Official 2019 J. League Transfers and Rumors

Japan’s veteran and legendary midfielder Shinji Ono joins J2 club FC Ryukyu from J1 club Consadole Sapporo,

The 40 years-old is transferring from J-League’s northernmost club to its southernmost.

It is also a transfer from Japan’s northernmost prefectures to its southernmost.

 

It is one of the most interesting transfer windows for Japanese players to/in Europe.

This season will mark 40+ Japanese players playing in Europe (with those in minor leagues such as Poland, Czech Republic and the likes not included).

We have some players such as Kagawa, Gotoku Sakai, Tatsuya Ito, Yuki Kobayashi, and Haraguchi who are still to find new clubs for themselves.

There are no news so far about Keisuke Honda’s next destination.

As for players transferring from Japan to Europe, with 10+ players already went to Europe this summer, it is hard to think about who else will go there during this transfer window.

I would say: Koji Miyoshi might be the most probable one after his performance again Uruguay in Copa America, and Kento Misao might work out a transfer to Netherlands, Portugal, or Belgium.

 

Its amazing really, and as you say there is a few names that havent decided yet, big names. Although Kagawa is rumored to already signed with a spanish team.

 

Way too soon.

 

Hopefully Misao, with Hasebe gone. It is important to have a decent DM option for the JNT.

 

Sint-Truiden too.

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20190806-00000000-spnannex-socc

 

It's really exciting to see so many young japaneses going to play in Europe, but I'd like to see players in their 25s doing the same, there are several such good players who could play in Europe, such as Kazuki Kozuka, Tatsuya Tanaka (Oita Trinita), Furuhashi, Hatanaka, Katsuya Nagato, Akito Fukumori, Kosuke Nakamura, Naoki Maeda, Yoshinori Suzuki and so on.

 

Please no. This is wrong on so many levels.

Japanese players: Please stop going to clubs that are WEAKER than the clubs you are playing for. I'm 100% sure Yokohama F Marinos would win against both St.Truiden and Antwerp. If they were to go a club that regularly competes in UCL then by all means, but to a couple of mid-table Belgian teams? Give me a break.

Japanese clubs: Please wake up and start doing what they do elsewhere in the world, which is to sign idiot-proof, long-term contracts with your players. You are practically giving away the best talents in Japan, and the peanuts that these European vultures are paying in transfer fees is an insult.

A couple of years ago Bundesliga was the designated destination for Japanese players, and that made sense. It was a step up to one of the big leagues, and a lot of the players succedeed as well (although a few also failed miserably). Now suddenly a C-level league like Jupiler League has become the hub for Japanese players, and it doesn't make sense at all.

By all means, credit to the Belgian clubs for knowing what they are doing, which is exploiting the naivity of the Japanese clubs. If a player like Miyoshi had a Brazilian or Belgian passport he would have been sold for 10+ Million Euros. But now? Marinos will probably feel they've made a bargain if they can get 500 000 Euros. Wake up.

 

Belgium is a decent League, maybe J- League is better but belgium league is way more physicaly and it makes a bunch of sense to go there cause you get used to the european style of football.

For example, often the Belgium clubs trash German clubs in the European league.

I highly doubt that Kamada, Endo and Tomiyasu would be in half of Europe's thoughts if they do what they do in Japan (nothing against the J-League or any compare).

Maybe it's even better to go to Belgium then to Germany at the moment.

 

Often? Belgian and German teams have only met once in the last 6 seasons in EL if my calculations are correct.

Europa League:

18/19: No Belgian and German teams met.

17/18: No Belgian and German teams met.

16/17: Anderlecht beat Mainz 6-1 at home, and drew 1-1 away in the group stage. This was a good year for Belgian teams with 2 teams in the quarterfinal.

15/16: No Belgian and German teams met.

14/15: No Belgian and German teams met.

13/14: No Belgian and German teams met.

-------

In CL they've met 3 teams in the last 6 years, with German teams winning all the competitive matches while 2 "friendlies" ended a draw.

Champions League:

18/19: Dortmund beat Brugge 1-0 away and drew 0-0 at home (when they were already qualified).

17/18:No Belgian and German teams met

16/17:No Belgian and German teams met

15/16: Wolfsburg beat Gent both home and away in the 16th finals.

14/15: Dortmund won 3-0 away vs Anderlect, and 1-1 at home (when they were already qualified).

13/14:No Belgian and German teams met

--------

But yeah, getting used to European football can be a factor but the best players didn't have any problem doing that in Germany either in Bundesliga 1.And how much credit the Belgian league deserves for the likes of Kamada, Endo and Tomiyasu is open for discussion.

Kamada was already on the radar of European clubs after 3 good seasons in J1 and is owned by E Frankfurt and will probably return there if they find him good enough.

I would argue that Tomiyasu's real breakthrough was for the National Team in the Asian Cup. Also, he went from J2 to Belgium which is a natural step-up.

That is not the case for Wataru Endo who went from one of the best clubs in Asia to a mediocre club in Belgium. He's the one I've paid the least attention to in Belgium so others might know this better, but I have serious doubts he's good enough for a top 5 league. At least based on what he showed in J1 where he got around 150 caps and also for the NT. I would love it if he were to prove me wrong though.

What worries me the most though is how naive the Japanese clubs still are when it comes to contracts. It's like they are stuck in the past when no foreign clubs showed any interest in Japanese players and long-term contracts wasn't needed in order to protect the clubs. A bit like still using fax machines while the rest of the world have moved on to e-mail and smartphones. I guess both are true for Japan in a way.

 

For me its obvious they reason this way. They feel its easier to transfer to a bigger European club if they impress in Belgium or Holland. Even if stats say they can move directly to a little bigger club from J-League also.

