Manchester United midfielder Shinji Kagawa has hailed Brazil as one of the best teams in the world and says Japan must step up their game to compete.
The Red Devils playmaker told Japanese media: “We’ve got to rise to the challenge of the top teams. When you play against the best teams you need to take more risks. We still don’t take enough risks.”
Kagawa scored the winning goal in Japan’s 1-0 victory over France in a friendly last week, but the 23-year-old says Brazil are a different prospect altogether: “Brazil are a stronger team than France so that will be the challenge for us.”
The midfielder also laid out the Samurai Blue’s ambitions: “We’ve said we want to reach the quarter-finals of the next World Cup. In that case we have got two years to improve in a lot of areas, and we need to learn to play with more confidence.”
Japan will face Brazil at the Municipal Stadium in Warsaw, Poland on Tuesday at 9.20pm UK time.
