Woohoo! I'm so getting better at this. High-five, 'Basco! I agree, great photo, she looks super cute there! I would glomp her, then again I want to glomp her already, so...
Time for the inevitable year-end lists in the football media. Each year the Scandinavian football magazine Fotbollskanalen (associated with Sweden's TV4) publishes its annual rankings. These include the world's 100 best male footballers and the world's 20 best women footballers. This year the jury consisted of Alva Nilsson (sportswriter at Expressen), John Ryden (sports reporter for Boras News), David Larsson (reporter for Fotbollskanalen), and TV4's football experts Olof Lundh, Hanna Marklund and Daniel Kristiansson. The results were (ranking, age, club, country) : 1. Nadine Keßler (26), Wolfsburg / Germany 2. Verónica Boquete (27), Frankfurt / Spain 3. Marta (29), FC Rosengård / Brasil 4. Kim Little (24), Seattle / Scotland 5. Louisa Nécib (27), Lyon / France 6. Nilla Fischer (30), Wolfsburg / Sweden 7. Abby Wambach (34), Western New York / USA 8. Lotta Schelin (30), Lyon / Sweden 9. Ramona Bachmann (24), FC Rosengård / Switzerland 10. Gaëtane Thiney (29), Juvisy / France 11. Célia Šašić (26), Frankfurt / Germany 12. Anja Mittag (29), FC Rosengård / Germany 13. Nadine Angerer (36), Portland / Germany 14. Lena Gössling (28), Wolfsburg / Germany 15. Ada Hegerberg (19), Lyon / Norway 16. Nahomi Kawasumi (29), INAC Kobe / Japan 17. Christen Press (25), Chicago / USA 18. Eugénie Le Sommer (25), Lyon / France 19. Caroline Seger (29), Paris Saint-Germain / Sweden 20. Lauren Holiday (27), FC Kansas City / USA They give commentary on their choices (in Swedish) here: http://www.fotbollskanalen.se/dam/ Well, the list is a bit light on asian players. Personally, I might have included Ji So-Yun or North Korea's Ra Un-Sim, but then I'm not a professional sports journalist...
You could add that you're not an European professional sports journalist, because in general this list looks quite euro-centric to me: few players from other continents, and especially few players that don't play (or have played) with an European club... Oh, well, I suppose that in this case Japan will be allowed to play the underdog again at next year's WWC, despite being reigning World Champions, right? Right?
In fact, now that I look better at the pic, it was so obvious that I wonder how I didn't recognize her right away! I always find quite impressive how much the fundamental traits of people's faces are already quite distinctly recognizable since a very young age...
I think the same, are they still thinking that all of succes of Nadeshiko after WWC (London 2012 silver medal, Asian Cup 2014, rank #4) is only because of lucky or something like that? I don't understand that and makes me angry
Urawa Reds 2:0 Vegalta Sendai - 30' Hasegawa Yui, 79' Own Goal A sad day for Ms. Jaws In Beleza news though, I just now noticed that Ms. Yamaguchi plays for them. That must've happened while I was sleeping.
Fixed, because I'm an idiot who hasn't slept in a while. Sorry about that. Good for a laugh, though...
Urawa Reds 3:1 JEF United - 64' Dozono Ayano, 73' Seike Kiko, 79' Seike Kiko, 90+3' Fukasawa Risa ... and now we sit, because we know.
Mmm, so the final will be Beleza-Urawa... my dream of the Shark came to an end. I honestly don't know who to root for in the final, maybe for Beleza, who had a quite good season with no recognition so far? (Fighting until the end in both Regular Season and Exciting Series, finishing level with the eventual champions in points and not even grabbing a qualification for IWCC...) It could be a way to share the titles between the clubs who "made" this season in Nadeshiko League: Okayama Yunogo Belle with Regular Season title, Urawa Reds Ladies with Exciting Series/Nadeshiko League overall title and NTV-Beleza with Empress' Cup... But mostly I think I'll wish for a good, interesting match and I don't care very much about who's going to win as soon as they'll show good football.
