Alberto Zaccheroni is relishing the prospect of his Japan side testing themselves against the world’s best at the FIFA Confederations Cup.
Japan feature in the opening fixture of the tournament against Brazil in Brasilia on Saturday, and the Asian team can be confident of causing an upset with the hosts winning just twice in their last nine games.
And manager Zaccheroni feels that while there are more glamorous names in the competition, his team can compete with any side.
“I know that we will face teams that on paper are much better than us, at least in the FIFA ranking,” he said.
“We are used to playing on a different stage, in Asia, where we don’t have many games outside of the continent.
“That’s why I’m eager to verify our progress these last few years and see how we will react against such famous and well-known teams.”
CSKA Moscow’s Keisuke Honda is a doubt for the opener after spending large parts of the season on the sidelines through injury.
But Zaccheroni is hopeful the playmaker – who sealed his country’s place in next year’s FIFA World Cup with an injury-time equaliser against Australia earlier this month – will be fit to feature.
“With Honda, he got here after having played just a fraction of the games with his club, given that he had just recovered from an injury,” the coach explained.
“We had to field him straight away against Australia but with with Iraq he still had a problem so I rested him. These last few days he has trained regularly so he could be available for the game.”
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