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June 20, 2004

The Grande Finale

As curses go, this is one that we have already come to regret. Despite a strong feeling that Jubilo were not deserving of a title given the number of calls that went in their favour, earlier in the season, The Rising Sun News hates to see a title determined in such an unfair and unpleasant way. If anyone from the League happens to read this, we offer one final plea: For God's Sake, get rid of these incompetent boobs who bring the league into ill repute week in and week out! If Mr. Yoshida wants to officiate my nephew's U-12 matches. he will be welcome, but he has no business on a J.League pitch, for any reason whatsoever. The farce that was the First Stage cannot be resolved now. But it certainly should send a message that it is long past time to clean up the mess that now exists in the ranks of J.League referees. When outrageously incompetent officiating determines the winners and losers, fans will eventually tune the game out, and that will be bad for everyone concerned..

Here are the scores of this weekend's matches:

Date	Home	.	Visitor	Venue
26 Jun		2-1		Saitama Stadium
26 Jun		1-1		Ichihara Seaside
26 Jun		3-1		Ajinomoto Stadium
26 Jun		1-0		Yokohama Int'l
26 Jun		1-4		Niigata "Big Swan"
26 Jun		4-2		Yamaha (Iwata) St.
26 Jun		2-2		Mizuho Stadium
26 Jun		1-5		Nagai Stadium

1 - 0

The two teams put on what might otherwise have been a very entertaining, high-stakes battle if not for the fact that Mr. Sunakawa reduced the Antlers to ten men just moments after half time on the SECOND of two yellow cards that may go down in the Rising Sun News hall of fame as the biggest "fray of the day" blunders ever. As we will show, once we can process the video, the ref gave Masashi Motoyama his first yellow card on a play in which he did not even TOUCH an opposing player. I wish that were an exaggeration, but unfortunately, it is not, as the pictures will clearly show. Dutra , who had just stolen the ball from Motoyama deep in his own end and was starting upfield, either tripped on his own heel, or caught his cleats in the turf, or prehaps most likely, turned his ankle as he tried to turn too quickly, and fell to the turf. But Motoyama was two steps away, and could not havefoulded Dutra even if he TRIED.

The first half ended without a score, as both teams demonstrated the excellent tenacity of their defences, producing occasional scoring chances but always finding one too many opposing players in the path, preventing them from getting off a serious shot.

Just moments after the restart, Motoyama put on a beautiful individual run, getting two defenders to turn the wrong way as he rolled the ball into the box, and then running onto his own pass. The keeper was rushing out in a desperate attempt to clear, but Motoyama clearly, yes . . . CLEARLY (and I have the pictures to prove it) got to the ball first, tipping it on as the keeper crashed into his back. A good official would probably have just blown the play dead and awarded a goal kick (the ball rolled out of play on Motoyama's last touch), since both Motoyama and the keeper Tatsuya Enomoto were going for the ball. However, the video evidence shows that if either team had a claim, it was the Antlers, who could argue that since Enomoto hit Motoyama, and did not even touch the ball, a PK should have been awarded.

Reduced to ten men, the Antlers still put up a good struggle, but not good enough to keep Yokohama off the scoreboard. Ahn Jung-Hwan eventually got the one goal that Yokohama needed, after being fed a nice lateral pass by Daisuke Oku, to the top left corner of the box. Ahn settled the ball once, then fired across the face of goal, catching the far post and tallying the only score in the match.

In the post-match interview, even Coach Okada seemed to allude to the bad calls. After graciously accepting the interviewer's congratulations the first two times, he responded to a third comment asking if Okada felt that the Marinos were establishing a dynasty -- after all, they have won the last three consecutive stages. Okada replied "well, that may be true. But today we just barely won, and if Kashima had all of their players (for the entire match), even that was not a sure thing. . .

Indeed it wasnt. At the end of the day, the Marinos probably deserve this title more than Jubilo, who benefitted plenty of times themselves from bad officiating. But it is sad to see the season end on such a sour note. Time to send Mr. Sunakawa back to J2 (at the very least). It might not fix the damage caused by his many bad calls over the past year, but at least it wold indicate that the League is starting to get the message!

4 - 2

Nevertheless, Sanfrecce did put up a struggle. Shortly after the match kicked off, Kota Hattori pushed up the left side on a counterattack and fired a long pass for the far post. Yuji Komano dashed in from the right side, catching up to the pass a half-step before the keeper and firing a blast into the roof of the net. This positive start gave Sanfrecce a boost of adrenaline, while Jubilo seemed a bit taken aback, and it was not until the latter stages of the first half that they finally began putting together some smooth attacks. But eventually their pressure wore Sanfrecce down, and Norihiro Nishi took advantage of a lapse in defending to slip arpund the right corner and crtoss in for a Rodrigo Gral header which knotted the score at half time.

