Official 2019 Nadeshiko Japan Thread [R] - なでしこジャパン（英語スレッド）

I didn't wake up at 4:00 (I'll have to go to work in minutes, since in my school there are lessons on Saturday also), but I am extremely pleased by this win!

Basically, Nippon TV Beleza conquered the first edition of what can be considered the equivalent of UEFA Champions' League in Asia. It's true that included just 4 teams, but they were the expressions of the leagues that can be considered the best ones in Asia (+ Oceania ) and that are feeding the only 4 Asian NTs that stand in the top 20 of FIFA rankings (except North Korea, that is a case apart).

Even if Asia would have a number of teams comparable to the UEFA Campions' League's ones, I would have expect just teams from Japan, Australia, South Korea and China to reach the semifinal (as well as it's difficult to have semifinalists in Europe outside of France, Germany, Spain, England and maybe Sweden, although this last one less and less in the latest years).

I hope Beleza can represent Asia in a World Championship for clubs!

I can't wait to watch highlights later!

As @pierre bezukhov mentioned, probably other Australian clubs (Kinga's Melbourne City comes to mind) would have been much tougher competitors. Australia came in this tournament severely under-represented. It's more or less as if in Japan JEF had suddenly won a title for some reason: such an upset wouldn't probably grant any continuity at high level.

 

I guess that was the whole point in their match vs Incheon, that surely was the most serious contender for the title alongside Beleza.

I only watched 2nd Half, but, to me, what really made the difference there was the sharpness of Beleza's possession. Sometimes they were starting first-touch triangles that Korean players couldn't manage to stop for whole minutes!

I had been a little worried after the unexpected draw vs Jiangsu in the first matchday, but Beleza ended deserving the title for being hands down the best team in the tournament and showcasing the best football.

I have seen Lechus7's highlights of 1st half vs Red Angels and in fact, as someone had mentioned here on the thread (maybe @pierre bezukhov?), Riko Ueki was even more impressive than in 2nd Half. She's ready for the international stage and I really hope that, after she's missed the World Cup, she will leave her sign on the Olympic Games next year.

Maybe, later I am going to watch the full match vs Melbourne Victory that I missed this morning.

 

All expected, except Albirex loss to Chifure at the penalty shootout. As you rightfully notice, @unepommekun, it's hard to believe that Saitama didn't manage to be promoted: one explanation is the exceptional Cerezo's performance in the last matchdays of Division 2, but, on the other hand, it looks like Azami & Co. should have been better than Ehime, at least on paper.
But they've lost too many points with draws vs avarage teams. If the team remains the same, they're probably going to battle for promotion once again next year.

Meanwhile, Empress' quarter finals are filling up more or less with the expected teams

It's anyway interesting that at least one of Sakuyo and Orca will reach quarter finals. So, another second division's team beyond Saitama or even an university one! (it wouldn't be an absolut record anyway, since in 2017 Waseda University had already reached quarter-finals, by beating INAC in the round of 16! ).

Edit: do I remember well that back then Juri Kawano, who scored today for INAC, was indeed playing just with that Waseda University team that had defeated INAC?

NTV Beleza-NHK Spring Yokohama FC Seagulls has been postponed to the 4th of December: quite reasonable, since this week Beleza already had to play a match each 2 days for the AFC Women's Club Championship.

 

Oh, you're right! Has an high school team ever reached Empress' Cup's quarter-finals?

 

Just finished watching the game. It was as easy as @pierre bezukhov described it, but Beleza's quality transpired anyway, despite the low level of the opposition.

Victory's GK didn't seem very athletic, their players were slow and inaccurate and both them and the coach seemed especially worried to defend well, lest they were going to lose by an even bigger score (since the AFC streaming had no comment, you could sometimes hear the coach scream things like: "Quickly back! Everyone back!", in an alarmed tone).

