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September 12, 2004

Back to Abnormal

If you happen to be one of those who nodded off and missed the first three weeks of the season, you have a great deal of catching up to do. Because even though the broadcasting schedule and sports news flow has resumed its usual weekly rhythm, things are anything but "back to normal" in the J.League. The two teams that battled down the stretch in the first stage are both limping along well behind the leaders, and indeed, Jubilo Iwata currently stand dead last in the league table, with just a single point from four matches! Meanwhile, the three quickest teams out of the gate -- Urawa Reds, Gamba Osaka and JEF United -- are all clubs that have never won a J.League stage. Indeed, the three teams combined have only one piece of silverware between them: the Nabisco Cup trophy that Urawa won last season. Perhaps it is premature to start talking about the start of a new era, but one thing is for sure. The dominance exercised by Jubilo Iwata, Yokohama Marinos and Kashima Antlers over the past decade is at an end, and a new group of contenders are making their bids for stardom

Date	Home	.	Visitor	Venue
11 Sep		4-3		Kashima Stadium
11 Sep		3-0		Tokyo Nat'l Stadium
11 Sep		2-1		Ichihara Seaside
11 Sep		3-1		Ajinomoto Stadium
11 Sep		3-0		Nihondaira Stadium
11 Sep		5-1		"Banpaku" Stadium
12 Sep		0-0		Niigata "Big Swan"
12 Sep		1-4		Oita Stadium

3 - 0

At the start of this season we remarked on the fact that Jubilo's starting lineup have seen better days, and though they have some talented youngsters waiting in the wings, this season might turn out to be a difficult balancing act, as the coach tries to decide the proper time and circumstances to make the change of generations. After Jubilo came within a whisker of capturing the firt stage, some commentators tried to convince themselves that perhaps Jubilo were not due for a sustem upgrade, after all, and that the old veterans might be able to produce one more title before riding off into the sunset. However, the first four weeks of the second stage have made it very clear that the Jubilomobile's final charge in the first stage was made on little more than gas fumes. The tank is now empty, the engine worn out, and there is little one can do now but pull a cover over the old jalopy and send it off to the scrapyard. The glory days are over for aging veterans like Masashi "Gon" Nakayama , Toshihiro Hattori , Hiroshi Nanami and Makoto Tanaka . It will be interesting to see what coach Takashi Kuwabara does in coming weeks, but if he is wise, he will start giving much more playing time to youngsters like Sho Naruoka Robert Cullen , Naoya Kikuchi and Kentaro Oi .

In the first three matches of the second stage, Jubilo struggled, but did not really look washed up. However, two of those results were against somewhat less formidable opposition. This week, they faced a much more talented team. The Marinos may have had a few stumbles in their first few matches of this stage, but they remain a solid contender, and could easily climb back among the leaders if they play as well as they did this weekend. When they confronted an opponent of this quality, the degree of Jubilo's decline became instantly apparent.

From the outset of this match, Yokohama were clearly in control, dominating possession and creating one opening after another with their quick midfield exchanges and some ambitious runs into the space behind the Jubilo defence. If not for a few missed opportunites on the Marinos' part, this match could easily have been even more lopsided. Though Yokohama has been a dominant team for the past two years, and its top stars are well known by most J.League fans, we believe that the key to this year's success or failure may very well lie in two players who do not typically come to mind when one thinks of the Marinos' starting lineup. Striker Daisuke Sakata and right wing Hayuma Tanaka have both earned a bit of publicity through their performances with the U-20 and U-23 national teams. However, neither one has seen much playing time prior to this year, and they have had even fewer opportunities to start matches. This week, both were in the starting lineup, ad their performances showed cearly that they are beginning to blossom as players, and as key contributors to the team.

A case in point was the Marinos' first goal, which was created by Sakata on a play that every Japanese youngster should be forced to watch 50 times before every match. In a sport that is slowly being poisoned by play-acting and suffocated by simulation and other forms of gamesmanship, Sakata demonstrated in stark detail what one can achieve if one ignores all the mind games, and efforts to manipulate the referee, and just plays football. The play began to develop as a Marinos push from midfield worked its way to the edge of the Jubilo area and Yasuhito Endo made the first penetrating move with a dash down the right wing. As he turned in towards the box, Endo played a pass to Sakata, who was running towards him across the box, from left to right. Sakata had defender Makoto Tanaka on his back, and just as the ball arrived, the accomplished hack-artist, Tanaka, gave him a slight push in the back, trying to cause him to lose his balance. Far too many strikers in the J.League -- and indeed, all around the world -- would have just flopped to the turf and screamed loudly, hoping to con the referee into awarding a penalty kick.

