(2016.10.06) FIFA World Cup Qualifier: Japan vs Iraq

True, he seems to have made the transition to European football a lot better than many other players.

But also remember that PSV, Ajax, Feyenoord are not as strong as they used to be. A team like Evergrande are arguably stronger overall, and then you can say the same about Japanese teams participating in ACL.Urawa played Evergrande twice this season, which is the same times Heerenveen meets Ajax...

 

A couple of years ago when Muriqui, Conca, Elkeson etc were at their prime, Evergrande were considered as a team that could cause trouble or even beat the likes of Napoli, Tottenham etc. Or in other words the teams that were just behind the best in each European league.

Of course it is almost impossible to compare, but these analysis were done by some of the most knowledgeable persons in the sport business. And I'm not talking about the "so-called" experts onTwitter or Sky that usually steal the headlines, but REAL analysists like the ones who transformed Mitdjylland from a relegation-candidate to a Euro-beater by using REAL data which is also connected to the sports betting business. Think Moneyball, although it is not directly comparable. The same guys have tried to turn Brentford into a EPL-team, and although they are yet to reach the level they seek, it is remarkable to see what effect it has had on their team the last couple of years.

Even the Dutch people have given up on their own league, and if you go to any Ajax game except for the derbies and the big games you will be lucky to find the stadium even half-full. Believe me, I lived in Amsterdam for a year.

People high up in the Ajax system have said they don't longer care about success on the pitch, and that they are only in the business for economic reasons, and being a feeder-club to random clubs in England, Germany etc is the best way to go. So even if 1-2 Dutch clubs have a good result in CL or EL every now and then it's not really relevant. Look at last season: Ajax had 2-3 good players, and both Milik,Cillesen and Fischer have moved to greener pastures. Only El-Ghazi remains, but I can bet you that he as well will be gone within 1-2 seasons.

Ajax didn't beat Barcelona last year, as in fact they finished dead-last in their EL-group. They lost, and were outplayed by a team like Molde (who won the group), and also finished behind the likes of Celtic and Fenerbahce.

The top J-teams, and for that matter also top ACL-teams would not be a pushover if they met Ajax, PSV or Feneyoord, and depending on the venue/teams I would also say that in some cases the Asian/Japanese team could be considered a favorite.

But again, this is nearly impossible to prove in real-life, but I think you are downplaying the best teams in Asia here.

 

Mmmm, attendance is about 95% in our stadiums. So did you count during the break when everybody goes to have pee or something to eat/drink?
http://www.soccernews.nl/news/353553/10:_Deze_Eredivisie-clubs_hebben_de_hoogste_bezettingsgraad

So that makes it easy to post nonsense as there is no way to prove you are farting from the other side of your body. Unfortunately for you there are real stats that prove you wrong, so it is safe to classify the rest of your post as unlikely, to put it mildly, as the attendance drought.

 

We have PES too.

 

Come on, 95% has absolutely nothing to do with how many people are actually going to the stadium. That is purely number of tickets sold, including sponsor tickets, giveaways and season-ticket holders. This is something everybody knows. I personally know several Ajax "fans" in Amsterdam who still hold a season-ticket, but only uses it for the big games vs PSV, AZ and Feyenoord. From what I gathered that was very common there, but please correct me if that isnt true in other cities.

"Ajax reported an attendance of 47,923 for their home match against NEC (because that many people paid to get in), but in reality only 21,706 people entered the Amsterdam ArenA. "

"Our indication is that clubs in other leagues use similar methodologies, so there is no reason to think figures are skewed in favour of the Dutch."

Both are gathered from the site below, and is quite old (2011), but there is nothing that indicates that things are any better now. Actually it is safe to say it is worse, with the power of European football having moved even further away from Eredivisie than what was the case back then. And this is not something that only goes for Dutch clubs, we see the same methodology all over Scandinavia. Vålerenga for example operated with 14-15000 sold tickets for some of their league games, but anyone with a little bit of intelligence could clearly see that the 28 000-seater were not even 2/10th full ...

http://www.stadiumguide.com/the-201112-eredivisie-season-in-attendances/

I went to 7-8 Ajax-matches last year, and in only 1 of them were the stadium more than half-filled. That was the EL-game vs Celtic, and every Eredivisie-game I went to had a very disappointing attendance-figure. Even vs Ado Den Haag, which is just a stone throw away from Amsterdam ( I know they are a small club with no real rivalry from Ajax though, but still...) If you don't believe me there are tons of evidences and pictures out there. But as mentioned for all I know things might be better in Eindhoven and Rotterdam, but googling through some random pics from both teams' matches I still see a lot of empty stands...

