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CHIBA, JAPAN - MAR. 13: Japan's newly hired national football team coach pledged on Friday March 13 to take Japan to 2018 World Cup not only to participate but to advance into finals. In his first press conference here soon after the official contract with Japan Football Association the same day, Vahid Halilhodzic, 62, former Yugoslav striker who headed various clubs such as PSG and countries like Ivory Coast and Algeria, said "I came here to do something big. Japan team has the potential to win up to the finals of World Cup," he said. Halilhodzic, born in Bosnia and now retaining French nationality, succeeds Mexican Javier Aguirre who was fired as he was involved in the ongoing investigations over a match-making scandal in Spain. The veteran manager voiced his intention to let Japan advance into best sixteen teams in Russia, likening what he did as Algerian coach when the North African nation clinched one of the best sixteen for the first time in last year's Brazil World Cup. The first match for the new coach will be Tunisia in a friendly to be held march 27 in Oita, western Japan.