Intro:

Japan held an open training session in Sorocaba, Brazil, on Sunday ahead of the World Cup.

Script:

Brazil's Japanese community welcomed their World Cup hopefuls on Sunday.

There are a large number of ethnic Japanese in Brazil and they came out in full force in the southern city of Sorocaba for Japan's first and only public training session.

Thousands of Japanese emigrated to Brazil at the turn of the last century and the two countries continue to have close ties.

Japan's Shinji Okazaki said they were very happy to see so many fans waiting for them.

SOUNDBITE (Japanese), Shinji Okazaki, Japan Striker (on the fans in Brazil)

"We are very happy that so many people were waiting for us, there are so many people. We want to do a great job at the World Cup and give people a lot of excitement, joy and happiness."

Japan will begin the World Cup full of confidence after their warm-up results and even more so with their unusual home advantage.

But despite winning all three of their warm up matches before arriving in Brazil, midfielder Shinji Kagawa says Japan have work to do before the team open their World Cup campaign against Coite D'Ivoire in Recife on June the 14th.

SOUNDBITE (Japanese), Shinji Kawaga, Japan midfielder (on the team's preparation before its opening World Cup match):

"We need to work on the issues that came up in America during the warm up games. We need to do that this week in the training matches."

Japan are in Group C and after opening against the Ivory Coast will play Greece on June the 19th in Natal and Colombia on June the 24th in Cuiaba.