Italy will be confident of another victory when they face off against Japan in their Confederations Cup encounter Wednesday.
The Italians pulled off an impressive 2-1 win over Mexico in their first match of the tournament, thanks to goals from Andrea Pirlo, who earned his 100th cap, and Mario Balotelli.
Manager Cesare Prandelli is pondering a few changes to his lineup against Japan, who lost 3-0 to Brazil in their opening game, after his players' exertions against Mexico.
"How many changes I could make? I have not yet decided as we now have our most important training session coming up but there will likely be three or four changes," Prandelli said.
"The last game was quite tiring and some players may be fatigued. Japan are a very good team and are dangerous as they have in Italian Alberto Zaccheroni a great coach who knows how to get the best out of them."
Zaccheroni is plotting his country's downfall with Japan, who were the first team to qualify for the 2014 World Cup, other than hosts Brazil, and believes a more technical strategy will help against the physical, yet proficient, Italians.
"We should adopt not a physical approach but a technical one," Zaccheroni said.
"When I started off coaching I never imagined I would be coaching a team playing against Italy and not in a friendly but a very important competition.
"We are here to get experience for the World Cup next year and to use the opportunity to grow and develop. Japan has improved a lot in the past few years since before I even came along."
Japanese captain Makebo Hasebe believes stopping Pirlo will be key if they are to pick up a win against Italy.
"Pirlo? He's the brains of the team and an outstanding footballer," Hasebe told FIFA.com. "We have to get at him early and not allow him to play his game."
Hasebe admitted he was disappointed with the performance against Brazil and was hoping for an improved one against Italy.
"We were too defensive against Brazil," he added. "It's a shame we lost, but they're a strong team and they had the crowd behind them. All of that definitely affected us.
"We were massively disappointed and our heads went down at first, but we have to pick ourselves up now. We still have games against Italy and Mexico, and if we win both we're through to the semifinals."
To watch Italy vs Mexico Live Stream for U.S. viewers, click here.
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Expected lineups: Italy: Buffon; Abate, Barzagli, Chiellini, De Sciglio; Rossi, Pirlo, Montolivo; Marchisio, Giaccherini; Balotelli.
Japan: Kawashima; Uchida, Yoshida, Konno, Nagatomo; Hasebe, Endo; Okazaki, Honda, Kagawa; Maeda.
Prediction: 2-1 to Italy
