Japan aim higher after Denmark success

Rustenberg: The thrill of progressing to the round of 16 hasn't dulled Japan's ambition to improve on their best ever World Cup showing.

Their 3-1 win over Denmark in final Group E game on Thursday meant Japan had equaled their best World Cup run which came when it was co-host in 2002.

Before the Japanese arrived in South Africa they showed they were already thinking big: the coach's stated ambition was to reach the semifinals.

To achieve that, they must first beat second-round opponent Paraguay on Tuesday in Pretoria — another team that has never made it as far as the quarterfinals.

"We want to go further and higher in this competition, step-by-step," striker Keisuke Honda said after the game at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium.

That's a thought that resonates with coach Takeshi Okada.

"We haven't achieved our final end," he said. "The players will need a break but tomorrow we will renew our efforts towards our challenges."

Honda, who got his and Japan's second goal of the tournament in the 17th minute against Denmark with a thundering free kick, was named Man of the Match.

He expressed his team's lofty aspirations.

"Before the start of the match I recognized the importance of the game and I had expected to be really jubilant" about the result," he said. "I'm not as jubilant as I had expected to be because we haven't finished the competition."

Okada accepts his team has limitations, boasting no star names and modest international pedigree.

"We have been able to make it to the knockout stage. But we can still not play on an equal footing as the leading world-level teams," he said.

What the Japanese do have, and demonstrated against Denmark, is a feisty team spirit.

That quality has come to the fore in South Africa where Japan has improved notably after losing all four of its pre-tournament warmup matches.

"Our players are now better," Okada said. "We are very good at holding the ball and counter attacking from the middle. The players are better and more accurate and better at making the right decisions. That's one of the big differences we have made."

The Japanese beat Cameroon 1-0 in their first game for its first World Cup victory on foreign soil. They lost their second match, 1-0 to the Netherlands and finished second in Group E.

Japan and Paraguay have never met at a World Cup. In their last encounter, in a May 2008 exhibition match, they drew 0-0.

Paraguay topped Group F with five points, drawing 1-1 with Italy, beating Slovakia 2-0 and drawing 0-0 with New Zealand.

The Paraguayans also reached the second round at the World Cup in 1986, 1998 and 2002.