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J.League Suntory Championship
Another Crown for Kashima

. . . . but that is getting ahead of the story. Lets begin at the beginning.

1 - 0

As the match kicked off, both teams went straight to the tried-and-true strategies that they had implemented in the first leg, and which were fairly typical of their performance over the course of the season. Jubilo pressed hard at midfield, racing to the ball and harrassing the dribble, looking for a steal and a lightning-fast counterattack. Kashima, meanwhile, concentrated on crisp, short-range passing, moving the ball neatly from one side of the field to the other, looking for a gap in the defence. Over the first 15 minutes or so, Jubilo seemed to have the momentum, as their constant pressure produced quite a few dangerous counterattacks. But solid defending by Yutaka Akita and Fabiano at the back turned away most of the Jubilo thrusts, and keeper Jun Sogahata was equal to the few shots that Jubilo's experienced offensive unit -- Masashi "Gon" Nakayama, Daisuke Oku and Toshiya Fujita -- could create.

As the first half wore on, the momentum slowly began to shift. The Antlers were still having difficulty producing clear shots on goal, due to the furious pressure of Jubilo's hard checking. When the Antlers did create breaks, defensive midfielders Norihiro Nishi and Toshihiro Hattori were quick to resort to the "professional foul", and referee Leslie Mottram tolerated this strategy for most of the match. Unlike Mr. Okada in the first leg match, Mottram (much to his credit) seemed intent on handing out as few cards as possible, and letting the players decide the match, rather than the referee. All the same, the Jubilo strategy of pulling down Antlers players any time they seemed to be in danger of breaking free prevented either team from developing a smooth flow on offense. Though Jubilo's defense remained harder to crack than an X-files conspiracy case, it was apparent that their ferocious pressure on the ball was beginning to take its toll. When Jubilo did manage to win possession, they lacked the speed and numbers to produce much danger on the counterattack. Thus, the final 20 minutes of the first half deteriorated into a frenetic but rather unexciting struggle at midfield.

The match remained scoreless as the two teams went to the locker rooms for half time, but as Kashima came off the field, it was clear that their veteran midfield general, Bismarck, was literally on his last legs. He was barely able to limp off the pitch, and the announcers openly speculated during the intermission on who might take his place in the second half. While Bismarck's physical skills do not usually impress, and the casual viewer might not view him as "irreplaceable", it is hard to overestimate his value as a cohesive force. This is a player who has been involved in eight of the nine league championships since the J.League was founded. If anything else, there should be no doubt that Bismarck knows how to win. Yet as the second half kicked off, it was immediately apparent that the old warhorse was destined for the glue factory. After watching him hobble about for just a minute or two, Toninho Cerezo had youngster Masashi Motoyama off the bench, and the tearful Bismarck made his final exit in an Antlers uniform.

As soon as the nearly immobile Bismarck had been replaced by the dazzling dribbles and dashes of Motoyama, the character of the match changed permanently. For the next 15 minutes, the traffic was all heading in one direction -- towards the Jubilo goal mouth. Only frantic defensive efforts by Jubilo and some magnificent saves by Arno VanZwam staved off an Antlers goal. Though the team from Iwata did its best to counterattack when given the opportunity, the Antlers pressure reached a fever pitch. . . .and stayed there. Motoyama, ace striker Atsushi Yanagisawa and midfield set-up men Koji Nakata and Mitsuo Ogasawara kept the ball ricocheting around midfield like the Chinese national ping-pong team, while wing backs Augusto and Akira Narahashi blazed down the wings time and again for a dangerous cross. Despite the obvious quality of Jubilo's defending, the second half belonged entirely to the Antlers, and the only question was whether a rare counterattack might get Jubilo off the hook before the Antlers' fierce offensive pressure eventually forced them to succumb.

The Antlers seemed to have clinched victory twice in the final ten minutes. First, Motoyama split the defence with a perfect lead pass to Yanagisawa that gave him a wide-open shot at net, but with van Zwam charging off his line like a wild bull, Yanagisawa fired just over the bar. Then, after a sequence in which the Antlers sent the ball into the box five times, and each time collected the Jubilo clearance to send it back in again, a final Jubilo deflection dropped to Motoyama's feet right at the penalty spot, and he quickly pulled the trigger with a left-footed blast. Alas, the shot was straight at vanZwam, who smothered it, and thus carried his team through the 90 minutes of regulation time with the score still 0-0.

