Nabisco Cup, the prelude to Japan's 20 year experiment started the quarterfinal leg of its annual competition. 8 teams squared off in 4 matches based in Sendai, Kashima, Shizuoka, and Osaka. 4 of the teams were making their debut in the competition after flaming out of the ACL. 2 teams were in the middle of relegation danger, while 4 others have an eye on Championship aspirations.
The one thing all the games had in common was that none could break 10,000 at the gates. The fans are speaking, and what they are saying is that this competition isn't all that important.
It would be easy to say that we should just put it out of it's misery. Nabisco has long been seen as a second tier competition that teams aren't really taking all that seriously. The final haul, a check and a friendly match against a South American side that many won't know a thing about isn't really all that appealing. Throw in the fact that recent winners such as JEF Chiba, Oita Trinita, and FC Tokyo found themselves in J2 a year later and you have a recipe for apathy.
However in a country and a sport that holds dear to "tradition", it's hard to pull the plug on something so closely tied to the leagues roots. Short of Nabisco pulling out and nobody filling the void, it looks like we are stuck with it. So, what needs to change?
1. Schedule- Because teams don't control their own venues, it's difficult to easily fit a cup competition into a full slate of games. From time to time, you are going to have a team travel to one part of Japan and then the other while another team gets to play back to back at home. However, with the odd number of teams in group play, this advantage becomes even more exaggerated. Omiya had a road game in the middle of the week against Kashima, played a full squad and got killed a few days later against a fully rested Cerezo side. Urawa played a half squad against Cerezo during the week and then got beat 2-0 in a shock loss to a fully prepared Omiya side. Coaches have to still put in preparation and resources, even if they don't value the cup. The simple solution would be to pair up the teams fro group A and group B who have bye games in the game after cup competitions.
2. "Best Player" rule- Or the U-23 rule or whatever gimmick the league foists on teams in order to boost interest into the competition. The best player rule should really be the player that coaches think are the best for the short and long term goals of their team. Period. Consadole Sapporo, a team who was having an uphill battle for survival to begin with, saw their season end on May 16th when underrated goalkeeper Lee Ho Seung went down in a heap on the final whistle of a very meaningless Nabisco Cup game at Omiya. Naoki Yamada saw his season for Urawa (and his Olympic aspirations) end on the wrong end of a nightmare tackle against Vegalta Sendai. Now, I'm not saying that there are guarantees that either or both players wouldn't have been injured in league games, it could have happened. However, coaches could make different decisions in terms of player selection if the league constraints were off. At the very least, we'd avoid seeing scenes of star players like Shunsuke Nakamura going half speed and trying not to get hurt while guys who have their first chance at game action overcompensate and do something potentially stupid.
It's also a little unfair to take away chances for squad players who are putting in effort but dont have the full confidence of their coaching staff. It's a live competition without costs and a chance for little used guys to work their place into the rotation.
3. Crime and Punishment- Not all games are created equal, except in the eyes of the J League disciplinary committee. Today's quarterfinal matches were missing Kashiwa's Jorge Wagner and Shimizu's defensive pair of Yutaka Yoshida and Keisuke Iwashita. Was it because of misdeeds in their past Nabisco Cup games? No. the trio was disqualified for straight red cards in league action, an entirely different competition from the cup. Omiya's Yuki Fukaya picked up a controversial red card in a meaningless match against Shimizu in June (Shimizu had qualified for the quarterfinals and Omiya was eliminated the Wednesday before the match) and was disqualified for a far more important league game. In both cases, the punishment did not fit the crime. The league seriously needs to segregate competitions, except in cases of extreme foul play.
None of these fixes are going to solce the attendance problem but it would the competitions better for the teams. In order to breathe life into Nabisco Cup, they'll need to think out of the box.
Part of it could involve incorporating the "Team as One" theme. I'm not exactly sure how long fans will be excited to see a team of all-stars from around the league challenge a team of Kashima/Sendai players plus random aging foreign superstar, but I imagine it won't be too long.
Maybe if they expanded the tournament to J2 squads and made the preliminary groups into regional battles, it would increase interest. For the foreseeable future, Gifu is never going to play Nagoya in a meaningful match. However, putting them in a group with Kofu, Shimizu, Matsumoto, Nagoya, Iwata, and maybe Nagano would help with regional rivalries and bring in matchups that aren't common occurences. It could be a system based loosely on the Brazilian system of state championships and teams could decide whether or not they want to put full resources into it. Instead of random matchups where teams like Consadole have to travel to Kobe in the middle of the week and then come home to play a Niigata team who had a midweek home game, travel would be cut down. the schedule could be adjusted so that there is a full break during the transfer window. Teams could play the cup games during the break so that they could integrate new players and adjust for losses.
The "Team as One" concept could come in with the state/region winners playing in a small championship tournament at the end. Group winners could get regional bragging rights and a money award. Teams involved with the ACL would have the choice to enter a full squad, send a satellite squad/youth team combo or not participate at all. They shouldn't be given a free pass into the knockout stages.
Admittedly there are problems with this idea, like schedule congestion, venues, and the long term interest of seeing J2 squads. However, the cup in it's current form is almost unwatchable and not very fun for players and fans alike.
