Official 2013 J1 Thread

I originally wanted to watch the Kashima game but I couldnt find any stream in time. Perhaps it is for the best. I saw that Toyoda was a party pooper.

Can anyone give me a summary of that match?

 

classy Novakovic joking Jong-a-pin and Ardija is comfortably 2-0 over pointless Shimizu.
Ardija could really be the big surprise this year: they have the right players in the right position,a savvy manager,the best foreign contingent overall of J.League,Shohei Takahashi who'll be NT in the near future...

 

All three rookies (Arai is the third) have a good bit of talent. The question will be how long they need to learn the little points that differentiates pros from newbies. I think all the injuries in midfield were the main reason they got playing time today (Matsuhashi was playing at SIDE BACK), but both are promising players.

When Hosaka, Yamamoto and Mizuno get healthy I think Ventforet can be a real competitive team this year (well . . . . within reason. I dont expect miracles but I do thimk they could get as high as midtable). Everyone saw Davi leave and assumed that meant the entire team is ruined. But in reality they signed a better group of talent in the offseason than just about any team except Urawa. Its too early to say for sure, but people who have listed them dead last and written off their chances obviously havent spent much time looking at the roster (Aoyama, Hanyu, Mizuno, Hosaka, Izawa, Kashuwa, Tsuchiya, Fukuda, Ito, Yamamoto, Morita, Hiramoto......)

 

Both teams looked two weeks away from match fitness.
It wasnt much fun to watch.

 

Someome needs to learn the J.League rule #1:
Never post uncomplimentary messages about a teams performance until the final whistle

 

Yep!

 

aahhhh Shimizu was pointless...and still is...
but i should have known better before giving my traditional "kiss of death comment" to poor squirrels...

 

And well in the end they can be glad that they have managed to pull out even one point after this game.


Ishige

 

Funny game in Saitama. Many laughable moments with Sho Ito's entering the pitch as an icing on the cake.

 

Yep and what a display in general he gave. Props to him

 

you saw the 2nd goal of Urawa??
Good job Nishikawa!

 

Arai played for Omiya and Kitakyushu.

 

We have a new Fujigaya to entertain us

 

My mistake. I meant Sasaki. (Arai didnt play) He was on the team in the final months last year but didnt play and is still officially a rookie.

 

Sho Sasaki ? He was the starting left back last year. There's only two rookies Matsu.

 

He was only on the team at the end of the year and I think that he qualifies as a rookie. All I know is the announcers kept discussing Kofu's "three rookies", and Im pretty sure Sasaki was the third one they were talking about. All the other players in the lineup were veterans.

 

Sasaki started 34 games last year, I was sure but I checked for the sake of the debate. Those announcers were wrong, it wasn't the first time and won't be the last ...

 

Ogi; Fukuda, Aoyama, Tsuchiya, Matsuhashi; Kashiwa, Izawa, Hanyu (Ishikawa 84), Sasaki; Kaneko (Kawamoto 67), Hugo (Hiramoto 80)

There are only three players there who could qualify as rookies, and the announcers must have mentioned "Kofu's three rookies" two dozen times in the broadcast. So Sasaki must still qualify as a rookie.
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Edit: Yeah, its possible they were just flat-out wrong. But when announcers mention something that many times it usually means that it was given to them as a "talking point", which means somebody must have looked it up. Ill have to browse the J.League site after the Trinita-Tokyo game to see how many starts in a season disqualify you from being officially a rookie

 

This is what you call goal from thin air... but you know what... The defending there was just ridiculous.

Watanabe on the other hand sublime finish.

 

lol another one.

Defense and GKs being the problem for most of the J-League sides again

 

Finally play Tadanari Lee!

 

couldn't it be Hugo? in terms of J.League appearances he's to be counted as a rookie...
btw is also Horigome injured? He impressed me last year every time i watched Ventforet.

 

Lee that is why you didnt make it in Southampton