February 13, 2005

Preseason Prognostications

The past few weeks have been rather quiet for football fans, apart from the recent national team matches, but the Rising Sun News has been hard at work updating all of the data for the roughly 940 players listed on the rosters of all J1 and J2 clubs, as well as the individual schedules for all 30 teams. After completing the clerical work, we sat back and took a long look at the rosters, in preparation to write our preseason forecasts.

But the longer we looked, the more daunting the task appeared. Of course, the fact that the league has expanded to 18 teams instead of 16 has some impact, and the longer season (with a single 34-match format instead of two separate stages) adds to the complications. But the biggest problem we have in trying to predict the winners and losers is the fact that the league has so many potentially dangerous teams. Picking the likely winner was hard enough. No doubt we have to consider the reigning champion Yokohama Marinos, as well as Jubilo Iwata, who went on a buying spree during the offseason. The Urawa Reds, who fell just short last season and will be hungry for revenge, are at least as strong as they were last year and possibly stronger. Meanwhile, there are several teams that have young and highly athletic squads that might be able to knock off the favourites, over a gruelling 34-match season. Both Tokyo clubs fall into this category. Finally, we cannot ignore the Kashima Antlers, who have the track record to prove their championship potential, or Gamba Osaka, who seem to hang around the top of the table year after year, even though they have yet to go all the way to a league title.

If choosing a winner seems tough, ranking the remaining clubs in some sort of logical order is even more daunting. There are so many wild cards, and a great deal will depend on the outcomes of key contests between the top group of 4-6 teams. Clubs like Sanfrecce Hiroshima, JEF United, Kashiwa Reysol, Kawasaki Frontale and Nagoya Grampus, though they do not seem to have the depth and brilliance to go all the way to a title, may very well determine who DOES claim the crown by upsetting some of the favourites.. All in all, it promises to be a thrilling season, with plenty of surprises and unforeseen elements affecting the final outcome.

About the only thing that is NOT difficult to call is the care for relegation. There are basically four or five teams that sit on a slightly lower plane than the rest of the league, and three in particular -- Omiya Ardija, Oita Trinita and Shimizu S-Pulse -- who look like strong relegation candidates. Of course, the situation could change as the year wears on. Two of the weaker clubs -- Trinita and Vissel Kobe -- have abundant cash reserves to spend if they get in trouble, and we would not be surprised to see some substantial roster changes in July and August, when the European market opens up once more.

With all of these caveats and qualifications, it should be obvious that our "prognostications" this year are little more than educated guesses. Even so, we do think that there is a gradual heirarchy of competitiveness in the league this year, with three "favourites", three or four "dark horse" candidates for a title (even if it be only a cup competition), six to eight "mid-table" clubs, who will mainly be competing to finish above the midpoint of the league table, but whose performances may very well influence the race for the title, and four or five "strugglers" who will be fighting mainly for a chance to remain in the J1 for another season. We have grouped them in roughly this order, in the table below. By clicking on the individual team icons, you can read a more detailed analysis of the prospects for each team.

. . . and The J2 Two (Errrr . . . Too)

Guessing the probable outcome of the race for the J.League second division title is a bit less daunting than the job of making predictions for the J1 race. This is partly due to the fact that there are only 12 teams involved. However, there is also a much wider disparity in competiitveness than there is in the J1. In fact, after some very close races for promotion over the past 2-3 years, this season is likely to be a comparative bore. Basically, there are only four to five clubs who have even an outside chance of claiming one of the two promotion spots this season, and essentially, the race for the crown boils down to just three teams. The competition is a bit tighter at the opposite end of the table, but since there is no relegation pressure in the J2, the battle among these lesser lights has liuttle impact beyond pride and possibly the opportunity to stimulate the local fan base and make the team a bit more competitive in the following season.

Of the two newcomers to the J.League, we think that only Thespa Kusatsu will be realy competitive this year, perhaps finishing as high as mid-table, while TokushimaVortis will probably vie with Sagan Tosu to see who finishes dead last. The most likely teams to earn a ticket to the top-flight division at the end of the year are Vegalta Sendai, Avispa Fukuoka and Vegalta Sendai, with Montedio Yamagata lingering on their heels as a potential dark-horse candidate. Shonan Bellmare, Ventforet Kofu and FC Yokohama should all be competitive teams this year, but their chances of gaining promotion are exceedingly slim, and depend on a dramatic collapse at one or more of the top contenders.

