U-21 roster for the Asian Games: GK Ryosuke Kojima (Waseda U) Powell Obinna Obi (Ryutsu Keizai U) DF Ko Itakura (Vegalta) Daiki Sugioka (Bellmare) Yugo Tatsuta (S-Pulse) Teruki Hara (Albirex) Makoto Okazaki (FC Tokyo) MF Koji Miyoshi (Consadole) Yoichi Naganuma (FC Gifu) Yuta Kamiya (Ehime FC) Kaoru Mitoma (Waseda U) Ryo Hatsuse (Gamba) Keita Endo (Marinos) Sho Funaki (Cerezo) Yuto Iwasaki (Sanga) Taishi Matsumoto (Sanfrecce) Kota Watanabe (Verdy) FW Daizen Maeda (Matsumoto Yamaga FC) Reo Hatate (Juntendo U) Ayase Ueda (Hosei U)
bland squad for bland tournament. probably better playing in j1/j2 than playing at these games. hope ueda has another strong tournament.
Wow, no Nakayama. Surprised. And also, i thought they would at least bring Takefusa Kubo as a bench option to prepare him for the Olympics 2 years later, which I think he has a high chance of participating. On the other hand, Honda and Nagatomo has expressed interest in participating in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
nakayama picked up a serious injury in toulon, he hasn’t played since. kubo has done absolutely jack shit this season, plenty of others more deserving to be picked ahead of him. at this rate he needs to leave fc tokyo i don’t think he’s gonna flourish under hasegawa. nagatomo and co would be great mentors in the squad but if those guys in two years are playing ahead of the U23 generation then that’s seriously depresssing.
About time Watanabe was called up. Ryotaro Ito missing is laughable though - as laughable as Iwasaki being in the team. Decent striker selection for once, better than Toulon...
Hope Kubo get his "Nakajima" moment soon. I've said before, he has a great talent, but playing different wavelength of football to domestically-coached player at his age bracket. He should have move to Europe, sooner is better, but who is insane enough to pick him in his current situation? Sad.
If he had stayed in Barcelona these few years, he might really have developed to become a World class player imo. The Barca ban really disrupted his development.
I think the reason behind Moriyasu picking Iwasaki and Naganuma is that they were both were part of this under-age NT set-up from 2016 at least. So they are familiar with tactics, coaches and players. Naganuma also is a product of Sanfrecce Hiroshima's youth system, he, Matsumoto and Morishima, and this justifies their selection time after time in spite of their form and playing time. You can find similar scenarios in the first year and so after a new coach took over, he tend to rely on some of the players which know his playing style to make other players' adaptation easier. For example; Ivica Osim relied on JEF players during his first year as NT coach, even if they were not an NT calibre to begin with, and Kazama's reliance on his two sons for the first couple of seasons during his time at Kawasaki Frontale, but he soon let them leave to J2 and J3 teams as they were no long useful. Another example is Sekizuka's reliance on his tried players such as Mizuki Hamada, Taisuke Muramatsu, Yusuke Higa and Yotaka Yoshida in the early stages of 2012 Olympic cycle, before either omitting them from the eventual Olympic Games squad or include one of them (Muramatsu) as a bench player. I think this will be the case with Moriyasu and players like Naganuma, Moroshima and Iwasaki. He will eventually drop them and call-up more potent players. Moreover, don't forget that we are in the middle of the season, and clubs might not be willing to release their players, especially if they are perceived as too important for their respective clubs. Speaking of players left out of this squad, I would like to see Taiki Hirato playing for the NT, especially giving that apart from Yuta Nakayama, no body really impressed enough to be considered as a starter in the defensive midfield (volante) position. I think he will form a good partnership with Nakayama there, with Nakayama playing in the No.6 role (the more defensive-oriented) and Hirato in the No.8 (the one with more creativity and helping with the attacking build-up from deep midfield).
