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The former Yokohama F Marinos boss took over the reins from Bosnian coach Ivica Osim in December after he suffered a stroke. And, he will be using Osim’s blueprints to steer Japan to the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
"I'd like to use the team's foundation laid before now," Okada said.
"The concept of our football will stay on the same lines as what Mr Osim was trying to do with the team.
Okada will be familiar with World Cup qualification because he was Japan coach when they qualified for the 1998 World Cup in France. In his second stint in charge, the three-time Asian champions have been unbeaten in their recent warm-up matches against Chile and Bosnia.
But Okada insisted some tweaking will need to be done to Osim’s plans in order to achieve success.
He said: "That is needed to make the Japanese competitive in the world. But I cannot do things in exactly the same way as Mr Osim did, just as he cannot do that in my way either."
Okada had only three months to prepare his team and he wants complete focus on the opening encounter against Thailand.
"I didn't have time to make a whole plan for the qualifiers when I started working with the team," he said.
"I'm focusing on the Thailand game and am not thinking about anything else at the moment. Things have gone well so far. None of the players have suffered any serious injuries, which is really fortunate."
He also does not want to underestimate the Thais, who have shown they can rub shoulders with the powerhouses in the continent in last year’s Asian Cup.
He said: "Thailand can play more aggressively against us than I thought. But that won't surprise us as we know about their performance from last year's Asian Cup. They drew against the eventual champions Iraq, beat Oman and came close to beating Australia.
"We know that they are not an easy side to beat but we have to pull ourselves together."




source:goal.com