Japan must beat Greece on Thursday to stand any realistic chance of surviving at the World Cup, but a repeat of Saturday's performance in a frustrating defeat to Cote d'Ivoire will bring nothing but an early ticket home.
Japan got its fifth straight World Cup campaign off to the worst possible start at the weekend, taking a 16th-minute lead over Cote d'Ivoire through Keisuke Honda only to throw it away in a second-half horror show that handed the Africans a 2-1 victory.
What was most galling about Japan's defeat was the fact that the team played nothing like its usual self. After months of pledging that Japan would forget about the opposition and stick to its own game in Brazil, manager Alberto Zaccheroni saw his side's hard-pressing, proactive style grind to a standstill.