Japan have been heckled throughout the tournament by local crowds still incensed over World War II atrocities and their team bus was rushed by an angry mob after a group game in Chongqing.

"I hope the fans can be reasonable," said the Brazilian legend. "They shouldn't be bringing political colours to the pitch."

The game has been given added spice by Japan's highly controversial penalty shoot-out with Jordan, which they won after being granted an unprecedented change of ends when two penalties down.

Zico, who is leading Japan's charge for a third Asian Cup title in 12 years, denied requesting the change of ends.

"People think I had something to do with it but it wasn't me, it was the players," he said. "It was the captain, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, who told the referee. As a coach, it was none of my business."

However, he remained confident his team would take any jeering in their stride and reach the final.

"In Chongqing my players were not affected by this too much. We did well and I think we will continue to do so in Jinan and Beijing," he said.

"The booing didn't make us lose -- in fact it helped build up our confidence. We didn't lose any matches in Chongqing and came top of our group."

Japan will face minnows Bahrain who have reached the dizzy heights of the Asian Cup semis in only their second appearance at the tournament.

But coach Srecko Juricic said his highly impressive team, who drew 2-2 with China and beat Indonesia before coming through a nail-biting quarter-final shoot-out with Uzbekistan, had nothing to fear from the Asian giants.

"Everybody knows that Japan are one of the strongest teams in Asia so we will have to play very, very well if we are going to beat them," he said.

"They are professionals, they have experience and they have individual technique but in this tournament many teams have shown that they can play against them and I think we can too."

Juricic said he would take a lesson out of Jordan's book, whose aggression had Japan on the back foot for much of the quarter-final.

"They didn't have space to play the way they wanted because of the very aggressive approach of the Jordan players so that's also one of the ways we should play against them," he said.

Japan, severely depleted by injuries and Olympics call-ups, have deployed a safety-first policy which has seen them concede just two goals in the tournament.

Zico said defender Makoto Tanaka and midfielder Yasuhito Endo would be fit for the semi-final while striker Makoto Tanaka, also injured during the Jordan game, was only 50-50.

Shunsuke Nakamura, a hero of their Lebanon 2000 triumph, is Japan's joint top-scorer along with defender Yuji Nakazawa on two goals each.

Meanwhile, Bahrain will be looking for brothers A'ala and Mohamed Hubail to continue the superb run of form that has produced five goals between them.