I don't know if and when the league will start, and no teams are training, but here's what was decided today: - No relegations; - Normal promotions, but no playoffs in J2 - that means more teams per league next season. - At least 75% of all matches must be played however, for these conditions to be true, and every team must play at least 50% of them. - Clubs can access a special loan fund from the JLeague, and there was some kind of relaxing on the license conditions (probably something like, it's ok if your balance ends in the red) - Currently the most optimistic start date is june.
Honestly I can't wait for it to start again. Even behind closed doors. Of course, once security conditions will be respected.
He almost scored the equaliser against Urawa Reds yesterday, and I can see his first touch improving.
Don't know who will be "stars" but these are players whose season I'm really looking forward to see how they develop (all young players): Sapporo: Shunta Tanaka, Takamine, Kaneko Verdy: Morita, Fujita Frontale: Hatate, Mitoma, Ao Tanaka Giravanz: Daigo Takahashi, Ryo Sato Kashima: Someno, Araki, Matsumura Sagan: Honda Montedio: Handa (not sure how much he will play though) Omiya: Okunuki, Takada Shonan: Hata Taiga, Satoshi Tanaka Kobe: Oda Yokohama FC: Saito Koki I'm not saying all of them are or will be very good, just that I see something in each and I'm curious to see their progress. Lost forever: Ryotaro Ito
It was so saaaaaaad watching how Yokohama crumbled against Kawasaki after the absolutely disgraceful decission by the ref... It's 2020 and it's still happening in J1...
Just had a thought right now and suddenly remembered Jun Nishikawa. Noticed he's not playing. Are there anybody in the know aware of issues with him? At his age he needs to be getting game time if he's to progress.
In the game against Shonan Bellmare, Kawasaki shot 12 balls on target, while 3 of these were converted into goal, wich means Kosei Tani stopped 9 shots. That's a great performance, specially for such a young GK.
Togo Umeda from Shimizu S-Pulse and Yuma Obata from Vegalta Sendai has some impressive performances and great saves this season too. They are 20 and 18 years-old respectively.
Yeah, and there is also Kazuki Fujita from Albirex Niigata, He is only 19 years-old and has great build up skills. Tani's performance against Kawasaki was particularly impressive because it's very rare for a GK to stop that amount of shots, even for senior GKs.
From some clips I have seen, even thought they might not be featuring a lot now but I think Verdy's Seiya Baba and Nagoya's Grampus Haruya Fujii seems to have some potential. In addition, I think Reysol's Hosoya and Renofa Yamaguchi's Kaito Oki are not that bad as well. Also, some of the younger University players are not that bad e.g Kaito Mori/Daiki Shirato/Yohei Honma/Kyoya Saijo, etc. They could possibly have what it takes to play for a J league club now.
Must say Michael Olunga is a superb player for the league. Seems like a great guy too, good role model type (studied hard, looked after his education, work hard in football). Props to whomever scouted him.
Make sure to subscribe to Kazuyuki Toda's YouTube channel if you understand Japanese. His attention to tactical and technical detail is eye-opening.
Someone (Scott McIntyre?) floated the idea that Leonardo (Urawa) should be Japan's striker of the future. The player himself has enthusiastically promoted the idea and seems to be making decent progress in learning Japanese. Very dynamic and lethal attacker, but the problem is that he's likely too good to stay in the J.League long enough to meet legal/FIFA residency requirements.
This is interesting, I stil remember hus deep analytics of Japan NT's matches before 2018 WC. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand spoken Japanese. It will be too kind from you if you could write up a summary of his analysis.
Depends if he is willing to represent Japan and other circumstances though. I remember Kashima's Caio and Gamba's Patric were also rumoured to be considered for JNT candidacy back then.
Sagan have really upped their game lately, the youngsters are gelling up perfectly to form a decent team, after looking for the first couple of matches as a team destined to finish dead-last on the league table. Sagan Tosu's right wingback Morishita seems an interesting prospect too, while Teruki Hara is maturing very well.
For Grampus other than Ishida, Haruya Fujii seems to be not that bad too. Plus, they have a few other promising youth talents from what I seen of one of their games against other clubs in 1 of the youth tournament quite some time back.