Trailing 2-0 with less than a quarter of an hour to go, German blushes were spared after Miroslav Klose and Bastian Schweinsteiger struck in the 76th and 80th minutes to earn Jurgen Klinsmann's team a share of the spoils.

Naohiro Takahara, who plays his football for German club SV Hamburg, had put Asian champions Japan in command with two goals in eight minutes early in the second half.

German coach Klinsmann admitted his team had shown they still had plenty of work to do before they play Costa Rica in Munich on June 9 to get the tournament underway.

"We gave them too many chances and that is something we need to discuss," admitted Klinsmann. "However I do not think it is too late to cut out mistakes. On a positive note we showed great spirit to come back and the body language of the players was always good."

It was a game full of attacking verve but both Klinsmann and Japan coach Zico will know there is a lot of room for improvement with both defences suspect.

"There are not many better teams in the world than Germany and we pushed them all the way," said Zico.

"We had countless chances but we only took two. We need to practice taking the chances in training and do that at the World Cup."

Japan, who reached the second round of the 2002 World Cup, open their World Cup campaign game against Australia in Kaiserslautern on June 12.

Klinsmann fielded his strongest team with captain Michael Ballack shrugging off an ankle injury to return on the ground where he made his name with Bayer Leverkusen.

Ballack showed no sign of struggling and was behind most of Germany's best moves early on as the hosts had a succession of corners but could not make any count.

But Japan had the first opening on the quarter hour mark.

Germany were carved open down the left and Bolton midfielder Hidetoshi Nakata forced a brilliant point blank save from goalkeeper Jens Lehmann.

Two minutes later Lehmann was called into action again as striker Atsushi Yanagisawa raced through on goal but hit the ball straight at the Arsenal goalkeeper.

Going forward Germany were far more polished and in the 24th minute Ballack had a goalbound shot deflected wide.

Lukas Podolski then went close with a shot at the near post although he maybe would have been better playing the ball square.

In the 54th minute Japan produced the best move of the match with three first time passes releasing Yuji Nakazawa but his shot was blocked by Marcell Jansen.

But three minutes later the breakthrough arrived with Takahara finishing a great move by rifling past Lehmann.

Takahara doubled his tally, and that of his team, eight minutes later with a great swivel turn and thumped a shot past Lehmann.

Klose and Schweinsteiger then sealed the German comeback and both sides could have won it in the closing stages.

Germany face Colombia in Monchengladbach on Friday for their final warm-up match while Japan take on Malta in Dusseldorf on Sunday.