J League History: 1998

J.League 1998, First Stage Rank Team W L Pts GF GA G Dif 90 ET PK 1 Jubilo Iwata 13 0 0 4 39 52 18 34 2 Shimizu S-Pulse 13 0 0 4 39 32 14 18 3 Nagoya Grampus 9 3 0 5 33 37 21 16 4 Yokohama Marinos 10 1 0 6 32 39 21 18 5 Kashima Antlers 10 1 0 6 32 41 28 13 6 Verdy Kawasaki 10 0 0 7 30 34 25 9 7 Urawa Reds 8 1 2 6 28 30 23 7 8 Yokohama Flugels 7 2 1 7 26 33 32 1 9 Cerezo Osaka 7 1 0 9 23 36 47 -11 10 Kashiwa Reysol 6 1 2 8 22 32 35 -3 11 JEF United Ichihara 7 0 0 10 21 31 31 0 12 Bellmare Hiratsuka 5 2 1 9 20 27 34 -7 13 Sanfrecce Hiroshima 5 2 0 10 19 22 33 -11 14 Gamba Osaka 4 2 1 10 17 27 29 -2 15 Kyoto Purple Sanga 4 2 0 11 16 20 33 -13 16 Consadole Sapporo 3 1 0 13 11 28 44 -16 17 Vissel Kobe 3 0 0 14 9 20 48 -28 18 Avispa Fukuoka 2 0 1 14 7 22 47 -25 Scoring: Win in regulation=3 pts Win in extra time: 2 pts Win by PKs:1 pt J.League 1998, First Stage Rank Team W L Pts GF GA G Dif 90 ET PK 1 Kashima Antlers 12 3 0 2 42 38 15 23 2 Jubilo Iwata 13 0 0 4 39 55 21 34 3 Urawa Reds 11 0 0 6 33 32 17 15 4 Yokohama Marinos 10 1 0 6 32 40 27 13 5 Shimizu S-Pulse 8 3 1 5 31 39 21 18 6 Nagoya Grampus 9 1 1 6 30 34 26 8 7 Yokohama Flugels 8 0 1 8 25 37 32 5 8 Kashiwa Reysol 8 0 1 8 25 24 26 -2 9 Sanfrecce Hiroshima 7 1 1 8 24 23 19 4 10 Consadole Sapporo 8 0 0 9 24 29 30 -1 11 Kyoto Purple Sanga 6 2 1 8 23 27 30 -3 12 Bellmare Hiratsuka 7 0 1 9 22 26 32 -6 13 Cerezo Osaka 7 0 0 10 21 20 32 -12 14 Vissel Kobe 5 0 1 11 16 25 41 -16 15 Avispa Fukuoka 4 1 0 12 14 11 38 -27 16 Gamba Osaka 3 2 0 12 13 20 32 -12 17 Verdy Kawasaki 3 0 0 14 9 13 28 -15 18 JEF United Ichihara 1 0 1 15 4 18 44 -26 Scoring: Win in regulation=3 pts Win in extra time: 2 pts Win by PKs:1 pt Championship Series Nov 21 Kashima Antlers 2-1 (ET) Jubilo Iwata 72 min Y. Hasegawa 110min Ichiei Muroi . 7min Masashi Nakayama Nov 28 Kashima Antlers 2-1 Jubilo Iwata 39min Yutaka Akita 41min Bismarck . 84min Fujita Scoring Leaders 36 9 Masashi Nakayama Jubilo Iwata 25 9 Shoji Jo Yokohama Marinos 22 13 Atsushi Yanagisawa Kashima Antlers 21 9 Valdez Consadole Sapporo 21 8 Oliva Shimizu S-Pulse 18 10 Wagner Lopes Bellmare Hiratsuka 18 8 Hiroaki Morishima Cerezo Osaka 17 10 Toshiya Fujita Jubilo Iwata 17 13 Hiromi Kojima Gamba Osaka 17 9 Kim Do Hoon Vissel Kobe 16 18 Kenji Fukuda Nagoya Grampus 15 30 Lediakov Yokohama Flugels 14 11 Yoshiyuki Hasegawa Kashima Antlers 14 13 Kenji Oshiba Urawa Reds 14 21 Tetsuya Okayama Nagoya Grampus J.League Awards, 1998 MVP Masashi Nakayama Jubilo Iwata Rookie of the Year Shinji Ono Urawa Reds Golden Boot Masashi Nakayama Jubilo Iwata Coach of the Year Ossie Ardilles Shimizu S-Pulse Best Eleven GK Seigo Narazaki Yokohama Flugels DF Yutaka Akita Kashima Antlers Naoki Soma Kashima Antlers Makoto Tanaka Jubilo Iwata MF Shinji Ono Urawa Reds Daisuke Oku Jubilo Iwata Carlos Dunga Jubilo Iwata Hiroshi Nanami Jubilo Iwata Tomoya Fujita Jubilo Iwata FW Atsushi Yanagisawa Kashima Antlers Masashi Nakayama Jubilo Iwata Promotion/Relegation Playoff Participants J.League 15th Place JEF United Ichihara 16th Place Consadole Sapporo 17th Place Vissel Kobe 18th Place Avispa Fukuoka JFL Second Place Kawasaki Frontale

The format for the league and cup competitions was left unchanged in 1998, and appears to have achieved the desirable balance between the demands on players and the number of games needed to attract fan interest. Since 1997 the format has remained unchanged. Teams play a single round robin in each stage, with the team that played at home in the first stage playing away in the second stage. Most (though not all) league matches take place on Saturdays, while Nabisco Cup matches are on Wednesday, as are the year-end Emperor's cup qualifiers. The point scoring system was left the same as in 1997, though it would get a final tweak at the end of the season. During 1998, teams received three points for a win in regulation time, two points for a win in extra time and one point for a win on PKs. Although attendance in the league was down, this was partly a reflection of the weak drawing power of the bottom-dwellers. Clearly, the