Alberto Zaccheroni's first year as national team manager could hardly have been more successful, but that does not mean the Italian can expect to stroll through Japan's opening World Cup qualifying fixtures starting this week.
Japan begins its bid to reach the finals for a fifth successive tournament against North Korea in Saitama on Friday or Saturday — depending on typhoon weather reports — before traveling to Tashkent to face Uzbekistan on Sept. 6. Punishment for fielding an ineligible player means Tajikistan takes Syria's place in the four-team group, but even with two sides making it past the round-robin stage to the final qualifying round, Zaccheroni's Asian champions cannot take anything for granted.
The third-round stage at which Japan enters the fray usually throws up one rival worthy of the name, but this time two serious contenders have been drawn from the pot. North Korea's 7-0 thrashing by Portugal at last year's World Cup should not detract from the hermit nation's achievement of reaching South Africa in the first place, while Uzbekistan was an Asian Cup semifinalist as recently as January this year.