Below are the links to our analyses of each J2 club. Once again, we have grouped them according to competitiveness, with the real "competition" limited to the teams in the top row.

A3 = "Absent from Asia Again"

This weekend, the annual "A3 Nissan Champions Cup" kicked off in Jeju, South Korea, and sure enough, it was difficult to find anything more than a casual mention of the fact in the Japanese storting news. As we have discussed at length in the past, J.League teams seem to view this tournament as little more than an inconvenience in their early-season scheduling plans. Last year, Yokohama Marinos coach Takeshi Okada attempted to withdraw his team from the tournament altogether, despite the fact that it is sponsored by the Yokohama Marinos' own largest corporate donor -- Nissan Motors. After receiving a good dressing-down from the head office of the Marinos and several J.League and JFA suits, Okada seemed to have changed his attitude this year, as he told the press how important this competition would be for his team, and how intensely he was preparing for the four-way tournament between the Chinese, Korean and Japanese league champions (plus the second-place team from the host country, Korea).

Unfortunately, actions tend to speak louder than words, and based on his actual approach to the A3 championship, Okada signalled that he was setting his sights on other objectives. Though both China and Korea, as well as the East Asian Football Confederation (EAFC) have tried very hard to elevate interest in the A3 tournament, it stands to reason that the Marinos will be more concerned with other issues. Obviously the Marinos need to prepare for a very tough season in the J.League, and will probably be taking the Asian Champions League tournament seriously this season, if only because the winner earns a ticket to the world club championships, to be held in Japan at the end of the year. However, one should also note that the Marinos will have to play Tokyo Verdy in the Xerox Super Cup, barely a week after the A3 tournament concludes.

One might ask why Yokohama would ignore a serious international championship in order to prepare for a "meaningless" domestic exhibition event, but the fact of the matter is that if they can win the Xerox Super Cup, Yokohama's players will take home as much in actual prize money (for just a single match) than they would for finishing second in the A3 tournament (three matches), and indeed, just a shade less than the A3 title winner will claim! For that matter, the ACL winner receives only half a million US dollars -- a mere US$100,000 more than the A3 champion -- for a competition that runs over a total of 12 matches. So long as these Asian competitions provide financial rewards that are commensurate with those of even minor J.League exhibition events, it is understandable that teams like the Marinos will give them short shrift.

Of course, Coach Okada never let a hint of this attitude escape his lips (at least not THIS year). But what else can one conclude from the fact that Yokohama fielded a half-strength squad in the opening match of the competition. The team's two ace strikers, Tatsuhiuko Kubo sand Ahn Jung-Hwan, were ruled out due to injury, and we never expected to see them take part. However, we would have though that the Marinos might have allowed at least ONE of their two national team defenders to play in this contest. Naoki Matsuda did not even set foot on the pitch in Japan's match against North Korea on Wednesday, yet neither he nor Yuji Nakazawa was even on the bench for Yokohama's match against the Pohang Steelers. And with the top two strikers on the team both injured, you might expect a heavy burden to fall on the number three striker, Daisuke Sakata. Sure enough, he . . . .ummm . . . well actually he only played 45 minutes. Coach Okada let reporters know before the match even kicked off that Sakata would not play the full 90 minutes because he was responsible for carrying a great burden of responsibility early in the J.League season, and he wanted to keep the youngster well rested. Errrrhhhh . . . yes, and what was that you were saying about taking the A3 tournament seriously? The fact is, if we use the lineups that the major weekly football magazines have posted as their "starting eleven" for the Marinos in 2005, only four players were on the pitch against Pohang -- keeper Tatsuya Enomoto, Dutra and Tanaka at the midfield wings, and Daisuke Nasu, who appeared to be playing out of position at defensive midfield rather than in the back line.

As for the fans and the media, this year at least the Marinos matches are being carried on TV -- by Nippon Terebi. However, many of the local affiliates (including the one here in Yamanashi prefecture) opted not to carry the match, so it is by no means on "nationwide" TV. The print media, meanwhile, wrote only minimal comments about the tournament in their moring editions, and as of the time we wrote this article (after 6PM -- almost three hours after them match ended), NOT ONE of the leading sports tabloids had even posted a final score on their websites.

