Japanese Abroad 2009/10 [R] - Part II

Koken Kato and Takumi Miyayoshi are training with Grenoble.

 

Are you suggesting CSKA is a lesser club than VVV? I know that there were rumours about Liverpool, Ajax and PSV interest but no one made the offer. Additionally, I do think that CSKA is on level with two latter.


Keisuke Honda at the club ground, the team have gathered after the holidays today and was passing the pre-season medicals. Are you interested in more pics from the training camp and so on in future?

 

I think he actually meant that CSKA was a bigger club and that he wasn't sure if Honda is gonna succeed in.

Yes .

 

Chievo interested in Morimoto

http://sports.yahoo.co.jp/news/20100112-00000252-sph-socc.html

He should probably go.

If he isn't getting playing time then there's no point in staying at Catania.

 

Miyayoshi and Kato are just there for a trial right?

Although Sho Ito was a failure. I think that Miyayoshi has the stuff to succeed.

I always wonder what would have happened if Ito's transfer to Arsenal had materialized....




Probably wouldn't have been different, huh

 

If miyayoshi goes to grenoble, i can only hope that grenoble get relegated for his sake. Matsui won't start at the world cup anyway and won't be playing much longer and he can find places in Japan easy. Relegation would also help Sho Ito. Sure he's a failure but he's still 21 plenty of time to make something of his career.

 

Yea Ito needs to come back to Japan.

 

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A further couple of photos with Honda under the link.

 

Yes, I meant that he is going to a bigger club. The quotations for "bigger" was a poor way of indicating that a lot of teams are actually bigger in comparison to Venlo. CSKA is in the knockout round of the Champions League... that is mighty large compared to Venlo.

I genuinely want Keisuke to succeed.

 

For me the club not just Bigger, CSKA is X10 better than Venlo, they have won a lot of cup, they are much better than Celtic, espanyol and VfL Wolfsburg, remember the Boss of Chelsea Abramovich always take care of this club, i mean their relationship are not normal.
I hope really he got chance n play at Champion League, good luck Honda!!!

 

Sorry, in preview it put it one beside other, not one over other. And now it is embedded and I cannot edit it out :/

 

Actually, I have to disagree. For the first time in recent memory Japan actually *IS* rife with talented, in-form strikers. Okazaki scored more goals than any international player in the WORLD last year, and Hirayama just scored a hat trick in his international debut. Maeda was the first Japanese player to win the golden boot in almost ten years. Meanwhile guys like Sato and Watanabe who are scoring like mad in the J.League cant even manage to get a call-up. At this point I think Morimoto would have a very hard time getting into the final team of 23 even if he was starting every week.

Of course, part of the reason for a shortage of striker spots is the fact that Okada still insists on calling up the useless Tamada and Okubo. In that sense I guess you could still complain about the quality of strikers in the Japan NT roster. But at least say what you really mean.

 

Its great. 3 years ago I woulda bin happy with an inform Takahara and an 10goal per season Maki. last year we had 2 players with 12 goals or more (Akamine & Yanagisawa). This year there's 6 (5 forwards and Ishikawa) as well as Morimoto in Italy and now Hirayama getting considered. That's too many forwards for the 23. I wouldn't be completely opposed to having Tamada in the final 23 as he is one of the very few strikers who have actually scored a world cup goal and I think that forward line experience is necessary maybe if its just as a squad member, but Okubo no way.

Considering Osim's, Zico's and Troussiers selections over the years, Okada is by far the best selector (squad and starting XI) we've seen which is why I'm confident in this team for the group stage.

Hirayama should start against Cameroon. I looked at their team and they don't have any really tall defenders or strikers which makes me feel more comfortable with set pieces defending. But also with Tulio, Nakazawa, Hirayama and Okazaki all capable in the air Japan against a relatively short cameroon side can be a huge threat at set pieces. Infact both goals in the 2007 2-0 win were from set pieces and that was their best side.

 

This past week(end) in Japanese Abroad action:
- Hasebe played until the 68th minute in a 3-1 loss against Stuttgart
- Matsui plays as LMF until the 85th minute in a 2-1 loss against St. Etienne. Couldn't capitalize on a decent chance.
- Soma didn't see any action.
- Morimoto didn't see any action against Sampdoria.
- Yoshida with Venlo expected to be out for another 6 weeks after surgery

 

Broke a metatarsal 4 minutes into his debut. Was a friendly game against MVV or somebody (2nd div dutch side).

 

No, he wasn't. On the Nigeria U20 team, which was the best and most successful team ever to represent Japan in international soccer, and played some of the best soccer that Japan has ever played, Endo was a revelation. It is true he was not as high-profile going in, but anyone who watched that team play knew he was special.

That being said, the other players you mention certainly wasted their time and talent going to Europe and being treated like crap.

 

Nakamura and Ono wasted thier time and talent by going to Europe? Are you being serious? If anything, Ono wasted his talent by leaving Feyenoord and coming back to Japan.

 

Quite serious. Other than that one glorious CL match against Man United, what has Nakamura to show for his time there that anybody other than Celtic fans, who are the only people that think Celtic is a "big club", would care about? A brilliantly creative playmaker wasted what, five years?, in one of Europe's most dismal and brutal leagues.

