2016/21 Masaya Okugawa | 2014/19 Takumi Minamino @ FC Red Bull Salzburg (AUT)

Discussion in 'Japanese Abroad' started by naopon, Jan 5, 2015.

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  1. Saku²

    Saku² Member+

    Aug 22, 2009
    Club:
    FC Salzburg
    Dude, I'm European just like you and I'm lucky to have been born in a place whose club played the Champions League fairly often. I know what it means but no, it's no holy ground. What is playing it like Kagawa worth ? Ghosting all over the pitch ... Fun times !

    This stuff is out of the players control ... What is valuable is being a good, complete, player with consistent seasons throughout the years. Not playing 10' at the end of a world cup game we lost.

    you watched as much as I did and we couldn't string two passes together. The goals came from a 50 yards pass and a last minute counter. In between it was visual anthrax.

    Initially I was just responding to your posture, as if playing for FC Basel was itself an achievement. Their squad is made up of good players but put them in the Bundesliga or french L1 I doubt they finish in the top 5. They're the king of Switzerland, that's for sure.
     
  2. Saku²

    Saku² Member+

    Aug 22, 2009
    Club:
    FC Salzburg
    That's not true, having been involved a bit in the Kubo matters at the time, be sure scouts are checking. This year, there's overseas offers for Kawabe.
     
  3. takeuchi

    takeuchi Member+

    Jan 20, 2013
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Koln/Stuttgart - two veteran players as free agent
    Leverkusen - okay, Romalho as free agent since Schmidt wanted him.

    After them, most are to some random clubs in Europe or to RB Leipzig.

    What are the chances of Okugawa being the next Kampl/Sadio Mane? They were fortunate enough to work with Roger Schmidt & did well.

    edit - also, who knows.. perhaps Okugawa can help Kyoto get promoted or moved to another club before he moved to Europe. What is he gaining from playing with FC Liefering that he can't at Kyoto or another club in J-league?
     
  4. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    #154 Dax, Aug 7, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2015
    Cool, he's going to Aalen?

    Oh dear, not this again. Yes, he's a ghost. He should've stayed in Cerezo.

    I don't know how you decided what's valuable and what isn't. It doesn't mean anything. I think Sato had a great career in Sanfrecce, he looks a happy man. But if we're looking at things with the lens of a more competitive Japan at the world cup, you know what needs to happen, and hunger is needed.

    I'm pretty sure they would certainly finish higher than Hannover or whatever, but even if that wasn't the case, it doesn't take away the fact that they allow access to regular top level football.

    Well you already put it perfectly. If the chances of Okugawa being the next Mane are zero, we can be sure he was never going to play for any better club than Salzburg, let alone a top club.
    Otherwise, there were certainly less chances from Sanga. If Okugawa was a 19yr starting for Urawa Reds, I would be pretty mad to see him in Liefering. But he wasn't.

    RB Leipzig is a good destination, by the way. Tons of scouts there, and a good history of playing making the jump to Bundesliga. It might actually be better than Salzburg, if he could go there from Liefering. The problem is that the pressure in Leipzig is incredibly high with the promotion chasing and the competition for a place is stacked, so I'd rather him go to another "random clubs" who actually wants him.
     
  5. Saku²

    Saku² Member+

    Aug 22, 2009
    Club:
    FC Salzburg
    He's going nowhere because he's smart and Hiroshima believe in him.

    I'm not mad because he went to Liefering, I'm mad because he left too early. He was starting to play, to rep his home club, and he traded that for third division bench cleaning in Austria. Curry Wurst tastes like shit on top of that.
     
    takeuchi repped this.
  6. nipponbasse83

    nipponbasse83 Member+

    Jun 17, 2007
    Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan
    Club:
    Consadole Sapporo
    Nat'l Team:
    Norway
    God, no. Basel have lost some major influental players every season, and ahead of this year they lost Schär and Frei. They have so far done nothing significant to replace them, as among the players are brought in are some semi-good Scandinavian players who most likely would have struggled to set a mark on J.League. Except for the A.League sensation last year Marc Janko of course ,who also scored in his debut, but how good he is exactly is hard to tell atm.