J.League had attempted to expand too fast, and once the surge of "faddish" popularity was over, many of the lower ranked teams could not attract enough local support to justify a full-fledged J.League team. On the other hand, the top teams in the league were supported by mobs of faithful fans, and the excitement of league play could not have been greater. The developing rivalry between Kashima Antlers and Jubilo Iwata reached a fever pitch in 1998, with the two teams contesting both the league championship AND the finals of the Nabisco Cup. This year, Antlers took revenge for their defeat in the finals of 1997, clinching both the Nabisco Cup and the League championship making them only the second team in history to win the double (Verdy Kawasaki did so in 1994, and Iwata would repeat the feat in 1999). Despite the excitement at the top of the table, the strains in the league were already apparent by the midseason break. In a bid to restructure, the league decided to adopt a two-division structure, which would allow some of the smaller teams to remain intact yet avoid the overwhelming financial burden of remaining competitive in the first division. To achieve this, it was decided that promotion and relegation would be introduced at the end of the season, and with relegation, the number of teams in the J.League first division (hereafter to be known as "J1") would be reduced to a stable level of 16. The two relegated teams would be joined by all JFL members that could meet the necessary financial and technical obligations in a "J2" division. The JFL would continue as a semi-amateur league from which teams could be promoted to J2 once they met the necessary requirements. While this restructuring made logical sense, it nearly deteriorated into farce. Promotion/Relegation and the Flugels Follies In midseason, the JFA recognised that their plans to develop a popular and profitable domestic league were in jeopardy. Though the league had attracted a fairly solid fan base, their attempts to expand too rapidly left a number of teams with limited fan and weak financial support. The situation was made worse by the fact that some of the leading team sponsors (corporations) were in financial difficulties, and wanted to pull out of their obligations. To address this situation, the league decided to introduce a two-division system. The second division would not require as much of an investment by sponsors, and presumably would use second-rate players whose salaries would not be such a heavy burden on clubs. The financially healthy and popular teams would form the core of the J1 division. Promotion and relegation would be introduced on a European model, with two teams going up and two teams going down each year. To establish the two divisions, though, a special promotion/relegation system would have to be introduced in the first year in order to reduce the number of teams in the top division from 18 to 16. The league decided to make the bottom four teams in the J.League (hereafter to become J1) play off against the top two teams in the JFL (hereafter to become J2) for two spots in the top division. The original format was to be for the top JFL team to play the 18th team in the J.League and the second place team in the JFL to play against the 17th place J.League team. The two losers would fall into the J2, and the remaining four teams would play home-and-away series to decide which two would advance. Though these plans made sense, a few unforeseen mishaps would throw the promotion/relegation series into turmoil. First, just a few weeks before the end of the season, All Nippon Airways and Sato Kogyo -- the chief sponsors of Yokohama Flugels -- announced that they were in financial difficulty, and planned to dissolve the team. The players on the team would all be transferred to cros-town rivals Yokohama Marinos. Not surprisingly, this triggered a firestorm of protest. European fans should try to imagine what would happen if Tottenham Hotspur suddenly announced that they were merging with Arsenal, and all Tottenham fans should