Conventional wisdom has given a nod to the 37 point line as the mythical safety zone for teams hoping to avoid relegation. This year feels different. There is a distinct possibility that 40 might not be enough to retain your members card in J1. Right now 16th place Gamba has a slight positive goal differential, trailing 6th place Nagoya by 1 goal and edging 9th place Shimizu and 10th place FC Tokyo.
It's been a unique and unpredictable year, with 1st and 15th seperated by 20 points....the same distance as 15th and last. If you want to look at it in a positive light, the league is very balanced. A more negative interpretation would be that the league is just mediocre.
There are many reasons for the bottom to be so, ummm, tight this year (That just sounds wrong) and as always I delve into them.
1. Historically Bad in Hokkaido- One reason for the need to raise the level of the relegation line is the incredibly inept performance of Consadole Sapporo. With 8 games left, Sapporo is a mere 4 points away from being relegated. 5 more losses on the road and Sapporo becomes the first team in J Leaague history to not claim a road point in an entire J league campaign. Failure to gain 6 points and Consadole breaks the ineptitude record shared by Shonan Bellmare and Yokohama FC.
Consadole have lose 7 of their games by 3 or more goals. They have conceded 4 or or more goals in 8 of their 26 games. More important to inhabitants of Relegationistan, Consadole have been wildly uncompetitive against the bottom 6 teams not based in Hokkaido. In ten games, Consadole has managed only a lone win against Cerezo Osaka early in the year. In fact, 5 of the 7 blowout games have been at the hands of the bottom 6, including a 7 goal pasting by Kashima (who is still on the schedule) and a pair of blowouts to Gamba Osaka. If you took out the goals scored against Consadole, Kobe would lose over 15 percent of it's goal tally (6 of 33), Kashima would lose 20 percent (7 of 35), Gamba over 20 percent (11 of 52), and Omiya a whopping 25 percent (7 of 28). Consadole points seem like money in the bank and might cost Cerezo when all is said and done.
2. The Low Ceiling- The top tier has had a hand in determining the relegation race thus far. Sanfrecce and Vegalta have been pretty consistent in beating up on Relegationstan. Sanfrecce lost to Niigata and tied both Omiya and Kashima to take 20 points in 9 games. Gamba, Cerezo, and Kobe still have upcoming games against the leader. Vegalta has been even more stingy, conceding a tie to Gamba in week 11 and claiming 22 points while having games against Gamba, Cerezo, Kashima, and Niigata still on the plate.(this doesn't count Consadole, who shocked Vegalta in a counterintuitive 2-1 upset).
Everybody's favorite title contender this year has been Urawa, who have been embarassingly generous in giving up points to the small 6. Urawa has managed only 15 points in 11 games against the bottom. If Kashima ends up getting relegated this year, they can point to Urawa not playing well against anyone but them this season. Only Cerezo is fortunate enough to have the Reds on their schedule going into the final 8.
Jubilo are a strange case. They've gone 6-1-3 against the bottom 6, but have not managed to beat any of the teams twice. If form holds, it's good news for both Omiya and Gamba, who have games on the schedule against Jubilo and recorded losses in their first games against the Iwata club.
Finally, there's Sagan. The deepest of south J1 squads has been the x factor for Omiya in the relegation race. In 10 games, the Tosu side have managed to win 6 and tie 3. Omiya's 1-0 win on the 15th was the lone blemish on an otherwise respectable record. Only Omiya have managed to stay undefeated aginst Tosu (a last second own goal the difference between 4 points and a full 6 points).
3. New citizens in Relegationistan- I'm not going to get into the whole strength of schedule thing with Kobe and Kashima because Im not sure how serious the threat is to either team in terms of relegation. Kashima have been going through a transition year, rotating out older players and trying to freshen up the lineup. It's been with mixed results. I think on balance, Kashima is around the same level as a Yokohama or a Shimizu, but a bad start and an erratic forwards corps have put them in a hole. The schedule at first glance doesn't look too daunting. 6 pointers against Gamba and Omiya await as well as a leisurely away trip to Sapporo. 3 wins looks like enough for this traditional J League power to live to fight another day, however after years of brutal scorelines, I imagine fans of other squads are secretly hoping the Antlers get to have a shot at an Ibaraki derby.
Kobe seems to be the more likely of the pair to be in some danger. Next week is a crucial 6 pointer in the "Kansai Derby that doesn't feature Gamba". The hiring of Akira Nishino combined with a very ambitious offseason of player personnel moves has put the pressure on Kobe to step up. It's still a team that seems to have yet to fully gel and the aging legs of many of it's core players haven't helped matters much. Kobe's schedule looks a little like a mountain range with upcoming games against Cerezo-Albirex-Shimizu-Kawasaki-Yokohama-FC Tokyo-Kashiwa-Sanfrecce. Kobe wins a couple early and they should be fine.....however if they lose the pair of 6 pointers, the schedule gets harder and the unthinkable becomes more and more likely. Really, there would be an ironic twist if Kobe gets relegated after firing the man who led them to a miracle 15th place finish two short years ago.
What does this all mean? As we saw after yesterday's results compared to last week's column, not much.. My gut reaction is that Gamba probably won't go down unless Leandro blows out his hamstring. But what do I know?
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
4 times 9 equals 37?
If you haven't read my friend Ben Maxwell's overview of the 2012 relegation battle, click this link http://jtalkpodcast.blogspot.jp/2012/09/racefor37.html and then come back.
I don't need to get into the history of relegation so I'd rather take a look at some stats and figures.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
With 9 games left to play, there is a clear advantage on paper for one team.
Omiya has already gotten the top three out of the way with two dismal home losses against Sanfrecce and Vegalta and a shock road tie to Urawa. The aggregate strength of schedule for Omiya is a 10.3 (that is, if you made their schedule into one team, they would be in 10th). Omiya's highest placed opponent is Jubilo in the last home game of the season (4th). Over half of their opponents are in the bottom half of the table, including games against 17th place Albirex and 18th place Sapporo.
Gamba is at the other extreme with an agg-strength of 6.2. Only two of Gamba's final 9 opponents are in the bottom half of J1 with Kawasaki being the low man on the totem pole (12th). 5 of the top 6 table sitters await Gamba, including the top 4 and 6th place Kashiwa (last year's winner).
Cerezo sits at 7.7. Like Gamba, the other Osaka squad has games against the top 3. Cerezo does have one game against Omiya awaiting them after a tough stretch of games (Tosu, FC Tokyo, Urawa, Vegalta), but their schedule is not very forgiving.
Albirex has 5 of their last 9 against top half clubs and faces an agg-strength schedule of 9.3. Albirex has the big advantage of facing Consadole at home on the last game of the season (0 points in road games this season). The big game for their survival chances is going to be on the 20th of October, when they venture out to Saitama for a matchup against Omiya.
The one thing that links all 4 teams is a matchup against Shimizu. Depending on what kind of mood S-Pulse is in on a given day could be the x-factor in survival.
HOME/ROAD SCHEDULE
The schedule by itself is a decent indicator of how tough the final stretch will be for each of the 4 relegation battlers, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
Home and road schedules and records probably paint a more accurate picture of what each team has to face in the next 3 months.