    The Basel of 2015 is certainly nowhere near as good as Schalke, Inter Milan or AC Milan, and also a weaker team than Eintract Frankfurt, Mainz, Hannover or really, any of the German Bundesliga clubs with Japanese players.

    That they occcasionally qualify for the CL isnt that big an achievement if you look behind the results. Last year they didnt even had to qualify, the year before they knocked out Ludogorets from Bulgaria and Maccabi Tel Aviv from Israel. Which are teams any decent Scandinavian side also would have been favorites against. Swiss teams have, because of Basel's good results in previous seasons, as well as that stupid coefficient system ( some call it fair, I disagree), managed to get a pretty high ranking in the UEFA-system, and have a much easier way to CL than what their overall level suggests. The same thing happened to Danish teams a couple of years ago because of FC Copenhagen, and at one point Denmark had 2 teams in CL despite their league being not really any better than for example the Swedish league at that time.

    Its all random, and although I enjoyed watching Basel a few years ago, you can not compare the Basel of then with the Basel of now. They are once again up against Maccabi Tel Aviv this year, so they have a relatively easy way to the group stage this year as well if they want, and are of course favorites.

    But that Basel is a good first club for a Japanese player, considering they may or may not have the chance to play in CL or EL I agree on.
     
  7. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    #157 Dax, Aug 7, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2015
    Then there is no point in getting those offers from small clubs anyway.

    As I had said in the past, he should have been playing for Sanga when he was 18 already, but they didn't let him. For a wonderkid - if we want to hype him a bit, he already started later than Kagawa. When Neymar was a kid he was scoring in Brazil in double digit for fun (ok, Neymar was already in a better club in Brazil, obviously).
    I'm not saying Okugawa is Neymar LOL, but I think you understand what I mean.
    Yes, he could have stayed despite the club being shit, and I would've respected a turn down.
    But I don't crucifix nor I'm mad at him for grabbing a chance to try to climb the ladder to higher quality football much faster.
    He now has the task to show his hunger and prove it made sense, let's hope he has chances.
    But I won't play part in the usual broken talent circle if it doesn't go well.

    The fact that Basel keeps selling his players to other clubs is a good thing for Kakitani in the first place and likely one of the reasons he went there. Basically, because they always have tons of exposure. If he ever manages a bigger jump, he can thank them.
    Btw, Basel has always been the Sporting Lisbon of Switzerland actually. That's just how they do business. If you expected a veteran to replace those players, you're wrong, which is why they just bought a promising youngster.

    And that's based on nothing but a subjective opinion, of course. You're free to believe Mainz would have beat Liverpool in a champions league match though!
    Come on man, I don't know how you can say that Basel is weaker than Mainz with a straight face. I don't think they'd even lose to this averages Inter\Milan, even.
    And they still play Champions League, those clubs don't.

    But I am looking at the results and that's what makes this kind of club impressive. Not only they qualify, but they can actually even compete with real chances of advancing. So I'm not sure why you went on on the whole qualification process when the things that matters if they are just put are just a fly in Champions League or not.
    Not all years are the same, but jesus, that's normal, you also need a good draw sometimes, look at Rome last year.
     
  8. Saku²

    Saku² Member+

    Aug 22, 2009
    Club:
    FC Salzburg
    Oh but it wasn't small clubs, rather the type of clubs you can spend your evening defending.

    On Okugawa, maybe he grew dreaming of playing for Red Bull Salzburg, who knows, we all get our kick somewhere. He fell into a trap though as FC Liefering is more of a young players farm than a real development squad. Red Bull have decided to invest in youth and it's gonna stop coming. I look forward to see him back in Japan as a defect good.
     
  9. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    :thumbsup: link me some newspapers

    If he comes back as defect as Usami, I'll take it.
     