Don't get me wrong, I like the Dutch league and would really like to see Dutch teams do well in Europe, but when even your biggest and most successful club have given up there is not much hope.

Unless something drastically changes, you will have even fewer teams in CL from now on, as emerging football nations like Russia, Ukraine etc are all pumping a lot more money into the game than what any Dutch club is willing to do.

I am also very curious about these real stats that apparently proves me wrong? Can you link to them or atleast elaborate a bit more?

 

Football is not the sum of 11 players. You can put the 11 best players you know on a team, but they still might lose at the end of the day. Evergrande had a better coach than most clubs in the world back then, and as a unit the team could definitely had beaten a lot of strong European clubs. Especially highly unpredictable and irregular teams like Napoli and Tottenham. Today I don't think they would , but a lot of things have happened with all 3 teams since then.

And come on, I would have bet money on both Barcelona and Bayern to also beat Napoli and Tottenham 3-0 in ANY competitive game. That's like 2-3 levels above, it's not even comparable.

Well, considering Milik's and Fischer's age there wasn't much point in leaving Ajax until they had proved themselves was it? I mean they are both just 22...

And well yeah, I might have painted a too much of a picture when I described Ajax's performance in EL last year, but if you actually saw the matches you would have gotten my point.

 

When i.e. Feyenoord wouldnot be able to fill the stadium (which isnot true) with 49000, why on earth would they be planning to build a stadium bigger than the one we have. The same goes for PSV, who would love toexpand thestadium, but unfortunately cannot because of the location of the stadium. As I havenot the habit of going to the Ajax stadium, I cannot tell if it is true what you say. But if true, it has nothing to do with giving up on Ajax because of the level of the Eredivisie, but more with the kind of football Frank de Boer played aka Anti Ajax football.
Use google translate:

© OMA
'Alle Feyenoord-supporters mogen meedenken over nieuw stadion'
Feyenoord City wil supporters van de Rotterdamse club uitgebreid de kans geven om mee te denken over deze grootschalige ontwikkeling op Zuid. Daarbij gaat het vooral om de mening over het 63.000 plaatsen tellende nieuwe stadion voor Feyenoord, dat op de oever van de Nieuwe Maas moet komen. ,,We willen onder alle supporters toetsen wat er op hun verlanglijstje staat'', meldt een woordvoerder.

Marcel Potters 09-10-16, 13:37 Laatste update: 14:05

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We gaan ervoor zorgen dat al die mensen ons weten te vinden

Woordvoerder
Om de enorme achterban te bereiken, zullen alle denkbare middelen worden aangewend. ,,We willen niet louter met één partij praten, maar zoveel mogelijk aanhangers van Feyenoord de kans geven om hun zegje te doen. Daarbij zullen we uitgebreid gebruik maken van de sociale media. En hen zo bijvoorbeeld wijzen op enquêtes die wij zullen aanbieden. We gaan ervoor zorgen dat al die mensen ons weten te vinden.''

Dit alles gaat pas spelen als de plannen voor Feyenoord City, inclusief een nieuwe functie voor de huidige Kuip, in een volgende fase belanden. Het naar schatting 1 miljard euro kostende project gaat nu de ambtelijke molen in, om voor het einde van het jaar aan de Rotterdamse politiek te worden voorgelegd. Financiële hulp van de stad is nodig om deze mega-ontwikkeling in Rotterdam-Zuid van de grond te krijgen.

 

I'm not sure what we're debating about anymore but I still believe Kobayashi did more than enough in his first few games to receive a call-up. Sure the Dutch league isn't top-tier anymore but that doesn't mean it's a poor league. Far from it. The pace and physicality are some aspects which the J-League is behind and I respect Kobayashi for throwing himself into a foreign environment. Mentally he looks far better than what Kagawa and co. are going through.

