become a genuine option, rather than just a name mentioned at press conferences?

Answer that question, and Japan will be strong not just in one match. They will be strong across an entire cycle.