But not Sakata. Though the push knocked him to his knees, the ball was still right in front of him, so he immediately rolled back to his feet and played on. As he wheeled about, he caught the entire Jubilo defence by surprise, since they were all expecting him to just flop like a beached fish. In that moment of indecision, Sakata fired a drop pass across the box to Daisuke Oku, and as the Jubilo players all watched in slack-mouthed dismay, Oku stuffed the ball into the empty net.

Sakata would sparkle again later in the first half, this time on a quick counterattack. Oku sent an outlet pass from midfield to Ahn Jung-Hwan, who was breaking alongside Sakata in a two-on-two gallop. Ahn sent his first touch on into the box, and Sakata outraced his defender to drill a shot just inside the right post.

Jubilo brought on several substitutes in the second half, but never managed to shake the stranglehold that the Marinos held throughout the contest. Midway through the second half, Yokohama put the contest out of reach for good, as Oku made a curling run down the left side of the box and crossed for the far post, where Ahn was wide open for a leaping header. With that, Jubilo tumbled to the very bottom of the league table, with just one point from their first four matches.

Lineups:

Tatsuya Enomoto, Eisuke Nakanishi, Naoki Matsuda Daisuke Nasu, Hayuma Tanaka, Yasuhiro Endo, Yoshiharu Ueno, Dutra, Daisuke Oku (Yuzo Kurihara 86), Ahn Jung-Hwan (Tatsuhiko Kubo 71), Daisuke Sakata (Sotaro Yasunaga 86).
Yuji Nakazawa,
Yohei Sato, Hideto Suzuki, Makoto Tanaka (Masashi Nakayama 45), Takahiro Yamanishi, Robert Cullen, Naoya Kikuchi, Toshihiro Hattori, Toshiya Fujita, Hiroshi Nanami (Sho Naruoka 63), Rodrigo Gral (Hitoshi Morishita 63), Ryoichi Maeda .

5 - 1

Unfortunately for Reysol fans, that is where the parallels end. Four years ago Reysol were a contender, vying with Gamba to be the third greyhound, nipping at the heels of Jubilo Iwata and Kashima Antlers. This year, however, Reysol are little more than an exercise in pusillanimity. The team has a number of players who seem to be promising, though clearly still a bit inexperienced. Unfortunately, the team is far less than the sum of its parts, consistently performing below its ability, while the players dash in futile valour, seemingly in eleven different directions.

Gamba booked their three points from this match very early, and then just seemed to take turns making a bid to add their name to the score sheet. Masashi Oguro , who has been red hot since the start of the second stage, started things off with a waving run to the edge of the Reysol box. When the defence came up to stop him, he dropped an overlap pass to Fernandinho, who took the ball to the end line and then returned the ball to Oguro with a delicate chip shot. Oguro headed home from point-blank range and Gamba had the lead for good.

Shortly thereafter, Oguro doubled the lead on a very similar play. This time it was Hideo Hashimoto who cut for the left post, then centered the ball to Oguro for the finish. before the half was over, Gamba would extend the lead further. This time Gamba exploited the right wing, with Shigeru Morioka taking the ball to the end line. His cross in front of goal found Fernandinho, for a fading header, but Fernandinho made a bit too much contact, and the ball came back off the crossbar. Fortunately, Yasuhito Endo was drifting in from midfield, and he nodded home the rebound to give Gamba a 3-0 lead at the break.

Apparenly, Fernandinho was feeling dismayed about the missed header, so Morioka gave him a second chance on an almost identical plau. This time the ball was a bit easier to line up, and Fernandinho headed it into the nylon. Considering the ease with which Gamba were hitting the net, and the difficulty that Reysol were having just to get a shot off, it was no surprise that the lone goal for Kashiwa was scored by a Gamba player. Midway through the second half, Keiji Tamada was sent away on a long clearance, and only one Gamba defender, Satoru Yamaguchi, reacted quickly enough to match him in the dash towards the long, bounding ball. The keeper also started off his line, but Tamada and Yamaguchi got there first. Yamaguchi threw himself feet-first at the ball, and sent it bounding away from Tamada . . . . unfortunately, it took a straight trajectory into the back of the Gamba net.

