If Escudero manages to lose ten other kilos and buy a brain, he could be a great addition. But that won't happen.
Happy to see Nozawa mentioned. That's all I'll say on that list for now. I'm not thrilled with Uchida either. He's one of the best for JLeague and has amazing talent, but internationally he's naive and let's wingers get behind him way too often. He should've gone overseas to learn that aspect better.
There's a few chances we're gonna win the WC, but at least we will have a good and expensive hotel ! Here's the ranking of this useless information :
Hey I looked at the games played between 2002-2006 and compared to 2006-present. Friendlies in particular. Discounting confed cups, why do japan play such great friendlies in this period, yet JFA have been very conservative with friendly opponents the last 3.5 years? 2002-06, there was Germany (3), England, Argentina like 3 times, USA, Uruguay, Paraguay, France, Cameroon, Czech rep, Serbia, Ukraine. 06-onwards, the best teams were : Cameroon, Switzerland, Chile, Ivory COast, Paraguay B+, Uruguay, Netherlands, Ghana, Serbia, Korea, England. There's a clear difference in quality in the better friendlies japan played....do you guys reckon that may have been an idea from the aftermath or 2006 (get distinct gameplan before taking it up a notch towards the end, as opposed to play hard opponents all the time and scrape by) or maybe just that teams saw how bad japan did and didn't want to play them as much.
SQUAD FOR SERBIA 4.7: GK: Narazaki, Kawashima DF: Nakazawa, Kurihara, Konno, Komano, Nagatomo, Uchida, Tokunaga MF: Nakamura, Endo, Inamoto, Ishikawa, Abe, YAMASE!! FW: Tamada, Yano, Okazaki, Koroki, Nagai (university player) YAMASE!! I'm so glad he's back in the fold I didn't get why he was dropped by Okada....he scored like 3 goals in 4 games under okada, then dropped. Anybody know a thing about Kenyu Nagai of Fukuoka University??
Not the first time for Nagai, Okada seems to appreciate him (he was already here against Yemen). He was a phenomenon at the Universities World Cup. Even if does not deserve it, I think Okada is trying to build him anticipating a bright future for him. Smart move. Glad to see Yano and Tamada, they're destroying everything . And I would rather see Ono than Inamoto or Abe, and Iwamasa than Konno. Nozawa is still ignored and Yasushi Endo is not on the radar yet.
Have you guys seen Serbia's squad? Man, I'm not even Japanese, but I feel it's very insulting. It's even worse than what Togo did to Japan. Why should JFA even pay Serbian FA money? They might as well just cancel this friendly. And is it true even the Serbian coach won't make the trip? What an arrogant attitude that is. This is an insult not only to JFA, but to Asian football in general as we have witnessed similar incidents many times before. They come to Asia, have some shopping, play the match and leave for home with big fat money in their pockets.
It can't be worse than what Scotland did. I don't even remember that side but it involved 3 centerbacks in a 5-4-1 and players that wouldn't even make Scotland's normal side that hasn't qualified for Euros or WC in some years. That game was terrible. They played half the game with 9 people in the box and only had 2 chances at goal.
Serbia Squad: GK: Zeljko Brkic (Vojvodina), Milan Jovanic (Spartak Subotica) DF: Pavle Ninkov, Milan Vilotic (Crvena Zvezda), Miroslav Vulicevic (Vojvodina), Vojislav Stankovic, Marko Lomic (Partizan), Milovan Milovic (Javor). MF: Radosav Petrovic, Ljubomir Fejsa, Nemanja Tomic, Aleksandar Davidov (Partizan), Nikola Mitrovic (Napredak), Nikola Beljic (OFK Beograd), Dusan Tadic (Vojvodina). FW: Dejan Lekic (Drvena Zvezda), Dragan Mrda (Vojvodina), Andrila Kaluderovic (Rad) I think Tomic is a regular member of the national side that I know of and Lekic too.
According to wiki, Petrovic is the player who has the most NT caps out of the squad. He has 4 NT appearances. Tomic has 0 NT appearance & so are almost half of the squad.
