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August 25, 2002
Stars Shine in Saitama

As we noted last week, the voting system creates some odditites, in that fan balloting is the basis for selecting eleven of the 17 team members. As a result, some players who really do not deserve to be selected among the 17 best players in the league are included in the squads due to fan popularity or past reputation. Nevertheless, the squads that took the pitch at the start of the match were quite interesting. By a remarkable coincidence, the back lines of East and West set three members of Japan's 1998 national team against four members of Japan's 2002 national team. In the East, Masami Ihara and Norio Omura started in central defence, flanked by Eisuke Nakanishi and Takayuki Chano. Oppisite them were Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Naoki Matsuda, Daisuke Ichikawa and Kazuyuki Toda. Although the younger players from the West pushed forward into attack far more than the aging stars from the East, who hung back in defence for the entire match, it was the veterans who acquitted themselves better (though it must be said that they got some magnificent support from young Kashima Antlers keeper Hitoshi Sogahata).

The East got the match off to a quick start on a very pretty combination play between Consadole Sapporo striker Takafumi Ogura and Kashima Antlers' Atsushi Yanagisawa. Ogura collected a pass from midfield and turned around his defender, giving him an open view of the field. Yanagisawa saw the opportunity, and made a sharp cut into the box, running onto a perfect lead pass from Ogura. As Yanagisawa cut his shot back against the grain to beat the keeper, Seigo Narazaki made a brilliant diving stab to parry the shot, but he had no chance to actually collect the ball. As it rolled lazily away from him, towards the far post, Ogura swooped in to slam home the rebound.

That was one of the few offensive opportunities that the East would have in the first half. After they scored their opening goal, the East was pushed back into a completely defensive posture and had to content themselves with keeping the West from getting off any truly dangerous shots. Although there were times that the West had as many as nine players in attack, they were unable to create enough space to get free in the penalty area, and the shots that they took from long range were all handled by the so-called "ball magnet", Hitoshi Sogahata. Thus, although the West outshot the East by about 12 to 2 in the first half, the East maintained their one-goal lead. The closest that the West came were two balls onto the wookwork, one a long-range shot from defender Miyamoto, and the other an header by Masashi "Gon" Nakayama on a cross from Daisuke Ichikawa, which came off the left post, and was collected by Sogahata as it bounded back across the face of goal. In the second half, the East shuffled its lineup, pulling some of the midfield players who were on the team primarily for reasons of personal popularity and replacing them with the world-class strike team of Emerson and Edmundo. This instantaneously transformed the momentum of the match, and although the West would get some scoring opportunities in the second half, it was the East that had most of the ball and a majority of the shots. The East concentrated on pushing the ball forward on the wing and then finding Edmundo at midfield, just outside the box. He then attempted to create scoring opportunities for Emerson and Yanagisawa. Midway through the period, after a good push that was cleared at the last minute by the West defence, midfielder Toru Araiba in a thoughtless moment played a back pass towards Miyamoto, at the edge of his own box. With the speedy Emerson in the vicinity, this sort of play is suicidal, and the Reds ace did not let the opponents off the hook on this occasion. Racing in from behind, Emerson stripped Miyamoto of the ball, and spun towards goal. As Narazaki raced out of his net, Emerson used a short flick and a soaring leap over the keeper to put himself into the clear, and all he nad to do was tap the ball home to give the East a 2 goal lead.

Towards the end of the match, Sogahata's place in the East net was taken by Yoichi Doi, and though he made some fine plays over the ninal 20 minutes, it is testimony to Sogahata's magical ability to attract the ball that the West scored their only goal of the match soon after he was replaced. The West won a series of corner kicks over a period of about a minute, and on the third one, veteran Kazu Miura got a head on the ball and slammed it into the net, to cut the East lead to 2-1.

But down the stretch, it was the East which put on most of the pressure, with Emerson coming close on two occasions late in the match. This performance was sufficient to win the young Brazilian selection as "Man of the Match", earning him 1 million yen and a brand new Peugeot.

Here are the rosters for both teams.

J-West
Pos.	Name	Team	Votes
GK	Seigo Narazaki	Nagoya Grampus	98,063
DF	Tsuneyasu Miyamoto	Gamba Osaka	161,803
DF	Naoki Mastsuda	Yokohama F Marinos	95,635
DF	Daisuke Ichikawa	Shimizu S Pulse	89,240
MF	Hiroshi Nanami	Jublio Iwata	92,817
MF	Kazuyuki Toda	Shimizu S Pulse	91,479
MF	Shigeyoshi Mochizuki	Vissel Kobe	89,085
FW	Tatsuhiko Kubo	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	134,125
FW	Masashi Nakayama	Jublio Iwata	126,705
FW	Naohiro Takahara	Jublio Iwata	125,181
FW	Kazuyoshi Miura	Vissel Kobe	123,978
GK	Ryota Tsuzuki	Gamba Osaka	Coach selection
DF	Yasuhiro Hato	Yokohama F Marinos	Coach selection
MF	Park Ji Sung	Kyoto Purple Sanga	Coach selection
MF	Toru Araiba	Gamba Osaka	Coach selection
FW	Teruaki Kurobe	Kyoto Purple Sanga	Coach selection

