Official 2014 non-league football thread

Apparently they also changed the tournament system – JFL will also feature two-stage tournament with post-season championship play-off.

 

They must have thought: "Why ruin only J1?"

 

And Maruyasu Industries team has been renamed to FC Maruyasu Okazaki, ＦＣマルヤス岡崎. I guess this means they are no longer a company team.

 

Its also been revealed that JFL will play 2015 season with 16 clubs.

http://www.nikkansports.com/soccer/news/p-sc-tp1-20140121-1246742.html

 

Maruyasu has been specifically handpicked by JFL to replace Sagawa Shiga as a club with corporate colours so no the renaming is to get closer to their local area.

 

Note that the formal team name is still Maruyasu Industries Co. Football Club.
Interestingly, if you go to the company website's top page, 4 of 6 news headlines are about the football club...you would think that a Toyota supplier with ~$1B+ annual sales would have more to report

 

True but all football people in japan also are saying that the CEO of Maruyasu are very commited to football.

On other hand japanese corporate websites are usually completely different than western (I originally have a background in content management system development for japanese markets and theres big differences between how we use content on corporate level compared japan to the west).

 

I think personally they will fare OK. To be honest a team of young players with possibilities are always better than a bunch of dead veterans. Its nice to see something different and a club using another strategy than all others always saying we have got X number of former J-Leaguers!.

Besides Hachinohe cannot be promoted this year and they cannot get relegated so they are not losing anything. Theyre only problem is the club is run from Sendai.

 

What really? So the club offices are in Sendai?

 

Yes the club ownership is a bit dubious, the reason the clubs structure has been accepted by J-League is really because its owned by a company, however the structure is a bit like Kamatamare before it became Kamatamare or Zweigen Kanazawa before it became Zweigen Kanazawa. However the company is involved in football as its business and theres also some paralells to YSCC and Numazu, but their footballing community service area is not Hachinohe but Sendai.

 

Western Japan Shakaijin cup started today.

Although I dont know all the results yet you get the 2 I know.
FC Imabari- Shinittetsusumikin Oita 2-2
Amitie SC- Dezzola Shimane 3-0

The thing is Amitie lost a very big part of their team and Dezzola only came with 12 players since most of the team left the club. This results shows that Dezzola wont be a force in the Chugoku League this season.

 

The 2 other matches in western Japan shakaijin cup
Matsue City ０－０（PK４－２） Kagoshima United Second
FC Osaka ７－０ Igosso Kochi

 

Western Japan Shakaijin Cup final day:

Igosso Kochi ６－１ Kagoshima Unites Second
Matsue City １－１（PK４－２） FC Osaka

FC Imabari ８－０ Dezzola Shimane
Amitie SC ６－２ Shinittetsu Sumikin Oita

Surprising winnerss of Western Japan Shakaijin Cup is Amitie and Matsue City.

Dezzola was last year on same level as Imabari, today losing 8-0 and their local rivals Matsue that only became 4th in 2013 Chugoku leaague played equal with FC Osaka shows that a big power shift has happened in 2014 Chugoku league.

 

This page says it's Ittetsu Idogawa.

Here's another blog post with the same Latin spelling.

 

JFL started yesterday and noone posted about it so I will.

Honda FC - Renofa Yamaguchi 3-1
Sagawa Printing - Maruyasu Industries 3-0
Sony Sendai - Azul Claro Numazu 2-0
Yokogawa Musashino - Vanraure Hachinohe 1-0
Verspah Oita - Kagoshima United 0-1
MIO Biwako Shiga - Fagiano Okayama Next 1-1
Tochigi Uva - Honda Lock 2-0

So only Kagoshima won among the new JFL clubs.

Honda, Sagawa Printing and Sony Sendai seems to be the teams to fight for the top of JFL this season (as i myself had guessed).

 

And some curious stats for attendance nerds:

Honda got 1,400 for their home opener -- bigger than any match from last season
Mio have drawn 1,156 -- again, their biggest figure since 2012
Verspah Oita had 842 -- not too shiny but . . . yes, you got it right, bigger than any in 2013.

All other clubs were mediocre though, so it's not some league-wide trend

 

A: You can expect the bigger crowds from the new J3 wannabees; Kagoshima, Yamaguchi, Numazu, Hachinohe.
B: Verspah had their biggest crowd because Kagoshima took a lot of fans from Kagoshima.

 

Not to pry...but are things OK with you currently?

 

yes artml I was thinking the same as Naopon. Also arent the club in Kharkiv on the brink of collapse?

 

Yeah, things are pretty fine with me -- thank you for asking. There have been some outbursts of violence in the streets and squares some weeks ago but they are disappearing now.

Crimea is a different story though, but thankfully I live far enough from it to feel safe. Sad, but safe.

Lupin, as far as I know, the local club is having a blow but it's unlikely they will collapse. Just won't be a powerhouse they seem to become -- no Champions League contests anymore. But they will survive.

 

but Kharkiv is still in the eastern part of the country right?

The football situation in Kharkiv have been a lot in the danish medias, first since they hired former danish national Frank Arnesen as GM and later because he resigned before he even started.