But with time running down, the boys from Osaka put the cap on their performance with the best goal of the evening. Kota Yoshihara , on as a late substitute at striker, took a lead pass into the left corner and -- as Gamba players had been doing all night -- sent a cross in front of net just before he reached the end line. As the ball soared across the face of goal, his strike partner Satoshi Nakayama , also on as a late substitution, whirled about and took a spinning overhead kick at the ball. On a night like this one, everything seemed to go right for Gamba, and Nakayama's bicycling volley zipped just inside the right post, adding an emphatic exclamation point to the match report!

Lineups:

Naoki Matsuyo, Satoru Yamaguchi, Sidiclei, Noritada Saneyoshi, Hideo Hashimoto, Yasuhito Endo, Shigeru Morioka (Tsuneyasu Miyamoto 73), Takahiro Futagawa, Fernandinho (Kota Yoshihara 67), Akihiro Ienaga (Satoshi Nakayama 82), Masashi Oguro .

Yuta Minami, Takeshi Watanabe (Yuzo Kobayashi 50), Norihiro Satsukawa, Naoya Kondo, Yasuhiro Hato, Tomokazu Myojin, Mitsuru Nagata, Tomonori Hirayama (Tatsuya Tanizawa 80), Harutaka Ono, Keiji Tamada, Ze Roberto (Toshiaki Haji 45).

2 - 1

This week, the opponent was Tokyo Verdy, who have not exactly thrown fear into the opposition with their offensive abilities this season. Nevertheless, they are a steadily improving team which should gradually start to climb in the rankings as youngsters like Daigo Kobayashi, Takahito Soma and of course, Takayuki Morimoto , start to mature, and see more playing time.

JEF had some difficulty with Verdy's strikers early in the match, as Naoto Sakurai and Kazuki Hiramoto used individual dribbling skills to penetrate the JEF defence, and very nearly took the early lead. However, it was JEF who eventually drew first blood, around the half-hour mark, as a line-drive cross from Shinji Murai found Sandro at the left junction between penalty arc and box. Sandro headed a bullet into the left corner and JEF had the lead at half time.

As the second half began, it looked breifly as if JEF were going to take over control of the contest and cruise to an easy victory. Following several good scoring opportunities, Masataka Sakamoto finally extended JEF's lead on a beautiful individual run. Taking the ball up the right sideline, Sakamoto cut towards the middle to elude one defender, then put on a burst of speed as he entered the box to get clear of a second. As he dashed across the penalty area from right to left, he suddenly ripped off a shot that caught the keeper unprepared and snuck inside the left post.

But the second JEF goal seemed to suddenly energise the Verdy players, and four minutes later Sakurai beat the JEF defence on the dribble to dash into the clear. Sakamoto went from hero to villain as he made an ill-advised sliding attempt to strip the ball which sent Sakurai flying headlong into the box, and the referee awarded both a PK and a red card to Sakamoto. Sakurai converted his own penalty kick and the margin was cut to one goal.

With JEF reduced to ten men, the dynamic of the contest changed completely, and over the final half hour, Verdy were the team pressing for an equaliser. However, JEF's defence has shown itself to be quite solid, this season, and despite a few late moments of anxiety, they managed to cling to the lead and preserve their victory.

Lineups:

Tomonori Tateishi, Daisuke Saito, Takayuki Chano, Yuki Abe, Masataka Sakamoto, Yuto Sato, Koji Nakashima, Shinji Murai, Kohei Kudo (Takenori Hayashi 85), Marquinhos (Naoto Hanyu 71), Sandro Cardoza (Seiichiro Maki 80) .

Yoshinari Takagi, Takushi Yoneyama, Kenta Togawa (Daigo Kobayashi 68), Claudio Ubeda, Atsuhiro Miura, Takuya Yamada, Kentaro Hayashi, Yoshiyuki Kobayashi, Hugo (Takeshi Hirano 45), Naoto Sakurai, Kazuki Hiramoto (Takayuki Morimoto 59) .