hereafter switch their support to the Gunners, or if Celtic fans were informed that their years of loyalty and support for the team would hereafter be reduced to just a middle initial in the soon-to-be-created "Glasgow C. Rangers"! The uproar shocked the entire J.League establishment, who until this point had little concept of how important team loyalty had become to many football fans in Japan. There were ugly scenes of team executives being pelted with raw eggs and fan contingents occupying the corporate offices of ANA. The bad publicity for ANA and Sato Kogyo could not have been worse. The players played their final two matches of the season with black masking tape covering the corporate logos on their jerseys, and fans plastered advertisements in the stadium with graffiti, or threw banners over them to prevent them from having any advertising value. All of this, naturally, was captured and broadcast repeatedly on television. At first, many in the news media saw this as a sign that the J.League was on the verge of collapse. However, as the story progressed, it turned out that this incident had some very positive effects on the league.It became obvious, both to the league itself and to the corporate sponsors, that they could no longer run teams as their private fiefdoms and sources of corporate publicity. Instead, they needed to build stronger ties to their local communities and fan clubs. Many now see the Flugels Fiasco as t,a sight that the J.League was coming of age. The Flugels fan club were given permission to reform the team. Yokohama FC was reborn as a member of the new JFL (a semi-amateur third division), and not surprisingly, they adopted the team logo of a Phoenix rising from the ashes. The top players from the former Flugels were auctioned off, and some of the funds were used to support the creation of the new Yokohama FC. To conclude a long story, the promotion/relegation playoff was modified to include just five teams, competing for three places in the J1 (one additional place had been created by the disappearance of Yokohama Flugels). The format for the promotion/relegation competition was suitably bizarre, considering all the other strange things that were taking place in the league at the same time. First, Kawasaki Frontale (the lone representative from the JFL) was matched against the team that finished last in the J.League that season. The loser was automatically eliminated, and went into the group of teams that would form the J2. Then the other four teams played home and away series, with the winners staying in J1 and two losers playing ANOTHER home and away seriesto decide who else would be relegated. Kawasaki Frontale failed to pass the first round, and after all was said and done, Consadole Sapporo became the other team relegated. In subsequent years, promotion and relegation became a simple matter of the top two teams in J2 advancing and the bottom two teams in J1 being relegated. Promotion/Relegation 1st Round 19 Nov Avispa Fukuoka 3 - 2 (Extra Time) Kawasaki Frontale 24 min Junichi Kudo 89 min Yoshiteru Yamashita 104 min Fernando . 17 min Akira Ito 61 min "Tuto" Ruschel Result: Kawasaki Frontale stays in J2. Avispa Fukuoka moves on to round 2 Promotion/Relegation 2nd Round 22 Nov JEF United 2 - 0 Avispa Fukuoka 65 min Nobuhiro Takeda 76 min Scholten . . Nov 26 JEF United 2 - 1 Avispa Fukuoka 49 min Kazuhiro Suzuki 60 min Tomoyuki Sakai . 63 min Hideaki Mori - 22 Nov Vissel Kobe 2 - 1 Consadole Sapporo 34 min Akihiro Nagashima 41 min Keiji Kaimoto . 50 min Shin Tanda 26 Nov Vissel Kobe 2 - 0 Consadole Sapporo 48 min Tomas 89 min Junji Watada . . Result: JEF United Ichihara stay up in the J1 division. Avispa Fukuoka and Consadole Sapporo move on to round 3. Promotion/Relegation 3rd Round 2 Dec Avispa Fukuoka 1 - 0 Consadole Sapporo 23 min Yusaku Ueno . . 5 Dec Avispa Fukuoka 3 - 0 Consadole Sapporo 53 min Yusaku Ueno 84 min Fernando 89 min Kiyotaka Ishimaru . . Result: Avispa Fukuoka remains in J1, Consadole Sapporo is relegated to J2

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