Official 2018 Nadeshiko Japan Thread [R] - なでしこジャパン（英語スレッド）

Oh, ok, was just wondering if we would have had anything between Algarve and AFC!

 

Missed the match, but I saw the score. Can anyone tell me minutes of the goals, so I'll go looking for them in the video?

 

Yukari Kinga is Champion of Australia with Melbourne City FC.

She played the whole Grand Final of Aussie-League that was won by her team vs Sidney FC by 1-0, with a goal of guess who? Of course Jessica Fishlock again (what a player! I can't wait to see her play again alongside Kawasumi and Utsugi in Seattle in the upcoming NWSL season!).

I start wondering if it couldn't be time to reconsider Kinga for NT: I mean, she was a fixture in the midfield of the team that just won Westfield W-League and she played most of the minutes of all of the games: she scored, assisted, defended and apparently was one of the best players of her team, in a league that is brimming with national and international talent (sporting most of the Australian NT players who recently climbed at 4th place in the world and a boatload of players from NWSL). Are we sure we don't need that anymore in Nadeshiko Japan? Yes, we have to think about the future, but we can also say that the future is more or less already here (2018: AFC, 2019: WWC, 2020: Olympics): I am not saying that the veterans need a go at another cycle, but anyway a coach should select the players who are best fit and strong at the current moment...

The Grand Final of the league has just ended, so there are no highlights of the game yet (I'll post them later for sure); meanwhile, this is Fishlock's lob that decided the match.

 

Thanks. Where the game was played? It didn't look like Kobe for sure.

I just watched the goals and a few more actions and INAC's passing game seemed very fluid to me: I can't properly assess the strength of the Korean team they were playing against, but I anyway see INAC's chances quite well for the upcoming league. It looks like Masuya want to do better than last season and I like an (healthy!) Iwabuchi better as a central striker than old Ohno, who wasn't anymore at her former levels. There are good talents in every part of the pitch, a lot of young promising players who are approaching their full maturity and I can't wait to see if they can actually challenge Beleza for the title.

Talking about young players: it seems to me that INAC made many changes in 2nd half. Who exactly #22 who scored last goal is?

Also, there was on the pitch, for INAC, that South-Korean player that I had admired so much in last EAFF Championship, Lee Min-A. She kept looking very good and apparently she blended seamlessly with INAC's style of play (see the beautiful action of 2nd goal, with many first-touch passes involving Sameshima, Lee Min-A, Iwabuchi [precious back-heel!], Lee Min-A again, Masuya, Nakajima with a perfect assist in the box from the Left-Side and finally Takase for the tap-in ).
It doesn't hurt that the Korean star looks quite pretty!

 

Sorry it was actually 2-0.

Here are highlights:



...and celebrations, including Kinga :

The moment we work all season for!!! 🏆🏆🏆 #3peat pic.twitter.com/wHcfKr6n2E

— Melbourne City FC (@MelbourneCity) February 18, 2018

Edit: second goal was scored by Jodie Taylor, from the rebound of a Jessica Fishlock's FK: for records, they'll both be playing with Kawasumi and Utsugi in Seattle this season. I smell other Japanese players going to win titles: this elusive NWSL league has to finally come to Reign!

 

Oh, ok. I didn't know her. Looks like an interesting player.

Also, a long strange family name I had never heard. The "shima" part means "island", isn't it?

 

Most European Leagues are back to business, after some of them stopped for the winter break, and there mostly good news for Japan :

Division 1 Féminine update:

- OL won with their trademark 0-4 score a match in Bordeaux. It's the 15th win out of 15 matches. Their current goal difference is +66. They probably want to match their own record from some seasons ago of winning all of the matches of the league. Saki Kumagai started, scored a PK at 77' (OL's second goal) and was subbed out just after that, at 78'. No highlights yet.


Frauen-Bundesliga update:

- 1.FFC Frankfurt had scheduled for today an away match that they had no choice but winning, vs the third-to-last ranked team 1.FC Köln. Well, they indeed won, by 3-0, and Kumi Yokoyama, who played the whole game, finally broke her spell and scored at 76'. No highlights yet either: I'll post them as soon as they are uploaded by DFB website.


Liga Femenina update:

- it's hard to always keep track of all of the Japanese players here, so I'll just be talking about the NT player here: Real Betis won by 4-0 a quite easy home match vs third-to-last ranked Albacete. The news are that Erina Yamane was finally listed on the bench (while in the previous month she hadn't been on the pitch nor on the bench): this makes me think that she had probably been injured (although KAPIJXM had posted that she was in Japan for some time for "personal problems").. Real Betis is currently 4th placed in a league that's probably too big for its own good (16 teams in Division 1!!! ).

 

What a strange name!

You can confirm that it's not very common in Japan?

 

Yes, i was just pretending not knowing it for sure.

 

Apparently, I hadn't read the score-board well: Saki Kumagai's PK was actually the first goal of the game. She was indeed subbed out at 78' anyway, and that's why she couldn't take the second PK of the match, that was scored by Maroszan instead. I wonder if Saki ever had the chance to score a brace in OL? I can't actually remember: she seldom scores, apart from PKs, and I don't remember another circumstance, at least recently, when OL got two PKs in the same match.

Here are the video-highlights: if you don't want to go through all of the video, OL's match starts at 3'55":

And here are highlights from Frankfurt's match: Kumi Yokoyama missed a goal from a Munk's assist in first half, then hit the crossbar twice eek:!!!) and finally managed to score towards the end of the match. Let's hope her converting ratio gets better and better with time.

 

Well, having two of their best players out could give an edge to us in group B of AFC. Although, as seen in last year's Tournament of Nations, Sam Kerr could be just enough...