Japan captain Wataru Endo has withdrawn from the squad for the 2026 World Cup due to injury and subsequently announced his retirement from international football.
There were fitness concerns around the Liverpool midfielder coming into the tournament after undergoing surgery in February for a foot injury sustained against Sunderland. He didn’t feature again for Liverpool last season.
Despite this, Endo was included in Hajime Moriyasu’s World Cup squad and returned to action against Iceland at the end of May, where he lasted 45 minutes. That friendly has turned out to be his final appearance for the Blue Samurai.
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“Since my injury, I’ve done everything I possibly could up to this point, so I have no regrets whatsoever,” he said in a post on social media.
“Of course, there’s frustration at not being able to participate in this World Cup, but more than that, I’m proud of how we’ve grown together since the Qatar World Cup — me as captain, leading this team and turning our goal of ‘winning the World Cup’ into something we can say as a matter of course.
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“The current team is truly a wonderful team.I believe they will overcome any adversity and show us sights we’ve never seen before.With this campaign, I will be retiring from the national team. So from here on, I’ll be cheering for the Japan national team as one of the fans.”
Endo has been replaced in the squad by Shuto Machino.
