Official 2019 J1\J2 Thread + league changes

"However, only 5 (J1) or 4 (J2&J3) can be in the matchday squad*"

And on the field in the same time? 5 as well?

 

100% not required. hilarious as their goal is to “strengthen japanese football. like i said before “quality over quantity”.

it would be a shame if these rules potentially blocked a future tomiyasu or doan from being discovered.

 

After watching the first round, What level do you guys think the J1 league has achieved? Do you think it stands at a similar level of what other national league?

 

For structure and quality on the pitch... I'd say Top 15, if not Top 10.

 

I was talking in terms of soccer level. For instance, I think the soccer played in J1 league is faster than in Brasileirão.

 

This is like comparing apples to oranges cause of difference in playstyle etc, but I think Whispered11 is onto something.

Of course J.League is way behind the top 5 leagues in Europe, and the likes of Portugal, Holland, Russia and Turkey are also probably slightly stronger overall (but depends on teams as there are some extremely poor teams in those leagues too).

But other than those there's no European league that comes to mind that is better.

And imho J.League is already the best league in Asia, and recent head-to-head results in the CWC's shows that the Asian teams can also hold themselves well against the top clubs from South America. Which subsequently then makes J.League perhaps the best league outside of Europe along with the Argentina and Brazil leagues, because neither Africa or North America have any leagues worth mentioning here.

So 10th - 12th might be correct?

 

Team of the week: http://web.ultra-soccer.jp/news/view?news_no=349773

 

Hello, I am from Italy but live in the United States, I have been following J-League for years although it's almost impossible here to see the games, in the past they were showing some but it has been a while. From what I can tell - especially watching the Japanese NT - the J League level is very good, maybe as you say the best league in Asia. But when I read that north America has not any league worth mentioning, I think you probably don't know very well football here, Liga MX and MLS are two very good leagues, Liga MX has been a very solid league for many years, and MLS is constantly growing in all aspects but primarly on the field, where you have these days a lot of young southamerican talents who have really changed the face of most teams. Of course, there are teams and teams, but the very good ones have very little to envy to most other clubs around the world. It is difficult to compare, but if you were asking me to compare MLS now to a European league, I would tell you they are probably at a Eredivisie level, maybe they do not have explosive attacks as in Eredivisie but neither horrible defenses like in Holland. Another factor to count in is the competitiveness of the league, 10 different clubs have won the title in the last 12 seasons, and overall 13 in 23 seasons. I may be wrong but I think this can be said nowhere else in the world. Is MLS better than J League? Or is it vice versa? I have no idea, but I can defìnitively tell you that it's not a B league, And of course, neither is Liga MX, which is still richer and probably overall better than MLS.

 

Yes, it was not my intent to talk down the Liga MX or MLS, but I think in this particular conversation they are not not really relevant.

Liga MX is a strong league without a doubt, but it's still behind the likes of the Argentinian and Brazilian league and thus also J.League in my opinion.

Mexican teams have participated in more or less every single Club World Cup, and their results there are not much to write home about. They've failed to make it to the final on every single occasion, despite often being put in the "easy route" to the final .

CWC is not perfect, but it's more or less the only tool we have to compare leagues with across continents. And although Mexican teams have beaten the likes of Jeonbuk and Western Sydney (for then only to lose vs Auckland City the same year), but their head-2-head record vs Asian teams is not very positive. And they've also lost tons of matches vs African teams, which Asian teams rarely does.

And: Japanese teams have won all 3 matches vs Mexican teams ( Gamba vs Pachuca in 2008, Reysol vs Monterrey in 2011 and Kashima vs Guadalajara in 2018 (in UAE)).

Which takes us to MLS. I don't know what standing the Concacaf Champions League have among MLS-clubs, but the fact that Mexico wins it almost every single year is not a good sign for them. Heck, even the Suriname league have a better overall record in the Champions League than MLS. Even if there's no economic reason for them to take that tournament seriously, a potential place in CWC and the chance to meet the likes of Real Madrid or Barcelona in a competitive match (and not just those meaningless friendlies every summer) should be motivation enough for them to at least try.

