THE sun rising over Japanese football has a distinctly orange hue.
For the man behind Japan's success in the Asian Cup last November is Dutchman Hans Ooft, formerly a player with the famous Rotterdam club, Feyenoord, and a past coach of the Netherlands national youth team.
Ooft, 45, is trying to add to the Japanese game the traditional Dutch qualities of speed of thought and speed of movement - qualities which epitomised Holland's ''Total Football'' World Cup final sides of 1974 and 1978.
It is an interesting and exciting challenge for Ooft, who has already witnessed great improvements in the national team since he took control last May.
His target is to win one of the two places open to Asian countries in the 1994 World Cup finals in the United States and also to produce a playing formula which can be continued by his successors.
Ooft, who acted more as an observer than as coach with an under-strength Japan squad during the Lunar New Year tournament in Hongkong, said: ''It is a two-way thing, trying to adapt their natural game to my coaching and using my coaching methods to benefit their own game.