yeah the sanfrecce connection is definitely strong. morishima, matsumoto and naganuma have played barely played any minutes this year. which is a shame as even kawabe (who i really rate) can’t make it to the starting team. i hope this is the last we’ll see of iwasaki... hirato has been outstanding. i remember former jnt yutaka akita predicting him as a “tokyo olympics player to watch” last year and thinking wtf is this guy? matsumoto are leading j2 and have good depth up front, so i can understand why daizen gets selected while someone like ito and kakita miss out.
he picked the wrong club and wrong manager. basically no one has stepped up from their u23 team. hasegawa is not gonna gamble on a rookie over his trusted veterans like higashi, takahagi, nagai and tanabe... maybe, just maybe, clubs like yokohama and vissel were better domestic clubs for kubo.
Kashima and Kashiwa are better at youth development imo, maybe they were better choices for Kubo back then. On another note, I thought that maybe Yuta Goke, Tagawa and So Fujitani can be in the squad for this upcoming game. They aren't really bad choices imo, but then again spots are limited.
Kubo is way too young and raw to be considered for the U-21 NT team or J1 first team football. He shall spend time with similar underage players to further hone his skills for a couple of seasons, and in the same time he could be offered and exposed to first (senior) team football from time to time.
it’s a difficult situation. guys like tagawa, abe, goke, suga, hashioka have played well for their clubs and more than deserve to be selected. but do they really want to fly over to indonesia and play against nepal and Pakistan in an otherwise useless tournament? there will barely be any scouts compared to afc competitions. it would be tragic if they play against amateur opponents for a few weeks and lose their starting spots in the j league.
True that. I hope that some of them will be at least participate in next year's Asian Cup, maybe as bench options. Would do well for them to get some experience to prepare for the 2020 Olympics.
Actually only Naganuma is a product of Sanfrecce's youth system, the other two players come from High Schools. However, yes, I know it's the classic situation where they've been selected in the past and the coach keeps using them. Matsumoto and Morishima were good in Toulon anyway. I think this will be the case with Moriyasu and players like Naganuma, Moroshima and Iwasaki. He will eventually drop them and call-up more potent players. In this case it's not possible for the club to not release the player. However, there was an agreement with the JFA that they would pick no more than 1 player per-team and you see it reflected in the list, yes. Hirato's had an excellent season but he's a right midfielder, why do you see him as a DM? Ito is not a striker like Maeda or Kakita though
? when daizen goes overseas, matsumoto can pick established strikers like takasaki and nagai. smaller budget clubs like mito and kanazawa pretty much have zero depth, ito and kakita are key players and they can't afford to lose them for a meaningless tournament. there really shouldn't be any surprise ito didn't get picked when familiar faces (who have mostly proven they are useless) like naganuma, morishima, funaki, hatate and iwasaki are favoured for now.
no nvm, I had misunderstood the sense of your post Morishima was good in Toulon. Hatate is still a player with decent potential. Speaking of Hirato... today's goal: 🎦 ゴール動画 🏆 明治安田生命Ｊ２リーグ 第28節🆚 町田vs千葉🔢 2-0⌚️ 45分⚽️ 平戸 太貴（町田） #Ｊリーグ その他の動画はこちら👇https://t.co/JUEMOXLYeZ pic.twitter.com/KPmoBrctcK— Ｊリーグ（日本プロサッカーリーグ） (@J_League) August 12, 2018
Kashima will have a lot of quality to fill their roster: Sugimoto, Hirato, Kakita... plus Abe staying.
This is what I thought watching the highlights and watching him coming from behind with at least 4 of his team mates in more advanced position than him. Moreover, his Japanese Wikipedia page is stating that he is a "volante", and as I understood, he is a number 8 volante with more attacking duties assigned to him.
I quite like Koki Machida too, hopefully he can improve to fully replace Ueda. He showed some promise last year before that injury. With Shoji injured and Ueda no longer here, hopefully he and Hwang can step up.