2012/13 Keisuke Honda @ CSKA Moscow (RUS/EL) Thread [R]

From what I've heard, the coaching staff at the game was absolutely unsatisfied by the level of Honda's commitment in the game. After the sub there was some argument between Keisuke and one of the coaches during which the latter showed a pantomime of jogging in place in slow motion (it was witnessed by the fans who were at the stadium, I do not know if there is any video).
Unfortunately in the last matches Keisuke was looking unfocused. There were many voices that he is not trying hard enough and have to be benched. While I'm not agreeing with the opinion that he paced himself purposely, he definitely was not able to concentrate enough on the matches so he was making too much easy errors.

If you are saying that the early substitute is a sign of the lack of respect many could argue that the level of his commitment is a lack of respect towards the team and the fans. But I do not want to develop a spiral of accusations, so I prefer the opinion stated above that there are situations when the manager decides to substitute the player early because the former is thinking that the latter fails to do his job properly in the match, but it means nothing in terms of the respect or lack thereof, it is only an evaluation of the actual match performance.

 

Lol good narrative bro. After having been good to Honda for 4 years, Slutsky decides to humiliate him ... not. He doesn't have to justify himself, it's a competitive match, not his jubilee.

 

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The purpose matters the most here. He didn't do that to humiliate Honda but because he felt his team needed something else in the middle of the park. He's the coach, he decides. Honda might be Lionel Messi for us but he has no special status in Russia. He can feel the way he wants but Slutsky is not to blame. It's one of these days in a career.

 

lol, the coach who played him every time he barely even could stand. It felt like for years he was the real Slutsky's man on the pitch even though he wasn't team captain. Play in every game this season -> get subbed out after some 30 minutes in the last game. He probably won't shake hands with some of coaching staff after the end of the season. It was probably politics and it came from above. But after all he could have a worse end there being benched or not in the match day 18 from the summer.

From the press - it looked like CSKA is Honda's team. No Hondy, no fun. Pretty convinient for everyone around the team to blame him, probably a player with the most professional attidue to his work in CSKA and maybe in the entire league, that he isn't giving off his 100% knowing that he couldn't get prepared to the season in the normal way due to CWC and later on he played, literally, every 3 days this season which surely didn't help.

Something's odd.

Now all he have to do is go for the dinner with club officials and later go to club for fun with team mates, make all preparations for flying back to Japan and that's all.

 

I don't believe Slutsky can pull of something like that but your post makes sense if you believe he can. He's been really loyal to Honda over the years so I simply can't believe it.

Still it's pretty weak to use this moment as a way of saying "Japanese shouldn't go to Russia". OMG all they risk is playing four years somewhere they are trusted and paid good money, avoid it at all costs. Go sit on a german bench instead.

 

No matter what the real reasons are, it does look like a dick move on Slutsky's part from the outside. After 4 years you'd think Honda has earned a long enough leash to excuse a crappy half hour. CSKA and Zenit are earning the RPL a reputation as a very tricky league for foreign players, especially in terms of off-the-pitch issues...if you want to go to Russia and roll in the dough, do so at your own peril.

 

yes it is and no, you can sub a player after 30'. If he feels he needed he changed he had every right to do it. This is not about Honda, who is going to leave soon as a matter of fact, but CSKA. This is not about agreeing with it, we're not judging the intelligence or the effect of the move, but the morality. And it is in fact very moral if he felt the circumstances of the games necessited a change.

This is just an early sub FFS. don't make mountains of it. Honda was offended but he's not the first to be subject of it and he won't be the last. He's slated to play the next game, what a betrayal.

wow, guy who was a nobody is still a nobody after he signed for a big club, how about that.

 

Y ... es that's why I picked a german example. But Kim In Sung didn't have the references Omae had, far from it. He was a second division player I believe.

 

I watched the entire match including the 37 minutes that Honda played. For the time Honda was in the game, Krasnodar dominated possession and were getting many shots on target against Akinfeev. Honda barely got a touch of the ball in the short time he was on the field. He was not making bad passes or making vital mistakes. He simply didn't have the ball much.

Now you can blame this on bad positioning or whatever it may be, but it was the same for every other CSKA player. Krasnodar jumped on them from the get-go and in my opinion, it was hardly Honda's fault alone. It was a bad performance by the entire team.

And guess what. They got scored on without Honda on the field and lost the game. Dzagoev didn't make the magical difference that Slutsky envisioned.

What Slutsky should have done was wait until halftime, make a few strategic adjustments, let the team play for 10 more minutes, and then decide if a sub was needed. You just don't rip your star player off the field like that (at 0-0 nonetheless) when it really wasn't his fault alone that the team was playing bad. One substitution wasn't going to change much and it didn't as shown by the final score.

And it really annoys me to think some of the CSKA coaches and Russian media has the nerve to say Honda isn't trying anymore or he has lost motivation. This is one of the most professional players a team can have. Honda takes his job very seriously and has worked his tail off for 4 years in a league that no one watches outside of a few crazy fans like us and the Russian population. Hearing blasphemy from a coaching staff I respect is the last thing I expected.

I'm not gonna sit here and cry all day about it, but that's my opinion on the whole situation. Let's just get the game over with on Tuesday and pack our bags for the new Milan thread.

 

To be fair, only the media is actively conducting a hatchet job on Honda. Slutsky is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but that's not really anything new.

 

To tell the truth he stood for him after the Bayern game defending him after those perfect chances he couldn't finish...

 

Haha, Sport-Express with a massive takedown of Honda.
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20131209-00000011-goal-socc
http://football.sport-express.ru/reviews/38857/
"He should have stayed on the bench eating pizza"

 

Sef Vergoossen talks Honda:
http://www.chunichi.co.jp/chuspo/article/soccer/shukyu/201311/CK2013113002000259.html

 

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CSKA logic: Let him on the bench in his last game ever for CSKA even though he started all the previous games. Thank god it's over

 

Nothing quite says FU on your final day of work for a club like the bench. Well done CSKA.

 

At least there won't be any injury.