For example, Albirex has 5 of their last 9 at home. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately for them, they have the worst home record in the J League (managing just 1 win and 8 points in 12 games). Omiya is the third worst road team in the J League and has 5 of their last 9 on the road (they sit 11th at home with 4 remaining home contests). Gamba (in a slightly misleading stat) sit in 17 place for road record and find themselves playing 6 of their last 9 on the road. Cerezo also has the home field "disadvantage" with 5 of their last 9 at home (they are 16th in the league in home record with a paltry 13 points).
It may be better to look at adjusted agg-strength schedule. Some of the teams don't change all that much. For example...Vegalta Sendai are 3rd best at home and on the road, so there is no huge difference in the quality of play. However, a team like Jubilo shows a distinct imbalance in teerms of form on the road versus home form. They lead the league in home record but sit in 12th on the road. If you have to face Jubilo, you'd much rather do it in your own building.
Here are the home and away tables
Jubilo 27 points plus 14 goal differential
Sagan 27 plus 11
Vegalta 23 plus 15
Sanfrecce 23 plus 8
Urawa 23 plus 7
Nagoya 22 plus 4
Yokohama 21 plus 5
Kashima 20 plus 11
Shimizu 20 plus 3
Vissel 17 plus 1
Omiya 17 minus 5
Gamba 16 plus 1
FC Tokyo 16
Kashiwa 16 minus 1
Kawasaki 15 minus 4
Cerezo 13 minus 2
Consadole 10 minus 13
Albirex 8 minus 11
And the road table
Sanfrecce 24 plus 13
Kashiwa 23 plus 10
Vegalta 23 plus 5
Urawa 22 plus 4
FC Tokyo 21
Kawasaki 19 plus 1
Nagoya 19 minus 1
Shimizu 18 minus 3
Albirex 17 minus 1
Cerezo 16 minus 2
Vissel 16 minus 7
Jubilo 14 plus 1
Yokohama 14 minus 2
Kashima 13 minus 9
Sagan 11 minus 3
Omiya 10 minus 14
Gamba 9 minus 5
Consadole 0 minus 31
Having no knowledge of statistical theory or modeling, I'm not completely sure how to extrapolate this information to schedule strength.
Based on home rank versus road rank, Cerezo actually sees their schedule rank get a little bit harder with a bump from 7.4 to 7.7. Gamba has a bit easier schedule with an agg-strength drop from 6.2 to 7.5. Albirex has a slightly harder rank with a point 3 raise to 9. Omiya benefits the most from the weighted ranking, seeing their agg-strength drop from 10.3 to 12.2. Part of this has to do with Jubilo and Kashima being weak on the road and Kashiwa being average at home.
Maybe the best way to judge the schedules is to put the teams head to head predictions
If everything goes according to plan (it won't) the final records for the teams would look like this
14th Omiya 10 wins 8 ties 16 losses 38 points
15th Cerezo 10 wins 6 ties 18 losses 36 points
16th Albirex 7 wins 8 ties 19 losses 29 points
17th Gamba 7 wins 7 ties 20 losses 28 points
Basically, I took out upsets or other variables and said hey Omiya has 17 points at home and Jubilo has 14 points on the road.....the most likely outcome according to this is Omiya winning. Not real scientific. Consadole is awful this year, but they managed to knock off both Vegalta and Nagoya at home so it's not a great predictor.
COUNTING CARDS
The team who is in the most trouble in terms of league discipline is Albirex. No fewer than 7 Albirex players are a card away from having a forced vacation. The one in the most trouble happens to be Michel, who is on number 7 after last night's booking.
Omiya has 2 players on 3 cards and one more (Carlinhos) on 6. They aren't in too much trouble yet but all three are central mids. Omiya is one bad ref away from Hayato Hashimoto and Yosuke Kataoka doing a 2007 reunion tour.
Ogihara is the biggest worry for Cerezo. He is one card away from a two game break. Finally Gamba have 5 players on 3 cards so one or more might miss a game.
Having written all of this, everything will look different after next week.
I don't need to get into the history of relegation so I'd rather take a look at some stats and figures.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
With 9 games left to play, there is a clear advantage on paper for one team.
Omiya has already gotten the top three out of the way with two dismal home losses against Sanfrecce and Vegalta and a shock road tie to Urawa. The aggregate strength of schedule for Omiya is a 10.3 (that is, if you made their schedule into one team, they would be in 10th). Omiya's highest placed opponent is Jubilo in the last home game of the season (4th). Over half of their opponents are in the bottom half of the table, including games against 17th place Albirex and 18th place Sapporo.
Gamba is at the other extreme with an agg-strength of 6.2. Only two of Gamba's final 9 opponents are in the bottom half of J1 with Kawasaki being the low man on the totem pole (12th). 5 of the top 6 table sitters await Gamba, including the top 4 and 6th place Kashiwa (last year's winner).
Cerezo sits at 7.7. Like Gamba, the other Osaka squad has games against the top 3. Cerezo does have one game against Omiya awaiting them after a tough stretch of games (Tosu, FC Tokyo, Urawa, Vegalta), but their schedule is not very forgiving.
Albirex has 5 of their last 9 against top half clubs and faces an agg-strength schedule of 9.3. Albirex has the big advantage of facing Consadole at home on the last game of the season (0 points in road games this season). The big game for their survival chances is going to be on the 20th of October, when they venture out to Saitama for a matchup against Omiya.
The one thing that links all 4 teams is a matchup against Shimizu. Depending on what kind of mood S-Pulse is in on a given day could be the x-factor in survival.
HOME/ROAD SCHEDULE
The schedule by itself is a decent indicator of how tough the final stretch will be for each of the 4 relegation battlers, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
Home and road schedules and records probably paint a more accurate picture of what each team has to face in the next 3 months.
For example, Albirex has 5 of their last 9 at home. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately for them, they have the worst home record in the J League (managing just 1 win and 8 points in 12 games). Omiya is the third worst road team in the J League and has 5 of their last 9 on the road (they sit 11th at home with 4 remaining home contests). Gamba (in a slightly misleading stat) sit in 17 place for road record and find themselves playing 6 of their last 9 on the road. Cerezo also has the home field "disadvantage" with 5 of their last 9 at home (they are 16th in the league in home record with a paltry 13 points).
It may be better to look at adjusted agg-strength schedule. Some of the teams don't change all that much. For example...Vegalta Sendai are 3rd best at home and on the road, so there is no huge difference in the quality of play. However, a team like Jubilo shows a distinct imbalance in teerms of form on the road versus home form. They lead the league in home record but sit in 12th on the road. If you have to face Jubilo, you'd much rather do it in your own building.
Here are the home and away tables
Jubilo 27 points plus 14 goal differential
Sagan 27 plus 11
Vegalta 23 plus 15
Sanfrecce 23 plus 8
Urawa 23 plus 7
Nagoya 22 plus 4
Yokohama 21 plus 5
Kashima 20 plus 11
Shimizu 20 plus 3
Vissel 17 plus 1
Omiya 17 minus 5
Gamba 16 plus 1
FC Tokyo 16
Kashiwa 16 minus 1
Kawasaki 15 minus 4
Cerezo 13 minus 2
Consadole 10 minus 13
Albirex 8 minus 11
And the road table
Sanfrecce 24 plus 13
Kashiwa 23 plus 10
Vegalta 23 plus 5
Urawa 22 plus 4
FC Tokyo 21
Kawasaki 19 plus 1
Nagoya 19 minus 1
Shimizu 18 minus 3
Albirex 17 minus 1
Cerezo 16 minus 2
Vissel 16 minus 7
Jubilo 14 plus 1
Yokohama 14 minus 2
Kashima 13 minus 9
Sagan 11 minus 3
Omiya 10 minus 14
Gamba 9 minus 5
Consadole 0 minus 31
Having no knowledge of statistical theory or modeling, I'm not completely sure how to extrapolate this information to schedule strength.