Even the biggest Dutch clubs might be feeders for EPL/La Liga but that means there are dozens of players working their backsides off knowing scouts are watching, which ultimately I believes raises the quality. Like I said before, it didn't do any harm to Honda and Yoshida's development.

 

Well, your current stadium was built in the 30's so its not exactly new. I mean it looks like a great stadium still ( I never got the chance to go there), but having an almost 80 year old stadium is probably not good business in the long-run is it?

If you look to Scandinavia AIK Solna almost never fills their stadium, but they recently built a new massive stadium with a capacity of 50 000, which is an increase of 14000 compared to their old Råsunda.

IFK Göteborg also moved to a new stadium with a capacity of 18 000 in the early 2000's despite not once in the previous 20-25 seasons having managed to sell out one of their old stadiums on a regular basis (New or old Old Ullevi), and even after they moved to the "New Old Ullevi" ( I know, they way they name their stadiums is confusing) their average has most of the time only been around 50%.

Both AIK and IFK sell out their stadiums for the big derbies and such though, but in these days stadiums are used for a lot more than just league games, and concerts, events, conferences and other sporting events play a major role most places now. Just look at Emirates Stadium and the number of conferences they hold per year, or the use of stadiums like Stade de France, ArenaAufSchalke and Sapporo Dome, which are used for everything from speedway, biathlon, cross country skiing, oktoberfest, snowboard events and baseball in addition to concerts.

But assuming you are a regular at Feyenoord's home-games, is the matches against the likes of De Graafschap, Den Haag and Willem II also sold out? Meaning that all seats are filled ( and not just sold)? Based on pictures it looked closer to half-full or even less, but I've never been there so I can't know for sure.

By giving up I was also referring to Ajax as a club. They don't compete on the same level as the clubs in the bigger leagues anymore, and they are fully aware of it. They have stopped trying, and everything is about making money now by selling prospects etc. I'm sure anyone who even remotely have an interest in Ajax misses the 90's....

 

About Milik, he only had his breakthrough last season. Why would a team like Napoli show interest in a player that had only had mediocre to very little success in clubs like Leverkusen, Augsburg and Ajax before?

Even in his breakthrough season., he were heavily critiscized for his lack of finishing skills, and that was also very apparent in this year's Euro Championship. He's off to a great start at Napoli, but I havent watched any of their games so can't say for sure how his play is now.

"A bunch of Chinese players" makes it sound like you are referring to a random group of guys you found hanging around at a corner

They were not just a bunch. They were selected by the best scouts in China, trained week in and week out at one of the top 3 training facilities in the world, coached by some of the best coaches in the world.

It's not like all players in EPL have God-like skills, and just as is it with managers it is very circumstancial and random who actually ends up playing or coaching there. How do you explain that club after club can hire a dim-wit like Graeme Souness as a manager? Or that a player like Jamie Vardy can come from "nowhere" and suddenly be regarded as the best FW in the league? Or that strikers like Kenwyne Jones and Cameron Jerome can manage to stick around in PL for that many seasons despite having less killer-instinct in front of the goal than Steve Bould?

But this is of course a totally different discussion, and I'm sure we have digressed quite a lot already=)

 

Well, that's the difference with the a few years back. Our clubs started to build new/upgrade their stadiums and the attendence went up. The fans donot care about competing of the top clubs at European level as a condition to be fan. No, despite the diminishing status of our top clubs in Europe the fans are in higher numbers than before the stadium improvements.
By the way, I've never heard of tickets given away by sponsors, certainly not in such volumes to fill up parts of the stadium. If there would be a turning away of the fans, it would have shown in the attendance numbers, especially as most of the seats are filled by season tickets holders. So it is impossible to have the two at the same time, up going attendance numbers after the big stadium improvements with fans turning away.
Some season ticket numbers from last season (couldnot find the new season)
Feyenoord 30000 of the capacity 49000 (most likely higher now, as before the last season ended already 30 000 sold)
PSV 27000/35000 (this season 28000 and they donot want to sell more to keep free sale tickets available)
Ajax 34000/51000 (this season over 35000)
Heerenveen 13500/27000

These numbers are about the same for the new season .

 

Shame on Kobayashi and his transfer to have caused this shit storm about dutch football.

 

Nice detail to know is that the Heerenveen stadium has more seats than the city of Heerenveen has inhabitants!