While the score line might have made it seem like anyone's match as the two teams went into golden goal extra time, the Antler herd was in full gallop, and it was clear that Jubilo's exhausted defenders were struggling to keep up with the stampede. Just two minutes in, Koji Nakata put Motoyama into the clear with a lead pass, and he had two forwards on the wings as he took off against the last two defenders. Only a foul from behind by Hattori broke up the goal rush on this occasion. Still, the Jubilo defence had been cracked, and it was about to shatter once and for all. Just three minutes later, Motoyama was once again sent into the clear, and as he approache the penalty box, Nishi dove in from behind with a brutal foul that might well have earned immediate dismissal. Even if he had wanted to, Mottram couldnt let this infraction pass, and he went to his shirt pocket . . . though only for a yellow.

As Fabiano and Narahashi gave Mottram an earful, pleading the case for a red card, Koji Nakata and Mitsuo Ogasawara took the ball and surveyed the situation. For all the pressure of the moment, the two youngsters stood over the ball and coolly talked strategy as if they were veteran Wall-Street vulture fund managers plotting a hostile takeover. Ogasawara, the baby-faced assassin, had taken every single free kick or corner kick of the entire match, but as the Jubilo wall formed just inside the penalty box, he stood just a half step away from the ball. Nakata, with a missle launcher in his left boot, backed off three steps and started lining up the shot. In goal, vanZwam was clearly having trouble deciding which of the two would take it. Would Nakata's rush at the ball be the real shot, or would he run past the ball and let Ogasawara follow with a right-footed chip shot??? Whatever the case, he focused in on Nakata, waiting for him to make his run for the ball.

. . . . .

The baby-faced assassin took half a step and pulled the trigger.

VanZwam was gunned down before he even knew the shot was coming.
All he, or any of the other Jubilo players could do, was watch the ball fly like a bullet into the top right corner of the net, , then hang his head as the Antlers pranced before their 40,000 cheering fans. Kashima Antlers are once again the J.League champions!

81st Annual Emperor's Cup Tournament

But this year, somebody forgot to tell all the minnows that they were supposed to roll over and play dead as soon as the J1 club showed up. This week saw some truly astonishing results, and even in cases where the J1 team emerged victorious, in all but a few cases they were severely tested by their opponent. To begin, let's have a quick look at the scores:
(Jubilo Iwata and Kashima Antlers, having just finished playing a match on Saturday, will play their matches on Wednesday evening)

Tokyo Verdy	2 - 0	Tokai University
FC Tokyo	0 - 1	Yokohama FC
Consadole Sapporo	2-3(ET)	Kawasaki Frontale
Gamba Osaka	5 - 0	Mito Hollyhock
Avispa Fukuoka	2-3(ET)	Albirex Niigata
Sanfrecce Hiroshima	1 - 0	Vegalta Sendai
Shimizu S-Pulse	2 - 0	Honda Giken
Nagoya Grampus	0 - 4	Sagawa Kyubin
Cerezo Osaka	3-2(ET)	Oita Trinita
Kashiwa Reysol	1 - 2	Sagan Tosu
Urawa Reds	2 - 0	Ventforet Kofu
Vissel Kobe	1 - 0	Montedio Yamagata
Yokohama Marinos	0 - 1	Kyoto Purple Sanga
JEF United	5 - 0	Otsuka Pharmaceutical
Jubilo Iwata	vs	Komazawa Univ.
Kashima Antlers	vs	Nara Sangyo U.

Of course, the biggest upset of the day had to be Sagawa Kyubin's shocker at Nagoya, where they scored two goals in each half to walk off 4-0 victors. The feisty little company team from the JFL won narrow victories over its first two opponents, and thus was not on anyone's radar screen as a potential giant-killer. But Grampus will surely remember the humiliation of this defeat for a long time to come. Sagawa Kyubin will face Cerezo Osaka next week. Considering the fact that Cerezo will be demoted at the end of the 2001 J.League season, and are in disaray at the moment, Sagawa Kyubin have at least an outside chance of advancing all the way to the 1/4 final!

In another match that was almost as huge an upset as the Sagawa Kyubin-Grampus contest, J1 club Kashiwa Reysol, viewed as a J.League title contender at the start of the 2001 season, fell by a 1-2 score line to J2 cellar-dwellers Sagan Tosu, who finished the season with a record of 10 wins, 4 draws and 30 losses in the second division! After failing miserably to improve on his team's performance in the second stage of the 2001 season, Steve Perryman is sure to face even more scrutiny for his inability to get his team up for the prestigeous year-end tournament. Sagan Tosu's outlook is a bit bleaker, however, as they will probably have to face the Kashima Antlers next week (assuming that the league champs are not too hung-over to defeat Nara Shogyo University on Wednesday night).