  10. nipponbasse83

    nipponbasse83 Member+

    Jun 17, 2007
    Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan
    Club:
    Consadole Sapporo
    Nat'l Team:
    Norway
    Haha, Liverpool, who also struggled against Ludogorets? Who needed PK's to beat Steaua Buchuresti in the playoffs, and scraped past the mighty Partizan Beograd on away-goals in the 3rd qualifying round? Come on, you are seriously not gonna use Liverpool in last season CL as an example are you? But yes, if you insist, if Mainz was in the same group as Liverpool, Basel and Ludogorets last year, I would have expected them to qualify past the group stage. Oh and since you compared Basel to Schalke earlier: Schalke won both home and away in the group stage of CL 2 seasons vs Basel ( Basel only came close to qualifying cause they beat Chelsea at a time Chelsea had already qualified through).

    I dont know about your opinion about Bundesliga, but Mainz are (or were) to me a top 10 team in Bundesliga, and Liverpool is a top 6 team in England. And considering how much Liverpool have had a tendency to struggle vs top 10 teams in England for most of the last couple of seasons, I dont see why Mainz should suddenly be a walk-over? Bundesliga is in no way a weaker league than PL.

    But yes, all this is of course a subjective opinion, and I can agree to disagree.

    But I dont really see any "greatness" to what Basel have done in the last couple of seasons that any random middle-table Bundesliga club ( or PL club for that matter) wouldnt have been able to do as well if they had somehow played in the group stage of CL ( which is a hypotethical situation of course). The 1-0 win vs Liverpool last season was nice, but really, did Liverpool really impress in any of their CL-games last year? Yet alone in the league? And there was several clubs weaker or atleast just as weak as Mainz or Hannover that also won against Liverpool last season in the league if I recall correctly. Crystal Palace beat them both home and away for example. And Hull, Stoke, West Ham, Villa and Newcastle.
     
  11. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    #161 Dax, Aug 8, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2015
    Ok, I don't want to derail too much on a discussion about Basel and we can agree to disagree as it's the type of subjective conv. I'll just make a few closing considerations. Using league matches doesn't mean anything. Juventus lost against bankrupt Parma at home in the league. It doesn't mean much because they are so many in a season.

    As for the 'greatness' of the last couple of seasons... I don't think Mainz would've done anything even against a non-Suarez Liverpool personally but who knows, maybe with Okachan... :p.
    Basel also drew with Porto, had a close match against Real Madrid at home. The year before, the one with Schalke, they beat Mourinho's Chelsea at Stanford Bridge. Eh. They pull off these giant killings almost all the time. Meanwhile, Mainz was busy getting eliminated in the Europa League qualifiers against Asteras Tripolis. That gives you an idea.
    (As for the Bundesliga, I think that it is perfectly as good as EPL. I just think Basel would fit in the top 8).
    And yes, I said that Schalke is generally better than Basel :thumbsup:
     
  12. teioh

    teioh Member+

    Apr 17, 2012
    An the flame keep goes on!
     
  13. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    how dare people discuss with some passion on a message board !
     
  14. zdrstvte

    zdrstvte Member+

    Aug 27, 2012
    Club:
    West Ham United FC
    Minamino on the bench, and Red Bull draws 2-2 against a team that ended 9th last season. They are playing dog sh*t at the moment. First point of the season after three matches for the league winners.
     
  15. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    bad for Salzburg, good for Takumi I guess :D (that this coach won't last I mean)
    They really look Soriano-dependent.
     
  16. nipponbasse83

    nipponbasse83 Member+

    Jun 17, 2007
    Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan
    Club:
    Consadole Sapporo
    Nat'l Team:
    Norway
    Well, that Mainz were eliminated from the EL-qualifier by Asteras means just as little as Dudelange of Luxembourg knocking out a Norwegian team... Cause one look at the lineup tells you just how much focus they had on that tournament. For most big clubs in Germany, England and Italy ( in Spain its different somehow) EL is nothing else than a distraction, and definitely not worth it as will in most cases affect their league performance too, especially for smaller clubs. If Mainz really wanted to reach the group stage of the EL obviously they would have done that with ease. But when they swap out 5-6 players from their regular lineup its not exactly a token of taking the tournament seriously... (with that being said, even with the squad they fielded, they should have won 4-0 against a team like Asteras, which again underlines the suggestion of players not actually being motivated....)

