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December 6, 2004

Ups and Downs and All-Around Champions

This year's Suntory Championship Series (as the championship tournament is called) may very well provide the sort of memorable drama that has been a feature of these clashes in the past. Certainly, if the J.League were using a single-season format this year, the Urawa Reds would be deserving champions, having come back from a relatively weak first stage to not only dominate the second stage but to top the overall (full-year) standings. Their opponent in the Suntory Championship, the Yokohama Marinos started off the year on a pace to repeat their uncontested championship of last season. But midway through the campaign, a host of problems -- injuries, disharmony in the clubhouse and just a general sense of malaise -- sent the team spinning out of contention for a second-stage title. Below are the final standings for both the first stage and the second stage, showing how the Marinos and the Reds claimed their tickets to the final tournament;

As the championship approached, most of the "experts" had already written off the Marinos' chances. Bad luck had plagued the team since the mid-season break. To top off their list of injuries, ace striker Ahn Jung-Hwan broke his ankle in Korea's final World Cup qualification match, last month, ruling him out of the final tournament along with Tatsuhiko Kubo, who was his strike partner at the start of the season. But despite the injury woes and signs of dissent, the Marinos still have a very talented squad, as well as one of the cleverest strategic minds in the league, in coach Takeshi Okada. Furthermore, the Marinos have evolved over the course of the season into a very different team from the one that started the year. As important as Ahn and Kubo may have been in the first stage, one could easily argue that the most dangerous offensive player on the team is Daisuke Sakata, who will be starting for the Marinos on Sunday evening. Sakata is still a bit young and inexperienced, but he has been improving rapidly over the past nine months, and could be a crucial player in the championshp series.

The team's greatest strength, however, is its defence,with two national team center backs -- Yuji Nakazawa and Naoki Matsuda -- anchoring the back line and perhaps the most promising young defender in the league -- Daisuke Nasu -- filling out the formation. Forget about the results in the second stage; in a two-match series, solid defensive performances by these backs, and by keeper Tatsuya Enomoto, may be the keys to claiming the championship trophy. The Marinos also have a host of "wild cards", which will no doubt be played as strategically as possible by coach Okada. Young Hayuma Tanaka has taken over at the midfield right wing spot since mid-season, and has shown excellent prospects as a dribbler and set-up man, but veteran Yukihiko Sato is also a very talented player with a reputation for coming through in the clutch. There is a good chance that these two will see some sort of rotating duties, allowing each one to play at a furious pace for 45 minutes, knowing that the other can take over when he runs out of gas. The Marinos also have a number of good defenders on the bench, while both Nakazawa and Matsuda have shown themselves to be effective in attack. Look for coach Okada to employ a number of different defensive looks to try to keep the Reds' high-powered offence at bay. If Matsuda and Nakazawa are able to switch quickly to the attack, it may allow the Marinos to adopt an extremely defensive set, and still produce dangerous scoring chances.

Though we think it is foolish to write off the Marinos chances before the championship series begins, that certainly does not change the fact that the Urawa reds enter the series as clear favourites. The team has been on a roll, since the start of the second stage, and they certainly have one of the most impressive offensive arsenals ever to grace a J.League pitch. Clearly, the Reds' strategy will be to score early, generate as many goals as possible, and force the Marinos into a shootout. If they succeed in doing so, Yokohama have little hope. The Reds will probably start three strikers in a 3-4-3 set, hoping that Emerson, Tatsuya Tanaka and Yuichiro Nagai can produce fireworks early in the match, and dictate the style of play in the Reds' favour.

The danger for Urawa, on the other hand, is that their concentration on offense may allow the Marinos to get a cheap goal on the counterattack. Though the Reds ranked second in the league, this year, in terms of goals conceded (only the the Kashima Antlers were stingier on defence), they did have a tendency to give away "soft" goals due to misjudgements on the part of the back line. The center back, Marcus Tulio" Tanaka, is particularly "accident prone", and his responsibilities will be increased in the first match of the champioship series because the left back, "Nene" de Brito picked up a red card in the last regular season match, and will be suspended for the first leg of the championship.

