World Cup 2014 Preview – Japan

The 47th ranked Japanese squad is primed and ready for a good showing this World Cup, although they've never been too successful in this prestigious tournament. Alberto Zaccheroni's team have some solid players across the board, but they'll need some big time performances if they have dreams of getting through the group stage.

Their leader, Keisuke Honda, is by far their most talented player, and he's had plenty of experience at the top tier of club futbol. His tenures include stints at CSKA Moskow in the Russian Premier League and AC Milan in the Italian premier league Serie A. Honda is a dangerous attacking midfielder and excellent playmaker. He possesses great ball skills, passes extremely well for an attacking player, and has the speed to beat most players one on one. His 53 caps for his national team may not sound like many, but in those 53 matches, he's netted 20 goals, so he's fully capable of being their most valuable attacking option this summer.

Helping out Honda in the midfield is the experienced Yasuhito Endo, one of the greatest Japanese players of all time. Although he may be out of his soccer prime, Endo can still play at an extremely high level. With increasing age comes decreasing physical capabilities, but he is still an incredible passer of the ball and can create chances out of what seems like nothing. His creativity along with Honda's skills are definitely a combination that opposing teams will hope to stop before it ever gets started.

My prediction: Group C is now complete in our series of previews, so by using process of elimination, Japan must end up finishing 3rd in this competitive group, behind Columbia and the Ivory Coast.

*Note: Japan have an all-Italian coaching staff, so something that should be noted is that their play will favor more of a European style of futbol than most Asian squads. Whether this will be beneficial to them remains to be seen, however.