Ronald Koeman has said he is satisfied with the Netherlands’ World Cup draw after Oranje were paired with Japan, Tunisia and a European play-off winner in next summer’s tournament finals.

“Japan are always good and fit. I don’t know so much about Tunisia at the moment. And the play-offs could give us Poland again. It’s a good group, we’ll be well prepared.”

Poland and the Netherlands met in the qualifying group, drawing both matches 1-1. Robert Lewandowski and his team-mates will play Albania at home in the semi-final, with a showdown away to Sweden or Ukraine awaiting the winners.

Japan beat Germany and Spain in the last World Cup finals in Qatar before losing to Croatia on penalties in the round of 16.

The Japanese squad is likely to feature several Eredivisie players, such as in-form Feyenoord striker Ayase Ueda, who has scored 18 goals this season including four against PEC Zwolle at the weekend.

Kodai Sano, Koki Ogawa and Kento Shogai have been in impressive form for free-scoring NEC Nijmegen, who are currently third in the league table, with Shogai scoring the winner at the weekend against Volendam.

One disappointment for Koeman is that the Dutch will play all three group matches in the United States rather than Mexico, which he called a “real football country”.

The opening game is on June 14 in Dallas, where the coach played the last of his 78 international matches at the 1994 World Cup as Brazil beat the Netherlands 3-2 in the quarter-finals on their way to winning the tournament.

The second match against the play-off winner is in Houston on June 20, before Oranje meet Tunisia, ranked 41st in the world, on June 25 in Kansas City.

Koeman said the intense heat in the US south would be “a big item”, remembering that the match against Brazil in 1994 kicked off at noon. “We’ll have to look very closely at that,” he said.