Based on home rank versus road rank, Cerezo actually sees their schedule rank get a little bit harder with a bump from 7.4 to 7.7. Gamba has a bit easier schedule with an agg-strength drop from 6.2 to 7.5. Albirex has a slightly harder rank with a point 3 raise to 9. Omiya benefits the most from the weighted ranking, seeing their agg-strength drop from 10.3 to 12.2. Part of this has to do with Jubilo and Kashima being weak on the road and Kashiwa being average at home.
Maybe the best way to judge the schedules is to put the teams head to head predictions
If everything goes according to plan (it won't) the final records for the teams would look like this
14th Omiya 10 wins 8 ties 16 losses 38 points
15th Cerezo 10 wins 6 ties 18 losses 36 points
16th Albirex 7 wins 8 ties 19 losses 29 points
17th Gamba 7 wins 7 ties 20 losses 28 points
Basically, I took out upsets or other variables and said hey Omiya has 17 points at home and Jubilo has 14 points on the road.....the most likely outcome according to this is Omiya winning. Not real scientific. Consadole is awful this year, but they managed to knock off both Vegalta and Nagoya at home so it's not a great predictor.
COUNTING CARDS
The team who is in the most trouble in terms of league discipline is Albirex. No fewer than 7 Albirex players are a card away from having a forced vacation. The one in the most trouble happens to be Michel, who is on number 7 after last night's booking.
Omiya has 2 players on 3 cards and one more (Carlinhos) on 6. They aren't in too much trouble yet but all three are central mids. Omiya is one bad ref away from Hayato Hashimoto and Yosuke Kataoka doing a 2007 reunion tour.
Ogihara is the biggest worry for Cerezo. He is one card away from a two game break. Finally Gamba have 5 players on 3 cards so one or more might miss a game.
Having written all of this, everything will look different after next week.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
CUP UP!
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.
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.
Friday, March 9, 2012
My J1 predictions-Week 1
I'm going to do a rolling prediction in which I change week by week
Here's how I see the league now
1. Nagoya- I hate Tulio, I hate Tamada, and I hate Kennedy.....the J League was created to make me angry so it's this collection of diving twats that will take the crown.
2. Kashiwa- Alot of people seem to be talking down their offseason but I think Nasu and Lobo are going to make them a better squad.
3. Gamba- They always seem to steady out and rise to the top.
4. Vissel- I'm a bit nervous about a huge collection of near 30's and over 30's. The one thing that nobody is mentioning about the Hashimoto, Nozawa, Tashiro triumvirate is that they are players with a lot of miles on the odometer.
5. Urawa- I think they need a shrink more than a coach. hopefully this pick is high.
6. FC Tokyo- Good they looked good this week.
7. Kashima- Transition time. They seem to never get too bad though.
8a. Omiya- It's gotta happen sometime, right? Cho and Carlinhos were good pickups and if Kikuchi keeps Kataoka in Shiki, he's a positive as well.
8. Cerezo- I think they improved with the Kempes pickup. If they can play defense, they should be good
9. Sendai- I think the Uemoto signing is a drop in quality for them. Have no idea how their two Brazilians will do.
10. Yokohama- Why again are we taking Higuchi seriously when he says he wants to play attacking soccer? Did you not witness his ultra cautious display in 2008?
11. Ohhh my god, I'm tired.......is there really that much difference between 6th and 16th? No?
Jubilo- I think the young guys took people by surprise last year....as a known quantity, it's gonna be tougher for them.
12. Shimizu S Pulse- They signed another young keeper and lost another former gloriously old midfielder. Shinji Ono is still a god though
13B. Omiya- Always seem to be here.
14. Sanfrecce Hiroshima- Naoki Ishihara will fill the void left by Lee, but I'm not sure how Sanfrecce does with daddy gone to Urawa.
15. Kawasaki Frontale- First coach fired is Soma. Nishino to slot in? They don't like defense in Kawasaki either. 15b,c, and d. Sagan, Consadole, and Albirex-predicting relegation is bad juju. I learned my lesson with Montedio.
15e. Omiya- Starting Daigo Watanabe or Hayato Hashimoto leaves a dead spot on the field. Jun Suzuki sucks
Here's how I see the league now
1. Nagoya- I hate Tulio, I hate Tamada, and I hate Kennedy.....the J League was created to make me angry so it's this collection of diving twats that will take the crown.
2. Kashiwa- Alot of people seem to be talking down their offseason but I think Nasu and Lobo are going to make them a better squad.
3. Gamba- They always seem to steady out and rise to the top.
4. Vissel- I'm a bit nervous about a huge collection of near 30's and over 30's. The one thing that nobody is mentioning about the Hashimoto, Nozawa, Tashiro triumvirate is that they are players with a lot of miles on the odometer.
5. Urawa- I think they need a shrink more than a coach. hopefully this pick is high.
6. FC Tokyo- Good they looked good this week.
7. Kashima- Transition time. They seem to never get too bad though.
8a. Omiya- It's gotta happen sometime, right? Cho and Carlinhos were good pickups and if Kikuchi keeps Kataoka in Shiki, he's a positive as well.
8. Cerezo- I think they improved with the Kempes pickup. If they can play defense, they should be good
9. Sendai- I think the Uemoto signing is a drop in quality for them. Have no idea how their two Brazilians will do.
10. Yokohama- Why again are we taking Higuchi seriously when he says he wants to play attacking soccer? Did you not witness his ultra cautious display in 2008?
11. Ohhh my god, I'm tired.......is there really that much difference between 6th and 16th? No?
Jubilo- I think the young guys took people by surprise last year....as a known quantity, it's gonna be tougher for them.
12. Shimizu S Pulse- They signed another young keeper and lost another former gloriously old midfielder. Shinji Ono is still a god though
13B. Omiya- Always seem to be here.
14. Sanfrecce Hiroshima- Naoki Ishihara will fill the void left by Lee, but I'm not sure how Sanfrecce does with daddy gone to Urawa.
15. Kawasaki Frontale- First coach fired is Soma. Nishino to slot in? They don't like defense in Kawasaki either. 15b,c, and d. Sagan, Consadole, and Albirex-predicting relegation is bad juju. I learned my lesson with Montedio.
15e. Omiya- Starting Daigo Watanabe or Hayato Hashimoto leaves a dead spot on the field. Jun Suzuki sucks
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Old Dirty Bastards-Yokohama F Marinos
There's always been something that bothered me about Yokohama that I never could quite put my finger on. Maybe it's the fact that there wasn't really any backlash for the club when they released Naoki Matsuda. It's not a slight against Marinos fans......they got it. There was some real outrage towards the manager and the club brass. The media and the league kind of played it off. When Matsuda died, it seemed like he never got cut from Marinos......like he just decided that he wanted to help Matsumoto Yamaga and he was really excited that Kazushi Kimura was leading the team to the title. Even though Kimura brought down the hatchet.
