Kyogo missing elements named as Celtic hero sees Japan boss explain 'painful' Asian Cup snub

Snubbing Kyogo Furuhashi for this month's Asian Cup was "painful" for Japan manager Hajime Moriyasu.

The Celtic top scorer was left out of the Samurai Blue squad for the tournament with Parkhead pals Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda both making the cut ahead of him. The striker also missed out on his country's World Cup squad for Qatar 2022,. He was handed a recall by Moriyasu but won the last of his 21 caps so far against Myanmar in November before being given the bad news ahead of nation's return to Qatar.

Japan will face Vietnam, Iraq and Indonesia in the group stages after warming up for the tournament with a 6-1 hammering of Jordan. And asked directly about why Kyogo wasn't in the squad in an interview in his homeland, boss Moriyasu admitted it was a tough decision. He said: "It was extremely difficult. It's just really painful to make decisions like these.

"On the one hand, as manager of Japan. I am delighted we have such a deep squad depth and we could probably pick two or three teams who could compete competitively on the world stage. And that will only increase as we have a lot of good, young players coming through. But it makes my job very, very hard.

"Regarding the criteria for this tournament, I went for the ones I thought had the most individual strength. I wanted players who can overcome situations individually and have to have the ability to connect with people and work together with those around them.

"We picked players who can improve their abilities not only by themselves, but also by working with their teammates."