Considering the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two teams, and the likelihood that a Reds offensive strategy will be met by defensive tactics from the Marinos, there is a good chance that the midfield battle will decide this contest. In this area, the Reds may have a very slight edge despite the fact that their best set-up man, Koji Yamase, was lost for the rest of the season following a severe knee injury early in the second stage. Defensive midfielders Keita Suzuki and Tomoyuki Sakai match up favourably against Daisuke Oku, or indeed, any player that the Marinos choose to send out in midfield. Makoto Hasebe, though not as slick as Yamase, is developing into an effective attacking midfielder. The wings, meanwhile, are handled capably by Alex Santos and captain Nobuhisa Yamada. The one strategic weakness that we can identify in midfield is, as we noted earlier, the left wing (right wing for the Marinos). If Hayuma Tanaka and Yukihiko Sato do play 45 minutes each, as we suspect, they may be able to wear out Alex Santos, thus depleting the Reds' offensive options while creating chances for themselves. If this happens, Guido Buchwald may resort to some "wild card" activity of his own. If so, Tadaaki Hirakawa and Masayuki Okano are likely to be the first men off the bench, and their performances could decide the series.

Suntory Championship Series: 2005
Date	Time	Home	.	Visitor	Venue
5 Dec	7:00PM	Yokohama Marinos	1-0	Urawa Reds	Yokohama Int'l Stadium
11 Dec	7:30 PM	Urawa Reds	vs	Yokohama Marinos	Saitama Stadium

Game 2
1 - 0 (PK 2-4)

If the post-match celebrations seemed a bit subdued, it was not because the only people left in the stadium were the few-hundred Marinos supporters who still have strong enough stomachs to endure their team's version of anti-football. On the contrary, the downbeat mood seemed to reflect the fact that everyone taking part, and everyone watching, was internally reflecting on the fact that they had just managed to set football in Japan back 20 years.

As those who read the Rising Sun News' report on the Nabisco Cup final, earlier this year, should recognise, we are not only willing to cheer a team that defeats the Reds, but to applaud one that survives on the basis of a defensive game plan. However, there is a huge difference between the agressive, unyeilding and tireless -- not to mention clean -- defending that FC Tokyo used to knock off the Reds in the Nabisco Cup championship, and the sort of poisonous anti-football that the Marinos displayed over the past two weekends. For over three-and-a-half hours, viewers were forced to watch a joyless, lifeless display of deliberate fouling, cynical time-wasting, deliberate fouling, grass-rolling, deliberate fouling, eleven-man defending, deliberate fouling, referee manipulation, deliberate fouling, long aimless balls into space, and oh . . . did we forget to mention . . . deliberate fouling every time a Reds player touched the ball within 30 meters of the goal.

The Reds players (though not their fans) probably deserved to be done over in such a contemptable way. The team seemed to be making their preparations for an attack of choking before the second lege even kicked off. And though they definitely played the more positive, creative and entertaining football, the unending long balls from 40 or 50 meters -- headed away harmlessly every time by Yuji Nakazawa, Naoki Matsuda and Ryuji Kawai -- showed how impatient and unpoised this team really is. Though overflowing with pure talent, the Reds are clearly still a bit lacking in the qualities needed to be true champions. From that perspective, it might be "just" that the Reds have to wait another year for their first league title.

But this championship series was a display that nobody, not even the most fanatical Marinos fan (does such a thing even exist?), could have enjoyed. There was a breif moment in the second half when it appeared that something might actually be salvaged from this match. Eisuke Nakanishi --the ugliest player on a team that excelled at playng ugly -- was sent off for his seven-hundred-and-twenty-third blatant and cynical foul on Emerson, and on the subsequent free kick, Alex Santos sent a curling drive over the wall and into the Marinos net.

But despite a slight intensification of the Reds pressure, it never really changed the character of the match. It only forced the two teams to play two equally ugly, equally pointless extra time periods before the Reds could complete their choke-job by sending penalty kicks, one after the other, directly at the Marinos keeper Tatsuya Enomoto.

Regular readers are no doubt aware that we have been highly critical of the sort of football that the Japan national team has been playing over the past year: a passionless, win-at-all-costs style of football that does a disservice to the fans and to the beautiful game itself. Now the J.League has a championship team that also excels at this reprehensible, unwatchable, deformed and bastardised version of what was once known as 'the beautiful game. Even the Dark Lord Sauron's efforts to turn elves into orcs was never as corrupting, disspiriting and perverse as what Zico and Takeshi Okada have managed to do to Japanese football in the space of just a few short years.