3 - 2

The Antlers snatched an early lead in this contest on a slightly flukish play. Masashi Motoyama, who played the match with his left hand in a large and unweildy-looking cast after breqaking his little finger in the mid-week match against India, got his first touch of the ball just a minute into the proceedings, collecting the ball just beyond the top of the penalty arc. Spotting a seam in the defence, Motoyama unleashed a powerful blast which drilled the crossbar. The keeper was a bit late in his leap, and was unable to tip the ball over the bar, and his miss was compounded when the ball came back off the woodwork, rattled off the back of his head, and dropped into the net.

Despite starting off at an early disadvantage, Cerezo are a team that is loaded with scoring potential, and it did not take them long to level the contest. In the 15 minute, Yoshito Okubo made a run up the middle of the field and, as the defence closed off his route to goal, dropped the ball off to Tatsuya Furuhashi, at the top left corner of the penalty box. Furuhashi, who has been a revelation since Cerezo picked him up from JFL club Honda FC, made a quick cut to beat one man, then fed the ball back to the middle for Okubo. The Cerezo ace looped a shot over Hitoshi Sogahata, who had come out a bit too far in anticipation of a high cross, and the score was level once more.

After the initial shock of the Cerezo goal, the Antlers settled down to business, and dominated most of the next 30 minutes with excellent ball control and constant reversals of field. But the two strikers, Takayuki Suzuki and Baron, seemed a bit too lethargic and disorganised to break down the final line of Cerezo's defence. When the Flaming Pinks did win the bal, they countereattacked with speed and precision, and on just such an opportunity, they pulled out in front. A typical pell-mell dash for the Antlers box was turned away when Hideaki Morishima"s inlet pass for Okubo was headed out of danger by a defender. But the ball dropped at the feet of Furuhashi who cut to the top right corner of the box and unleashed a curling shot that caught the inside of the far post.

At the start of the second half, the Antlers once more took control of the tempo, and began pushing for the equaliser, but in the 56 minute Cerezo landed what seemed at first like a knockout punch. Motoyama was dribbling across midfield, about twenty metres into the Cerezo half, and suddenly tried to reverse direction to beat Kiyokazu Kudo. As Motoyama slipped away, the Cerezo midfielder reached out and grabbed a fistful of his uniform, nad clearly pulled Motoyama off the ball, and off his feet. As the stunned Antlers stood around waiting for the ref to blow his whistle, Morishima dashed in, scooped up the ball and fired a long outlet pass for Okubo. The Antlers defence were still frozen in surprise, and Okubo dashed into the clear, beating the keeper into the low right corner. Though the Antlers protested vigorously, and the replay left little doubt about the foul, Mr. Ota saw things differently and the Cerezo goal stood.

It is possible that the woefully bad call fired up the Antlers players, but Toninho Cerezo also made an important substitution immediately afterwards, bringing off Suzuki and Baron and replacing them with Masaki Fukai and Takuya Nozawa. The speed and energy of this young duo made an immediate impact, as the Antlers finally began to crack through the final line of Cerezo's defence. Perhaps equally important, the Antlers brought on veteran midfielder Naoki Honda, who may be in the twilight of his career as a player, but who still possesses the character and combativeness needed to generate a bit of intensity from his teammates (as we will relate shortly)

Just minutes after these substitutions, the Antlers made another surge for the Cerezo box, and this time Mitsuo Ogasawara fought through the fouls of Cerezo's defence, then fed a pass to Fernando, overlapping just to his left. Fernando drilled a shot between the keeper's legs, and the deficit was cut to one.

In the wake of the Antlers' goal, Fukai and Fernando tried to snatch the ball up quickly and prepare for the restart, but Cerezo keeper Keisuke Hada tried to hold onto it and waste some time. The aging warrior, Honda, walked up as if to make peace, but instead, he took hold of the ball and gave Hada a solid forearm across the chest, ripping the ball away as if to show that he was not going to put up with any more nonsense. The Cerezo players immediately began screaming at Mr. Ota to penalize Honda, but as he was shown the yellow card, Honda simply stood glaring at the referee with a stony expression, and when Mr. Ota put the card back in his pocket, pointed to his wrist and snapped a comment which seemed to be along the lines of; "are you through wasting time?", before turning on his heel and marching back to the midfield stripe.

