I'd like to attract attention to what dear Saki wrote today on her blog, after Frankfurt's defeat last sunday at Wolfsburg. Because it is such a wonder of humility, lucidity, honesty and braveness. A lesson taught to any Football player - woman or men - in the world, even if Saki is much too humble to intend to do that. No need here to remain who is Saki Kumagai and what she already achieved at 22 years old only. Thank you to Ken Suzuki for his translation from Japanese to English (on WSU) , and for his authorization to use it "Guten Tag!! My team played Wolfsburg yesterday, and lost by 2-4. It was hammered into my soul how inadequate I am. My team’s defeat is painful, my own deficiency is even more so. I was helpless against opponents characterized with physicality, and lost at every single match-up. The game just disclosed how poor I am. The truth is painful, but it is truth. I will not end up like this. I will climb out of this pit. What must I do from here and now? What is missing? What did I do to be ready for games? What will I do to be ready? I will look at myself one more time, and start a new challenge. I am in an environment I can make a new challenge, over my repeated failures. Of course, there is no guarantee my team will still use me next time. Yet my challenge is not over. Having gratitude to my environment in mind I will move on. For all people who cheer and support me, even if I am such a miserable footballer, I will grow. With thanks to the yesterday’s game for giving me the opportunity to grow, my challenge continues, with my head up. Well, this time my post is uncharacteristically serious. Small and occasional twist is not so bad, is it? Tschüss!!" [Once more, I can't post a photo... What's happening here ??]
I think I just fell in love with Kumagai! Age-wise, I guess it's much more appropriate than my obsession with Shibata.
Well, age-wise Kumagai is just two years older than Shibata, so I am not sure how much... wiser (or more appropriate ) it is!
Well, Saki is great but I think this time she understimated herself a lot, is not too good to get pity to yourself, I know it well, but I prefer this that some things male footballers say
Oh, to complete the very good info unepomme gave to us about the Nadeshiko League 2012 Award Ceremony, for the 2nd consecutive year Kei Hoshikawa was best coach of Nadeshiko League (I guess it was the only info missing from excellent unepomme comment ). Now, about the best 11: Virany, on her blog, noticedthat they are all from the 4 "big" teams, and that more than half of them come from the league winners INAC Kobe Leonessa, that have 6 of them; then 2 each for NTV Beleza and Okayama Yunogo Belle and 1 for Urawa Red Diamonds Ladies. It's worth noting that all the players are established members of respective National Teams (South Korea for Ji So-Yun, Nadeshiko Japan for the rest), be it as starters (Fukumoto, Iwashimizu, Kinga, Miyama, Sawa, Kawasumi) or subs (Yano, Asuna Tanaka, Takase), with one notable exception... You know who I am talking about, don't you? Asano Nagasato! All the other Best 11 Japanese players has been called for both 2011 WWC and 2012 Olympics National Team (as starters or subs): Just Asano misses a call from Sasaki for an official game since Asian Olympic Qualifiers in september 2011. It's also worth noting that the Best 11 team stuffed as many Nadeshiko Japan NT starter members as possible: basically there are all the usual NT starters except the ones playing abroad (Kumagai, Ogimi [Utsugi and Otaki aren't starter, and I guess Ando can't be considered a starter anymore either]), the one temporarily playing in Challenge League (Sameshima), Sakaguchi, who was too often injured this season, and Ohno eek: despite being captain of the winner team and third in the top-scorer rankings!). So, basically, this Best 11 team was made with the NT as a model, filling in somehow starter-gaps, mostly with NT subs. But Asano Nagasato made it anyway! Now, doesn't it mean anything?
I had reminded all of you already about the fact that Bundesliga always offers a Torshow (=goalshow, for non-German speakers ), but yesterday the one from sunday wasn't up yet. Now it is: http://tv.dfb.de/index.php?view=5228 Notice how Ogimi, quite unusually, scored her brace from FK + PK. I actually had to watch replay to check that FK was entirely beyond the goal line... After her goal-not-goal vs Canada at Olympics, Yuki at first didn't seem quite sure if this one was a goal or not either... By the way, after watching Bundesliga Torshow for some week, I am wondering where the cameras are placed at the Leverkusen stadium: on a clock-tower? If you then give a look at SC 07 Bad Neuenahr vs FCR 2001 Duisburg, even after re-watching the action of Mandy Islacker's goal, I can't decide if Ando did touch the ball (and so if she can be credited an assist) or if she just let the ball pass through without touching it... the images aren't quite clear, because they are from quite a far distance. What do you say?