But in the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie, there is still a shining ray of hope and beauty . . . A glimmer of valiant and heroic football that may yet defeat this cruel plague upon our land. On Sunday afternoon, Kashiwa Reysol and Avispa Fukuoka will play the second leg of their promotion-relegation series, and if the first leg was any indication, it should be a spectacle which far surpasses in beauty and sporting enjoyment that travesty that took place on Saturday night. The sick, tortured memories of the "championship" match will be dispelled and those who rejoice in football for its own sake will have reason to rest easy in their beds over the long, cold winter nights. When the Marinos wake up in early March 2005 and step out onto the barren pitch of their virtually empty stadium to greet the 2005 season, while "second rate" teams like Niigata, Urawa, Oita and Tokyo are greeted with jubilant throngs of euphoric supporters celebrating the sheer beauty of the sport . . . THEN you can ask yourself who the champions of J.League football TRULY are.

Game 1
1 - 0

The match was extremely hard-fought, as the eight yellow cards distributed by Mr. Masayoshi Okada should indicate, and though a few of the cards might have been questionable, that certainly should not alter the general impression. Yokohama came into this series knowing that in order to defeat the Reds, they had to keep the tempo under control, defend furiously, and prevent the three speedy Reds strikers from running into space. Coach Takeshi Okada will no doubt be pleased, since his team followed the game plan to the letter. However, they had a bit of help from the other Okada -- the one wearing black and white stripes -- who was quite generous in what he allowed the Marinos to do on defence. That is not to say that the officiating was blatantly biased. Mr. Okada did "miss" a few calls in the Marinos' favour, which had Guido Buchwald in a storming mood along the sidelines, but he also looked the other way on a blatant pull-down by Alex Santos that probably deserved to be his second yellow card of the evening. Nevertheless, Mr. Okada's tendency to avoid any call that might produce a scoring opportunity for one team or the other was bound to favour the more defensively-minded Marinos.

The Reds really cannot blame anyone but themselves. They allowed Yokohama to dictate the type of game that would be played. Though Urawa had a few effective spells, lasting about ten minutes in each half, where they ran hard, moved the ball quickly and generated strong offensive pressure, they failed to sustain it long enough to produce a goal. Each time, the Marinos would eventually stall the Reds' momentum and turn the match back into a slow, deliberate and carefully controlled contest.

Yokohama came within a whisker of taking the lead soon after kickoff, and one cannot help but wonder if a goal at that time might have turned the contest into a very different sort of match altogether. Just two minutes in, Daisuke Oku carried the ball on the dribble to the top right corner of the box and tried to squeeze a pass through the Reds' defensive wall. Marcus Tulio Tanaka, who is a very active, intense and powerful defender but who also has been prone to crucial errors at times, made an ill-conceived lunge to try to smother the pass, and in doing so, allowed Daisuke Sakata to slip behind him. Oku took the deflection right off Tulio's boot and pushed it into the box a second time, this time sending Sakata into the clear. However, Sakata pulled his shot just a bit too much, and it caromed off the bottom of the right post, saving the Reds blushes.

Urawa were stymied by the Marinos' physical defending for about the first half hour, and produced no real chances except a pair of corner kicks. But around the 30 minute mark, they began to use the wings a bit more effectively, started passing off after just one or two touches, and slowly becan to create some openings on the attack. The best chance for Urawa in the first half came shortly thereafter, when a throw-in from the right sideline was nodded on by Yuichiro Nagai, and Tatsuya Tanaka managed to collect it on a quick slant into the box. His quick cut into the box left his defender in the dust, but Yuji Nakazawa was hanging back behind the play, and was able to dash in, throw out a long leg and deflect Tanaka's shot over the crossbar. In the final ten minutes of the first half, the Reds were beginning to look like scoring. The tempo picked up to a level that gave them the advantage over the slower-footed Marinos, and they were using the wings effectively to force Yokohama 's back three to open up a bit more space inside the penalty box.

