The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Zaccheroni says Japan more confident for World Cup
By JIM ARMSTRONG TOKYO©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
7 Comments
Login to comment
serendipitous
Go Japan. Next year is probably their best chance to get their best result so far. Just need to keep going full throttle for the whole 90 minutes. Don't get cocky even if you're up two-nil at half time.
melonbarmonster
As Korean NT fan, I would take issue with assertion that Japan "dominates" Asia. Iran, Aus, Japan, Korea are fairly neck and neck although Iran and Australia have fallen off a bit in the last few years. That said, Japan has had far better preparation for WC out of Asia as well a pretty sweet grouping. Can't wait for Brazil.
kickboard
What? Group C is being called "group of death no. 2," in that any 2 teams could advance. If I were you, I would be ecstatic as your beloved korea belongs to group H, the weakest and easiest group by far.
http://www.neontommy.com/news/2013/12/toughest-group-world-cup-2014
jojotoday
I think the heat and climate is going to be a big factor in this year's world cup for Japan and a lot of the European teams. With that and the tough group, I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if Japan get through.
melonbarmonster
Group C is one of the easiest groups so far. LOL. Just bc some over some lone zealous Japanese writer says its the group of death doesn't make it so. Korea has an easy group too but not as easy as Japan. Belgium>Columbia, Russia>Greece, Algeria<IC. That said both Korea and Japan got lucky in the draw.
slump
...love your > & < infantile observation, but, how about this permutation: Columbia(4) > Belgium(11); Greece(12) & Ivory Coast(17) > Russia(22); Algeria(26); Japan(47) > S. Korea(54). FIFA rankings in parentheses. http://www.theguardian.com/football/interactive/2013/dec/18/world-cup-2014-draw-strength-of-schedule
Going by FIFA rankings alone, Japan actually has one of the tougher draws, ...albeit seeing it that way, their fans are surely relatively on the happy side about their team's draw. I have yet to meet a Korean friend who wasn't literally ecstatic about their team's draw. Just googling-- the confidence level in Korea about their team is higher than some of the top countries' fans: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20131212001020
mrkobayashi
http://www.businessinsider.com/world-cup-groups-uneven-2013-12
http://www.faniq.com/blog/Numbers-show-United-States-have-thirdtoughest-World-Cup-draw-Blog-73708
http://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/World-Cup-draw-the-strong-the-weak-the-lucky-5042178.php
All articles point out that group H is the easiest / weakest.