Japan's Nakata blasts negative press

BONN, June 14 (Reuters) Japan's Hidetoshi Nakata has blasted the media for being pessimistic, telling them not to write off the Asian champions' hopes of World Cup survival.

Monday's 3-1 defeat by Australia in their Group F opener has left Japan in a precarious position with matches against Croatia and world chanmpions Brazil to come.

But Nakata was in a bullish mood after training today and boldly predicted victory over Croatia, who themselves will need maximum points on Sunday after losing 1-0 to Brazil.

''You guys are always pessimists,'' Nakata told reporters.

''There's only one thing we can do -- think about winning our next match. That's it.'' The playmaker was also unimpressed when asked if Japan were realistically targeting four points from their last two group games.

''Why four points?'' shrugged Nakata. ''We still have two matches. We could get six points. Why do we have to think about four points?.

''Croatia are a very good team but I still believe we're a better team. We're calm. They could have won (against Brazil).

Japan's most recognisable player had labelled the side a shambles in the run-up to the World Cup but the Japanese were quick to deny any rift amongst the players.

Nakata bit his tongue after Japan squandered the lead by conceding three goals in eight minutes in their late collapse against Australia.

The 29-year-old has called on Japan to get over their Kaiserslautern collapse quickly and was not about to conduct a lengthy post-mortem with the press.

''It's in the past,'' he said. ''We had quite enough chances to win it but unfortunately we couldn't score the second goal. If we had we could have won it. That was where we lost it.'' Nakata added: ''Let's be clear about one thing. I don't need to think about past matches. We have to look forward. If you want to write about the last match, watch it again.'' REUTERS DH RAI0019