Jubilo took over the match in the second half, starting their run on a power-play free kick, sending eight men forward into the Sanfrecce box as Toshiya Fujita took the kick from 35 meters out, on the right side. Fujita's ball found Takashi Fukunishi at the far popst, and though Fukunishi's angle was too narrow to put a shot on net, he volleyed the ball back across the face of goal, where defender Hideto Suzuki stabbed it home. Shortly thereafter Ryoichi Maeda made an individual surge into the box and hooked a shot just beyond the keeper's grasp, into the right corner.

Sanfrecce did not give up immediately, managing to pull a goal back on a free kick by Koji Morisaki, a few minutes later. But Jubilo had the match fairly well in hand, and when they added a fourth goal following a quick exchange between Maeda and Gral, on a counterattacking break, the contest was effectively over. Sanfrecce looked the more dangerous down the stretch though Jubio, with a two-goal cushion, were more interested in defending the result and waiting for the news from Yokohama Stadium than in looking for any more goals.

And so, the first stage has come to a rather inglorious end. Certainly, there were some entertaining matches over the first half of the year, and the race for the crown turned out to me more exciting and competitive than it seemed like it might. However, far too many of the results, this season, have been determined by someone OTHER than the players on the pitch. This has left far too many people feeling disgruntled, and spoiled the entertainment value of the championship race altogether. Unless fans feel that their teams can win a title or lose it on the strength of their OWN performances (and those of their opponents), it is hard to see how they can fail to lose interest. NAturally, the League office cannot just wave a magic wand and ensure that there will be no disputed calls in the second stage. But they CAN take action to get rid of those refs who have been missing calls repeatedly and habitually, particularly calls that determine the outcome of matches.

It is also very much in the League's interest to encourage broadcasters to show the replays of missed calls, and explain them to the fans. While this may cause a few referees to "lose face", that is a much better result than to leave the fans feeling like nobody cares, and nothing is being done to correct the situation. Sometimes, a careful analysis of a replay can show vieweres that the referee was correct. Other times, it may help fans understand why the ref may have missed the call (for example, his vision might have been obstructed, or one of the players put on a convincing "acting performance). Even in cases where the replay simply shows how incompetent the ref truly is, at least discussing this fact will allow fans to feel like their concerns are considered, and that the League is trying to address such problems. Simply ignoring the event and pretending it didnt happen will only intensify the sense of annoyance that fans feel when their team is beaten not by the opponent, but by a bad officiating call.

On this note, we wish to congratulate NHK, and in particular, announcer Masami Ihara -- a former national team defender -- for not only showing the replay of Motoyama's second yellow card, in the Marinos - Antlers match, but actually having the courage to state in no uncertain terms, "that should NOT have been a yellow card" Well done, Mr, Ihara! We hope that other announcers will have the courage to follow your good example.

Below are the final standings for the J.League first stage:

Rumours and Rumblings

To Dream the Impossible Dream!

The secret can be discovered only by travelling deep into the heart of the mountains, west of Tokyo, to a small, quiet and rather idyllic valley at the foot of Japan's holy mountain -- Mt. Fuji. If you ask around at the local pubs, or make inquiries of passerbys on the street, they are likely to give you an odd stare -- a mixture of forebodeing, anticipation and repressed excitement -- but their response is almost certain to be the same, regardless of who you ask:

Ventforet Kofu? In J1? Dont be silly! Nobody around here is even THINKING about such a thing! It will never happen, never in a million years. Why would you even say such a thing?

LIES. Naturally.
And you can see from the nervous twinkle in their eyes, as they turn quickly and scurry away that they know in their hearts that they ARE lying. But this is to be expected. Nobody dares admit, even to themselves, how greatly they cherish the dream of J1 promotion, and the still-unnoticed secret of their local team's performance this season. Yet there is no question that the whole of Yamanashi prefecture hangs on the results of every match that the local boys play, afraid to admit how deeply they care, and superficially certain that the team's current run of success is sure to end. Yet deep in their hearts, everyone in Yamanashi these days is a Ventforet fan. And to be a fan of Ventforet is to dream the impossible dream.

Ventforet Kofu is surely the king of all underdogs, at least in the J.League. Though football in Yamanashi prefecture may have a long and reasonably high-profile history, when it comes to the local J.League team, you couldnt ask for a less likely contender. The hurdles that the team faces begin with its local base. Yamanashi prefecture is the second-smallest prefecture in all of Japan, in terms of population. In fact, the entire populace of Kofu city (the team's official "home area") -- men, women and children . . . from grandparents to infants . . . every last one of them -- could file into Yokohama International Stadium, sit down, and still have some empty seats left over!

Of course, since Yamanashi is a quiet rural area with not a lot to do other than pick peaches, chase gophers, and watch the grapes get ripe, Ventforet draws fans from throughout the prefecture, and even from the towns of Southern Nagano. Some of the team's largest home attendances are registered when it plays at Matsumoto's "Arwin Stadium", about 75 minutes up the Koshin-etsu expressway in Nagano Prefecture. However, even if we consider this factor, Ventforet still has a smaller potential local fan base -- by far -- than any other J.League team.

