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Japan’s Shinji Okazaki Can Be a Surprise Star at World Cup 2014
Published: September 26, 2013
It could well be that Japanese frontman Shinji Okazaki is the relative unknown that can make a surprise impact at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, adding his name to a list that includes the likes of Pele, Francois Omam-Biyik and Michael Owen.
Expectations are high for Japan as they head into this, their fifth consecutive World Cup. Their qualification route was not a foregone conclusion, but after a handful of professional, rather than outstanding, performances, they became the first team—after hosts Brazil—to book their place at the international high table.
As soon as progression was ensured, the nation began looking forward to the tournament itself and to the prospect of presenting Japanese football to the wider, global audience. This is an operation that was successful on home soil in 2002, and in South Africa three years ago, but which ended unhappily in France in 1998 and then in Germany eight years later.
The current crop have enough about them, enough class and competency, that their vintage should replicate their predecessors that escaped the group stage, rather than those that fell at the first hurdle.
Coach Alberto Zaccheroni is an experienced boss who will relish the chance of leading such a force to such a grand stage. The Italian has forged an accomplished outfit out of the Blue Samurai’s various impressive players, and the team demonstrated at the Confederations Cup—despite a smidgen of naivety—that they are a team on the up.
Skipper Makoto Hasebe is the crucial figure in the side’s 4-2-3-1 formation. With boundless energy and a genuine desire to work hard in order to allow the team’s artists to do their thing, the skipper’s form—usually so unwa...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football
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