The third big upset of the day saw J2 laggards Yokohama FC overcome J1 contenders FC Tokyo, who finished high in the ranks of first-division clubs this season, but have a history of losing of J2 teams in the Emperor's Cup (last year they were knocked off by lowly Ventforet Kofu). There were three other "nominal" upsets, as J2 club Kawasaki Frontale defeated Consadole Sapporo in extra time, the recently-promoted Kyoto Purple Sanga downed Yokohama Marinos 1-0, and Albirex Niigata got a golden goal in extra time to defeat the recently-demoted Avispa Fukuoka.

But the shock of the week was almost delivered on Wednesday night, when Jubilo Iwata and Kashima Antlers played their make-up matches, having delayed their third-round ties from Sunday because they had played a championship match the night before. Kashima made short work of Nara Shogyo University, breezing to a 6-0 victory that was over almost before the second half started. Jubilo's match against Komazawa University was quite another matter.

The team from Iwata decided to rest several key players, but they would quickly regret the move, as Komazawa proved to be more than a match. The feisty university team swarmed all over the field from the opening whistle, and controlled most of the ball posession in the first half, outshooting the professional team 6-4 in the first 45 minutes. One would have expected Jubilo to come out with much more fire in the second half, but on the contrary, it was Komazawa that set the pace, and Jubilo were reduced to cynical fouls and delaying tactics to fend off the rush. But as one would expect from a university team Komazawa eventually made some defensive errors, and Jubilo capitalized to take a 2-0 lead after 55 minutes.

Then an amazing thing happened. Rather than rolling over and playing dead, Komazawa U. threw in several offensive substitutes and started ratcheting up the pressure. Jubilo, who had clearly wanted to call it a match after their second goal, were overwhelmed, and for the remainder of the half, Komazawa dominated play. A very nice header from Mikami and and finish by Fukai pulled Komazawa to within a goal. then, as the Jubilo bench shook their heads in disbelief, a scramble in front of the net in injury time gave Komazawa a second goal.

But that was as far as the fairy tale would go. Jubilo were bailed out by a very friendly referee, who called a PK early in the second extra time period, on a very borderline challenge by one of the University team's defenders at the edge of the penalty area. Fujita nailed the freebie to carry Jubilo through to the next round. However, Komazawa U. can certainly take pride in their performance, as apart from their few defensive lapses, they played a professional club even or better for 105 minutes.

For a full matrix of the tournament, including the results of matches held thus far, Click here.

Rumours and Rumblings

Where Theres a Will . . . .

As the Coaching World Turns

J.League chairman and marriage counselor extraordinaire, Saburo Kawabuchi, stepped in and made the following, very insightful comment. "Negotiations between teams and coaches, as in the case of players, should be conducted under certain standards of respectful behaviour". The league upheld JEF's complaint that the behaviour of Grampus and Verdenik had been "ungentlemanly". Since Nagoya had stolen Verdenik away from JEF while the season was still in progress (the season does not officially end until the last Emperor's Cup match, on January 1), Nagoya will be forced to apologize and pay a nominal fine. All teams have been advised to avoid such "moral problems" in the future.

The biggest plot twist in our drama this week, however, is the signing of Hans Ooft, to serve as coach of Urawa Reds. The Dutchman, who has coached both the Japanese national team (in 1992-93) and Jubilo Iwata (in 1994-95), signed a one-year contract with Urawa on December 11. Given Ooft's success with both the national team and Jubilo, he is very well regarded in Japan. For his part, the Dutchman has shown interest in returning to Japan for quite some time, and even reached an informal agreement to take over the reins of Omiya Ardija, though this was contingent on Ardija gaining promotion to the J1 division.

Urawa is in the midst of a severe shake-up which has already seen the long-time team general manager, Kenzo Yokoyama (another former national team boss) replaced by Kyosuke Mori and caretaker coach Pita released after the last regular-season match. Urawa have signed a raft of talented university players, and have a big war chest to use in the hunt for additional players. It will be very interesting to see what moves Ooft makes, once he has a chance to consult with the new Urawa brain trust.

One more coaching position was filled this week, as Sanfrecce Hiroshima announced that former Russian Olympic soccer coach Gadji Gadjiev will take over from Valery Nepomniachtchi, who left the team at the end of the 2001 season.

Fujita Fields MVP Honors .

Yanagisawa Puts Perugia on Hold .