Team Data: Shimizu S-Pulse
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 | Pal-kun
Dont even ask. I dont think anyone has the slightest idea what it is supposed to be. The character hints at the team's main corporate sponsor, Japan Airlines, based on the wings where its ears are supposed to be, but that is about the best hint we can come up with. Somewhere around 1998, the founder of the Rising Sun News began using the term "Winghead" when describing the mascot and "Wingheads" to refer to S-Pulse fans. Somehow this moniker seems to have caught on in the mainstream English-language press (Those Copycats!). Although the mascot's official name is "PAL" (another not-so-vauge reference to "JAL"), Rising Sun News readers can just call him "Mr Winghead".
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During their first decade in existence, Shimizu S-Pulse were described as the "perpetual bridesmaid" of the J.League. The team finished as runners-up in a host of championships, but tasted only fleetingly of victory. Indeed, S-Pulse's greatest accomplishment to date has been its victory in the 1999 Asian Cup-Winner's Cup -- a title they won despite the fact that at the time, they had never actually won a domestic competition (Shimizu qualified for Asian competition in 1999 when the actual cup winners, Yokohama Flugels, were disbanded). Interestingly enough, they qualified for Asian competition again in 2001 by finishing second in the Emperor's Cup to Kashima Antlers, who had too busy a schedule to try to compete for both the Asian club championships and the CWC.
Being second best was surely an annoyance to the thousands of loyal S-Pulse supporters, since Shimizu, and Shizuoka prefecture in general, can make a strong claim to being the heartland of football in Japan. Shimizu-area high schools have dominated the sport at the youth level for decades, and have produced a large share of the top talent in the J.League. In fact, at the annual alumni match of Shimizu Shogyo High School, the school can frequently field two entire teams of alumni made up entirely of J.League players.
Unlike most of the other founding members of the J.League, S-Pulse does not have a long history as a corporate club team. S-Pulse was founded in 1989, when the J.League idea was first mooted, so that the area could prepare to host one of the teams in the new league. The team name supposedly refers to the "Pulse of Shizuoka Prefecture", and the name is certainly fitting. Shizuoka has been a vibrant source of support for football even before the J.League was founded, and is home to some of the top high school teams in the country.
S-Pulse has been led by a number of well-known coaches, from Emerson Leao to Ossie Ardilles and Steve Perryman. Many national team members have been drawn from the team's ranks, including midfielders Teruyoshi Ito and Masasaki Sawanobori, and defenders Toshihide Saito and Ryuzo Morioka. The team has finished second in the league three times, and second in the Emperor's Cup three times; however, despite the abundance of talent S-Pulse has only won a J.League stage one time, in 1999, and they subsequently fell to their cross-town rivals Jubilo Iwata in the league championship series.
The "Wingheads" (so named as a result of their very odd-looking mascot, who has "wings" where his ears should be) finally managed to cast off their "bridesmaid" label in 2001, bringing home the Emperor's Cup trophy at the end of that season thanks to strong contributions from veteran midfielder Sawanobori, defender Morioka, "attack-dog" volante Kazuyuki Toda and naturalized Japanese-Brazilian Alessandro Santos. However, this success would be short-lived.
In 2002, S-Pulse started the season as one of the favourites to finish high in the league table, or perhaps even win a league championship at long last. This status certainly appeared justified, as almost the entire team was made up of current or former national team members. But as happens so often with star-studded groupings, S-Pulse turned out to be another "Blind Faith" -- or at best, a football version of "Power Station". There seemed to be too many large egos to fit onto a single football field. Following the World Cup, the team's messy internal disputes spilled out into the press, with Morioka, Toda and Santos all throwing public tantrums when coach Zemunovic benched them. The disputes ultimately cost Zemunovic his job, though the players were probably more to blame than the coach for the disarray that marked the team. The acquisition of Korean star Ahn Jung-Hwan simply made matters worse, and the team finished the season in a discouraging eighth place.