Or maybe its the fact that they get the "benefit of the doubt" on the field. From the games I watched, it seemed like the referees had installed the "Shunsuke Bubble" because he is a national treasure. Or the "Nakazawa bubble" because he is a national hero. So I looked at the stats and found that they were the second least adjudicated team in the league while receiving the second most free kicks in the league (second only to Nagoya Grampus.....defending league champs...not defending 8th place team). Compare that to 13th place Omiya who had similar offensive numbers but 156 less free kicks and you have to wonder.....if the roles were reversed, how much better would Yokohama be?
Maybe it's because it seems like Yokohama wastes alot of talent. Kazuma Watanabe was a bright young star for them two years ago. Kimura comes in and benches in favor of the one-dimensional Masashi Oguro. Sounds like a familiar story considering the team had the rights to Yasuhito Endo, Seigo Narazaki and Naohiro Ishikawa and let them go. FC Tokyo should be really excited about watching Andrew Kumagai play for them in 5 years.*
From the Flugels debacle to the absolute gutless collapse of the team after Matsuda's death, it seems like Karmically there should be some real suffering in Yokohama land. But there isn't. every year it seems like the team just flaunts it's disdain for cosmic justice.
Did I mention that their big signing for 2012 was Marquinhos? 36 year old, 7 teams in 9 years Marquinhos? To replace Watanabe?
Did I mention that? I'm not degrading the signing because he is well travelled or aproaching the end of his career....that's fine. He still seems capable of scoring and probably would have been a good signing for them last year instead of Oguro.
No......my problem with him is this. He left Japan. After a huge earthquake and a ton of disaster befell the town that he played for and the town that he had his most success at (Sendai and Kashima), he left a place where he made a ton of money and a team who was trying to solidifying itself as a J1 team, who went out on a limb and signed him after his former coach questioned his desire to play and his professionalism.
He decided it was too much to stay and went home. A very human thing to do and something I don't blame him for.
He left Japan and Sendai. And that's fine and understandable.
Just don't come back.......at least don't come back if you don't plan on playing for Sendai.
Marquinhos at 36 playing for Yokohama a second time? It seems wrong to me. Like you're poking karma in the eye. But what do I know?
The other signings were reasonable for depth, nothing overwhelming but nice pickups for the future. The best of the group is probably U-23 striker Manabu Saito, who comes back from a loan stint in Ehime. Saito had a respectable 14 goals in 36 games and usually was the only threat for the southern squad. A more publicized signing was that of U-23 sideback Yusuke Higa from Ryutsu Keizai University. He probably isn't ready now but will look to push young left back Takashi Kanai out of the starting spot and line up next to Nakazawa.
29 year old career J2 player Seitaro Tomizawa comes in to be an emergency backup at the centerback position. An odd choice for both the player and the team. Another longtime J2 starter, Kosuke Nakamichi comes into challenge for a starting spot in the center of the field. After a good 2010 helped Fukuoka to acheive J1 status, a disastrous 2011 saw Nakamichi leave Fukuoka and head back to Kanagawa. Yuji Rokutan also comes over from Fukuoka to presumably be the third keeper.
Competent but underwhelming X and O man Yasuhiro Higuchi comes in after Kimura was let go because of a failed promise to get the team into the ACL. Higuchi coached Omiya to a 13th place finish in J1 in his only stint in the top flight. He finished in the bottom half of the table in his stints at Montedio Yamagata (8th and 9th out of 13 teams in 2006 and 2007 ) and Yokohama FC (16th out of 18 teams in 2009). Higuchi is fine when things are going as planned, his problem comes when things go wrong. He was very cautious during his time at Omiya and was very averse to playing younger players. That's probably not a good sign for players like Ono, Higa, Saito, and Andrew Kumagai, but great for Marquinhos and Oguro.
I think the team will probably hover around the top again before losing steam and settling in the middle. I'm tempted to say they will fall to the bottom with the core aging another year, but fate (and the officials who remember yesteryear) never seem to let Yokohama stray too far south of mid-table. 2012 prediction? 9th place
Or maybe its the fact that they get the "benefit of the doubt" on the field. From the games I watched, it seemed like the referees had installed the "Shunsuke Bubble" because he is a national treasure. Or the "Nakazawa bubble" because he is a national hero. So I looked at the stats and found that they were the second least adjudicated team in the league while receiving the second most free kicks in the league (second only to Nagoya Grampus.....defending league champs...not defending 8th place team). Compare that to 13th place Omiya who had similar offensive numbers but 156 less free kicks and you have to wonder.....if the roles were reversed, how much better would Yokohama be?
Maybe it's because it seems like Yokohama wastes alot of talent. Kazuma Watanabe was a bright young star for them two years ago. Kimura comes in and benches in favor of the one-dimensional Masashi Oguro. Sounds like a familiar story considering the team had the rights to Yasuhito Endo, Seigo Narazaki and Naohiro Ishikawa and let them go. FC Tokyo should be really excited about watching Andrew Kumagai play for them in 5 years.*
From the Flugels debacle to the absolute gutless collapse of the team after Matsuda's death, it seems like Karmically there should be some real suffering in Yokohama land. But there isn't. every year it seems like the team just flaunts it's disdain for cosmic justice.
Did I mention that their big signing for 2012 was Marquinhos? 36 year old, 7 teams in 9 years Marquinhos? To replace Watanabe?
Did I mention that? I'm not degrading the signing because he is well travelled or aproaching the end of his career....that's fine. He still seems capable of scoring and probably would have been a good signing for them last year instead of Oguro.
No......my problem with him is this. He left Japan. After a huge earthquake and a ton of disaster befell the town that he played for and the town that he had his most success at (Sendai and Kashima), he left a place where he made a ton of money and a team who was trying to solidifying itself as a J1 team, who went out on a limb and signed him after his former coach questioned his desire to play and his professionalism.
He decided it was too much to stay and went home. A very human thing to do and something I don't blame him for.
He left Japan and Sendai. And that's fine and understandable.
Just don't come back.......at least don't come back if you don't plan on playing for Sendai.
Marquinhos at 36 playing for Yokohama a second time? It seems wrong to me. Like you're poking karma in the eye. But what do I know?
The other signings were reasonable for depth, nothing overwhelming but nice pickups for the future. The best of the group is probably U-23 striker Manabu Saito, who comes back from a loan stint in Ehime. Saito had a respectable 14 goals in 36 games and usually was the only threat for the southern squad. A more publicized signing was that of U-23 sideback Yusuke Higa from Ryutsu Keizai University. He probably isn't ready now but will look to push young left back Takashi Kanai out of the starting spot and line up next to Nakazawa.
29 year old career J2 player Seitaro Tomizawa comes in to be an emergency backup at the centerback position. An odd choice for both the player and the team. Another longtime J2 starter, Kosuke Nakamichi comes into challenge for a starting spot in the center of the field. After a good 2010 helped Fukuoka to acheive J1 status, a disastrous 2011 saw Nakamichi leave Fukuoka and head back to Kanagawa. Yuji Rokutan also comes over from Fukuoka to presumably be the third keeper.
