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Nickname(s) | Olympic Japan | ||
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Association | Japan Football Association | ||
Confederation | AFC (Asia) | ||
Sub-confederation | EAFF (East Asia) | ||
Head coach | Go Oiwa | ||
Most caps | Mao Hosoya (35) | ||
Top scorer | Shoya Nakajima (19) | ||
FIFA code | JPN | ||
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First international | |||
![]() ![]() (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; December 1990)[1] | |||
Biggest win | |||
![]() ![]() (Hong Kong; 12 June 1999) | |||
Biggest defeat | |||
![]() ![]() (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 6 February 1994) | |||
Olympic Games | |||
Appearances | 8 (first in 1996) | ||
Best result | Fourth place (2012, 2020) | ||
Asian Games | |||
Appearances | 6 (first in 2002) | ||
Best result | ![]() | ||
AFC U-23 Asian Cup | |||
Appearances | 6 (first in 2013) | ||
Best result | ![]() |
The Japan national under-23 football team (Japanese: U-23サッカー日本代表) is a national association football youth team of Japan and is controlled by the Japan Football Association. The team won the gold medal at the 2010 Asian Games and were champions in the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship. Since 1992, it was decided that teams targeting athletes under the age of 23 will participate in the Olympics (additional provisions for overage limits have been added since 1996). Therefore, the name changes to Japan national under-22 football team the year before the Olympics and Japan national under-21 football team two years prior. The exception to this was the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which was postponed one year, so in 2021, the team was called the Japan national under-24 football team. At the 2024 Olympics, they advanced to the Knockout stage without three overage players and several key players.