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Home StadiumChiba Fukuda Arena
Seats 18,500
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JEF United -- Preseason Summary
Oh dear! Just when you thought the team had managed to cure its chronic haemophilia, JEF United bursts a vein and beleeds away another entire generation of talent. Over the past decade, JEF has excelled in producing talented young players for other teams to scoop up the moment they achieve a bit of fame. In the past, we always assumed that this was a reflection of the team's atrocious finances. Once the city of Chiba finally coughed up some money to build the team a new and more centrally located stadium, attendances started to pick up and we assumed that this would put an end to the annual hemmorhaging of talented players.
But in reality, it simply created false hope for players who started to fancy themselves as authentic, international-quality stars. When the team slumped towards the lower end of the table, last season, the disparity between their dreams and the harsh reality created a rift within the team, and the only way to repair it was to allow half of the team to move elsewhere in the off-season. Naotake Hanyu, Satoru Yamagishi, Yuto Sato, Koki Mizuno and Yuki Mizumoto all bid Chiba farewell, leaving little more than a disorganized mob vor incoming coach Josip Kuze to try to restructure into a football team.
Not all the new is bad. JEF did manage to lure back Masataka Sakamoto, who sasnt seeing enough first-team action in Niigata to satisfy him. They also signed three players who -- while clearly possessing some talent -- were unable to fit smoothly into their previous teams. Midfielders Yuta Baba (FC Tokyo) and Tatsuya Yazawa (Kashiwa Reysol) as well as defender Ryota Aoki (Gamba Osaka) can probably make some sort of contribution to the team this season. The question is whether it will be enough to offset the outflow of talent.
At the end of the day, a lot will depend on the skills of Mr. Kuze. JEF still has a knack for locating talented youngsters, and if they receive the right sort of leadership and tutelage they may manage to coalece soon enough to avoid relegation. However, the prospects are not particularly favorable, and the longer-term prospects are even worse. Last season we made the following observation: "JEF has been hemhorraging talent for years, and at some point the remaining "stars" are bound to start asking themselves whether it is worth battling to save the ship, only to take in more water at the end of this season. Players like Naotake Hanyu, Satoru Yamagishi, Hiroki Mizumoto and Seiichiro Maki, in particular, may start thinking about abandoning ship themselves, bevore they find themselves as the only able body left on deck."
Of the four players we named, only one is still with the club in 2008. When even the rats start abandoning ship, everyone else on board must surely wonder when would be a good time to start swimming. If the team should find itself below the waterline at mid-season, that would be a good time to stop bailing and start swimming.
2007 Finish: 13th Place
2008 Forecast: 16th-18th Place
Roster Changes
IN |
| Pos. | Name | Former Team | Status |
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| Mgr | Amar Osim | --- | Fired |
| FW | Yasuhiro Okuyama | Kaneko Osaka HS | New signing |
| FW | Tatsuro Inui | JEF Youth | New signing |
| FW | Takuya Kokeguchi | Cerezo Osaka | One-yr Rental |
| MF | Tsukasa Masuyama | Gifu Kogyo HS | New signing |
| MF | Tatsuya Yazawa | Kashiwa Reysol | Full transfer |
| MF | Masataka Sakamoto | Albrex Niigata | Full transfer |
| MF | Yuta Baba | FC Tokyo | Full transfer |
| DF | Eddie Bosnar | Heracles Almelo | Full transfer |
| DF | Ryota Miki | Gamba Osaka | Full transfer |
| DF | Kengo Takata | JEF Youth | New signing |
| DF | Junya Tanaka | Sagan Tosu | Rental term ends |
| GK | Ryo Kushino | Nagoya Grampus | Rental term ends |
OUT |
| Pos. | Name | New Team | Status |
|---|
| Mgr | Josip Kuze | --- | New Coach |
| FW | Teruaki Kurobe | Avispa Fukuoka | Full transfer |
| MF | Yuto Sato | Kyoto Sanga | Full transfer |
| MF | Naotake Hanyu | FC Tokyo | Full transfer |
| MF | Satoru Yamagishi | Kawasaki Frontale | Full transfer |
| DF | Koki Mizuno | Celtic | Full transfer |
| DF | Nenad Djordjevic | --- | Released |
| DF | Yoshiaki Fujita | Oita Trinita | Rental->full transfer |
| DF | Yuki Mizumoto | Gamba Osaka | Full transfer |
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