MLS is gaining traction for sure and is like all the other emerging leagues improving every year, and although it might have a higher profile in Europe than the likes of J.League or CSL(because of the language and easy accessibility, I highly doubt it's near the same level. For every Zlatan or Rooney there's also several fringe players that fail to cut it in lower European leagues but who are high-profile players in MLS. A couple of Norwegian players spring to mind. Ola Kamara had 1,5 good season in Norway (and 4 mediocre ones), and were a complete flop in Austria but banged in goals in all his 3 seasons in MLS.

Don't get me wrong, there's lots of poor import players in J.League too,but the local talent is of a much higher quality than in the States. And the South American talent that ends up in USA have in a lot of cases been rejected already by European clubs, or even Japanese clubs, cause if they were really that talented bigger or better clubs would have snatched them already. But with that being said, I'd rather see them sign young talents than washed up profiles from Europe.

Comparing MLS to Eredivisie is a bit far-fetched imho. MLS have turned into a very professional league with good stadiums and big crowds, and watching Atlanta United play in a full-capacity 70,000 stadium must be an amazing experience but there's no indicators that the overall league quality is anywhere near Eredivisie the way I see it.

You also mentioned it is a competitive league, but in my view a league without relegation is everything but competitive. A-League has the same problem, which is why every single football fan in Australia is crying out to have that implemented ( and it will probably happen soon).

 

I agree in large part with what you say, although I will keep my opinion of MLS being equiparable to a mid level European league, could be Eredivisie or something similar. I do not have the tools to judge J-League level, so I will not even try, but as a general concept I think the level is very good, also if it's very difficult to compare leagues from continent to continent.
But you are absolutely right about Mexican teams shitting their pants when it's time to really show who they are, and I also completely understand how you can be very perplex about MLS teams quality if Mexican teams win the Concacaf Champions League every year. You do 1+1 =2 and that's perfectly understandable. However, there are different reasons for that, the main one being that MLS season has a too long off season, with the regular season ending at the end of October, and the final being played in the first week of december. And starting this year, the regular season (because of the playoff format change) will end about 3 weeks before, and the final will be played the weekend before FIFA international dates in November, which I think it's a real tragedy. The season then does not restart till the beginning of March, a very long time after the final. Too long. At the same time, Liga MX end around mid december if I recall correctly, and restarts at the beginning of february; so, when MLS and Mexican teams battle each other, Mexican teams have on average 4 to 6 competitive games already in their legs, and that advantage, summed to other factors, are determinant. I wish MLS would move to a fall to spring schedule with a decently long winter break, but I think this is still a long way to come. In the full winter, in at least half of the league, it is too cold to play, search for the highlights between Colorado and Portland last weekend, and you will see what I mean.
Regarding the young southamerican players, a lot of them arrive to MLS with good contracts, money that they were not making at home and probably wouldn't be making in Europe either, or at least not at the beginning. Some of these players are not unknown, Atlanta just got Pity Martinez, one of the top River Plate players, they paid him a record fee, and he has a Designated Player conytact, meaning he is out of the salary cap. Then there is the psycological aspect, the USA are geographically a lot closer than Europe to South America, and even culturally the similarities between south America and north America are many, since most big US cities have very large spanish speaking communities. Last but not least, a lot of these players see the possibility (especially if they are married with small children) to take their family away from misery and violence, because the United States have a violence problem, but it's a fraction of the problem that many south american countries have.
Last thing, MLS is bringing to the league less and less "old European" players, they have done their share of mistakes in the past. But the ones who come now - generally speaking - are still able to make the difference. Folks like Ibra and very surprisingly Rooney (who I thought was done, when DC United got him) are far from finished, and they have brought to the league an upper level of quality and professionalism. Rooney is not the top scorer he used to be (although he has scored a number of goals) but has put his skills and experience at the service of the team, and has made of DC United (the team I follow here) a much better team than it would have been without him.
I hope one day not too far I will be able to come to Japan and see a couple of J League games, I follow the league in general, but I have a soft spot for Gamba, as they wear the same colors of my local Italian club (Pisa Sporting Club).

