Japan Shift Focus To World Cup

[Folami David]

Japan lost their three matches in the Confederations Cup and were eliminated in the first round, but their performances were at times very good and overall the team went away quite confident and pleased.
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"I think we played good, but you have to win," Japan star Keisuke Honda told dpa of his bittersweet feeling in Belo Horizonte.
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"We have one year, we can grow more. We should train hard, get prepared very well, and I hope we will give a surprise in the World Cup. That is our ambition," he said.
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His teammates largely agreed.
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"If you look at the results, they are not results that we can be satisfied with," said keeper Eiji Kawashima. "I think the differences between us and the strong teams are not as big as these numbers."
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Japan coach Alberto Zaccheroni also made a positive evaluation of the Confed Cup. He highlighted the fact that Japan played their first match against hosts Brazil "with little character, with great timidity," but then performed "at an extremely high level" against Italy. For their last match, already eliminated and against Mexico, they were just too exhausted, according to the Italian-born coach.
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"We had little gas in our legs," he said.
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Asian Cup champions Japan are the only country to have qualified for the 2014 World Cup more than one year in advance. And Zaccheroni thinks he knows what to do in the coming months to be ready for the biggest event in world football.