Not sure it matters, but I am sorry - really, really sorry - for FC Tokyo supporters. I rode the train to downtown Kyoto with some of them, and felt very compassionate. Best luck for next season, it will be the fifth season in J2 for me as a part-time Sanga follower, the first for many of you. It kills you for a while, but comes April-May, you'll be OK and enjoying it. Hopefully!
Mass Exodus of players? I don't know how many of them will want to play in J2 next season. Its quite hard to believe that you could go down with this team. Yonemoto, Gonda, Tokunaga, Konno, Morishige, Mukuhara, Hiraide, Kim, Otake, Ishikawa, Shigematsu, Hirayama, Oguro. My bets are Gonda and Yonemoto to leave since they are potential NT members.
You could add Hirayama, Konno and Oguro ... Despite the relegation, Konno has been great this year so it would be cruel to see his career sink as the club did.
Apparently Gonda expressed his desire to stay with the team following the match, so I see them selling off Shiota. On defense: Kim I'm not sure about, Konno's iffy too but I think Morishige's bailing for sure, just like w/ Oita. That leaves us quite thin at defense... Hiraide, Mukuhara, Nakamura (if they convert him to DF since he's registered as an MF), Hiramatsu... Nagatomo is also due back in June, in theory, but given how fast his stock is rising in Italy the team may make more profit selling him to another Serie A side. Tokunaga signed a 3-year deal. At midfield... Ricardinho improved a lot this season but I don't think he'll make the cut. Hanyu is probably out as well... I think Ishikawa will get a lot of offers but he seems like the kind of player who may stick with the team... if he stays, Matsushita's gone, and vice versa. I think Yonemoto might stay... Otake as well. Tokyo has one of the best youth programs in the country and I think there will be a lot of loyalty shown by the younger players who came up through that system. A couple weeks ago I would have said Tanabe would be out, but if they sell Kajiyama? At forward... Sendai might like Akamine enough to buy him outright? I'm not positive. I don't think the team can afford to keep Oguro. Better than 50% odds that Hirayama's getting sold, I think, and Suzuki's about the same. Maeda was a wash so he's out... which leaves Shigematsu? The only coming/going news that's actually been reported has been the offers for Oguro and Tokunaga/Hanyu's new contracts. Either the team had two plans that they've held rather close to the chest, they assumed all along that they'd stay in J1, or they were deer in the headlights. Either way no rumors got out, so the team managed to keep some discipline So here's a hypothetical 11 (or at least 9): [LINEUP-4-4-2]???, Shigematsu, Ishikawa, Otake, Yonemoto, ???, Mukuhara,Hiramatsu,Kim,Tokunaga, Gonda [/LINEUP-4-4-2] It's a start, at least.
The acquisition of Shunsuke Maeda will remain as one of the biggest mysteries of all time. I mean, why would Tokyo buy this little fat guy ? Also I didn't understand why Suzuki started over Oguro against Kyoto.
If FC Tokyo manage to keep everyone then surely they will go undefeated in J2 next season. Just get rid of Hirayama and buy a striker. I heard they made an offer for Nagai, but I doubt that he will want to play in J2.
I think the order of things that need to get accomplished are the following: 1. Find a tall tree w/ a sturdy branch and hang Murabayashi from the neck until dead, hire a new president with no ties to Tokyo Gas and has a 1, 3, 5, and 10 year plan. 2. Find a competent manager who is in no way associated with the team. No past managers/coaches/players. Someone, much like Jofuku, who can command respect and get interest from possible recruits. 3. Give back all the players we've rented. Ask everyone else for a show of hands as to who's willing to take a pay cut or go without a pay raise. Sell anyone who doesn't raise their hand. 4. Promote 3 kids from the youth team, and sign the rest, so long as they're 185cm or taller. At 190cm, Hirayama is our tallest player, followed by Kim at 186cm. No wonder we're so ineffective on corners. Who saw the Nagoya game? FCT looked like a bunch of hobbits scurrying between California redwoods. 5. Find someone. Brazilian, Australian, Japanese, Martian, doesn't matter. So long as the sight of the goal netting causes them to charge like a bull who sees a red cape, doesn't matter. Someone with such a killer instinct that they have to wheel him out like Hannibal Lecter before each match. The team can do a special Silence of the Lambs-edition Dorompa and sell it as a numbered limited edition figure to horror movie fans, how's that for revenue? 6. Slash ticket prices and do something - anything - to lower the cost of attending away games. Season ticket holders get discounts on bus trips, attend 4 away matches and get a free ticket to a home game, whatever. Our average attendance was ~25,500/game this year, we should be able to make almost every game a home game. Do all that and Tokyo could lock up promotion by October.
Did Tokyo come in for Tadanari Lee when Reysol were selling? It sounds like the season might have gone a lot differently for both teams if he were blossoming at Tokyo rather than Hiroshima.
Now that I've thought about it. I don't think we'll see a mass exodus like the one at Oita. Oita were financially in trouble when they got relegated, but FC Tokyo does not seem to have the same problems. I vaguely remember them having problems finding sponsors, but I'm pretty sure that they had one of the largest operating budgets in the league so it should be ok. Last years relegated teams suffered a 20% or more attendance drop. FC Tokyo will probably lose about 30%, but still not very bad.