Fortunately, when the idea of this tournament was hatched, it was only planned on an experimental basis, and the organizers decided that it would run for three years before a decision is made on whether or not to make it a permanent part of the football calendar. This will be the third year, and based on the attitude of the Marinos toward the competition, we do not see it continuing in its current form. Perhaps if the schedule is changed such that the tournament takes place in July, or some other time when teams do not already have other concerns on their mind, this competition may survive. But if J.League teams continue to contest the event with half-strength squads, and if broadcasters and the printed sports press continue to ignore it, there is little reason to see the competition continue.

1-1 Pohang Steelers

As noted in the report above, the Marinos fielded a half-strength squad for their first A3 match, against the Pohang Steelers, runners up in the K.League last season. In the absence of both Nakazawa and Matsuda, the team started with a back three of Yuzo Kurihara, Eisuke Nakanishi and Ryuji Kawai, with what looked like a three-volante midfield of Dutra, Daisuke Nasu, and Masashi Ohashi. Dutra spend a lot of time overlapping on the left wing, but his duties were primarily defensive, and even when he did push forward, Hayuma Tanaka would drop back from the opposite wing such that the Marinos always had six players in essentially defensive positions.

Not surprisingly, this allowed Pohang to dominate possession, though it did prove to be effective in terms of results. Early in the contest, Norihisa Shimizu (who started up top alongside Daisuke Sakata) took advantage of a handling error by Pohang's center back, Rogerio dos Santos, picking his pocket and dashing into the box for a low, hard shot into the left corner. With an early lead, Yokohama could be satisfied with just hanging back and looking for the rare counterattack opportunity. Though Pohang had the majority of possession, they could not produce many good chances against the six-man defending of the Marinos, and the first half ended with Yokohama holding on to its 1-0 advantage.

Midway through the second half, however, Pohang finally beat the Marinos' "prevent defence", on a corner kick from just above the top right corner of the penalty area. Santos made up for his earlier mistake by connecting with a leaping header and sending the ball into the right side of the net, well beyond the reach of Enomoto.

This set up a very exciting final 25 minutes, as the Marinos finally began to come out of their shell and push for the winning goal, while Pohang tried to complete their comeback with a second strike. The contest swung from end to end with fierce intensity, and both teams came close on at least two or three occasions. However, neither team could produce the winner, and the match ended on a 1-1 score line. Obviously the Marinos will be hapy with a point from this match, considering how understrength the team was. But unless coach Okada decides to make his actions match his words, by fielding his best players (or at least the best eleven available to him at this time), it seems highly unlikely that Yokohama will be able to start out their season by lifting a trophy.

Of course, they will be heavily favoured to make up for this by lifting the Xerox Super Cup, next week, and that is probably what Okada has intended all along. But if the Marinos (and the J.League in general) really have such low regard for the A3 tournament that they arent even willing to send a full-strength squad to take part, then they should drop the pretences and just say so. For our part, we at the Rising Sun News think that a club tournament for East Asia is good for football in the region, but it will not benefit anyone if it is treated with this sort of disregard. The Chinese and Korean participants seem to be taking this event seriously. Why does Japan's representative send a collection of rookies and second-string benchwarmers to take part? This is not only an insult to the opposition, but also a disappointment to those few fans who did bother to tune in to the broadcast.

Another Act of Asian Apathy
(Wait a minute . . . . that adds up to "A4")

As we noted earlier in the week, the Japanese media have roundly ignored the A3 Nissan Champions Cup tournament, currently taking place in Jeju, South Korea. Considering the fact that the Japanese representatives, the Yokohama Marinos, are blowing off this tournament as well, it may be no surprise that the media have had vrey little to say about it. However, on Tuesday we received news of a decision that disses the tournament to an extent that really is beyond the pale. Despite the fact that they had initially agreed to broadcast all three of the Marinos' matches live, Nippon TV suddenly decided that they would broadcast some cooking show reruns instead, and show the Marinos' match against Shenzhen on a taped rerun, starting at midnight.

