As national team manager Takeshi Okada would have it, last week's decision to end J. League player of the year Mitsuo Ogasawara's three-and-half-year international exile was just the next step on his road map toward the World Cup.
Reading between the lines, however, it seems the manager is scrambling to change direction less than five months before the tournament begins.
Okada named Ogasawara in his squad for the Feb. 2 friendly against Venezuela, marking the Kashima Antlers captain's first involvement with the national team since Japan's last match at Germany 2006.