I watched and watched again the FK with freezing the stream and I took a capture. You can see the very right moment when the ball is touching the ground after hitting the cross-bar. For me, the ball didn't cross the line and the goal shouldn't have been given... About Islacker's goal, I'm quite certain that Ando missed the ball and didn't touch it. Here again, I watched many times on large screen. I'm sorry to be so negative about two great Nadeshiko today !
It's not that I intentionally omitted it, but just forgot. By the way, after that, Ohno said to get a laugh, "you were able to get the award thanks to the players. Please feel grateful for us." That was the only not-serious comment in this boring party. It's somewhat a mystery that Ohno didn't get any individual award. Just the outcome by the elimination method, or due to her bad attitude at the Cup final's ceremony? Oh, for your reference, Hoshikawa himself highly appreciated the captain's contribution above all at the League victory interview.
Today's unreliable news: Hoshikawa got furious about that Ohno didn't get any individual award, saying "In my opinion MVP is definitely Ohno. MVP is not a popularity poll; don't write down names irresponsibly." Best 11 and MVP seems to be chosen by all coaches voting.
Today's really unreliable news: A charity match of Nadeshiko vs Young Nadeshiko is going to be held on 25th December.
Ha, I was just about to ask how unreliable that news was, and then I thought, hold on, the Cup final is on the 24th, lots of the players could be in that too, are they going to play three games in four days?
Heh I think some coaches should have noticed how Ohno behaved sometimes with her team mates... XD Forgetting the quality of her way of playing.
You'll remember that I was the first to point out this. Not only Ohno didn't get individual awards or Best 11 inclusion despite being captain of the winner team and third in the scorers-ranking, but basically she was the only NT starter who wasn't it Best 11, apart from players from other leagues (overseas and Challenege League) and Sakaguchi who was quite constantly injured. I don't remember very well the League Cup's ceremony: what exactly she did? Anyway; about Hoshikawa's "unreliable" fury: I guess he probably wanted to see Ohno ahead of Kawasumi, didn't he? In the FW department of Best 11, I guess the names of the two top-scorers of the League can't really be questioned: one can wonder how exactly Takase can score so much (considering that we also saw her commit awful mistakes, with an empty goalmouth ) and credit them more to te team than to her, but I guess there's no doubt that in this season she delivered; Asano Nagasato was behind her for just one goal and played consistently well for all the league (probably deserving a second look by Sasaki, soon ). So I guess it all comes down to Kawasumi: in my opinion Nahomi played very well this season, despite scoring less (but she also played in a position where she made other players scoring more than scoring herself) and her nomination is a logical follow up to her being MVP last season. But I guess that when Hoshikawa talks about "popularity contest", he can only refer to media and fan-darling Kawasumi. So, in retrospective, if his (unreliable) words are kind to Ohno and her unvaluable contribution, they sound quite harsh towards Ms. Kawasumi, that for sure was another key-player of his team. I mean, when he talks about "popularity contest", for sure he's not talking about Asano Nagasato (and her Fighting Spirit Award), does he?
Gromit, it sometimes seems difficult to copy a photo here, especially if it comes directly from your PC. When I need to do that, I took the habit to save the photo I need on a photo-sharing site and then copying it from there: it's quite annoying, but it's the only method I found that seems to always work.
Sure. I know you are the one. She put the award certificate on the ground in frustration of the defeat. Later she apologized for that in her blog or somewhere. I think Ohno is considered one of MFs, so the objects are Sawa, Miyama or Ji. In fact, Sawa was absent for some time, Miyama was sometimes excellent but sometimes silent, and Ji was good but not necessarily better than Ohno. Or possibly he may be thinking Takase's feat almost depends on the other members' - Kawasumi's or Ohno's - efforts.
Actually last year she was counted amongst the FWs... I don't know how are thinking the jury members ^^;;