Official 2018 J. League Transfers and Rumors thread

Yokohama Marinos are said to be interested in signing wondekid Takefusa Kubo on-loan from FC Tokyo:

https://www.sponichi.co.jp/soccer/n...9296000c.html?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true

Meanwhile, it seems the team's coach (Ange) wants to change Yokohama's formation to 3-back in a (3-4-1) or (3-61).
This was evident in today's match against Nagoya as he played with Nakazawa, Dusan, and Kurihara as 3-backs.
The club also signs to CBs, Sinnosuke Hatanaka (22, will be 23 years old later this month) from Tokyo Verdy, and Thiago Martins Bueno (23) from Brazilian club Palmieras where he was mostly starter despite his young age (which is a good indication about his qualities and potentials).

This formation change plan is justifiable as the team might lose Yamanaka (if he moves to Turkey), as the team will be with just Matsubara as a side-back/wingback after they loaned-out Shimohira to JEF, and sold Kanai to Nagoya.

One interesting thing about Yokohama's acquisition of the two CBs, is that they both young which shows Ange's inclination to build a team for the future with younger players, especially as both Nakazawa (40) and Kurihara (35) are aging and might not be able to play full season anymore in the next couple of seasons.

 

ange loves showing faith in youth. most of the current socceroos were picked by ange in their early twenties for the world cup. i think it’s perfect for kubo, now it’s up to him to show his undoubted potential.

yamanaka has been great this year, i didn’t know about potential move to turkey. lethal left foot.

 

Kubo's loan to Yokohama Marinos is official now:

久保建英選手 期限付き移籍加入のお知らせ

このたびFC東京所属の久保建英選手の期限付き移籍での加入が決まりましたので、お知らせいたします。

移籍期間は、2018年12月31日までとなります。なお、久保建英選手は2018シーズン公式戦にてFC東京との対戦には出場できません。#fmarinos pic.twitter.com/7Og9SLHCfS

— 横浜F･マリノス【公式𝕏】 (@prompt_fmarinos) August 15, 2018

He will wear the shirt no. #15.

 

Him, Minamino, and Nagatomo might be the only Japanese in the Champions League this season depending on what happens with Kagawa.

 

Great deal both for the player and the club. I think he'll be fine in Moscow.

 

unexpected but exciting move.

 

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Nishimura joins CSKA Moscow

 

https://www.hochi.co.jp/soccer/national/20180907-OHT1T50278.html

J. League could loosen the quota on foreign players next season. If the new proposal is accepted, clubs will be allowed to field 5 foreigners at the same time.

 

Not a bad choice imo. This would increase the competitiveness of the league as well as give more incentive for young players to move overseas.
On the other hand, it means that young local players might have lesser chances in the J league and hence lesser playing time due to more competition from the foreign players.

 

Better than nothing. Most importantly, it would create an environment which encourages the local young players to move abroad.

 

I disagree.

The level of the foreigners in J.League has been low for ages, and even though we currently got lots of good ones like Iniesta, Torres, Chanathip, Patrick, Jo etc, there's also tons of journeymen players that would never stand a chance in a comparable league in Europe. Look at Cerezo. Souza is the only good one. Osmar is mediocre/average, while Ricardo Santos probably wouldn't cut it even in J2.

And what does a player like Zlatan Ljubijankic do at Japan's biggest club? He was good 4-5 years ago, but hasn't really brought anything to the team the last couple of seasons. Or how did Ramon Lopes get almost 100 matches at Vegalta/Reysol?

Or Juanma/Jairo at Nagasaki? Players who struggle to get playing time in Segunda B doesn't really raise the level of J.League and is a pure waste of money imho.

And at Gamba, can anyone really say that the likes of Fabio or Ademilson have raised the overall level of the team the last couple of seasons?

There are definitely more examples like this than all-out success stories, and if they want to increase the number of foreigners they have got to make sure the foreign players that are being brought in are actually significantly better than their Japanese counterpart.

The recent increase of good Asian players is very good for the league, and it also gives them a lot of exposure there (and eventually maybe also tv-deals which results in more money), but how many players in SE Asia are there currently that are on Chanathip's level? afaik, the ones that are already in J.League are the current top Thai talents. As for the rest of Asia I wouldn't mind seeing some top Iranian players come, and yhere's lots of good Koreans in the league But we'll probably never see the top Chinese talent play in Japan, for both financial and political reasons.

So that leaves us back to dodgy scouts, poor networking and club management and what will essentially be the clubs wasting resources, money and staff on some C-level Brazilians or some European journeymen who come to Japan mainly for financial reasons.

I failt to see how that's a good thing.
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And as for more Japanese players moving out early, I don't necessarily see that as an advantage. Do we really want to see the best talents of Japan end up playing (or more likely be benchwarmers) in for example Austria or Belgium? Where they most likely will have a much longer/tougher way to 1st team action than what they would in Japan at that age (let's say between 17 and 21). Having the choice between a local kid and a Japanese kid (if they are on more or less the same level), an Austrian or Belgian coach would choose the local kid 99 out of 100 times.

If you are good enough, you will break into the 1st team in J.League, or atleast J2, and from there the next natural step shouldn't be "shitty" leagues like Jupiler League or the Austrian Bundesliga (unless it's for a club like Red Bull Salzburg,who are on a completely different level than the rest).

It should at minimum be Holland or Portugal. Or a top 5 league. At least you get to play together with good players then, and be under some really good coaches/managers.

 

I think Austria and Belgium as a whole are slightly better than the J league imo, especially when you account for the fact that there is a chance of them playing in the Europa league or even CL as a result of the move.
Moving there also gives them more exposure to scouts as they monitor these leagues more than they do the J league, not to mention it allows then to adapt faster with respects to aspects like culture, language, etc. as they have more in similar to the top 5 leagues than the J league.
For example, you can learn up French or German or at least improve their English in Austria or Belgium and it can help when they happen to move to Bundesliga, EPL or Ligue 1 in the future.

 

It's a meh move. I'd like to see more foreigners, but maybe on the club instead of by force on the field. And I'd like to see like a 3+3 rule, with 3 foreigners and 3 AFC players, even to help the continent.

 

like others have said, this will be a bad move imho.

quality over quantity.

washed up journeymen shouldn’t be blocking the pathways of young japanese talent.

 

I don't really see the attraction of playing in a 3rd level European league which both the Belgian, Austrian and Swiss league essentially is. Take away teams like Basel and RB Salzburg and you get clubs whose level is arguably lower than the top teams in J.League.

Why the Belgian league is rated so highly is beyond me. Club Brugge were the joke of CL in 2016, but still racked up enough coefficient points during qualification that will assure Belgium 1+1 places in CL for a couple of years. And we all know that the difference between a 10-15 place on UEFA's table compared to 20-30th is basically only a single good season for one of the teams.

Sure, you both have some valid points as it can make the transition easier and could be a way to get used to the European playstyle/level/language in a smaller league.

But my point is that by the time the players leave Japan (the talented ones atleast) they should already have done most of the development back there, and a good player who's mentally strong enough will overcome that language/culture barrier. We can't sit around and wait for them to go through a 2nd development period that might take years. If they are good enough, clubs from bigger leagues will pick them up in no time.

There's no reason to drain J.League of talent just to send them to a league that is on the same level (or lower in some cases). And it's not like the coaches, training methods necessarily are better in these clubs either ( with exceptions of course).

Of course, if Belgian clubs are able to pay much more then that might be motivation enough for some players. But are the wages that much higher at for example Standard Liege or Cercle Brugge than what they are at Cerezo Osaka or Urawa Reds?