But Coach Okada must have discussed matters with his players at half time, because after the initial surge of energy that often occurs right after kick-off, the Marinos managed to slow play back down to the sort of cautious pace that suited them best. Although the Marinos defence deserves the most credit for the win, it would not do to overlook the contributions of strikers Daisuke Sakata and Norihisa Shimizu, playmaker Daisuke Oku and right wing Hayuma Tanaka. By running tirelessly for the full 90 minutes, and using their individual dribbling skills to penetrate the Reds defence, these four players managed to keep the Reds defence pinned back, unable to throw an extra man forward from the back line. The other six Marinos field players were able to remain almost exclusively on a defensive footing, and Urawa simply did not have enough space to use speed to their advantage.

By the midpont of the second half, the Marinos had done such a good job of stalling Urawa's offence that the match was almost becoming dull. But that would change in a hurry, thanks to a fine play by Hayuma Tanaka. The speedy wing anticipated an overlap pass to his wing, raced forward and stepped in front of Emerson to steal the ball. Flicking it to Daisuke Oku in the center of the pitch, Tanaka turned on the speed and dashed down the sideline, leaving Alex Santos in hiss wake. Oku lobbed the ball deep into the right corner, and Tanaka caught up with it about three meters from the end line, a step ahead of Santos. In an effort to keep Tanaka from turning the corner, Santos threw himself into a feet-first slide, but Tanaka anticipated it and pulled the ball back. As Santos went sliding past, he managed to get a piece ofthe ball, but not enough to pry it loose. Santos seemed to recognse that if he was beaten, Tanaka would have a wide-open cross and two or three teammates to target as they rushed for goal, so he changed the angle of his slide and rolled right underneath Tanaka's legs, taking him down deliberately.

Though perhaps not a "flagrant" offence, Santos would have had little to argue about if Mr. Okada had shown him a second yellow card. Instead, he was let off with only a foul and a warning. But in the end, the damage was done. Daisuke Oku's first kick (from a meter beyond the corner flag) was headed out of play by the Reds. But his subsequent corner was placed perfectly -- a soft floater to the near post. Defender Ryuji Kawai, who played six years for the Reds before moving to Yokohama in 2003, sent a glancing header across the face of goal and just inside the far post.

The Reds responded with their most intense, and most effective surge of offensive pressure in the entire match. For the next ten minutes the Marinos were forced to defend desperately, and Urawa produced a sequence of four corner kicks and two free kicks over just a three-minute span. In the 73 minute, Emerson finally got behind the Marinos defence, and dashed towards the left post, only to be taken down in a sliding tackle by Naoki Matsuda. The Marinos all jumped up and made the international sign-language appeal for a dive, and Mr. Okada obligingly showed Emerson a yellow. But replays show that Matsuda clearly took Emerson down with his upper legs and hips. Marinos fans might argue that he got a piece of the ball as well, but there is no question that the choice of calls was either a PK or a Reds corner kick.

This particular event, though maynot be of vital significance in the grand scheme of things (it certainly was no worse of a call than the non-yellow for Santos) is very disturbing to us, in retrospect. It is difficult to decide exactly what diagnosis we should deliver in the post-mortem. Clearly, the most compelling fact to consider is that Emerson's reputation for diving, earned over a period of several years, is now so strong that he gets carded even when he is actually fouled. Should we conclude, therefore, that he is just reaping poetic justice? Or should we be asking ourselves why the head referee in a league championship match would make officiating decisions based on a player's reputation, rather than what he sees with his own two eyes?

In any event, this non-call brought an end to the surge of offensive pressure from Urawa, and though they did continue to be the more dangerous offensive team over the final fifteen mintues, they would never come as close to scoring. The Marinos did a good job of stalling and running out the clock, and thus will take a one-goal advantage into the return leg, at Saitama Stadium, on December 11. A draw in Saitama will be enough to give Yokohama its second consecutive league championship. The Reds, on the other hand, need a two-goal victory in order to win the championship outright. For those of you who are wondering about "tiebreakers", the J.League does not use an "away goals" rule in championship matches, so a one-goal victory by the Reds in regular time would send the contest into extra time. In other words, if the Reds are leading 1-0 (or 2-1, or 3-2 etc) at the end of 90 minutes, the two teams would play two golden-goal periods of 15 minutes, followed by penalty kicks, to decide who is the league champion. Be sure to check back next week for a full report on the action. If this week's contest was any indication, the return leg is bound to be a cliffhanging event, for sure.