Competent but underwhelming X and O man Yasuhiro Higuchi comes in after Kimura was let go because of a failed promise to get the team into the ACL. Higuchi coached Omiya to a 13th place finish in J1 in his only stint in the top flight. He finished in the bottom half of the table in his stints at Montedio Yamagata (8th and 9th out of 13 teams in 2006 and 2007 ) and Yokohama FC (16th out of 18 teams in 2009). Higuchi is fine when things are going as planned, his problem comes when things go wrong. He was very cautious during his time at Omiya and was very averse to playing younger players. That's probably not a good sign for players like Ono, Higa, Saito, and Andrew Kumagai, but great for Marquinhos and Oguro.
I think the team will probably hover around the top again before losing steam and settling in the middle. I'm tempted to say they will fall to the bottom with the core aging another year, but fate (and the officials who remember yesteryear) never seem to let Yokohama stray too far south of mid-table. 2012 prediction? 9th place
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Tokyo Drift-Why the Gasmen aren't Kashiwa
Part two of my preseason report focuses on current J2 and Emperor's Cup holders FC Tokyo. There has already been alot of coverage focused on FC Tokyo, with publications like Weekly Soccer Magazine and El Golazo featuring new Serbian/Austrian manager Ranko Popovic. There's been alot of ink on the many transactions that the team has made in the offseason, including talented left back Kosuke Ota (Shimizu), dynamic striker (and former high school teammate of Sota Hirayama) Kazuma Watanabe (Yokohama), and crafty wing player Hiroki Kawano (from rivals Tokyo Verdy), to name just a few. Tokyo is already getting buzz as a "darkhorse" candidate for both the ACL spot and the title.
Lost amid a season in which former J2 champion Kashiwa Reysol swept to a title and Vegalta Sendai putting on an inspired 4th place run after the devestation of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami was the historic win in the Emperor's Cup.....a first for a lower division squad in the modern J League era.
They are an interesting story and rightfully deserve the print they are getting (unlike a certain Saitama team who are getting the lion's share of publicity this offseason), but they aren't Kashiwa. While I think it's likely the squad will finish in the top half of the table, I don't think they will be champs. Here's why.
1. Managerial Change- For the second year in a row, a promoted team has opted to switch gears and go with a new manager to start their J1 campaign. Toshiya Miura took over Ventforet Kofu in 2011 and drove them to the depths of J1. 20 games in, he was putting in resumes at Hello Work. Popovic comes in following a tough act. Kiyoshi Okuma had many flaws as a manager. He wasn't the most imaginative planner, he didn't really use or develop his younger players as much as he could, and he relied heavily on guys who weren't always focused on the (usually) inferior competiton in J2. But Okuma got the main job done. And he also got the squad the extra title to open up 2012. Popovic didn't.
FC Tokyo still has to deal with the transition from Okuma Tokyo to Popovic Tokyo. And it has to deal with the added expectations and burdens that come with being a cup holder. Popovic does this with a curtailed honeymoon period that naturally occurs with coaches who acheive promotion. Yoshiyuki Shinoda was allowed to go 13 games without a win at Fukuoka before management started thinking about changing things up. How many games can Popovic lose before things turn on him.
Nelsinho got half a season to evaluate what he had on his team, a year in J2 to clear out any dead weight or guys that didn't fit his system, and the power to bring in players who would play the way he wants them to play. (Captain Masahiro Koga, former leading scorers Minoru Suganuma and Franca, ansd starting sidebacks Yuzo Kobayashi and Yusuke Murakami all were jettisoned in moves that seemed bad at the time but ultimately made the team better). Popovic doesn't have that luxury. He was probably involved in the offseason moves but for the most part, this is still the Okuma/Jofuku squad from 2009.
2. ACL and Raised Expectations- It's hard enough to come back to J1, but Tokyo has to do it with a target on their back and the extra burden of travelling to Australia, Korea, and China. Tokyo starts the season with the ceremonial (and ultimately meaningless) Xerox Cup on the 3rd, flies to Australia for a game against Brisbane on the 6th, comes back for the season opener in Omiya on the 10th, gets a week to prepare for Nagoya for their home opener on the 17th and then faces another ACL foe a mere 3 days later on the 20th before heading to Kobe on the 24th. 6 games and two pretty big trips in an 18 day span to start the season is a killer for any team, much less one trying to reestablish themselves in J1.
FC Tokyo also doesn't have the luxury of sneaking up on anyone in 2012. The Emperor's Cup win eliminated any chance of teams overlooking the Gasmen. Kashiwa taking the title also didn't help......no J2 team with a decent payroll can be taken for granted as an easy win any longer.
3. Yasuyuki Konno- The one really dark cloud in an otherwise perfect offseason was the departure of National Team centerback and longtime squad leader Yasuyuki Konno to perennial title chasers Gamba Osaka. Arguably the best player on FC Tokyo, Konno leaves a line that still remains a relative strength. Yuhei Tokunaga is capable of sliding into the centerback spot with the acqusition of Ota. If he stumbles, former Jubilo back Kenichi Kaga is capable of filling in. In terms of personnel, there won't be a huge dropoff. Leadership is a far deeper hole to fill however. There is no natural leader to fill the role. Nao Ishikawa has been with the team the longest but seems to have annual struggles with fitness and form. Naotake Hanyu has an impressive resume but the last time he was front and center was Ivica Osim's awful Asian Cup campaign which saw the diminutive midfielder blubbering like a baby after Japan crashed out. Yohei Kajiyama seems to be disinterested half the time. Masato Morishige has been mentioned, but he is only 24 and his last two J1 campaigns saw his teams get relegated.
Kashiwa was able from Koga to a new captain because Nelsinho had control of the squad and the resume to back it up. It's not clear how much pull Popovic will have. Half a year at Oita and a stint in the JFL isn't the most impressive credentials so he's really going to have to win the locker room early and get a guy that wholly buys into his system to run the team on the field.
4. Donut Formation- FC Tokyo boasts alot of depth in many positions. U-23 keeper Shuichi Gonda and Hitoshi Shiota are probably the best one two punch in the J League and would both be upgrades to about 2/3rds of the teams in J1 as singular members. The back line has no real weak links, Ota, Tokunaga, Morishige, and Kenta Mukuhara are all quality players. The wings are three deep with Ishikawa leading a young and talented group of side attackers. Longtime goal poacher Lucas returned to help the team gain promotion last year and formed good chemistry with fellow Brazilian Roberto Cesar to form a formidible attacking line. Kazuma Watanabe and young Avispa returnee Kentaro Shigematsu come in to give Tokyo their most depth at the position in a long time. The one real problem area for FC Tokyo is the center midfield position.
It's presumed that Naotake Hanyu and Yohei Kajiyama are the starters. Both have their issues. Hanyu, probably better suited as a winger has arguably lost a step. He's a smart player but he's limited and at times struggled with J2 competition. Kajiyama, on the other hand has the tools to be consistently considered an upper eschelon defensive midfielder. the problem with Tokyo's number 10 is his attitude. Kajiyama has been criticized for mailing in performances against teams that he should be dominating. Linked with moves abroad in the past, it's hard to tell if he's fully committed to bringing a championship to Chofu. Yokohama import Ariajasuru Hasegawa has the size to play in middle but not the experience. Hideto Takahashi spent some time in the middle but has little game time in the top flight and Tatsuya Yazawa seems like a fringe J1 player at this point in his career. The one hope for the squad is that Takuji Yonemoto can find a way to put two years of devestating injuries behind him and claim the spot. Yonemoto is the best center midfielder on the squad, his injury was one of the big factors in the team dropping in 2010.