With the group of players at their disposal, they should have been competing for an ACL spot, don't know quite what happened. Many guys were performing faar below their potential and seemed to lack confidence. Ishikawa was injured (as ususal) and had less luck with goals this season. Morishige (as many of you have been saying) proved to be costly. Tokyo i n J2, unbelievable. They were flirting with the relegation zone for a while now but I thought they'd still manage to remain in J1 without much difficulties. Well, I am already looking forward to Tokyo's derby.
Correct me if I'm wrong but last year it seemed like alot of guys for FC Tokyo had career years. I thought it was odd that you didn't go after all your foreign spots and that Oguro/Akamine swap really bit you in the end. Don't fret too much.....of all the teams around relegation, you guys were in the best position to turn it around in one year. I think you will be back. No Tokyo in J1? WOW, that is crazy!
In all honesty, Ricardinho is a mediocre player. if he was a young japanese, I'd say he did OK, but if you go pick a player all the way to Brazil, he better be above average, otherwise what is the point...? Yesterday he was erased by Sanga's defenders, and I am not sure there is a worst insult for a J1 player in 2010... Let me add that Hirayama too has shown all his mediocrity. he missed the easiest goal of the season, when he managed to take an open-goal shot onto Sanga's goalie, who was lying on the ground. That could have been the 1-1 goal, with half of the second 45 minutes to play... FC Tokyo has a lot of good players, but the only one who seemed decisive game after game was Oguro, the mercenary you brought in in the summer. I am still puzzled at this relegation, but you need to start making some sense out of it, and saying that Ricardinho was after all not so bad, imo doesn't help much.
http://www.sponichi.co.jp/soccer/news/2010/12/06/12.html 6 FCT players have been placed on the provisional roster for the Asia Cup. Additionally, so far no players have expressed a desire to leave the team. I dunno, there's always the scenario where all of the highly-paid players take a pay cut to allow the team to hold onto as many people as possible... but that would be unprecedented. Also Urawa, as they have been since '07, are apparently interested in Konno again. Some habits never change =P
Hirayama, for what it's worth, did have his best season w/ 7 goals. Okay, you can stop laughing now. But he's still got enough potential that I can see him being pursued by a J1 side. The full list: Gonda, Morishige, Konno, Yonemoto, Kajiyama, Hirayama. Of those 6, I expect Gonda, Konno, and Yonemoto to make it onto the final 23-man roster.
Imagine if you guys had actually finished 15th......how many would be called up then? Gonda, Konno, and Yonemoto all are worthy call-ups but the other three? Really? Kajiyama was good last year.......Morishige has anchored two defenses that have dropped to J2 and Hirayama is......Hirayama. I don't get the fascination with him by the JNT although having Hara as technical director might explain some of it.
Hirayama is a bust He had the quality to be possibly one of the best CF in Asia but his lack of professionalism cost his career. He should have stayed in Holland and learn How a No.9 is supposed to play, instead of fleeing back to Tokyo for all those shit.
Recent news... -Okuma back in 2011. -The team doesn't intend to cut or sell any starters who are currently under contract. Players who are here on a loan (namely Oguro, god willing Maeda, Ricardinho, and Soh?) are probably on their way out come January. None of the players have requested a transfer. I kinda wonder if they're counting down the days till Nagatomo's loan expires, either because they'll get him back or they can sell him for much more money to another Italian squad. -3rd-string goalkeeper Nobuyuki Abe has been sold to Shonan Bellmare. -Rumors have it that Tokyo is going to get Pedro Jr (Gamba Osaka etc) and Roberto (ex Niigata and a bunch of Brazilian teams) as well as some GK from Thespa Kusatsu. -The team sent out a two-page, front-and-back tl;dr letter to all season ticket holders regarding the state of the team and various other things. I don't have the letter on me and it truly is tl;dr, but here's what I remember: --The team is behind in its 30-year vision (that was established when the club was founded in 1999) in terms of attendance and season ticket holders; current season ticket holders are at about 9000 (that few?) and the goal was to have over 10,000 by now and 30,000 by 2029. I believe there was a lot of talk about improving community outreach and that kind of thing but even with my poor wall-of-text reading abilities it sounded like they're treading water. --The team is including a deficit in the 2011 budget due to decreased revenue-sharing from J-League and lower attendance. Player budget will not be cut, everything else will be. --Ticket prices will remain unchanged, but all matches in 2011 will be priced as Category 2 matches (if you buy in advance, 1600 for the cheap seats as opposed to 2100. +400 on gameday). There will be 1 less match in 2011 (19 league vs. 17 league + 3 Nabisco). --Apparently Tokyo is eligible to appear in the ACL should they win the Emperor's Cup, because otherwise they wouldn't have sent a letter to some 10,000 people saying so.
Surely these newly-relegated teams would have a slightly smaller budget, anyway, if they were smart and signed players with some kind of clause that denotes a % of salary decrease upon relegation.
more wrought analysis from my Ajista neighbour: http://lms-football.blogspot.com/2010/12/fc-tokyo-2010-nine-months-of-hell-part_17.html
