When Keisuke Honda arrived at Narita airport late last month for Japan's Asian Cup qualifier against Bahrain, he insisted he was "no savior" for a national team that had seriously lost its way. But with every impressive performance he gives, the 23-year-old is finding it harder to get people to listen.

Honda has emerged as one of the hottest talents in the European game, making such a blistering start to life at his new club CSKA Moscow that talk has already switched to where he will move next.

The midfielder was unfazed by making his debut in CSKA's Champions League second-round, first-leg match against Sevilla, and followed that up by terrorizing Rubin Kazan with a battery of booming free kicks in the Russian Super Cup.