They wanna test out new training facilites and training ways. More experienced foreign coaches and players. And add a little adventure to that.

 

Yeah, and that falls into the naivity comment. Japanese companies are known for being ruthless to their salarymen, so why do Japanese clubs have to be so nice to their players? It doesn't make sense. They are constantly shooting themselves in the foot, and I really hope we'll see a club stand up to the player soon. That's the only way it can change.

Obviously the players see it that way too which is the sad thing here. I thought we were past this 5 years ago when Bundesliga was flourishing with Japanese and Korean players - some were even key-players in their respective clubs. To go back to being a farmer-league for a feeding-league in Europe is utter nonsense imo.

Kamada didn't fail miserably. A 21-year old starting a couple of games in his debut-season for a top-4 contender in Bundesliga is not failing. I don't know what signals he got in front of the 18/19-season but if he had stuck around chances are big he would see even more playing time last year.

If the top 5 leagues are considered A-leagues, then the likes of Eredivisie, Portugal, Turkey and maybe Russia would be considered a B-league. Obviously Jupiler League is behind those despite some decent performances from time to time in Europa League, so a C-League sounds about right for me.

And I'm not talking about "lesser talents" like Sugawara or "fresh-out-of-the-academy" players like Nakamura. I'm talking about players who are established key players in Japan but still young. Like Junya Ito and now in this case Koji Miyoshi.

If a Premier League club would have been involved, the 10 mill Euro fee would easily have been surpassed. I see Kamada was sold for 1,6 Mill Euro which is better than in the Kagawa-days, but it's still peanuts compared to similarly talented players with different passports.

So who's to blame for this? The agents are the main culprits (as usual), but both the Japanese players and Japanese clubs also need to take a deep look at themselves in all of this. And the only "success story" we've seen from players who have gone to Belgium/Austria/Switzerland first is Tomiyasu isn't it? Among what is it, 20-25 Japanese players who played in those leagues the past 4-5 years? There are tons of more success stories from Germany....

And in Tomiyasu's case it's bloody unfair that they get 9 mill Euros for him, while Avispa were left with 450K Euros (unless they are sitting on a massive sell-on-fee which I doubt considering it's a Japanese club...)

 

W. Endo to Stuttgart ?

1158610924057583616 is not a valid tweet id

 

I disagree with you nipponbasse83, going to minor leagues in Europe is an obvious stepping stone to bigger clubs in the continent, even brazilians do that (many go to Portugal first and many of them are in the Brazilian NT today). It also helps the players to have a smooth adaptation. In fact, I believe all japanese players should go to these minors league first unless the guy is a phenomenon(i.e. Kubo). Just look at the success stories of Nakajima, Tomiyasu, Doan, Kawashima, Yoshida, etc.

Having high sale prices is awful for strengthening a country's national football team, just look at Mexico's case:



And, even for the japanese players who don't step up, going to Europe's minor leagues will still help those players to develop, because they will learn literally new ways of learning things, as well as new kinds of football playstyles, and after that kind of experience, they can return to Japan stronger and with a more open mind towards football. This can lead in the future to these players becoming better managers or club directors, which is essential for japanese football development.

 

I wouldn't call Holland and Portugal minor leagues where 3 of your examples belong to. Not sure if I want to say Kawashima is a success story, so that leaves us with only Tomiyasu. Which I've discussed earlier.

As Dax said the current ratings might say otherwise, but the likes of Belgium, Austria and Switzerland are on a lower level in my eyes. Certain teams like Basel in the past and maybe RB Salzburg now sure, but as a whole these leagues are more on level with the Scandinavian leagues than Eredivisie the way I see it. And I've watched a ton of matches from both.

Speaking about Brazil, how good is it for the Brazilian league that minor European teams pick up all the best young Brazilian talent? I don't follow the Brazilian league that closely anymore, but their level today compared to Europe 5,10 or 15 years ago are extremely lower, no? Obviously tv-money is the main factor for that, but will for example Santos ever be a contender for the CWC-title again if this continues? Even Asian teams are doing better than Brazilian/SA-teams these days in that tournament.

J.League wants to become the Premier League of Asia, and I'm looking at this from someone who's primarily a fan of J.League and not Japan NT which I believe is what most people on this forum are. For Tomiyasu and Nakajima we can say that going to Europe was the right choice and this will strengthen Japan NT, but it barely benefits J.League at all. Because they practically gave these players away. If J.League-teams keep doing that how can the league become better? Shall we just accept that the usual 5 European leagues will be the pinnacle of world football forever? We probably have to due to the money involved but considering how much is wrong with modern football today I for one wouldn't mind a change.

The DAZN-deal have boosted a lot of the J-team's finances, so next step will now be to stop being so naive towards their players, their agents and interested clubs from abroad. And also pay the players more money, sign better foreign players instead of Brazilian journeymen, preferably players with experience from National Teams that are not washed-up veterans, sign the best players from other Asian countries (this they are already doing well), hire top foreign managers (like Ange Postecoglou) to get the players used to different tactics/playing style and make it less attractive to move to Europe. With the extra money from DAZN this is all possible. And the stadiums in J1 is arguably top 5 in the world, and imagine if almost all the games were sold out like in Germany or England. It's not unrealistic that this could happen.

 

Seems that Miyoshi has rejected an offer from Barça B, this summer.

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20190807-00000029-tospoweb-socc

 

Good

 

No problem if they loan him to Groningen.

 

Manchester City bought a South Korean yesterday:

We're delighted to announce the signing of South Korean international striker Lee Geum-min! ⚽️

🔵 #mancity pic.twitter.com/16T7Hu1AEh

— Manchester City (@ManCity) August 7, 2019

It looks that both signing are just for marketing reasons in Asian market, and not based on footballing reasons. Which is concerning.