Ed note- Friend of Grotesque Simulation and On the Gas mastermind Ben Maxwell pointed out that Hanyu will in all likelihood not be the man next to Kajiyama when the season starts. I was going by the Shuukan Soccer Digest projected lineups but since 1. El Golazo put out the linueps of FC Tokyo's scrimmage against FC Ryukyuu and had Hanyu playing right side wing and 2. I trust Ben's opinion far more than SSD, I decided to opt for this addendum.
Tokyo has a fairly deep squad and talent in alot of positions. Looking at the past history of promoted squads since the league went to the single year format,with the exceptions of 2006 and 2008, at least one promoted team finished in the top half of the table
Best promoted squads
2011- Kashiwa-Champions
2010- Cerezo-3rd
2009- Sanfrecce-4th
2008- Kyoto Sanga-14th
2007-Kashiwa-8th
2006-Ventforet Kofu-15th
2005- Kawasaki-8th
With all due respect to Consadole Sapporo and Sagan Tosu, I think FC Tokyo is the best of the three. And it really won't be surprising to see them claim one of the top 9 spots in the table. The league looks like there is no clear front runner to start the campaign so it is possible that someone unlikely could steal the title.
There's just too much that Tokyo would have to overcome to repeat the shock win by Kashiwa. everything would have to break right for them to claim the title, and I think that's a bit too much to ask a debutant coach to do with a squad that has a very big flaw.
I think 6th would be a good finsih for them and something that the team should be proud of accomplishing if they manage to do it. They are pioneers on a couple of different levels and it will be interesting to watch them deal with the upcoming pitfalls and hurdles that await.
I just wish they didn't go with those godawful Adidas uniforms that remind me of the boring teams of their past. Lionel Richie and monochrome blue.......it's 2006 all over again.
Lost amid a season in which former J2 champion Kashiwa Reysol swept to a title and Vegalta Sendai putting on an inspired 4th place run after the devestation of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami was the historic win in the Emperor's Cup.....a first for a lower division squad in the modern J League era.
They are an interesting story and rightfully deserve the print they are getting (unlike a certain Saitama team who are getting the lion's share of publicity this offseason), but they aren't Kashiwa. While I think it's likely the squad will finish in the top half of the table, I don't think they will be champs. Here's why.
1. Managerial Change- For the second year in a row, a promoted team has opted to switch gears and go with a new manager to start their J1 campaign. Toshiya Miura took over Ventforet Kofu in 2011 and drove them to the depths of J1. 20 games in, he was putting in resumes at Hello Work. Popovic comes in following a tough act. Kiyoshi Okuma had many flaws as a manager. He wasn't the most imaginative planner, he didn't really use or develop his younger players as much as he could, and he relied heavily on guys who weren't always focused on the (usually) inferior competiton in J2. But Okuma got the main job done. And he also got the squad the extra title to open up 2012. Popovic didn't.
FC Tokyo still has to deal with the transition from Okuma Tokyo to Popovic Tokyo. And it has to deal with the added expectations and burdens that come with being a cup holder. Popovic does this with a curtailed honeymoon period that naturally occurs with coaches who acheive promotion. Yoshiyuki Shinoda was allowed to go 13 games without a win at Fukuoka before management started thinking about changing things up. How many games can Popovic lose before things turn on him.
Nelsinho got half a season to evaluate what he had on his team, a year in J2 to clear out any dead weight or guys that didn't fit his system, and the power to bring in players who would play the way he wants them to play. (Captain Masahiro Koga, former leading scorers Minoru Suganuma and Franca, ansd starting sidebacks Yuzo Kobayashi and Yusuke Murakami all were jettisoned in moves that seemed bad at the time but ultimately made the team better). Popovic doesn't have that luxury. He was probably involved in the offseason moves but for the most part, this is still the Okuma/Jofuku squad from 2009.
2. ACL and Raised Expectations- It's hard enough to come back to J1, but Tokyo has to do it with a target on their back and the extra burden of travelling to Australia, Korea, and China. Tokyo starts the season with the ceremonial (and ultimately meaningless) Xerox Cup on the 3rd, flies to Australia for a game against Brisbane on the 6th, comes back for the season opener in Omiya on the 10th, gets a week to prepare for Nagoya for their home opener on the 17th and then faces another ACL foe a mere 3 days later on the 20th before heading to Kobe on the 24th. 6 games and two pretty big trips in an 18 day span to start the season is a killer for any team, much less one trying to reestablish themselves in J1.
FC Tokyo also doesn't have the luxury of sneaking up on anyone in 2012. The Emperor's Cup win eliminated any chance of teams overlooking the Gasmen. Kashiwa taking the title also didn't help......no J2 team with a decent payroll can be taken for granted as an easy win any longer.
3. Yasuyuki Konno- The one really dark cloud in an otherwise perfect offseason was the departure of National Team centerback and longtime squad leader Yasuyuki Konno to perennial title chasers Gamba Osaka. Arguably the best player on FC Tokyo, Konno leaves a line that still remains a relative strength. Yuhei Tokunaga is capable of sliding into the centerback spot with the acqusition of Ota. If he stumbles, former Jubilo back Kenichi Kaga is capable of filling in. In terms of personnel, there won't be a huge dropoff. Leadership is a far deeper hole to fill however. There is no natural leader to fill the role. Nao Ishikawa has been with the team the longest but seems to have annual struggles with fitness and form. Naotake Hanyu has an impressive resume but the last time he was front and center was Ivica Osim's awful Asian Cup campaign which saw the diminutive midfielder blubbering like a baby after Japan crashed out. Yohei Kajiyama seems to be disinterested half the time. Masato Morishige has been mentioned, but he is only 24 and his last two J1 campaigns saw his teams get relegated.
Kashiwa was able from Koga to a new captain because Nelsinho had control of the squad and the resume to back it up. It's not clear how much pull Popovic will have. Half a year at Oita and a stint in the JFL isn't the most impressive credentials so he's really going to have to win the locker room early and get a guy that wholly buys into his system to run the team on the field.
4. Donut Formation- FC Tokyo boasts alot of depth in many positions. U-23 keeper Shuichi Gonda and Hitoshi Shiota are probably the best one two punch in the J League and would both be upgrades to about 2/3rds of the teams in J1 as singular members. The back line has no real weak links, Ota, Tokunaga, Morishige, and Kenta Mukuhara are all quality players. The wings are three deep with Ishikawa leading a young and talented group of side attackers. Longtime goal poacher Lucas returned to help the team gain promotion last year and formed good chemistry with fellow Brazilian Roberto Cesar to form a formidible attacking line. Kazuma Watanabe and young Avispa returnee Kentaro Shigematsu come in to give Tokyo their most depth at the position in a long time. The one real problem area for FC Tokyo is the center midfield position.