    And Basel narrowly losing vs Real Madrid who at that time were already crowned group winners... Come on! thats not even worth mentioning in a case like this=) And 1-1 vs Porto at home is not that impressive either considering how extremely poor ALL Portuguese teams are in away-matches in Europe ( check for yourself if you are in doubt) compared to what one might expect... and losing 0-4 away just underlines that.

    Their first win against Chelsea was indeed impressive, but thats about it. If you want to find any other impressive results by Basel the last couple of years you have to look all the way back to 2011/2012, and then we are talking a totally different team...
     
  17. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    #167 Dax, Aug 8, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2015
    Welp if you post me this kind of stuff it gets hard to move on.
    I just double checked the lineup. It's 9/11 identical to the same one fielded against Paderborn a few weeks later for the Bundesliga opening. Okazaki was also on the pitch.
    So, no clue what you're referring to here ? Seems like making excuses :/ (Stuttgart made good company to them by also not qualifying the year before lol)

    I can agree with that, especially for the teams that usually end there from the 3rd place in the CL group stage, but we are not talking about big clubs here (and even then it's debatable, just see Chelsea's win in 2013).
    For everyone else, in particular club with limited wage power, it's free extra money, with 1,3 mln solely for making the group stage and several extra tickets to be sold to fans, and I'm pretty damn sure Mainz makes no exception of free money being a distraction.
    I could even agree if we discussed about teams rotating while in the group stage but not qualifying? Come on.
    In the end it's still good teams that make it far.
    Salzburg is another team who competed and did well last year until they met Villarreal. All the italian teams who were there last time did their best (they always try). I expect Southampton to be competitive this year.

    As for Salzburg, they started the league pretty horribly so I'd suspect that they'll rotate the less used players for Europa League. But they are in a different position than the mid-table Bundesliga teams, and I'm still pretty sure they'll try to make sure to qualify.

    They actually even beat Bayern the year before Chelsea actually but oh well. They really do one of these all the time which honestly is way more than what they are supposed to do. I'd like to see if Eintracht (who btw was also plenty of competitive in EL last time) would snatch wins against any of these teams :/.
     
  18. nipponbasse83

    nipponbasse83 Member+

    Jun 17, 2007
    Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan
    Club:
    Consadole Sapporo
    Nat'l Team:
    Norway
    I think you need to triplecheck your source;) Mainz started with 5 players vs Asteras that didnt start their regular league games.

    Noveski ( 9 games in total, 7 from start)
    Park ( 16 games in total, 16 from start)
    Hofmann ( 10 games in total, 8 from start)
    Moritz ( 9 games in total, 2 from start).
    Allagui ( 19 matches in total, 9 from start)

    And I could even have added Koo, who only started 16 games league-games last season, which is also less than half which means he would qualify for that list......... ( even though he is more than good enough to be a regular imho, but thats not the point)

    Are this players Tuchel would have used if Europa League was their first priority? Nope. So to copy your words: It's hard to stop when you are feeding me this=)

    And free money... 1,3 mln Euros is a drop in the ocean compared to the difference between finishing 6th or 11th in especially Premier League and also Bundesliga in terms of prize money... For a team like Molde, Midtjylland, Austria Wien or Basel (!) this is a significant amount of money, especially if they win a few games and advance past the group stage. And attendance-money? If teams have around 50 % or less spectators on their EL-games compared to the league which is the case for several teams in England, Italy and also a few in Germany, then it suddenly doesnt become that lucrative anymore does it? Compare it to J.League-clubs and ACL if you'd like.

    And finally: Italians teams always try??:ROFLMAO: Maybe some teams take it seriously, but there's been quite a few scenarios where we've seen complete B-squads as well and some very harsh results vs minnows ( but in some cases they have still qualified, which again underlines exactly how big the difference between the top leagues and the smaller ones is, when a group of B or C-string players can win against these teams you give Basel credit for beating in the qualifiers..) in the last couple of years.

    I hope the likes of Southampton and other clubs starts taking EL more serious, as another good competition next to CL is very welcomed. But several others managers have said exactly the same as what Koeman did, as t ohow the EL is so important etc, but in the end they still end up sending b-squads to the games...