Ono, it's a tough call because of the injuries affecting his fate, he might have moved on to something serious rather than being stuck in Holland and Germany. I could care less that he won the Dutch league once. Why should that be accounted superior to a J-League title, much less all the trophies Ogasawara has collected? Only mere prejudice that Europe=superior.

But the fact is, Troussier, that despicable toad, brought into Japan for the first time that absurd Eurocentrism which had been refreshingly absent previously. In the J-League the money is good and the technical and tactical quality of play, other than the goalkeeping, is better than any other league except the Spanish or Italian ones in Europe (don't even get me started on the abomination that is the EPL). There is absolutely no reason for Japanese talent to throw that away in order to labor for some second-rate team in a thuggish, second-rate league, like Matsui at le Mans and St Etienne.

The J-League and Japanese players don't need validation or anything else from Europe. Everything good about Japanese soccer is in fact based on connections to and inspiration from South American, particularly Brazilian, soccer, and from Japan's own homegrown and unique soccer infrastructure.

 

Four years actually. And three of those years he played in the biggest club competition that world football has to offer. And twice in those three years he progressed with his club, (you know that no-name hack of a club that plays in the league which is the toilet of European football...) to the knockout stages of said tournament.

I'm glad to have seen such a player as Naka at Parkhead during that time. He was wonderful to watch. Just a pity we were such a burden to him and wasted his career...

I suppose it's Celtic and the SPL's fault that his time at Espanyol has been a bit of a let down so far...

You also talk of Ono being 'stuck' in Holland and Germany. So what does that leave? Italy and Spain? Is that it? Is that the be all and end all of football as far as you're concerned?

 

I don't understand what your trying to say AmericanKaKa.

First you say that Nakamura hasn't shone anything to people other than Celtic fans so he was wasting his time.

But then you said that Japanese players don't need any validation from Europeans.

So it would not have been a waste of time if he had impressed people that were not Europeans?

Also, you said Japanese players shouldn't waste their time in the 2nd division. Did Honda waste his time at Venlo then?

 

Ok, first of all, Celtic is a big club. Are they top 20 in the world? Probably not. But they are a big club with huge history and plenty of trophies to go with it. I will guarentee you that if Antlers, Gamba, Reds or any J league team played in the Scottish League, they would not win anywhere near the amount of trophies Celtic has.

As for Nakamura, take the freekick out of it and I will still guarentee you anyone that follows soccer/football will know him and rate him fairly highly. No one knows Ogasawara even with all his trophies won with Antlers. So to say no one outside of Celtic cares about Nakamura is wrong.

I agree that J League is underrated and that money and quality is there. If you look at the teams from top to bottom, J League would be in top 10 leagues in the world for me. However, if you just look at the top 3-5 teams, J League is no where near top 10. I would probably think Honda's VVV would get relegated in the J League because J League's bottom teams are stronger than Dutch League's bottom teams. However, Antlers would never win the Dutch League because top teams in the Dutch League is far suprior than top teams in the J League. Therefore, I would say that Ono winning the Dutch League(which he never did) and the UEFA Cup is far better than Ogasawara winning few trophies with Antlers.

As for Inamoto, Matsui, Ogasawara(his brief spell), and other Japanese abroad struggling, it doesn't mean they wasted thier talent and time at all. Look at players like Toda, Fukunishi, Ichikawa, and Morioka that stayed in J League and dissappeared after 1 World Cup. There is no guarentee that things will work out well in Japan. At least the players that went abroad got to experience soccer/football outside of Japan and learned something they never would have if they stayed. Did they make the impact Nakata made? No, but they still got plenty of playing time and if they didn't, they can always come back like Ogasawara.

Now I am all for players like Endo staying in the J League his whole career as well. They don't have to go abroad to be successful. But just because players abroad don't play for a top team, that doesn't mean they are wasting thier time. Players like Inamoto and Matsui are very successful players.

As for you thinking leagues in Frence, Holland, Scotland, and Germany are not good enough, I would highly suggest you think that over. There won't be too many Jessica Albas to marry with and you will be unemployed if the likes of Goldman Sachs are all you apply to.

 

I honestly can't follow your argument. Europeans always insist that they are the center of the world in football, and only accomplishments in European leagues mean anything. A classic example is that they crow when they win the Club World Cup/Intercontinetal, and disparage the event when they lose it. The fact that this view gets bleated in the media (including the Japanese media) all the time doesn't make it true. I would much rather see Japanese players in the Brazilian and Argentinian leagues than most European leagues, as far as being involved in quality football. But there's no money in South America. In the J-League, there is both money and quality football, and without the high probability of never being given a fair shot and being treated as a marketing pawn that Japanese players face due to entrenched bias in Europe.

Nakata won a certain amount of respect in Europe, but that doesn't make him a greater player in my eyes. Actually, I think some of the best soccer he played was before he went, and the same for Ono. If they had stayed and raised the level of "fantasy" in the j-League during the prime of their careers and built the J-League's global profile as an alternative to Europe, they would be just as much or more legends of Japanese soccer.

And yes, Honda wasted his time at Venlo, and is wasting his time now in the Russian league as far I'm concerned. Yeah, it's a shame that Asia doesn't have a legitimate continental club tournament like the champions league due to the overwhelming corruption of AFC, but it still provides entry to the Club World Cup. Honda could be gunning to win that with a Japanese club. It is a realistic goal for a J-League team to win the Club World Cup if the talent stays at home rather than chasing the idiotic mirage of European success.