Keisuke Honda, the Japan striker, has acknowledged that his side have a better chance of progressing from the group stages at the World Cup if they reprise the tactics which enabled them to qualify for the tournament in the first place.
The Japanese will face Greece in their second group game.
It is a significant night for both sides since neither were able to win their inaugural fixture, with Japan perhaps the most frustrated given the manner of their defeat by Ivory Coast. They arrived in Brazil having profited from swift attacking play and reliable passing but seemed timid as their African opponents came from behind to win on Sunday.
It is not an experience which Honda is keen to repeat. "Possession - that is our strength," said the Japan forward. "When we have the ball we just need to keep the ball and not give it away easily. When we do lose the ball we should press immediately. That is our philosophy."
The Greeks are not expected to sit back either, despite their reputation for favouring a defensive strategy. "We will go out to win and that philosophy will not change," said forward Giorgios Samaras.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article