 

Does someone know any link to live stream of J1 matches?

 

Yes indeed - different season schedules does play a big part on continental competitions which is one of the reasons why for example Scandinavian and Russian clubs almost always struggle if they are to reach the knockout-stages of CL or EL. And it's a problem in Asia as well with for example A-League that's on on a different schedule than the rest.

But you wouldn't think it would make this much difference - even though you are not in peak-form you should still be able to perform at a reasonable level but when minnows from Caribbean countries perform better something is obviously not right.

By South American talent I guess I was mainly referring to Brazil, who got a strong connection to Japan. Obviously the Spanish speaking countries, with Argentina as the main one might have a better connection to USA especially in the states where Spanish is common like Florida, California etc. So there might be an untapped pool there for MLS-clubs, although I would imagine also there the best ones will 99% of the time end up in Europe.

I still think there's way too many mediocre European players in MLS though, with some of these Scandinavian players that I mentioned as an example (and some Germans), but with that being said; for every gifted foreigner in Japan there's probably 3-4 mediocre ones as well so that's a problem that doesnt only concern MLS (and same for other emerging leagues like A-League, CSL or for that matter Qatar Stars League).

But in general, I'm all for a more wide spread of talents so if MLS could become a truly competitive league ( by European standards) that would only be positive.

 

https://www.marca.com/en/football/barcelona/2019/03/06/5c803cb1ca4741f0668b45ef.html

Curious to know what Samper's salary is, going to Vissel Kobe at age 24?

 

I think they're on the Transfermarkt or Wikipedia page of former Barcelona B players.

 

That lad Takefusa Kubo, he's coming along this season eh. He looks much more well rounded than say Usami or Haraguchi were at that age. Clearly been gym'ing as well, much stronger on the ball too.

 

Where is Usami now?

From being compared to Neymar in 2009, to a pre-mature transfer to Bayern Munich, and then was no where to his early career promise.

 

And despite a wonderful season by Fortuna Dusseldorf, he wasn't anywhere this year. I wonder if it makes sense for him to stay in Europe at 27.

 

It was his time at Bayern that ruined him. Such a shame.

It's most interesting to see how that generation did. Grew up with Nakamura/Nakata doing their thing at NT level and in Europe and we all knew of these young lads Takashi Usami & Genki Haraguchi and just honestly daydreaming of the potential they had.

I think of the two Haraguchi had less latent talent but was more sensible in his career but possibly stayed in the J.League a little too long to continue on his trajectory. However despite that he's had a reasonably successful career in Germany.

Usami on the other hand weirdly came back to Japan and tore up the J.League for a year and a half, then went away and didn't really light up like expected.

This stuff gives a bit of an insight into the mental strength of some of the other players like Inui, Hasebe, Yoshida, and back in the day guys like Daisuke Matsui and even Junichi Inamoto (miss that guy) who persevered.

 

Yep, that's a big factor but to the player's defence I'm not sure it's not all that easy coming in to an established team as an outsider (Asian) without speaking the language or being able to communicate properly with your teammates etc. Unless you are blazingly good at the training ground you will not have an easy time I would think.

So many have failed and some even returned after just a couple of months. On the top of my head we have in Germany alone the likes of Kanazaki, Omae, Makino, and Yamaguchi. One would think Makino in particular would have the mindset to compete in Europe but I'm suspecting he went from being the undisputed team-leader in Japan to just being one of the guys in Germany. And maybe also a reality-check about his abilities etc. So he'd rather be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in the sea.

 

A promising prospect.

 

Some new ambassadors for J-League.
Zico, Guido Buchwald, Dunga, Hong Myung-Bo...

Zico, Guido Buchwald have been appointed as #JLeague Global Ambassadors, will help promote the league overseas. Dunga, Hong Myung-bo also appointed. League plans on tapping into network of well over 1000 former foreign players. pic.twitter.com/rduuiuVjiD

— Dan Orlowitz (@aishiterutokyo) June 27, 2019

 

Great move. I hope they'll have a serious international push, because Japan is a place with an unique identity.