This year I think there will be at least 5 teams fighting for the title, among them Jubilo and Cerezo, while Vissel will be relegated to J2.
lol, Okubo is flowering in Kawasaki after leaving toxic Tokyo. 'Flowering in Kawasaki' still sounds like realy bad dashare after all
Manabu Saito to Kawasaki!!! https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20180112-00000003-spnannex-socc This is huge!!! So we will have @naopon @Saku² and @Dax as Frontale's fans this season.
Change of 'scenery' will benefit Saito (especially with Frontale being inthe ACL), but honestly I never felt he was armband material just yet. YFM have a lot of uncertainty, but ops normal in a way. I won't get into the puppets from CFG.
Have to wonder what Marinos are thinking. They have been improving and looked to be on their way back to become an ACL-contender and now they lose their 2 best players ( Saito and Martinus)? Gotta feel bad for Ange in all this, as they haven't really made any major signings yet either. Otsu could be good, but he's not exactly been consistent lately. Yun-Il Rok from FC Seoul is also a good player but new country, new league etc so lot of uncertainty around him too.
when he took over before the 2014 world cup ange postecoglou dumped the golden generation and believed in a group of young, inexperienced but hungry players (at the time were "no name" players) to winning the asian cup. saito and martinus will be big losses but now is a great time for the younger generation (like keita endo and ippei shinozuka) to put their hand up for first team selection and ange will be wanting to see that when he takes over.
The super cup will be played on 10/February/2018: Kawasaki Frontale vs Cerezo Osaka. The J-League opening match will be played on 23/February/2018: Sagan Tosu vs Vissel Kobe.
Cerezo will be total favourite this year but i just wonder how they can keep all those big names without selling anyone
I heard that the season kicked off today at packed Best Amenity stadium in Tosu. I also heard that 19 years old scored for Sagan in the opening minutes of the game and Havenaar equalised with a great lefty volley towards the end of the game. Cheers!
Keito Nakamura made his J debut today. You can see from his touches that guy has a bright future. Had a nice flick and also a shot, who was not far away from hitting the target. DAZN broadcast a game per week on twitter, but it's geoblocked. Only in Japan can be seen...
Used one with a good speed, but was a huge lag. Couldn't see the game. So I don't think this is a good way. The best way it will be if they will sell the games outside Japan like was in the past, but they don't care...
Knowing that they signed top goalscorer from Serie A and that their coach is Kazama, well, there's a pretty high probability that it will happen.
Also noteworhy: Culpi started former Higashi Fukuoka HS Yuya Fukuda (99) and Sugawara started for Nagoya.
Tatsuta ('98) also started for Shimizu as CB. Never really liked him but he's very tall... would be great if he could become something