Naturally this has associated impacts on all other elements ofthe team. There are fewer players than on any other J.League roster, and apart from one or two stars, most are relatively unknown blue-collar grunts who make the league's minimum wage, and have little hope of advancing to a "better" team. On the rare occasions that a good young player DOES develop, Shimizu S-Pulse (which offers Ventforet some financial and organizational support in return for a first-call claim on any promising youngster) quickly snatches them away for their own club.

For these reasons, it was no surprise to locals when Ventforet finished dead last in each of its first three seasons in the J2. Its record of futility over this period was an amazing 18 wins, 9 draws and 94 losses! (net goal difference of -166). But in 2002, with the team on the brink of collapse, Ventforet went to the local citizens and literally begged to be given a second chance. If the people of Kofu would just take the team into their hearts, they promised, Ventforet would never let them down. They might still be frequent losers, but they would adopt a never-say-die attitude, and win or lose, would never produce a dull, half-assed performance.

True to their word, Ventforet Kofu did continue to lose a lot of matches in 2002. But they showed a fire and a determination that had not been evident during their first three seasons in the league, and they managed to finish seventh out of twelve teams. In 2003, the performance improved further as veteran coach Hideki Matsunaga (formerly of Gamba Osaka and Verdy Kawasaki) took over the reins. At one point, the team climbed to third place, and though they faded in the final stretch, their fifth place finish won the hearts of the locals, and even began to attract reasonably large crowds.

This year, the team has been granted a golden opportunity, since expansion of the J1 will allow as many as three teams to advance from the J2 (the third-placed team through a promotion-relegation series against the last-placed J1 team). At the start of this season, Coach Matsunaga told his players that this might very well be the greatest opportunity of their entire lifetime (and for most of the players, that is quite literally true). It might seem like an impossible dream, but with a great deal of determination and a refusal to ever give up, there was a chance -- a slim one, but nevertheless a chance

Words cannot do complete justice to the team's efforts thus far, this year, as every single member of the team has contributed with their strongest performance ever. From Marcelo "Baron" Polanczyk, who has recovered his deadly scoring touch to Takafumi Ogura, who has gritted his teeth and played through severe and recurring knee injuries, to inspired and inspiring local boys like Hiroyuki Dobashi, Katsuya Ishihara and Kenji Nakada, every single one has performed above and beyond the call of duty.

In late May, though Ventforet continued to hang in the top 3-5 spots on the league table, it looked like the team's hopes were finally running headlong into reality, after injuries to both Ogura and midfield playmaker Ken Fujita sidelined the two most important set-up men. But somehow Ventforet managed to struggle on, lingering in a group of about seven teams that are fighting for the second and third spots (which will qualify someone for at least a chance at promotion). Over the past week, residents of Yamanashi could not only feel the sense of rising local support, in the air, but also see the team's youngsters begin to believe in themselves. As Ogura hobbled around the sidelines with heavily taped knees, urging his teammates on and battling to make a contribution over the final few minutes of each match, Ventforet suddenly seemed to hit their stride.

On June 19, a large and unusually enthusiastic crowd watche the team fight back from a goal down to overcome Consadole Sapporo, and the emotional boost seemed to take the team to an even higher level. Four days later they demolished Yokohama FC 6-1, and last Saturday, they surprised Kyoto Purple Sanga with a stunning 2-0 away win, moving firmly into third place, and just one point back of second-place Avispa Fukuoka.

With just half the season complete, there is still plenty of time for Ventforet to run out of gas. Even now, it still seems like an impossible dream, but suddenly, the possibility of such an outcome has finally woken up the J.League bosses . . . .

. . . because, you see, under the current rules, if Ventforet DO win promotion, they may be prevented from joining the J1 anyway. J.League rules on the size of home stadiums sets the lower limit at 14,000 -- a number chosen specifically to allow JEF United Ichihara"s home stadium to qualify. But Kose stadium seats only 13,000, and thus would not be approved as an official home stadium.

Local political officials are also suddenly waking up to the possibility that their failure to act could prevent the local team from gaining J1 glory. Although nothing is certain, the Governor of Yamanashi has clearly been hearing quite a bit about this dilemma, in recent days. This weekend he went so far as to offer his personal assurance that "in one way or another", the prefecture would ensure that the lack of a proper-sized stadium would not prevent Ventforet from achieving promotion. While this is hardly the sort of specifics that League officials will be looking for, there are some possible ways to "finesse" the issue. The easiest solution, of course, would be to convince the League to waive the rule temporarily, while the local government either expanded Kose stadium or built a new facility. But even if this is rejected, there are other possibilities. For example, Ventforet could declare that Matsumoto Stadium is their new "Home Stadium", play four or five home matches there, and play the rest at Kose, while construction work to build a new stadium is in progress. (many J.League teams play a match or two, each year, at smaller stadiums in areas that do not have a J.League team of their own, so this is clearly not "forbidden" under League rules).

For the time being, Ventforet fans will no doubt be content to focus on the current season, and the cherished hopes of their impossible dream. But like many dreams, the real challenge may come not in "reaching the unreachable star", but in dealing with the day after.