As Ben Mabley tells us, it's astonishing how quickly football in Japan has progressed in twenty years.

The professional J-League was only founded in the early 90s and since then the national team has developed into a side capable of going toe-to-toe with the best in the world as Italy found out at the 2013 Confederations Cup.

Placed in a tricky group alongside Colombia, Ivory Coast and Greece, Shinji Kagawa, Keisuke Honda and co have the potential to get to the quarter-finals should they emerge.

But that could be the problem. The Guardian and The Blizzard contributor Mabley tells Team 33's Raf and Dan why the Japanese public are pessimistic, how dangerous Japan can be and how the shaky club situations of Kagawa and Honda could affect the team:

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