The Rising Sun News contacted the broadcaster to obtain an official statement on the reasons why NTV decided to suspend their coverage of the tournament, but the people we spoke to refused to provide any official statement. After receiving a "No Commento" reply from four different people, however, our persistance finally paid off and we were transferred to a person in the sports department who agreed to provide some information about this matter so long as his identity remained anonymous and we would make it clear in our article that these comments were not official statements of Nippon TV.

Apparently, the viewer ratings for the first match, against the Pohang Steelers, were so poor that the network executives were able to cancel the live telecast with no dissenting opinions. However, it seems that many people at the network wanted to carry the matches on tape to begin with. "After all, hardly anyone cares about a match against Korean or Chinese teams, and the few people who do care will not be at home on Wednesday afternoon at 4:30. By showing it at midnight, on tape delay, we are actually trying to consider the needs of soccer fans"

This logic may be difficult to dispute, particularly given the poor ratings that the first match received, but it certainly does not say much about Japan's attitude towards Asian competitions. This is, after all, a matchup against the league champions of China and Korea. Surely an international competition of this magnitude deserves to at least be televised live. Unfortunately, it appears that not many people share our opinion. None of the sports tabloids are providing much information on this tournament. In fact, the only articles of ANY kind, which appeared in this week's newspapers, involved a case of food poisoning that forced several Marinos players to miss the match against Shenzhen. There was a bit of conspiracy-theory-type speculation that someone may have spiked the team's dinner with bad shellfish, but virtually nothing about the actual football matches being played in Jeju.

Incidentally, Yokohama managed to win the contest against Shenzhen 2-0, despite the fact that the team was made up entirely of reserve players. Unfortunately, we cannot provide any more information than that. . . after all, it wont be broadcast until after midnight tonight, and none of the major sports tabloids have even bothered to post a final score. We had to get the few details we DO know from a Korean website.

The victory means that the final match of the tournament, between the Marinos and Suwon Bluewings, will decide the tournament champion. Unfortunately, the way things are going it looks like Nippon TV may abandon plans to show THAT match live, as well. What a farce!!!

Marinos Limp Home from A3 Event

It may not have come as much of a surprise, considering the sort of squad that the Marinos were fielding for this tournament, but a 3-1 loss to Suwon Bluewings in the final match of the A3 tyournament was still something of a disappointment. Suwon captured the first place positon in the event with the victory, sealed by two late second-half goals, both on blunders by the keeper-- Tatsuya Enomoto -- after a strike by newcomer Hideo Oshima cancelled out a goal by Suwon's Brazilian ace, Nadson to keep the match level at half time. Suwon benefitted from a few mental blunders, but in general they dominated play and the results never seemed greatly in doubt, particularly since a draw would have been sufficient to give them the A3 title.

The Marinos fielded a lineup that had just one player -- the keeper, Enomoto -- who was a regular starting member of the Marinos at the beginning of last season. That statistic is actually a bit deceptive since the team that took the pitch against Suwon did include Dutra, who was injured at the beginning of last season and thus was not a starter, and Hayuma Tanaka, who did not win a starting position until about the middle of the year, but will probably start regularly this year. Even so, the list of players out of action will surely raise concerns for Takeshi Okada as he and his charges limp home and try to prepare for the J.League season. The list of people who were NOT avaliable for the final against Suwon reads like the all-star lineup for a "Best Eleven" awards ceremony: Tatsuhiko Kubo, Ahn Jung Hwan, Daisuke Sakata, Nobuhisa Shimizu, Akihiro Endo, Koji Yamase, Naoki Matsuda, Yuji Nakazawa, Ryuji Kawai and Adhemar (if you throw in Enomoto as the goalkeeper, Id be happy to field these eleven players against just about anyone in the J.League this season).