2005 Promotion / Relegation Series

Despite their weak finish to the season, Kashiwa Reysol probably would be considered by most pundits to be the favourites in this playoff series. The team has a large number of good young players, and though they had quite a bit of difficulty playing effectively as a team, this year, their individual talent certainly gives them the edge over Avispa. An added bonus for Reysol, from a psychological standpoint, is that the team has already announced plans to release three veteran players who have been fixtures of the Reysol squad for nearly a decade -- Takeshi Watanabe, Nozomu Kato and Takayuki Komine. All three will probably retire after the season, so the promotion-relegation series offers them their last chance to make a contribution as professional players. None of the three was a regular starter this season, but all saw some duty and all are still quality players. we certainly expect one or more to make appearances in the series, considering how strong their motivation is likely to be.

The key, for Reysol, will be the defence, which was their weak point all season long. They need to limit Avispa's scoring opportunities as much as possible. If they can hold Fukuoka to no more than one goal per match, they should have the firepower on offence to do the job. Veteran Columbian defender Ever Palacios, therefore, will be a key player for Reysol, as will young defenders Mitsuru Nagata and Sota Nakazawa. Up front, national team striker Keiji Tamada will be the "go-to" man on ofence, but Reysol have a host of other attacking players who could make a contribution, including Yuji Unozawa, Kisho Yano and Yoshiteru Yamashita.

Avispa Fukuoka will be looking to return to the J1 for the first time in three years. The team joined the J.League in 1996, and spent six seasons in the J1, but never finished higher than 12th place. This year, the team started off slowly, and seemed to be destined for another upper-mid-table finish in the J2, but a surge of strong results at the end of the season carried them into the top ranks, and they clinched a promotion/relegation berth in the final match of the season, when they defeated Montedio Yamagata 3-1, at Yamagata Stadium. Interestingly enough, Yamagata managed to finish third despite scoring fewer goals than the 4th, 5th and 6th placed teams.

Based on the above statistic, it goes without saying that Avispa's main strength is on defence. The team plays a very aggressive, trapping style of football, and will try to keep Reysol off-balance as much as possible wioth pressure at midfield. Nevertheless,, Avispa are capable of scoring, particularly from set pieces, they had a high percentage of their goals on free kicks or corner kicks, and are sure to concentrate on exploiting such chances against Reysol. On set pieces, Avispa have several tall, powerful players including the 188cm defender Shinya Kawashima and the 187cm striker Hiroyuki Hayashi. As noted earlier, Reysol are probably the favourites in this series, but if Avispa can keep the scoring down, and exploit their set play opportunities, they do have a chance of claiming a J1 berth next season.

Promotion / Relegation Series: 2005
Date	Time	Home	.	Visitor	Venue
6 Dec	13:00	Avispa Fukuoka	0 - 2	Kashiwa Reysol	Hakata-no-mori Stadium
12 Dec	15:00	Kashiwa Reysol	vs	Avispa Fukuoka	Kashiwa-no-ha Stadium

Game 1
0 - 2

On Sunday, the J1's last-placed team, Kashiwa Reysol, and the third-placed J2 team joined forces to provide a demonstration of beautiful football that should leave the "so-called" league champions shamefaced in disgrace. And that was only one match in a truly exhilarating card of sports entertainment that also included several barn-burning contests in the fifth round of the Emperor's Cup. It is hard to shake the feeling that any number of the teams who took part in Sunday's action would be more fitting champions than the collection of hack artists, choke artists, divers and grass-rollers who took part in the Yokohama - Urawa clash.

The second leg of the promotion-relegation series between Kashiwa Reysol and Avispa Fukuoka may have been a bit sloppy, at times, but it epitomised what J.League football is all about. Coming into the home leg of their clash with Avispa holding a two-goal advantage, Reysol might easily jhave adopted the sort of unimaginative, cynical, win-at-all-costs mentality that the Marinos employed on Saturday. But that isnt what the beautiful game is all about. On the contrary, Reysol took the attitude that if they could score first, Avispa would have an impossible mountain to climb. Certainly, over the first 45 minutes, Reysol played with some degree of caution. But they never abandoned the effort to generate offence of their own, nor did they start using unsportsmanlike tactics such as deliberate fouling or time-wasting to increase their advantage. For their part, Avispa Fukuoka refused to concede, for even a second, the obvious fact that they were playing out of their depth. From start to finish -- even when they were trailing by four goals on aggregate, late in the second half, Avispa played clean, positive, highly-motivated football, and were quite unfortunate not to claim at least one goal to take home with them in consolation.