A little piece on Kensuke Nagai. http://sports.yahoo.co.jp/news/20100329-00000249-sph-socc.html No idea why he is a forward though... 50 meters in 5.8 seconds is pretty impressive. Seems like he would be more suitable on the wings, but I have no idea how good his technical skills are. Okada must have watched him alot to call him up even though he has only played 10 minutes in the J-League. Hopefully its not some kind of publicity stunt.
A bit on this serbian team coming I've decided on paper denmark at teh world cup are quite average player for player, nobody there really capable of completely shocking japan. Not considering before japan play bendtner, they'll face rooney, drogba, eto'o, rvp. All of which are loads better than bendtner. They're inexperienced both in no. of caps and number of world cup games. regardless of their qualification campaign. Tulio training with Kennedy should help cause kennedy and bendtner are the same height.
There is no way he is faster than Matsuhashi (ex-Kunimi, ex-Kobe, dunno where he is now). Matsuhashi is the second-fastest soccer player I have ever seen, anywhere, EVER. Okano was a turtle by comparison. He wasn't completely without soccer ability either. I'm surprised his career went nowhere. Injuries? Anyway, there is something about players who have not what they call "pace" in soccer, but absolutely, honest-to-goodness, among-the-fastest-humans-alive SPEED that is rather exhilirating. I'm eager to see if Nagai has that.
Surprise surprise no Euro-based players after all that hype/talk about picking them. Though that Serbia side is abit of a joke. Most senior player with 5 caps, 15 caps for the squad all together and the coach not coming. Their usual starting XI features no one from the Serbian league and their latest squad which beat Algeria 3-0 had only 3 players from the Serbian league. Though some of the blame for this Togo/Scotland-esque game falls on the JFA for organizing this game at this time. Its the only senior international match held in April strange enough. Agreed on Yamase being back. He impressed during his short stint with the JNT before. Scored the only goal to down China in China & scored a rocket against Korea to share the honors, both in the 08 EAFC tournament. Most importantly scored a screamer that sealed the win against Cameroon after Tulio's headed goal earlier - a good omen/sign for June 14 ? I too still wonder why he was dropped in the first place and even more so at why he is suddenly repicked now? His 2 goals in the 4-0 thumping of Kawasaki a few weeks ago? Picking Nagai isn't exactly without merits. Top scorer (7) at the 09 Football Universiade which Japan won bronze. Hattricks against Brazil and Thailand though no goals in the KO stages. Top scorer (4) in the 08 Under-19 Asian Championship with a hatrick against Iran though once again no goals in the KO stages. Though the quality of football in these tournaments don't compare to the JLeague you could say they offer an intangible that is they are international competitions to go along with his reported tangible super speed. Its unconventional and oddly timed but with a joke of a squad Serbia is sending and with the 20-odd forwards Okada has used during his reign mainly from the JLeague it really isn't that bad a move. At least theres a gameplan with the "last 10 minute speed burst option". Agreed especially Yasushi Endo. His goals in the ACL were really impressive. But then again these players are from Kashima and Antlers players, Uchida aside, don't seem to get picked often .
I think its probably abit of both though with the former you kinda have to ask what distinct gameplan especially with Okada taking over midway. Then again we're probably reading too much into these.
Okada says he's got 70% figured out. So the last 7 or 8 players are being picked from this last game and J.league. Serbia will probably have 3 or 4 players chances riding on this game so I imagine they'll play their hearts out especially the ones in contention. I imagine Yamase was picked partly because he scoring and furthermore, he's taken the most shots in J1 this season. 19, more than edmilson, diego, chong etc. Also he I think he could be outstanding at LM or at least give Matsui and Kengo something to think about.
http://in.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idINIndia-47444020100405 Nakamura has been given the green light to play. I hope Kurihara plays, otherwise its Abe or Konno and we WILL concede.
Someone like Nakamura should just skip this useless game as to not risk his long term health. Seriously though this would have been a perfect time to use Iwamasa. Can only hope he is not here because he is already part of Okada's 70%. >.>