By 2003, the clash of egos had reached a crisis point, and in addition to their atrocious results on the pitch, most of the top players were asking to be traded, or trying to attract offers from overseas clubs. The team lost Kazuyuki Toda to the Premier League, and even after he failed to make it in England, he repeatedly refused offers to return -- eventually settling for a rental deal ad denHaag, in the Netherlands. Alex Santos, who had repeatedly requested a trade, was the next out the door. At the end of 2003 he laid down an ultimatum, demanding to be traded to another team (he eventually ended up at Urawa Reds). Ahn Jung-Hwan was close behind, arranging a move to the Yokohama Marinos. The team seemed to be on the verge of utter collapse, and possible relegation.
Perhaps the only thing that saved S-Pulse from relegation was the magnificent coaching the team received in two crucial seasons -- 2004 and 2005 -- from two very different individuals. In 2004, when the team was in complete disarray, Brazilian legend Antoninho Angelli came in to try to salvage the team. Taking over a group of young, relatively unheralded players, along with the collection of remaining veterans who still had some "ego problems", Antoninho managed keep the foundering ship afloat, and eventually steered them to a mid-table finish. Unfortunately, the effort was all that the aging coach could handle, and at the end of the season he stepped down. The good efforts that Antoninho made in bringing the team back together as a coherent unit was not wasted, however. The Wingheads may not have been the team that they were in the late 1990s, and the few former national team players who remained were nearing the end of their careers. But at least their team spirit and effectiveness as a unit had been restored.
At the start of 2005, the coaching reins were handed to Kenta Hasegawa -- a local boy who played at Shimizu Shogyo High School, as well as for S-Pulse (until 1999). Despite the fine local pedigree, Hasegawa had virtually no prior coaching experience, and took over as head coach, most pundits thought that the hard work of Antoninho would be undone and S-Pulse would plunge back to the bottom of the table. But what Hasegawa may have lacked in experience he more than made up for with personal charm and an impressive ability to choose personnel. As assistant coach, he chose Brazilian Carlos dos Santos, one of the finest gentlemen the league has ever known, who has been playing in Japan since before the J.League existed, and continued to play professionally until he was 43! Between the two of them, these former S-Pulse players restored the team's sense of pride and brought the players together into an effective and harmonious unit for the first time since the late 90s. An influx of new blood from the youth ranks also helped get the Wingheads back into level flight, and by 2006 it was clear that S-Pulse were back as a competitive J1 team.
By this time, the top stars from the team's first decade had reached their twilight years, and it was necessary for S-Pulse to begin pushing them out the door and rebuilding the team on a younger base. Once again, Hasegawa's personal charm and keen judge of talent helped the team negotiate this tricky step without too much commotion. A new core had already been established with players like Jungo Fujimoto, Akihiro Hyodo, Naoaki Aoyama, Shinji Okazaki and Takuma Edamura assuming central roles as the leaders of the new S-Pulse, and with Hasegawa cleverly massaging the squad, Shimizu is once again a true competitor, finishing in fourth place in both 2006 and 2007, and fifth in 2008.
However, the perpetual bridesmaids still have not managed to take the final step up from "challengers" to "champions". With one of the youngest average ages in the league, and a hatful of potential future NT candidates, the Wingheads definitely have the raw material required to build a championship team. A lot will depend on how much more progress the aforementioned youngsters make as they continue to mature, and whether coach Hasegawa can create a team chemistry that is more potent than the underperforming squads of old.
After so many years of watching S-Pulse fall short despite a wealth of talent, the mainstream press seems to have overlooked the resurgent team over the past year or two. While you hear a lot of talk about how greater parity in the league is likely to make for a close race in 2009, hardly anyone mentions S-Pulse in their list of teams which could claim the league trophy. That seems to be an unjustified slight, in our eyes. Although we think the Wingheads are still dark horses, strong performances by some of the key young players could carry the team to their first league title, or at least a berth in the ACL and a chance to revisit their Asian glory.
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