Though Cerezo still held the lead, the momentum was now completely in Kashima's favour as they threw themselvess forward looking for an equaliser. Ten minutes after Fernando's goal, they finally drew level as Motoyama bounded to his feet from a Cerezo foul and sent a quick restart pass to Jun Uchida on the rigth sideline. Uchida lobbed a pass into the box, and Nozawa caught up to it just to the right of goal, sending his first ctouch on a dipping line drive that curled into the far corner.

By this point the Antlers herd was in full gallop and it was clear that the winning goal was just a matter of time. Sure enough, in the 80 minute a cleared corner kick in the Kashima end was released to Ogasawara, who took off on the break with four teammates dashing into space. As he crossed midfield Ogasawara fed the ball to Fukai, on the right flank. As four Antlers all raced into the box looking for the cross, the Cerezo defence collapsed into their own zone, leaving Fukai all alone. Seeing acres of open space, Fukai dashed into the box, accelerated to find a seam, then looped a shot into the high left corner to complete the Antlers' comeback.

Lineups:

Hitoshi Sogahata, Jun Uchida, Seiji Kaneko (Naoto Honda 60), Go Oiwa, Toru Araiba, Fernando, Koji Nakata, Mitsuo Ogasawara, Masashi Motoyama, Marcelo "Baron" Polanczyck (Masaki Fukai 60), Takayuki Suzuki (Takuya Nozawa 53) .

Keisuke Hada, Tomi Shimomura, Kenichi Uemura, Takahito Chiba, Takanori Nunobe (Tadaaki Tokushige 85), Takeshi Hamada, Kiyokazu Kudo (Hiroshige Yanagimoto 48), Hiroaki Morishima (Ryu Saito 88), Tatsuya Furuhashi , Yoshito Okubo, Akinori Nishizawa .

3 - 1

However, a surge of pressure from the Vissel strikers produced an equaliser just ten minutes later, as Pavel Horvath fed a ball to Park Kang-Jo in the right corner, and his low cross found the head of Ryuji Bando at the near post, for a point-blank header.

But a bit of unfortunate deja-vu ten minutes later put Kobe in an even deeper hole. Once again, Kondo took a pass from Kelly and surged forward into the penalty area. This time, Kitamoto's challenge was even sloppier, and the penalty kick call was more clear-cut. To make matters worse, Kitamoto received his second yellow card, reducing Kobe to ten men after just 23 minutes of play. Again, Kelly collected the PK and Tokyo were in command once more.

Despite the disadvantage of having one fewer men on the pitch, Kobe put on an impressive show of creating offence, and for most of the next hour, they seemed to have the slight edge in momentum and scoring chances. Unfortunately, they just didnt have the numbers to produce a goal, and as time went on, the Vissel players began to run out of gas. With ten minutes left in the contest, Tokyo's defence cleared a ball to midfield and Kelly took off with four teammates on a five-on-three break. As he neared the top of the circle, Kelly fed the ball to Yuta Baba in the right corner. His rolling cross was a bit behind the first 2 Tokyo players, but Yoshiro Abe was free at the back post to collect the ball and stuff it home, putting the contest out of reach

Lineups:

Yoichi Doi, Akira Kaji (Ryuji Fujiyama 45), Teruaki Moniwa, Jean Carlo Witte, Jo Kanazawa, Masamitsu Kobayashi (Yoshiro Abe 57), Yasuyuki Konno, Fumitake Miura (Masashi Miyazawa 83), Clesley "Kelly" Guimares, Yuta Baba, Yusuke Kondo .

Seiji Honda, Kazumichiu Takagi, Kunie Kitamoto, Yusuke Kawamoto, Park Kang-Jo (Shusuke Tsubuchi 24), Naoya Saeki, Pavel Horvath, Hiromi Kojima (Tomoyuki Hirase 66), Roger, Patrick Mboma, Ryuji Bando (Mitsutoshi Watada 88) .

