The Blue Samurai, who lost on penalties to Croatia in the last 16 of last year's World Cup in Qatar, face Myanmar in Osaka on November 16th before taking on Syria on neutral ground in Jeddah five days later. Coach Hajime Moriyasu picked a 26-man squad packed with European experience and said most of the players could expect to see some action.
"There is a chance that we could pick up injuries in these two games so having 26 players should allow us to overcome that," said Moriyasu, whose team have also been drawn alongside North Korea in qualifying Group B. "I will look at what condition the players are in and potentially play one group of players in the first game and then another group in the second."
Arsenal's Takehiro Tomiyasu, Liverpool's Wataru Endo and Celtic pair Kyogo Furuhashi and Daizen Maeda were all named in the squad.