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International Week!

Japan Youth Cup (U-20) -- Mar 23 & 25

Since all four teams have qualified for the U-20 championships in Argentina, the Japan Youth Cup should provide an interesting look at some of the top youngsters from their respective countries. As the host, Japan may be viewed as one of the favourites, but they are likely to face a tough challenge. Japan will meet Chile and Ukraine will play Mexico on Friday March 23, at the brand-new Tokyo Stadium, in Chofu, Tokyo. The finals will be held on Sunday Mar 25, with the winners and losers of Friday's matches playing off to decide the tournament winner (as well as settling the third place team).

Among the players to watch for Japan will be Yokohama Marinos forward Yutaka Tahara and Consadole Sapporo's Yuto Sato, both of whom have had fairly productive outings for their respective clubs during the early stages of the season. In the midfield, the key question will be which (if any) of the several up-and-coming playmakers will establish himself as the field general. Yoshito Ohkubo, of Cerezo Osaka, showed a great deal of leadership on his high school club, which won the national championship, but he has yet to make a mark for the U-20 team. He is listed as a forward on the team roster, but this reflects the so-called "4-3-3" lineup that coach Nishimura employs, where one "forward" actually plays as the set-up man in the middle, a la Francesco Totti at AS Roma. Another potential candidate would be Takeshi Aoki, who came on as a substitute for Kashima Antlers last week and had his best showing yet.

Below is a lineup of the players selected to Japan's U-20 team for the tournament this weekend

Japan vs France -- Mar 25

Japan have also named their top squad. Although Phillippe Troussier relented and agreed not to select more than three members of Jubilo Iwata, who must play an Asian Club Championship match the same day, his alternative selections are at least as good as the players he passed on - specifically, forward Masashi Nakayama and midfielders Daisuke Oku and Toshiya Fujita. The key question regarding Japan's lineup is who will start in the middle. On recent form, one would expect Shinji Ono of the Urawa Reds to find himself in one of the two "forward midfielder" spots. However, it is still not clear whether the second player -- the one who generally acts as "field general" -- will be Roma's Hidetoshi Nakata or Yokohama Marinos star Shunsuke Nakamura

Though Nakata is clearly more well known, and has more experience facing members of the French National Team, he has been relagated to the bench at Roma, and has really not shown anything in real competition for almost a year. By contrast, Nakamura is not only gaining confidence following his excellent performance at the Asian Cup, in Lebanon; he also is vocally upset about the dearth of supporting talent at Yokohama this season, and is chomping at the bit for a chance to show what he can do when he has some decent players to pass the ball to.

A full lineup of the players taking part in the tour of France is provided below:

Asian Club Championship Quarterfinal Round

Despite being several players short, Jubilo got off to a strong start in the tournament by beating the Suwon Bluewings on Thursday by a score of 3-0. The score line was quite flattering, however, as Suwon poured on the pressure for much of the match, after Toshiya Fujita gave Jubilo an early lead with a nice move to shake his defender and a powerful shot past the Suwon keeper. However, the next sixty minutes of the match largely belonged to Suwon, who fought valiantly for the equaliser, but were denied time and again by some excellent play from keeper Arno Van Zwam. Jubilo scored its final two goals late, on counterattacks, as Suwon threw their entire back line into attack in a vain effort to equalise.

Meanwhile, Shandong defeated PSM Makassar 3-1 to set up what figures to be the key matchup of the tournament on Saturday, when they take on Jubilo. Updates on this match and all of the others taking place this weekend will be provided in next week's edition of the Rising Sun News.