J-East
Pos.	Name	Team	Votes
GK	Hitoshi Sogahata	Kashima Antlers	92,316
DF	Eisuke Nakanishi	JEF United	158,049
DF	Masami Ihara	Urawa Reds	155,211
DF	Norio Omura	Vegalta Sendai	142,713
DF	Takayuki Chano	JEF United	135,954
MF	Koji Nakata	Kashima Antlers	159,007
MF	Harutaka Ono	Vegalta Sendai	121,668
FW	Atsushi Yanagisawa	Kashima Antlers	121,434
FW	Takafumi Ogura	Consadole Sapporo	116,317
FW	Yoshiteru Yamashita	Vegalta Sendai	86,736
GK	Yoichi Doi	FC Tokyo	Coach selection
DF	Keisuke Tsuboi	Urawa Reds	Coach selection
MF	Tomokazu Myojin	Kashiwa Reysol	Coach selection
FW	Edmundo	Tokyo Verdy	Coach selection
FW	Emerson	Urawa Reds	Coach selection

J2 Race is Heating Up

On Sunday, Oita continued a slump that has seen them drop 12 points to Albirex Niigata since the World Cup break. This week they lost at home, by a score of 0-1, to lowly Montedio Yamagata. This will surely have the coaching staff scrambling to figure out what has gone wrong with the team. Considering how unbeatable Oita looked before the World Cup break, this is a bit startling, but Oita has a history of blowing leads. In two of the past three years, Trinita have failed to win promotion in the final week of the season.

The biggest beneficiary of Oita's slump is Albirex, who moved out to a two-point lead at the top of the league table based on their 2-1 victory over Yokohama FC. Not far behind is Cerezo Osaka, who could manage only a draw in their away match with Sagan Tosu, but nevertheless gained a point on Oita. Kawasaki Frontale are trailing the other three teams by two or three wins, but the team has been on a hot streak since the World Cup and have made up a lot of ground .Therefore it is far too soon to take them out of the picture. Here is how the J2 league table looked after Sunday's matches:

.	Team	Pts	GP	W	D	L	GDif	GF	GA
1	Albirex Niigata	57	27	17	6	4	+22	47	25
2	Oita Trinita	55	27	16	7	4	+19	38	19
3	Cerezo Osaka	53	27	15	8	4	+22	55	33
4	Kawasaki Frontale	46	27	13	7	7	+5	41	36
5	Omiya Ardija	37	27	9	10	8	+9	32	23
6	Shonan Bellmare	37	27	9	10	8	-1	29	30
7	Avispa Fukuoka	32	27	8	8	11	+2	34	32
8	Ventforet Kofu	31	27	8	7	12	-11	27	38
9	Mito Hollyhock	25	27	7	4	16	-13	30	43
10	Sagan Tosu	25	27	5	10	12	-14	24	38
11	Montedio Yamagata	24	27	5	9	13	-15	20	35
12	Yokohama FC	18	27	4	6	17	-25	24	49

J.League Second Stage Forecasts

As we look ahead to the start of second-stage action, the Rising Sun News has provided an analysis of each J1 team, and a forecast of where we think they will finish during the second-stage. To read our analysis and forecasts for each team, click on one of the team icons below.

Rumours and Rumblings

Overzealous Officials Receive Red Card

But Fisker and Baptista attracted a great deal of attention for a less-than-encouraging reason. In just eight matches, Mr. Fisker handed out a total of 33 cards, including five red cards, and awarded a stunning 11 penalty kicks. Baptista set a far more punitive pace than Fisker, handing out 39 cards in just seven matches including five reds, but he pointed to the penalty spot "just" six times.

The Rising Sun News has been quite outspoken in our criticism of these two gentlemen. Although many have claimed, in their defence, that the reason why Mssrs Fisker and Baptista issued so many cards was that the standard of play in Japan deserves such treatment. That there is too much fouling and diving. Supporters have said that it is the Japanese refs, as well as the players, who need to change their ways, and not vice versa.

This would be a convincing argument if not for the inconvenient details of the two referees' performances. As a caveat, it must be said that the J.League does indeed suffer from quite a bit of diving and gamesmanship, and that Japanese referees would do well to penalise succ behaviour. The problem is that the measure of a referee is not whether he is strict or lenient, but whether he is consistent. If every dive was equally punished with a card, and every foul in the box penalized with a spot kick, Fisker and Batistuta would have earned reputations as harsh refs, but probably would still be working in Japan. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Both men frequently awarded PKs to players who went down in response to accidental and inconsequential contact in the box. But they also flashed yellow, and in one case even a red card, to players who went to ground in very similar situations. Moreover, their standards for awarding yellow cards for hard contact were never consistent over the course of a match. Brutal fouls were ignored, while minor infractions were carded, often within the space of just a few minutes.

But the worst fault of all in their refereeing performances -- and this is something that surely every professional ref must surely be aware of -- is that they seemed to intentionally seek the limelight, making flamboyant calls which could clearly decide the outcome of a match, for one team or the other. It has been said many times that the best referees are those who you never notice. Mssrs Fisker and Batistuta both visibly enjoyed the spotlight, and seemed to go out of their way to make calls that would create a scoring opportunity or a man advantage for one team or the other. And worse yet, they often got these calls wrong. A good referee is always wary of making a call that will decide the outcome of a match, unless they are absolutely certain that the call is a correct one. When in doubt, wave play on.

The League gave no official reason for deciding not to renew the invitation to these two gentlemen, but there seems little doubt that harsh criticism from coaches and team management played a part. Hopefully the next overseas officials who are invited to serve at J.League matches will be a bit less "famous", and a bit more effective.

Film clips courtesy of Internet Soccer Program J-Ole. Visit their web site at http://www.j-ole.com/ for results and highlights of all J.League matches.

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