Wait, you were surprised about Leandro's performance at Gamba? But he scored 13 in 19? p.s. in that Tanaka "hat trick" it was two penalties lol. But I like him and no it's a global board decision I think
VEGALTA SENDAI -> 4-2-2-2 In a way making this list was difficult, because everytime there is a new coach, how do you know just how much is he going to change. Is he going to change the formation, is he going to change players and what not. However seeing the roster for 2014 that we have so far and seeing what left and came. I am not sure Mr. Graham Arnold will change all that much to be honest. Could be does not want to, or could be he just cant. So the formation will imo stay the 4-2-2-2. With Akamine and Wilson on top. Akimine was not exactly shining like in season 2012 however who is he going to replace him with? Left wing/AML/Cish position is going to always be captain's. On the left Yoshiaki Ota seems to be the go to guy as well. The only interesting part I guess would be the midfield and the goalkeeper, who we will get to in a second. Mcglinchey should be the guy Arnold will trust to playmake his way around the pitch. Kakuda and Tomita will fight for that other DMC spot. Defense should imo look same old same with the exception of GK which could be one hell of a problem for Vegalta if keepers start having blunders. Now unless young Daniel Schmidt is some sort of superstar waiting to be discovered they are left with experienced Sakurai who however has not played much at all. (2 games last season in a cup) 27 years old Seki is even worse in that retrospect. So I must say that this surprises me a lot. I expect Sendai to play Sakurai, once again I dont buy that they will just risk it all on the young Schmidt, but since Sakurai isnt exactly been tested all that much I am leaving an option of some super hero revelation. We are not talking about preseason predictions here for Vegalta but I am thinking that this wont be an easy season for them.
Actually I missed that notion, that he only played for 19 games. Now that changes things a lot. He is not Usami but definitely a lot better than 13 in 40 or so that I imagined don't know why instantly. Thanks for correction. Will change it, but cant really edit it here. Will use it for my thread on some other forum though and perhaps if we go into preseason predictions.
also another weird thing is why did Cerezo spend 400k on Nichols. I mean supposing he's going to make the bench, it sounds weird. He's 24 too. Maybe Yamaguchi will be moved forward and either Aria or Minamino make the bench... no idea
Well I think the Australian is just a squad depth as long as all play to their best abilities. I do hope Popovič doesnt have some serious plans with him
VENTFORET KOFU -> 5-4-1 Probably the team outside of the J2 promotion guys who I have the least idea of what they were, will be playing in 2014. I admit I havent watched them much in 2013. In short. I think Cristiano is going to be their main go to guy. Behind him two support strikers / attacking midfielders in Kawamoto and Gilsinho with Kawamoto giving a bit of an extra widt to the left. Hosaka and Parana will probably hold the midfield. Sale of Kashiwa really will show in the line up one way or another. The new addition from Nagoya Shohei Abe should play the left back and Fukuda perhaps pushed a bit higher to help the midfield turning the back 5 into actually 4. But honestly told I do not know and will be interested to see. Yamamoto, Sasaki and Aoyama in central defense goalkeepers will probably switch like in the previous season. Or has the coach found his main guy between the posts. So to tell you the truth I am not betting anything on this 5-4-1 and can as well see this going 4-5-1 way or 4-3-3 I guess would be correct. We shall see
VISSEL KOBE -> 4-2-2-2 I was thinking about this one for a long time as well and in the end it's probably for one factor fan made instead of reality. I think Pedro Junior will have a partner in Marquinhos or occasionaly Tashiro. Ogawa should be no brainer as well. Right wing, left wing... Now the bit of fan fiction is the Ryota Morioka part. Because the kid was playing quite a bit at the end, but you also have to know that the line ups at the time were a bit different and didnt contain two guys up front like shown in the formation bellow. It was usually 3 midfielders to support Ryota and Ogawa, so Ryota may be in fact replaced by someone from the midfield like Oya. Anyways Simplicio + Hashimoto should be a fix. Central pair Iwanamai + Masukawa from Nagoya (now that Korean has gone after some strange affairs) Okui and Soma at the FB positions replaced by Shunki Takahashi if needed I presume. GK probably Tokushige.
