Great. It's not easy to replace King Nakazawa. I hope Nakazawa will play Asian Cup 2011. But I guess not. Damn I will miss him, one of my favourite players
Oliveira, Pekerman, Guido, Bielsa, Del Bosque or Manzano ? http://www.sanspo.com/soccer/news/100701/scc1007010529006-n1.htm http://www.sponichi.co.jp/soccer/news/2010/07/01/01.html S.Nakamura quits the national team : http://www.sponichi.co.jp/soccer/news/2010/07/01/07.html Nakazawa may quit the national team too : http://www.sponichi.co.jp/soccer/news/2010/07/01/12.html Okubo may quit the national team and wanna play in overseas : http://www.sanspo.com/soccer/news/100701/scc1007010540009-n1.htm http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/soccer/japan/news/20100630-OHT1T00360.htm Endo and Kawaguchi dream of 2014 : http://www.sponichi.co.jp/soccer/news/2010/07/01/15.html http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/soccer/japan/news/20100630-OHT1T00362.htm
Del Bosque? Manzano? Bielsa looks the best option I think. Followed by Peckerman, Del Bosque, Oliveira.
Kawashima Uchida Yoshida Tulio Makino Inui Hasebe Some Unknown Kagawa Morimoto Usami I'm probably the only one but I don't think Honda will stick around for long.
Nakamura left the NT with a bad feeling then? You say Nakazawa may quit? What is he saying? Okubo wanna play overseas, any interested teams?
Hey if Endo is still good enough then fine. Normally I wouldn't approve but CM isn't a position where we have a huge depth of players. At least depth for the international physical game. Although Abe could still be there and abouts in 4 years.
Hmm..... Why there is no one mentioning Toninho Cerezo? I think he'll be a better candidate than the ones listed above.
Speaking of the Copa America 2011, on the wiki page of the copa there's a footnote that says "Japan† May not participate due to a proposal by UEFA about competing in tournaments in different confederations". Does anyone have an idea what this is about?
UEFA were more concerned about Mexico. They're not going to do anything about it. Japan will participate. Japan have before and CONMEBOL always invites 2 teams to participate outside South America cause they need 12 teams. Japan will participate.
I've done little research and it turns out that UEFA is against teams from one confederation to participating in tournaments organised by different confederations. There's even an issue with Mexico participating - CONCACAF allowed them to play only U-23 squad with 5 older players and this decission was made for the sake of Gold Cup prestige. From what I've read there was a strong fans pressure on CONMEBOL to play next tournament traditionally, with only 10 teams divided in two groups. I wonder what coach would leave Spanish NT to work with Japan NT. Bielsa would be great but I don't know if Chileans will let him go so easily.
Shunsuke announced retirement and said it was very hard for him in South Africa. http://southafrica2010.nikkansports.com/news/p-sc-tp2-20100701-647965.html
It's because UEFA are spoilsports about anything that doesn't work in their favor. The CONCACAF thing is only an issue because both competitions happen at the same time. So if Mexico sent a full side to South America it'd obviously dilute their own. Japan won't have that issue.
Yea I was hoping he'd still reach 100... just as a tribue for all he's contributed to the NT over his career. But I don't really feel bad that he wasn't utilized much in the World Cup... his best has past him by and it was time to hand over the reigns to the next generation.
Good relationships with CONMEBOL. We often organize friendlies, actions, this kind of stuff. We already participated in 1999.