3 - 0

Because of the man disadvantage, S-Pulse struggled for most of the contest, but Sanfrecce Hiroshima seem to be a group of actors with no script, these days, and they never really looked like producing a goal either. Thus, the match hung in the balance until midway through the second half, when a flagrant professional foul by Ricardo Ribeiro returned the two teams to even strength. Not only was Ricardo sent off, but S-Pulse finally broke duck with the subsequent free kick, as Cho tallied his first J.League goal.

Thereafter, Sanfrecce's defence fell apart and S-Pulse added two late goals -- the first on a defensive blunder which gave the ball away just outside the Hiroshima box, with Araujo tapping home the pass from Masaaki Sawanobori, and the second on a last-minute overlap by Keisuke Ota , who crossed in for Hideaki Kitajima to put the cap on the evening with a short-range header.

Lineups:

Yohei Nishibe, Ryuzo Morioka, Toshihide Saito, Tomomi Tsurumi, Keisuke Ota, Kazuyuki Toda, Kota Sugiyama (Masaaki Sawanobori 13), Jumpei Takaki, Teruyoshi Ito, Araujo (Kohei Hiramatsu 89), Cho Jae-Jin (Hideaki Kitajima 86) .

Takashi Shimoda, Norio Omura, Ricardo Ribeiro (Mitsuyuki Yoshihiro 81), Megumu Yoshida (Ri Han-Jae 61), Yoshiro Takahagi (Yogo Nishikawa 42), Kazuyuki Morisaki, Beto, Kota Hattori, Koji Morisaki, Susumu Oki (Toshiya Tanaka 83), Kohei Morita .

1 - 4

Case in point:

The Reds are clinging to a narrow 1-0 lead, produced on a defensive error by Trinita that allowed Tatsuya Tanaka to swoop in an snatch the ball just meters from the Oita box, and pass it to Emerson for the easy finish. Since then, Trinita has been producing one dangerous push into Reds territory after another, spearheaded by the incredible pace of Magno Alves, but supported by a very much improved Trinita midfield, which has learned under coach Han Berger how to combine long forward passes with short drop passes into space, in order to generate dangerous countreattacks. Time is running down in the half, and it looks like Oita may go in at half time just a goal down, or perhaps even level. The Reds, for their part, seem to have lost all vision, and are battling to force the ball up the right sideline against three defenders. They looks like a pack of sloths mired in the tar pits. . .

. . . when suddenly, Makoto Hasebe realises that there is another side of the playing field, and Alex Santos is standing there, completely unmarked. A long pass sends Santos free to the top left corner of the box, he picks out Emerson in front of net, and Emerson toes the ball home. BANG

Just seconds after the subsequent kickoff, Santos feeds Emerson down the left flank, and the Reds ace turns on the afterburners, soaring past his defender, turning towards goal along the end line and then firing a low-angle shot at net. The keeper parries the shot, only to have Koji Yamase make a clinical cherry-picking tap-in at the far post. BOOM

Straight from the kickoff, Oita drops the ball back into its own area to try to draw the Reds midfield forward. But a poor pass misfoots a Trinita player on the left sideline and Tanaka is on the ball like a hungry rottwieler dashing for his food dish. A quick cut into the box and . . . BAM!

As quickly as you can say "Bang, boom bam", the Reds exploded for three goals, in the final five minutes before the half. Game Over.

Of course, the lethargy and sloppiness that they demonstrated over the remaining 45 minutes of play shows that Urawa still have some serious weaknesses which could come back to haunt them later in the season. Their second-half performance wan nothing short of awful, and Oita managed to draw a goal back on a Magno Alves dash late in the half (the Trinita ace showed some indiscipline of his own, capping his goal with a second yellow card for excessive celebration, earning an early trip to the showers). Unless Guido Buchwald and Gert Engels can figure out how to get their young charges to concentrate a bit better, and avoid silly mental mistakes, the Reds stampede will always face the risk of failure. But the explosive abilities that they demonstrated in the final three minutes of the first half are enough to daunt any opponent. If they can continue to score goals at this pace, a second-stage title may indeed be theirs.

Lineups:

Hayato Okanaka, Koji Yoshimura, Sandro Chavez Rosa, Patrick Zwaanswijk, Koji Arimura (Yuichi Nemoto 45), Takashi Umeda, Tomoaki Komorida (Teppei Nishiyama 79), Taku Harada, Takayuki Yoshida, Daiki Takamatsu (Ryosuke Kijima 87), Magno Alves .