While the poor result at the A3 tournament may not be of much concern to Okada, he IS likely to worry about the fact that many of these players will not be back for quite some time. At present, national team defenders Nakazawa and Matsuda are listed as "possible" starters for the Xerox Cup match, next weekend, but they are not likely to be at 100% to start the season. Of greater concern is the fact that all four of the top strikers face long rehabilitation processes, as do midfielders Endo and Yamase. Based on the official "physio's estimates", Kubo will probably join the team immediately following the break in late March for WC qualifiers, Adhemar may be ready at about the same time and Sakata should be back by the end of April, but Ahn and Yamase probably will not be back until at least May. On paper, the Marinos look like a formidable team this year, but one reason why we did not tap them as our favourite to take the title this season is the fact that the names on the roster do not have any correlation to the team that Yokohama is actually able to field for a competitive match. They could go as many as 5 or 6 matches before they put together a team that is healthy enough and complete enough to compete at the top level. A slow start could seriously dent their title hopes this year, and even if he does not care about the A3 tournament, Okada will surely be concerned about his prospects for the upcoming J.League season.

Incidentally, we have already expressed our dissatisfaction with the way that the Marinos, the J.League and the Japanese media have ignored this tournament, but we want to get in one final shot. Though Nippon TV did broadcast the final Marinos match live, none of the mainstream sports dailies have provided anything but the most minimal of coverage. The low point was reached on Thursday, when all of the sports tabloids included stories on the injury that has sideined striker Daisuke Sakata, yet despite full-column stories about Sakata, and the other injured Marinos, none provided more than a sentence or two descrirebing the actual football match between Yokohama and Shenzhen. The worst offender of all had to be the "Sanspo" (Sankei Sports), which printed a five-paragraph story about Sakata's injury, followed immediately by an equally lengthy report on the rehabilitation progress of Tatsuhiko Kubo, yet did NOT even provide the FINAL SCORE of the match between the Marinos and Shenzhen.

Comments from the league, the JFA, and most importantly, Nissan, suggest that the A3 tournament has just breathed its last. Given the degree of disdain that they have shown to this event over the past three years, this is no surprise whatsoever, and if you consider the alternative ways in which this time of the year might be used, it may be hard to find anyone who wil be sorry to see it die. Be that as it may, the J.League DID have a central role in planning and creating this event in the first place. It would be wise for them to consider carefuly the mistakes and problems that occurred to ensure that such a thing does not happen again. Already, there are signs that the East Asian Championships -- another event that involves Japan, China and Korea -- may be headed for a similar collapse, due to a lack of interest from Japan. Korea and China both seem to take these events seriously, but Japanese football officials act as if they have no time to waste on "meaningless" competitions against their Asian neighbours.

Obviously, this is a serious problem that needs to be considered carefully and solemnly in order to find some solution. There is certainly some truth to the view that China and Korea are treating these events in a less-than-sporting way. Any time that the Japan national anthem gets booed at the opening ceremonies to a football match that is largely paid for with Japanese money and supported by Japanese corporations, one can understand the emotional reaction that is bound to result. Furthermore, Chinese and Korean teams, and fans, have often spoken openly about "working together to defeat Japan", suggesting a coordination of several teams' efforts to see that the Japanese participant cannot win. While this may be little more than idle rhetoric, it should be obvious to those in charge of the KFA and CFA what sort of impact such talk will have on Japanese fans, not to mention the teams and players. Based on our discusions with people associated with the league, we have the impression that a lot of people in the JFA and the J.League want to just wash their hands of "these ingrates" in Asia, and concentrate on establishing ties with Europe, Oceania, Africa and South America.

This woud be a huge mistake. Japan needs Asia just as much as Asia needs Japan, and it is high time that people in ALL THREE countries quit plaing into the hands of nationalist irritants in their respective countries, and started to TRULY cooperate in good faith and friendly partnership, to start building a strong and united football organisation in East Asia. This goes for the media, as well. Overly-hypes stories about the "battle against the North Koreans", thick with innuendo about kidnapping and nuclear warfare, may help to sell papers, but they demonstrate a complete lack of journalistic integrity on the part of the people who write and publish them. It is long past time that the football family of Asia (including EVERYONE associated with the beautiful game, from bureaucrats, team officials, players and coaches to fans, commentators and sports media representatives) start working together to REDUCE feelings of antagonism in this region, instead of acting as irritants and only making the tensions in East Asia worse. Unless this happens, the growth of the sport throughout this region could suffer, and that benefits absolutely nobody. Regardless of whether or not the A3 is cancelled, we hope that football fans and media in the region will reflect on the situation, and try to ensure that any future competitions between teams in Japan, China and the Koreas promote harmony among football fans, rather than continued childish bickering.

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