    I have high hopes for "my" team in Germany Schalke this year, and hope they will field a good squad in the EL and try to win it. As long as it doesnt affect their league-performance too much of course, but Schalke got a pretty big squad and are in better position than most other teams in EL in that way.
     
  19. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    #169 Dax, Aug 8, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2015
    Wtf, what kind of silly comparison is that? Hierarchies change all the time during a season. You're comparing the final starts of the season (and I don't know how many of those players suffered injuries) to suggest that that line up wasn't made of A players. Really?
    You're counting Moritz who was a starter until october when he injured himself until the end of the season?
    Give me a break please.

    You're right, I did miscount, there are 3 changes and not 2 between that match and the match against Paderborn. Among them there is for example Malli who actually went on to be a starter: but in that instance he was instead benched in the Bundesliga match instead.
    And it's still 3 changes compared (not sure where Park was since he wasn't in the squad) to the one after against Hannover for example. And considering how many goals they took in those playoff it seems normal to me that a coach would want to make some changes?
    Come on :/. I would've been the first to call B team with Okazaki on the bench :D. But it wasn't.
    Nobody suggested that Europa League was their first priority. But to suggest that it was a distraction to qualify and a B team was fielded is laughable. They sucked, and lost :/

    Sorry, I was wrong as I used last year's numbers.
    The group stage fee for this year is 2.4mln.
    Well, I don't know about those numbers but not in Serie A, for example.
    this is the prize list :
    4° - 3,8 mln
    5° - 3,6 mln
    6° - 3,4 mln
    7° - 3,2 mln
    8° - 2,9 mln
    so even a 4 place lower finish doesn't make up for the round stage money alone of Europa League - and I was not adding :
    - 360k for every victory in that stage + those in the playoffs
    - 500k for winning the group. In total, it's around a potential 5 millions for the round stage alone, excluding attendance money which I can't estimate as I don't know the typical club cut (also depends on stadium ownership, etc).

    In Mainz's case in that match there were 9000 spectators less (in july) compared to the one against Hannover at home one month later, and back then Bundesliga hadn't even begun.
    I'd like to see the Bundesliga numbers for this, but I'd argue that for a club like Mainz, it is good money, at worse you can rotate the team during the group stage, sure.

    edit: There is a € 0,76 mln difference per-position in Bundesliga. Better than Serie A, but we're still talking about slipping 6-7 positions...

    Of course they try, in particular even the bigger ones that end there try, because if affects the ranking and the chance to get the 4th CL slot back. There were 2 italian teams in the last top 4.
    When they lose against minnows, it's because they actually suck, just like Sampdoria the other day (with their A team, yep).
    :thumbsup: And apparently it's a difference so huge that Mainz failed to qualify against a team from cyprus lol. And Basel never played qualifiers before so I'm not sure what you were referring to

    Schalke will probably chase a champions league spot back, so they are in a different position than the typical middle club team who ends in Europa League once in a while and has a chance to get some extra money, I don't know if they will care much... Dortmund might have enough squad depth to be quite competitive, I hope so!
     
  20. nipponbasse83

    nipponbasse83 Member+

    Jun 17, 2007
    Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan
    Club:
    Consadole Sapporo
    Nat'l Team:
    Norway
    No, you are wrong, and I am correct=) Or maybe be both are correct in our own ways;) But no point to argue more as we will never come to a conclusion anyway, and obviously you read statistics and numbers different than me;) ( which is why statistics in the first hand is so interesting).
     
  21. teioh

    teioh Member+

    Apr 17, 2012
    Scored after 10'.

    Double!!!
     
  22. Saku²

    Saku² Member+

    Aug 22, 2009
    Club:
    FC Salzburg
    Surprising.
     
  23. Dax

    Dax Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 29, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    #173 Dax, Aug 11, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2015
    indeed
    :D

    (good!)

     
  24. Radu Razvan

    Radu Razvan Member+

    Mar 1, 2013
    Bucharest, Romania
    Club:
    AS Roma
    Nat'l Team:
    Romania
    bring him to Leipzig. Salzburg it's not very important now.
     
  25. Saku²

    Saku² Member+

    Aug 22, 2009
    Club:
    FC Salzburg
    Okugawa not on the bench :thumbsup:
     

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