It's presumed that Naotake Hanyu and Yohei Kajiyama are the starters. Both have their issues. Hanyu, probably better suited as a winger has arguably lost a step. He's a smart player but he's limited and at times struggled with J2 competition. Kajiyama, on the other hand has the tools to be consistently considered an upper eschelon defensive midfielder. the problem with Tokyo's number 10 is his attitude. Kajiyama has been criticized for mailing in performances against teams that he should be dominating. Linked with moves abroad in the past, it's hard to tell if he's fully committed to bringing a championship to Chofu. Yokohama import Ariajasuru Hasegawa has the size to play in middle but not the experience. Hideto Takahashi spent some time in the middle but has little game time in the top flight and Tatsuya Yazawa seems like a fringe J1 player at this point in his career. The one hope for the squad is that Takuji Yonemoto can find a way to put two years of devestating injuries behind him and claim the spot. Yonemoto is the best center midfielder on the squad, his injury was one of the big factors in the team dropping in 2010.
Ed note- Friend of Grotesque Simulation and On the Gas mastermind Ben Maxwell pointed out that Hanyu will in all likelihood not be the man next to Kajiyama when the season starts. I was going by the Shuukan Soccer Digest projected lineups but since 1. El Golazo put out the linueps of FC Tokyo's scrimmage against FC Ryukyuu and had Hanyu playing right side wing and 2. I trust Ben's opinion far more than SSD, I decided to opt for this addendum.
Tokyo has a fairly deep squad and talent in alot of positions. Looking at the past history of promoted squads since the league went to the single year format,with the exceptions of 2006 and 2008, at least one promoted team finished in the top half of the table
Best promoted squads
2011- Kashiwa-Champions
2010- Cerezo-3rd
2009- Sanfrecce-4th
2008- Kyoto Sanga-14th
2007-Kashiwa-8th
2006-Ventforet Kofu-15th
2005- Kawasaki-8th
With all due respect to Consadole Sapporo and Sagan Tosu, I think FC Tokyo is the best of the three. And it really won't be surprising to see them claim one of the top 9 spots in the table. The league looks like there is no clear front runner to start the campaign so it is possible that someone unlikely could steal the title.
There's just too much that Tokyo would have to overcome to repeat the shock win by Kashiwa. everything would have to break right for them to claim the title, and I think that's a bit too much to ask a debutant coach to do with a squad that has a very big flaw.
I think 6th would be a good finsih for them and something that the team should be proud of accomplishing if they manage to do it. They are pioneers on a couple of different levels and it will be interesting to watch them deal with the upcoming pitfalls and hurdles that await.
I just wish they didn't go with those godawful Adidas uniforms that remind me of the boring teams of their past. Lionel Richie and monochrome blue.......it's 2006 all over again.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Rating the offseason (part 1)
It's been a couple of months and I'm trying to get the rust off so bear with me. I've been looking at the offseason and nobody really jumps out at me as a clear winner. Alot of teams improved in areas where they needed to, but left holes in other areas.
Its early but I'll go out on a limb with an early power ranking-
17. Sagan Tosu- I don't hate what Tosu did in the offseason, adding two really quality players in Yoshiki Takahashi (Vegalta) and giant centerback Kim Kun Hoan (Yokohama) who was being wasted at Nissan. I only put them here because I think they have the farthest to go in terms of getting their talent level on par with other J1 clubs and they haven'tdone that. Their offseason has been comparable to that of Avispa Fukuoka last year who added a couple of pieces but rolled with a squad that wasn't up to J1 par. Jubilo is a good indicator of their potential success. Montedio and Vegalta both won games against Iwata in their debutant campaigns and survived. Kofu lost their opener against the Shizuoka side and dropped to J2. We'll see how things shake out but right now I'm not optimistic.
17. Consadole Sapporo- I think they might have had a worse offseason, but I give them a slight nod over Tosu because many of their players have been in J1 before and I really like the Jade North signing. I also am a huge fan of manager Ishizaki, who turned around Kashiwa before leaving for Consadole. They have the potential to survive or be classically bad like Shonan Bellmare circa 2010. Who knows which team will turn out.
16. Albirex Niigata- A couple of years ago, Albirex was just under the fringes of being a real player in the J1 Championship scene, they were among the leaders in 2009 when they lost Pedro Junior to Gamba during the middle of the season. Kisho Yano? Gone. Takashi Kitano? Gone. Marcio Richardes? Gone. Nagata, Sakai, Cho Young Cheol, Chiba? All gone. There's a real talent drain going on in Niigata and eventually the team is not going to be able to surivive. The main problem for Albirex will be replacing the left side of their team with Cho, Sakai, and Chiba all leaving for other squads. Naoya Kikuchi is more than capable of filling in at centerback but losing a quality player in the hardest position to fill in Japan (left side back) is going to be a taller order. Kentaro Oi comes back from Shonan to compete for a spot while Alan Minero is brought in from Paulista to try and magically fill the role of new Brazilian goalista that Albirex seems to master at discovering.
15. Jubilo Iwata- Neophyte coach plus a combination of aging and young players kind of scares me. Hitoshi Morishita takes over for Masashi Yanagishita and has some concerns. So far the team has lost starting centerback Kenichi Kaga and midfielder/utility player Daisuke Nasu so far. Ryuichi Maeda and Yuichi Komano look to stay put for the time being but could be gone by summer. The team added an able centerback in Cho Byong Kuk from Vegalta but it seems like the team has taken a big step back from the 8th place finish.
14. Kawasaki Frontale- Possibly the team coming in with the most question marks, Frontale starts their life without Juninho. They brought in three Brazilian players, including Jeci, a 31 year old that hopes to lead a perennially weak defensive four. Koji Yamase, Junichi Inamoto, and Kengo Nakamura all put another year and more miles on their odometers.....how they hold up will be key. There is alot of talent up front but the duo of Yajima and Kobayashi have yet to prove they can score reliably over a 34 game stretch. Coach Soma is definetely under the gun this year and could possibly be the first one let go if things don't go well early.
13. Omiya Ardija- See GGOA for more views on Omiya!I have alot to say about them.
12. Sanfrecce Hiroshima- Hajime Moriyasu steps in for the big Serbian legend Petrovic and has big shoes to fill. After the relegation of 2007, Sanfrecce hasn't been a serious threat to the championship, but they have been a resectable top level team who plays an energetic, attacking style of play. Sanfrecce sees leading scorer Tadanari Lee head for Southhampton and second division English football while David Mujiri looks for work in other places. In comes the vastly underrated Naoki Ishihara who excels at quietly scoring goals. Kazuhiko Chiba comes over after playing for Moriyasu in Niigata in a move that seems to hurt Albirex more than help Sanfrecce. It's a little unclear how the centerback will fare as the centerman in a three back set which requires the central defender to direct most of the play from the back. I think it's a tough thing to ask a new manager to step in for a club legend and keep the ship steady. Schedule makers don't help the Sanfrecce cause.....Kashiwagi, Makino, and Petrovic all make an appearance for Urawa against their former squad.
