Japan coach ultimate team coins Alberto Zaccheroni promised the Asian champions will fear nobody at FIFA World Cup 2014 as he named a full-strength 23-man squad on Monday, spearheaded by Shinji Kagawa and Keisuke Honda.
The 61-year-old Italian backed his Blue Samurai to give Ivory Coast a severe test in their opening game in Brazil on June 14, insisting that reputations will count for nothing.
“We will respect our opponents but certainly won’t be frightened,” Zaccheroni told reporters a little over a month before Japan square off against the West Africans, led by Didier Drogba and Yaya Toure.
“If you go into a game with fear, you’re in trouble. We need to go in prepared and bring our own qualities. We have a lot of attacking players.”
Asian Cup-holders Japan also face Colombia and Greece in Group C, which on paper gives them a decent chance of progressing to the knockout stage, as they did in 2010.
“I’ve had the squad in my head a while but I wanted to have a look at as many players as possible,” said Zaccheroni, who expressed confidence that captain Makoto Hasebe and right-back Atsuto Uchida would recover from injury in time for the tournament.
“It was a struggle to get the list down to 23. I wanted to call up (FIFA president) Sepp Blatter and ask him to let me pick more. But this group of players knows how www.eafutcoins.co.uk I want them to play tactically and understands the team ethic.”
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