Christmas' videos from Ange Violet Hiroshima! (actually found out by Virany ) Since these videos were uploaded respectively on 23th of December and on 27 of December, and they only get to sebango 10 (#10), I totally expect part 3 on the last day of the year! Favourite player so far: #10 Fumina Katsurama, with her pink hat! (end of second video)
Utsugi is always charming. So I suppose French League is in Christmas' break: we will see Saki too back in Japan, these days? Edit: in the third pic we can clearly see Natsuko Hara, Rumi Utsugi, Yayoi herself and Nanase Kiryu. What about the other two pics? I can clearly recognize (apart from Natsuko Hara in the second one) Eriko Arakawa, Nozomi Yamago and Kanako Ito. Who the other two are? One is Yanagita?
I just read Full Bloom's summaries of the two semi-finals. Both games sounded exciting and hopefully we'll be seeing highlights soon. I am a little confused by Beleza's second goal though. It seemed to be Mami Yamaguchi's but it was declared an own goal. Did it bounce off of someone? Both games got good crowds, 3,361 for NTV/Sendai (mostly Vegalta fans I'm guessing) and and 4,315 for Urawa/Chiba. Also, found this nice photo of Sameshima and Risa Shimizu fighting for the ball. It may just be the hair but Shimizu appears to have lost a lot of weight. Hope she's okay.
That is a great photo. Were both matches held at the same place? It seems odd that Iwabuchi would be at the Urawa/Chibi game instead of cheering for her old teammates on Beleza.
The first goal of both of these matches was against the run of play. In the end though, Beleza deserved to win as Vegalta struggled in the 2nd half, and substitutions came too late. Of course this was their first tough game in a very long time. Just to mention that Haruka Hamada is a terrific FW, a good target player, plenty of skills, not to mention aerial power..... but Vegalta were well beaten in MF in the end, and she got little supply in the 2nd half. But JEF should have wrapped up their win by HT only to miss chance after chance. By game's end they still probably out-shot Urawa. Sugasawa was terrific in the air, but others have regrets. Some photos: Great battle between two technically superb players, Wada and Anzai: Tremendous power header goal by Dozono: Naomoto (who will be missed in the Final) with Urawa friend Sayaka (whose autograph I asked her to repeat in English letters because I had no idea who she was) - Sugasawa power header, leading to the consolation goal:
Yes, in fact the same Tokyo stadium that the SFs and Final of IWCC2014 was held. Its modern and clean, but very simple in design, not great for atmosphere as it feels too open. Probably cold too from what I remember! I dont think Shimizu was ever more than a match or at most a candle?!? That was an OG for sure. Even if Yamaguchi brushed it, she wont get it..... GK Cameron should not have been off her line.... and a few hours later, Gk Yamane hadnt learned that lesson either. By the way, Yayoi K actually came on as a sub for about 10 minutes today. So she may play in the Final. Big news from FullBloom - and fair-play to a good player, quite a journey to make: Watanabe Ayaka has moved from INAC Kobe Leonessa to Albirex Niigata Ladies. She was with someone else before? I think AS Sayama. Edit - more news from same source: Matsuda Takeo has been appointed as the new INAC Kobe manager. He won numerous titles with Beleza and more recently managed Saitama. By the way, the recent INAC manager, former manager of Myanmar was it? Obviously he follows Maeda out the door. There will be other moves - and I wonder if Yuri Kawamura is making a big leap? Huge tears after losing today, as if its goodbye to Vegalta forever.... or maybe it just the Empress Cup she wanted.
One more to leave INAC? I learned no real secrets in Japan, but I did hear that a certain young DF whose initials are SM is likely to play near me next year. Once the USWNT convene its big camp (early May) there would be an opening to give her NWSL playing time. i think she was outstanding yesterday. Can Shibata and Kishikawa silence her and Hara (who might have received a RC for retaliation against Kawamura)? I doubt it!
Nice picture. As Mumf already noticed, Risa Shimizu has always been a light-weight (she's a fighter anyway ). Since the Shark operates on Vega's left-side and Shimizu is Beleza's Right-Back (a Full Back à la Kinga, though, with license of coming forward to cross in the box), I wonder if, in this picture, it was Sameshima defending from Shimizu's attack or the opposite.
Yes, and Mumf gave the name of the stadium. In fact Norio Sasaki was spotted on the standings watching both games.