11. Shimizu S Pulse- I'm not exactly sure how to rate the year that Afshin Ghotbi put out last year. On the one hand, he had managd to keep a team together that lost 7 starters from the year before. The other hand however saw the team filled with big names from Europe and various National teams in the Japan pyramid only muster one win against an elite team (Nagoya 2-0). The rest of their 11 wins came against teams in the 13 to 18 range. The defense, which allowed a mediocre tally of 51 goals, lost a good left side back in Kosuke Ota and a far less skilled centerback in the overrated form of Eddy Bosnar. The slot will be filled by either Calvin Jong a Pin, U-23 candidate Yutaka Yoshida, or Oita refugee Kang Son Ho. The problem I have with the team is more in the middle where name players like Shinji Ono and Freddy Llunberg reside. Nobody can question the bonafides of either man. The problem comes in the form of their less than reliable health. The backup prospects of Sugiyama and Daigo Kobayashi (combined for 22 games) paints a less rosy picture. The team is heavy on guys who are past their primes or not ready to shoulder all the load yet. Scary proposition.
10. Vegalta Sendai- The biggest surprise last year outside of Chiba had to be Sendai. After a struggle in their first year back in J1, Sendai used the inspiration of a huge disaster to propel themselves into a remarkable 4th place finish by playing lockdown defense and counterattacking whenever the opportunity arised. Asking the team to dupicate a remarkable 25 goals allowed is a bit much to ask, especially with the loss of Cho Byong Kuk. Cerezo centerback Taikai Uemoto comes in to take his place in what looks to be a downgrade. The acquisition of Wilson and his 3 goals from Chinese Super League side Shaanxi Badrong seems like an odd pickup as well. I think the biggest problem for the squad is going to be the letdown after playing on a mission for a tumultuos year.
Stay tuned for the top half of the power rankings
Its early but I'll go out on a limb with an early power ranking-
17. Sagan Tosu- I don't hate what Tosu did in the offseason, adding two really quality players in Yoshiki Takahashi (Vegalta) and giant centerback Kim Kun Hoan (Yokohama) who was being wasted at Nissan. I only put them here because I think they have the farthest to go in terms of getting their talent level on par with other J1 clubs and they haven'tdone that. Their offseason has been comparable to that of Avispa Fukuoka last year who added a couple of pieces but rolled with a squad that wasn't up to J1 par. Jubilo is a good indicator of their potential success. Montedio and Vegalta both won games against Iwata in their debutant campaigns and survived. Kofu lost their opener against the Shizuoka side and dropped to J2. We'll see how things shake out but right now I'm not optimistic.
17. Consadole Sapporo- I think they might have had a worse offseason, but I give them a slight nod over Tosu because many of their players have been in J1 before and I really like the Jade North signing. I also am a huge fan of manager Ishizaki, who turned around Kashiwa before leaving for Consadole. They have the potential to survive or be classically bad like Shonan Bellmare circa 2010. Who knows which team will turn out.
16. Albirex Niigata- A couple of years ago, Albirex was just under the fringes of being a real player in the J1 Championship scene, they were among the leaders in 2009 when they lost Pedro Junior to Gamba during the middle of the season. Kisho Yano? Gone. Takashi Kitano? Gone. Marcio Richardes? Gone. Nagata, Sakai, Cho Young Cheol, Chiba? All gone. There's a real talent drain going on in Niigata and eventually the team is not going to be able to surivive. The main problem for Albirex will be replacing the left side of their team with Cho, Sakai, and Chiba all leaving for other squads. Naoya Kikuchi is more than capable of filling in at centerback but losing a quality player in the hardest position to fill in Japan (left side back) is going to be a taller order. Kentaro Oi comes back from Shonan to compete for a spot while Alan Minero is brought in from Paulista to try and magically fill the role of new Brazilian goalista that Albirex seems to master at discovering.
15. Jubilo Iwata- Neophyte coach plus a combination of aging and young players kind of scares me. Hitoshi Morishita takes over for Masashi Yanagishita and has some concerns. So far the team has lost starting centerback Kenichi Kaga and midfielder/utility player Daisuke Nasu so far. Ryuichi Maeda and Yuichi Komano look to stay put for the time being but could be gone by summer. The team added an able centerback in Cho Byong Kuk from Vegalta but it seems like the team has taken a big step back from the 8th place finish.
14. Kawasaki Frontale- Possibly the team coming in with the most question marks, Frontale starts their life without Juninho. They brought in three Brazilian players, including Jeci, a 31 year old that hopes to lead a perennially weak defensive four. Koji Yamase, Junichi Inamoto, and Kengo Nakamura all put another year and more miles on their odometers.....how they hold up will be key. There is alot of talent up front but the duo of Yajima and Kobayashi have yet to prove they can score reliably over a 34 game stretch. Coach Soma is definetely under the gun this year and could possibly be the first one let go if things don't go well early.
13. Omiya Ardija- See GGOA for more views on Omiya!I have alot to say about them.
12. Sanfrecce Hiroshima- Hajime Moriyasu steps in for the big Serbian legend Petrovic and has big shoes to fill. After the relegation of 2007, Sanfrecce hasn't been a serious threat to the championship, but they have been a resectable top level team who plays an energetic, attacking style of play. Sanfrecce sees leading scorer Tadanari Lee head for Southhampton and second division English football while David Mujiri looks for work in other places. In comes the vastly underrated Naoki Ishihara who excels at quietly scoring goals. Kazuhiko Chiba comes over after playing for Moriyasu in Niigata in a move that seems to hurt Albirex more than help Sanfrecce. It's a little unclear how the centerback will fare as the centerman in a three back set which requires the central defender to direct most of the play from the back. I think it's a tough thing to ask a new manager to step in for a club legend and keep the ship steady. Schedule makers don't help the Sanfrecce cause.....Kashiwagi, Makino, and Petrovic all make an appearance for Urawa against their former squad.
11. Shimizu S Pulse- I'm not exactly sure how to rate the year that Afshin Ghotbi put out last year. On the one hand, he had managd to keep a team together that lost 7 starters from the year before. The other hand however saw the team filled with big names from Europe and various National teams in the Japan pyramid only muster one win against an elite team (Nagoya 2-0). The rest of their 11 wins came against teams in the 13 to 18 range. The defense, which allowed a mediocre tally of 51 goals, lost a good left side back in Kosuke Ota and a far less skilled centerback in the overrated form of Eddy Bosnar. The slot will be filled by either Calvin Jong a Pin, U-23 candidate Yutaka Yoshida, or Oita refugee Kang Son Ho. The problem I have with the team is more in the middle where name players like Shinji Ono and Freddy Llunberg reside. Nobody can question the bonafides of either man. The problem comes in the form of their less than reliable health. The backup prospects of Sugiyama and Daigo Kobayashi (combined for 22 games) paints a less rosy picture. The team is heavy on guys who are past their primes or not ready to shoulder all the load yet. Scary proposition.
10. Vegalta Sendai- The biggest surprise last year outside of Chiba had to be Sendai. After a struggle in their first year back in J1, Sendai used the inspiration of a huge disaster to propel themselves into a remarkable 4th place finish by playing lockdown defense and counterattacking whenever the opportunity arised. Asking the team to dupicate a remarkable 25 goals allowed is a bit much to ask, especially with the loss of Cho Byong Kuk. Cerezo centerback Taikai Uemoto comes in to take his place in what looks to be a downgrade. The acquisition of Wilson and his 3 goals from Chinese Super League side Shaanxi Badrong seems like an odd pickup as well. I think the biggest problem for the squad is going to be the letdown after playing on a mission for a tumultuos year.
Stay tuned for the top half of the power rankings
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)