Japan insist they have learned from past mistakes and heartbreaks as they attempt to avoid following Iraq and the United Arab Emirates in making an early Asian Cup exit.
The tournament favourites finished second to Iraq in group D and must now beat Bahrain at Al Thumama Stadium on Wednesday night to reach the tournament quarter-finals.
In their shaky group stage campaign, Hijame Moriyasu's charges lost to Iraq and also conceded goals against Indonesia and Vietnam.
But they do not expect to follow Iraq and the UAE, who lost to Jordan and Tajikistan, out the door.
"It's a sign of respect when people say we're struggling at the Asian Cup because that shows we have a lot of high expectations," Moriyasu said through an interpretor.
"We know we can play better but Asian teams are getting better and they are more competitive.
"The gap between top teams and lower teams has been cut, that's my impression.
"We have to learn from our mistakes in the first three games but that doesn't mean we have any worries in the defensive line.
"I'm confident my players will play up to 100 per cent of their potential."
Bahrain are tough and particularly dangerous on the counter, but Takefusa Kubo wasn't worried.
“It’s the knockout stages," Kubo, who plays for Real Sociedad in Spain, said.
"We don’t have to depend on how the opponent plays. We just have to play our football ourselves.
"The game against Iraq, we conceded a goal very early on in the game, these are the kind of things we need to be careful of."
“As for Bahrain’s physicality. They may be similar to Iraq - so we have come up against physical teams.
"So there’s no problem, we learnt from our mistakes and we can try better."
Japan suffered the heartbreak of losing to Croatia on penalties in the round-of-16 at the 2022 World Cup, including missing three spot kicks.
"We always have to improve that, but what's important is we don't go to penalties," Moriyasu said.
In an engaging and funny press conference, Moriyasu and winger Kubo won over the room with their sense of humour.
He apologised for Japan turning up late, while noting they had been on time to their previous media conference but had to drive around the media centre for 20 minutes as the bus driver didn't know where to go.
Kubo also jokingly thanked a reporter for asking him a question as he was getting bored.