Ryota Tsuzuki, Ozalan Alpay, Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Nene (Hideki Uchidate 63), Takuya Yamada, Makoto Hasebe (Tadaaki Hirakawa 77), Keita Suzuki, Koji Yamase, Alex Santos, , Tatsuya Tanaka (Yuichiro Nagai 70), Emerson.

0 - 0

There was very little in this contest to discuss, on either side, apart from the fact that one of Albirex's starting strikers, Oseas , got sent off and will miss the next match. Nagoya occasionally showed signs of taking a lead, but hard running from the Albirex defence kept the match scoreless.

Lineups:

Koichi Kimura, Yoshiaki Maruyama, Tadahiro Akiba, Naoto Matsuo, Isao Honma, Motohiro Yamaguchi (An Yeon-Ha 81), Yoshito Terakawa (Osamu Umeyama 72), Shingo Suzuki, Edmilson, Oseas, Fabinho (Yusaku Ueno 89) .

Seigo Narazaki, Yusuke Igawa, Yutaka Akita, Masahiro Koga, Kojiro Kaimoto, Keiji Yoshimura, Kei Yamaguchi (Tetsuya Okayama 64), Yusuke Nakatani, Naoshi Nakamura (Jorginho 84), Ueslei, Marques .

And so, the Reds and Gamba remain at the top of the table, with unblemished records (Urawa leading by dint of their superior scoring prowess), while JEF United is trailing just behind, in third place, and also remains unbeaten. This is nbot exactly a common sight in the J.League, and one could easily launch into a long paean about how the league has "entered a new era". However, with Yokohama lurking just three points back from the leaders, that might be a bit premature. The one thing that *IS* certain, however, is that there will be a great deal of excitement this season as a number of new faces join the chase for the championship.

Rumours and Rumblings

Jubilo Push the Panic Button

Nevertheless, we have also noted many times in the past that Jubilo have a large stock of talented youngsters waiting in the wings. The surprise and concern that fans and management alike are feeling is not hard to understand, as it suddenly becomes clear that the team's traditional stars, such as like Masashi Nakayama, Toshihiro Hattori, Hiroshi Nanami, Toshiya Fujita and Makoto Tanaka, are now little more than aging dinosaurs on the road to extinction. However, it is certainly not time to panic. A wise team would have begun easing the older players out the door some time ago, but there is no reason why the process cannot begin right now. A title this season is probably out of the question, but with some calm and careful work, Jubilo could easily return to the ranks of contenders by the middle of next season, if only they start implementing a carefully considered plan to make a generational chance.

Unfortunately, from the news emanating out of Iwata these days, panic seems to be exactly what now prevails in the Jubilo clubhouse. After the team's 3-0 defeat to Yokohama, this weekend, management announced with remarkable abruptness and little ceremony that they were kicking coach Takashi Kuwabara out the door, and bringing back old-timer Masakazu Suzuki, in a caretaker role, until the end of this season. It isnt often that a team kicks a coach out the door after just four matches, and particularly not when the team fell just one win short of a championship, in the previous stage. This strikes us as a bit of an overreaction. What Jubilo needs now is some cool heads to provide stability during the period of transition, lest the team make the proverbial mistake of "throwing out the baby with the bath water".

Then again, there are some extenuating circumstances to consider. Over the past few weeks there have been numerous rumours about plans for Masakuni Yamamoto, former coach of the U-23 national team, to take over as head coach in 2005. As Jubilo started to pile up a string of weak performances, Kuwabara was looking more and more like a "lame duck" coach. Perhaps the team decided that it was best to cut the ties to Kuwabara as quickly as possible. Suzuki is past the age where he could be viewed as a candidate to take over on a permanent basis. Thus, Yamamoto may have an opportunity to begin laying the groundwork for next year, without stepping on the toes of another coach who might prefer to keep his job.

Only time will tell how successful this change of management will be, but the sudden nature of the move and the whiff of desperation that one received at the press conference, announcing the move, are not encouraging signs. The best thing for the team right now is a firm hand on the controls -- someone who can ease the veterans out the door and develop the youngsters without creating a lot of clubhouse friction and dissatisfaction. We will be watching closely to see how well Mr. Suzuki can handle this task.