Some observations (not just from this match: actually from the whole tournament):

- Yui Hasegawa could be one of the best players in the world: her vision, her dribbling, her no-look sharp and deep passes are a pleasure to see. But to really be up there she would need her shot to be more reliably powerful and accurate. Too much often it happens that she lets down in the moment when she should finalize. Of course, she's a dream of an assist woman instead.

- I hadn't really noticed before how seamlessly Beleza integrated the AFC U-19 champion players in their team: of course, some of them, as Oto Kanno, already got regular playing time, but I was surprised at how smooth the passing game kept being with many of these youngsters on the pitch at the same time: Oto Kanno, Sara Ito, Shino Matsuda, Wakabo Goto...
This seems to speak volumes about Beleza's dominance in Nadeshiko League in years to come also, since they are already rotating veterans into young quality players.

- I hope Ueki's injury isn't too much serious: she needs to stay healthy. The bandage on her left knee was impressive, but the fact that she anyway left the pitch on her own legs looks quite reassuring.

By the way, talking about youngsters, who's this Kokona Iwasaki who replaced her just before half-time and even managed to score in injury-time of 2nd half? I had never heard of her. Coach Nagata somehow seemed to have a special half-smile for her, after the goal.

 

So, no high school team in the quarter-finals. On the other end, the Chifure-Orca match on next round means that this year we'll get at least one semifinalist from 2nd Division! The upsets on the previous rounds (Chifure eliminating Albirex at penalty shootout, Sakuya beating JEF) created such an unusual situation.

Nojima-Ehime will happen again next season in Division 1: looks like Stella is quite well-positioned.

Mynavi took revenge from the beatings they received by Iga in the league and in Nadeshiko League Cup. Old veteran Saori Arimachi is scoring a lot these days: was she injured before, along the season, or it's just a coincidence that she started scoring again?

 

International update (well, international as "international leagues", since we already had our fair share of international club football this week with AFC Women's Club Championship! ):

Aussie-W-League:

- Melbourne City FC won an home game on Saturday by 1-0 vs Adelaide United. Yukari Kinga played the whole match. Melbourne are third-placed in the league, with two wins and a draw.
Highlights: https://www.w-league.com.au/video/melbourne-city-v-adelaide-united-highlights-westfield-w-league


Division 1 Féminine in France was on break for some reason that's unknown to me (does anyone has ideas?) and it will resume next week-end.


Frauen-Bundesliga:

- today, SC Freiburg had a 3-3 draw vs 1.FFC Frankfurt. Once again, Hikaru Naomoto wasn't even on the bench.

- BV Cloppenburg lost at home by 0-4 to Wolfburg B (I have the feeling that these big clubs' secondary teams completely warp Division 2 in Germany). Natsuki Kishikawa and Shiho Tomari were both on the pitch for all of the match.


Liga femenina:

- It just needed to have Sporting Huelva at home, of all the possible teams, for Espanyol to finally manage to make one point (their second in the league)! Anyway, with this 0-0 draw Sporting Huelva manage to climb at 11th place, that doesn't sound so bad. What surely sounds bad is the fact that Yoko Tanaka wasn't in the line-up nor on the bench: I hope it isn't an injury, but since she seemed to have won a starting spot I can't imagine what else could it be. Ayaka Noguchi was subbed in at 58' for Espanyol, but she didn't manage to change the situation for her team.

- Deportivo Abanca-Sevilla 2-1, with Deportivo keeping third position behind Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, but Maya Yamamoto was nowhere to be seen. Same destiny as Tanayo?


Serie A Femminile:
- Tavagnacco's falling doesn't stop. Roma-Tavagnacco 2-0, with Kunisawa and Sato on the pitch all game. Right now, it's hard to figure how they could climb out of the relegation zone, since they're 6 points behind already.


All in all, a quite depressing week for our internationals, apart from Kinga: they don't play or, if they play, they lose.

 

Wow, how elegant she is: you can tell that she lives in the land of haute couture!

 

Sad. She was a quite exciting player, when healthy.