BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa — National team coach Takeshi Okada has warned his players not to get carried away after beating Cameroon 1-0 on Monday and insists Japan's first- ever World Cup triumph outside its own shores will count for nothing if it loses its next two games.
Keisuke Honda was Japan's driving force, the CSKA Moscow star scoring the winner shortly before halftime as the Blue Samurai tamed the Indomitable Lions at Free State Stadium to join the Netherlands, which beat Denmark 2-0 earlier in the day, on three points in Group E.
Japan faces the Dutch on Saturday in Durban hoping to avenge a 3-0 away defeat in their only previous meeting in Enshcede last September, before wrapping up the group phase against Denmark in Rustenburg on June 24.