RECIFE (Brazil) - Alberto Zaccheroni’s first foray into international football culminated in a resounding success, and his second big tournament hinges on a meeting with his home country.
Zaccheroni, a 60-year-old tactical expert from Italy who has coached several top Serie A clubs, qualified Japan for the Confederations Cup by leading the team to the Asian Cup title in 2011. But the Japanese lost to Brazil 3-0 on Saturday in the opening match of this year’s World Cup warm-up tournament, putting their chances of reaching the semi-finals in early danger.
To make things more difficult for Zaccheroni and Japan, they face Italy on Wednesday in Group A at the Arena Pernambuco.
“I could say that this is just one step in our path, but clearly for me that’s not the whole story,” Zaccheroni said yesterday (June 18). “When I started coaching I imagined many possible scenarios, but not this. Not the fact that I might find myself coaching a team playing against Italy.”
Zaccheroni took over Japan’s team in 2010, shortly after leaving Juventus. In 1999, he coached AC Milan to the Serie A title, and he has also been at the helm at Inter Milan.
When he was introduced as Japan’s coach three years ago, he said he wanted to create great memories for Japan by bringing “Zaccheroni football, Zaccheroni samurai” to the country’s national team.
Less than a year later, Japan was champion of Asia.
“This is not just like any ordinary game, but clearly I am focused on trying to help my team develop,” Zaccheroni said. “So far they have done very well. They deserve to qualify for the Confederations Cup.”
Besides qualifying for the eight-team tournament in Brazil, Japan also became the first team to qualify for next year’s World Cup, which will be played at some of the same venues in use this month.
“We are here to get some good preparation, international experience, ahead of the World Cup next year, so this is our opportunity to grow and to develop,” Zaccheroni said. “Clearly just in the space of one year we will not be able to compete with the very best teams, but our goal is to reduce the gap between the strongest teams in the world and Japan.”
Against Italy, Zaccheroni will be facing several familiar faces, starting with counterpart Cesare Prandelli - who he calls a friend. The Italy coach led his team to the 2012 European Championship final but then lost to Spain. In the opening match of the Confederations Cup, Italy beat Mexico 2-1. AP
(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "facebook-jssdk"));
No comments:
Post a Comment