But the gap in quality was simply too great, and mere enthusiasm and determination could not make up for what Avispa lacked in technical skill. By the early stages of the second half, Reysol were starting to smell the sweet scent of victory, and began to throw even more players forward on the break. Avispa, who were already clawing desperately to stay in the contest, could not withstand the pressure, and in the 12 minute a thunderous rush down the left by Keiji Tamada drew the Avispa defence out and left a wide gap in the central defence. Yuji Unozawa collected Tamada's cross and racked through the gap and drilled a bullet into the nylon. Just four minutes later, a nice head-on by Unozawa in the center of the box allowed a wide-open Yasuhiro Hato to stuff the ball inside the right post and round out a 4-0 aggregate rout of the visitors from Fukuoka.

But even with the contest completely out of reach, Avispa refused to admit to being outclassed, and threw everything they had at the Kashiwa goal. Nor did Reysol pack it in and kill time until the final whistle, opting instead to bring on two reserve forwards and make a whole-hearted effort to extend their lead. This is football as it should be played, and both teams can walk away with heads held high for a fine effort and an uplifting performance. In the wake of Saturday's so-called "championship" match, it is good to see that some J.League teams still know to play football . . . even if it is just for the chance to be listed18th on the J.League's opening team table next season.

Game 1
0 - 2

The match was quite physical, with both teams giving no quarter on defence, and many of the match's highlights involved crunching tackles and other powerful defensive plays. For a while, it seemed like this sort of tempo would play into the hands of Avispa, but as the first half wore on, Reysol began to fire quick outlet passes into the front line and overlap effectively on the wing, producing the majority of the first-half's scoring opportunities. Avispa found themselves on the back foot, but aggressive defence and some saving tackles by both Alex de Melo Santos and Takahiro Masukawa, kept the match deadlocked at intermission

But just moments aftre the start of the second the half, Reysol got an important break which put them firmly in control of the situation. Veteran midfielder Harutaka Ono, who returned to Reysol midway through the second stage after an unsuccessful stint at Nagoya Grampus, fired what looked like a centering pass from the left side. But the ball hit an Avispa defender and deflected over the head of the keeper and into the back of the Fukuoka net.

Following their crucial opening goal, it was quite apparent that Reysol would be content to preserve the score line and return home with a one-goal lead. Eventually, Avispa had to start attacking in order to have any hope of getting back on level terms and making the second leg competitive. But these hornets simply didnt have any sting, and Reysol was able to limit the scoring opportunities to a handful, while generating increasingly dangerous countrattacking opportunities as the match wore on. With timre running down and Avispa becoming almost desperate in their search for the equaliser, Reysol's ace striker Keiji Tamada took an outlet pass and broke towards goal, then made a beautiful cutback move to the right which left his defender spinning lamely like a discarded paper bag in a swirling wind. Tamada fired a cross for midfielder Tatsuya Tanizawa, dashing in behind the play, and Tanizawa poked it past the keeper to close out the Reysol rout.

Naturally, in the J.League, it is dangerous to declare any contest a "sure thing", but with a two-goal cushion and the home field advantage to carry into the second leg, Reysol seem to be in a comfortable position to hang onto a J1 spot for at least another year.

JFL / J2 Promotion

At present, the JFL is not a fully professional league, though there is sufficient prize money at stake (not to mention publicity value for sponsor companies) to allow teams to cover their costs over the course of the season and pay the players bonuses at the end of the year (generally, a portion of the "prize money" listed in the final column of the league table, below. By contribution both financial resources and management support, the J.League is encouraging many of these teams to transform themselves from "company sports clubs" into fully independent organisations, and then to compete for promotion to the J.League. The requirements for earning promotion are that a team must have a fully independent management and separate finances (full disclosure is provided to the J.League when petitioning for promotion to the J2), must meet certain technical conditions (there are benchmarks for total financial capital, the size of the home stadium, the level of local fan club support, etc.), and must finish in the top two (or three?) spots in the JFL.

