Maybe Kagawa will improve with the likes of Osako and Kubo. They're much closer as the type of players he's used to play with in the club rather than Honda/Okazaki. And let's wait for Kashiwagi as he just came back after injury in the last two games (just befor the NT break).
He doesn't "deserve" more and the notion of deserving is misleading. The NT is not the reward you get when you play well, Vahid's job is not to distribute the accolades but to build the best possible team. Kashiwagi is a decent player but no way in hell is he worth fighting over, he's an end of the bench substitute at best if we were to expect something at the world cup. He had a couple of good performances with the team last year but he was shambolic against Irak and there wasn't any use for him after that. Inui is a good player but it takes him 100 shots to score a goal, there's a reason why none of the coaches have really trusted him.
I feel like Kashiwagi should have gone overseas early in his career. He had the potential to become a really good two-way player.
Kashiwagi is a frail guy who wears long sleeves constantly because he hates others people sweat. He was never and will never be a DM.
So one poor performance and he's out? Then the entire current NT-team should have been scrapped a long time ago. As I said, 5 matches to "prove himself" is not really a lot, especially when you see the playing time some other players have got. Inui might not have the best shot, but some of his other skills goes way and beyond any other JNT-player, and to not utilize that is as I said a crime. Maybe not as a regular starter, but as someone who can open up a defence when in need of a goal etc late in the game.
5 matches even in spot minutes is already a substantial opportunity for a new NT player, especially when you consider the training sessions and off-field interactions. With a player like Kashiwagi who came up through the JFA pyramid and the Olympic/NT squads there is also a lot of institutional insight about the player accumulated over the years. And of course, every time you take the field for your club team you are auditioning for a spot. The point is that there are a lot of data points to evaluate well-established veterans. Personally I think his quality on the ball is diminished by a tendency to dwell on the ball rather than keep the play flowing, and his subpar athleticism poses a liability outside domestic competition.
If that is the case, then Japan would have limited options other than Yamaguchi or maybe Yuki Kobayashi. Or Halilhodzic could just utilize a formation without a DM or put Honda in that role.
A nice game tonight for Reds. The list of top goal scorers looks nice with Rafa, Koroki, (real) Muto and Kashiwagi leading the rest of the league.
Hope they can complete the treble this year. If Hosogai went there instead of Kashiwa, their defensive stability would be better. Hope they can find a replacement for Nishikawa too.
Sekine is a player that intrigues me. He is arguably the best performer for Urawa this season and he has been doing well in past seasons too. Is he so bad at defending that it would be impossible for him to play RB for the JNT?
For a 4 defenders line he's probably too small and won't be able to go forward as much as he does now. Yamamura should start as the JNT #10.
Not quite sold on him yet. He's been good in the last couple of matches, but was weak to say the least in the first matches of the season. He has some very tricks now and then, but overall very little of what he does ends up being effective. Komai might not be as fancy as Sekine, but he's more reliable and got a better cross/shot imho. Sekine's shot ability must be one of the 5 weakest in the league or something. As for Urawa, I think Ugajin on the other flank have been more impressive overall so far in 2017.
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20170414-01638755-gekisaka-socc Tickets for the upcoming Saitama derby at Nack5 were sold out in a few minutes. 40k+ at Shizuoka derby, 50k+ at Saitama derby last year played at SaiSuta. Football is doing good in Japan and it seems like it has the power to engage lots of people! J League finally reached the point of 2002 WC frenzy, but this time without the big event aura behind. It's becoming No 1 sport in Japan with the power of electrizing entire cities where people talk about the game. And it's unfortunately still behind baseball in TV coverage...
It seems like Petrovic's pack in Hiroshima grew older and they didn't have any long term plans or vision to change it. It was good when it worked. Now they pay the price.