YOKOHAMA F. MARINOS -> 4-3-2-1 And here it is, the last one. Before we go into detail, let me express again my huge lack of understand how Mr. Higuchi thinks. But it was working for them in 2013 so... Starting with the striker. Take your pick. Fujito, Ito, Yajima, who will be on top? I think Fujito will at least at the start of the season get the nod ahead of the other two. However the three together have not scored what Marquinhos have last season, not to mention that Marquinhos wasnt even top 5 striker. So I dont think this is an especially great idea but anyway... Manabu Saito on left is a definite yes unless injury comes. Shingo Hyodo should equally sealed the right flank. Shunsuke Nakamura playing the playmaker role in the MC/AMC. Tomisawa, Nakamachi hold the defensive midfield positions. Kobayashi should take the right back. Now as for the left. Dont tell me Dutra at the age of 40 will still get a nod over everyone else. He wasnt bad, but not that good to simply waste one foreign place and dissing your own home boys like Higa. Well looks like it will happen again as Shimohira came in. And something tells me he ll be the one battling Dutra for the spot. Nakazawa and Kurihara should stay as should enomoto as GK. Really almost nothing new in Marinos except one year added to the team oh and a bit worse striker position....
Koki Arita was finally loaned out from Vissel right? Also just a small thing you wrote Sassaki in Kofu's image, and Fujito is Yoshihito Fujita I guess ugh I hope Hanato finds play time... anyway awful transfer market for Marinos, considering they have to play in ACL too. I wonder if Higuchi will be able to do magic again.
yes the worst thing is that I noticed them both but can do nothing about it haha And yeah I could count those 3-4 teams I was waiting to do a move but they never did. Like Marinos striker Vegalta keeper and stuff like that so really cant wait for it to start. Probably the most excited I have been for J-League season ever
I don't know why did he brought Aria for. He ain't better than Kakitani, Yamaguchi and Ogihara imo even though he is good. What do you guys think about Ogihara playing as a CB? Which areas do you think Ogihara would have to improve on to successfully replace Yamashita who is injured in the camp in Okinawa?
Damn @Blue-San you did some serious pondering over the past day. I have a copy of Weekly Soccer Digest from a few weeks ago lying around with complete J-League lineup predictions so I'll try comparing when I have time
OK, here goes a few for now (all listings left to right): Urawa (3-4-2-1): Nishikawa; Makino, Nasu, Moriwaki; Ugajin, Abe, Suzuki, Umesaki; Haraguchi, Kashiwagi; Koroki Hiroshima (3-4-2-1): Hayashi; Mizumoto, Chiba, Shiotani; Kashiwa, Kazu Morisaki, Aoyama, Mikic; Takahagi, Ishihara; Sato Marinos (4-2-3-1): Enomoto; Dutra, Nakazawa, Kurihara, Kobayashi; Tomisawa, Nakamachi; Hyodo, Nakamura, Fujimoto; Ito Kawasaki (4-2-3-1): Nishibe; Noborizato, Igawa, Jeci, Tanaka; Paulinho, Yamamoto; Renato, Nakamura, Kobayashi; Okubo Cerezo (4-2-3-1) before finalization of Forlan transfer - predicts 2 or 3 strikers in the event it happens: Kim; Maruhashi, Yamashita, Fujimoto, Sakemoto; Ogihara, Yamaguchi; Minamino, Hasegawa, Sugimoto; Kakitani Kashima (4-2-3-1): Sogahata; Yamamoto, Yamamura, Aoki, Nishi; Luis Alberto, Shibasaki; Nakamura, Doi, Endo; Davi Gamba (4-4-2): Higashiguchi; Fujiharu, Konno, Iwashita, Kaji; Futagawa, Endo, Uchida, Kurata; Usami, Lins Vissel (4-4-2): Yamamoto; Soma, Komoto, Iwanami, Okui; Ogawa, Simplicio, Hashimoto, Morioka; Marquinhos, Pedro Junior Kashiwa (4-4-2): Sugeno; Hashimoto, Suzuki, Kondo, Kim; Takayama, Otani, Han, Leandro Domingues; Leandro, Kudo FC Tokyo (4-3-3): Gonda; Ota, Morishige, Matheus, Tokunaga; Yonemoto, Takahashi, Higashi; Mita, Hirayama, Edu Shimizu (4-2-1-3): Kushibiki; Jong-a-Pin, Jakovic, Sugiyama, Yoshida; Muramatsu, Honda; Yoshiaki Takagi; Toshiyuki Takagi, Novakovic, Omae Nagoya (3-4-2-1): Narazaki; Muta, Tulio, Tone; Danilson, Taguchi, Regis, Ogawa; Tamada, Matsuda; Kennedy Sendai (4-3-3): Sakurai; Ishikawa, Kamata, Watanabe, Sugai; Ryang, Kakuda, Tomita; Akamine, Wilson, Ota
McGlinchey is an all-out winger that have only on occasions been used in the middle, so you should swap him with Ryang.
So Aria will be used as a holding midfielder kind of role? You think Ogihara can play as a CB in place of the unwell Tatsuya Yamashita? Which aspects do you think he is lacking in to play the role of CB well?
I just mean he's possibly going to play more offensively. As for the rest I didn't answer because I have no idea...