Several regional clubs have already set out to achieve promotion to the J1, forming independent corporations to manage the club, working to build local support, and so on. However, as of September, when the J.League accepted submissions from teams seeking promotion, only four clubs managed to meet the minimum requirements (and only two of those were approved immediately, while two others were asked to address specific concerns and make a new submission). This meant that the teams which received approval had only to meet the final prerequisite to J1 -- finishing in the top two (or three) places in the JFL -- in order to win promotion. As we reported several weeks ago, Otsuka FC, from Tokushima prefecture, clinched the top spot in the JFL and ensured their promotion to the J2 in mid-November. Next season, the team will change its name to "Tokushima Vortis" and enter the J2. The promotion has already been approved by the J.League, and people throughout the island of Shikoku have been celebrating the birth of their first professional football team.

Going into the final week of the JFL season, Thespa Kusatsu, from northern Gunma Prefecture, was also on the brink of earning promotion. As the table below shows, Thespa were ranked second in the JFL, with a three-point and six-goal advantage over third-ranked Honda FC. The team's promotion would have been all but assured, if not for the fact that their final match (on December 5) was against third-ranked Honda. Twice in the past, Honda had an opportunity to join the J.League if they were only willing to convert the team from a company-run "club" to an independent organisation with only indirect (sponsorship) ties to Honda. Each time, the company has turned down the offer. As if to demonstrate their pride and disdain of professional sports, the Honda company team did the improbable, beating Thespa by three goals. As a result, both teams finished the season with 62 points, identical 19-5-6 records, and an equal goal difference of +28. But since Honda scored 64 goals this season, to Thespa's 63, Honda climbed past them into second place!

Fortunately for Thespa fans and players, the J.League was very eager to add two teams to the J2 next year. This would keep the number in the league at 12, which would be ideal from a scheduling standpoint. Since Honda wants to remain a company team, and therefore is not eligible for promotion J.League officials have been offering "unofficial" indications that the league would approve Thespa's promotion even if finish third, because the second-placed team (Honda) is not seeking promotion. On the other hand, the League was reluctant to create a "precedent" if it did not have to, so the official word on whether Thespa would gain J2 admission was left hanging until this weekend. Following Thespa's defeat to Honda, the League was forced to show their cards, and as most people had expected, allowed Thespa to advance even though they finished third. Next season, the J2 will get two new teams, both from prefectures that have not been represented in the J.League up to now. We hope to provide more information about both of the new J.League members in a few weeks.

J.League Awards, 2004

Thus, it was a huge relief when Nakazawa received the MVP award in the J.League. Though he missed a number of matches earlier in the season, when the Marinos were at their peak, there is no question that his contributions on defence were key to the team's successful result in the Championship playoff against Urawa Reds. No other defender in the league had as great an impact on matches, not only on defence, but also as an important offensive contributor on set plays and even from the run of play. Though there have been some equally appropriate selections in the past, this time the league made a choice that they can be proud of.

Coach of the year honours went to the Marinos' Takeshi Okada, who probably deserves the award considering that he took his team to the league title. However, as Okada himself observed in his acceptance speech, if the Reds had scored a late goal in the Suntory Championship second leg, it would have been Guido Buchwald who was up on stage accepting the award, instead. The Marinos were last year's champions as well, and required only a steady hand to guide them. Buchwald's accomplishments for the Reds, on the other hand, were quite a bit more extensive. He took a team that was historically prone to dissent and had never been able to play up to their potential, and turned them into a solid, efficient and imposing contender. This was a great accomplishment, even if he was provided with a great deal of financial and personnel support to do the job, and it is too bad that the League did not see fit to at least let him share the award with Okada.

The rookie of the year award, predictably went to 16-year-old Takayuki Morimoto, who was probably a deserving candidate, but who really owes this selection to the frenzy of publicity surrounding his entry to the league, at age 15, setting a new record for youngest player and youngest to score a goal. There is no question that Morimoto was the best player of his age, in the league (after all, Morimoto was the ONLY player of his age in the league). However, we thought there were sevearl other rookies who made greater contributions to their teams, such as Shimizu S-Pulse's Takumi Wada, Yohei Kajiyama of FC Tokyo and Jubilo Iwata's Sho Naruoka.

Here is the full list of awards: