Here we go, for some more thousands posts, in a year where we have to play (and possibly win ) Algarve Cup and AFC Asian Cup (i.e. qualifier for WWC 2015). Now with a new thread, sporting a subtitle in japanese! (Courtesy of unepomme ) As we agreed, for this year the thread is still under the Japan's forum (I'd notice that, in 2013, with our 11.300+ posts, we were 6 or 7 times bigger than the official Japan's male NT thread ). I encourage everyone to spread the news about our existence in other threads, especially by telling non-Japanese users how to find us (I hope Japanese users are mostly covered by our current choices ). I guess I already expressed my wishes for 2014, in the "results" department (winning Algarve and AFC Asian Cup ). But especially I wish that it's a good year for our beloved Nadeshikos, with fun, fairplay, no injuries , and general happiness! And I also wish a wonderful 2014 to our thread! Let's thrive here, peacefully (!) and let's keep sharing not only our love for Nadeshiko, but also our interests, culture and frequent off-topics, that made this thread the "monster" we all love! I guess that, with all the interesting tournaments waiting for us in 2014, we could easily aim at reaching the 12.000 posts mark this year (in 2013 we already were ahead of 2012 by more than 1.000 posts). Meanwhile, all people, show your love for the new 2014 thread by repping this post! Let's show how many of us are there! And... Ganbare Nadeshiko Japan!
I'm glad to write the 1st (don't count the presentation ) post in this new thread, I think we can achieve the 12000 post. If in 2013 we made more than 11300 without any important international tournament, with 2014 Asian Cup we could make this explode Let's show how much we love Nadeshiko and cheer them with all our souls and I hope they can win their 1st Asian Cup ever (male NT have 4 of them, we can't stay behind of them, we are the world champions )
2014 will be an important year for the Nadeshiko with the Asian Cup, they need to win it NOW, Algarve (Sasaki please decide on a functional team not more weir experiments) and there is the U17 WWC. Nadeshiko League will have a new format and I hope this form will keep the interest in the league through all the stages, not only in the last satage. Happy new year to all the Forum members and may your wishes be granted... especially Those ...
Happy New Year to everyone who's had it or is about to! I'm still a loooooong ways away! Question, so what's the most closest official tournament thingum in the new year? Sorry, if that's a stupid question. Cheers, dudes!
Sounding entirely redundant as one of the last ones past the finish line, Happy New Year! Hopefully you guys have a great first day (mumf and Faye-Faye, I hope you guys are partying it up! ) Onward and upward, this year will be another great one!
It's not stupid at all (to the point that I had to check to be sure). I am not sure if I have to consider your question literally, kittypride. Because if you really mean "official tournament", Algarve Cup is out of the question, not being an "official tournament" supported by FIFA, but just a glorified set of friendlies. It's true that it's a very important international tournament (as much as Cyprus Cup, played in the same period of the year), so any women's football follower is quite emotionally attached to it, despite the fact that it isn't an official tournament. We were very happy when, in 2012, Japan beat USA and then lost the final vs Germany, but only after a spectacular 4-3 match. On the contrary everyone here was quite disappointed by the result in 2013 (5th place). So, Algarve Cup will be at the beginning of march (starting the 5th of march). But if you really mean the first official tournament, well, it should be U-17 WWC in Costa Rica. Our U-17 NT (then U-16) was the only one to actually do very well in 2013 (by winning AFC Asian Cup of their category) and we all have high hopes for them in WWC; two years ago, in Azerbaijan (U-17 WWC is played every two years), U-17 Nadeshiko Japan had totally killed its group, just to go out in the quarter-finals vs Ghana, by 0-1, because of a silly GK's blunder. We can hope to do better this time (and we have got a generation of players that can do that). U-17 WWC will be played from 15th or march to 4th of april. (This should mean that Sasaki likely won't have any chance to bring U-17 players in Algarve; anyway, Probably U-17 are too young for senior NT, so I don't think he would have considered that).
OFFICIAL: Ms. Nécib and Ms. Kumagai both sign for INAC. ... and then I woke up. No, but since it's slow times now, here's a vaguely relevant article about Ms. Goebel-Yanez, and a tiny nugget of insight into how the connection with Seattle was made. http://equalizersoccer.com/2013/12/...-inac-kobe-leonessa-japan-leading-goalscorer/ and a picture of her in a Barcelona shirt that makes me love her even more
LOL, in this weeks we have dreams about transfer season! Very interesting reading... it also confirms (if needed) that Bev is intentioned to come back in INAC in september, for the second part of 2014 Nadeshiko League (hopefully, even without its international stars INAC should have made it into the first 6 teams of the "regular season"... ). It's quite interesting that apparently in USA they want to keep calling her Goebel and not Goebel-Yanez. I wonder if she has made any official statement about that and how her jersey will read. Another interesting part is the one with the readers' comments. Many encourage Tom Sermanni to try Bev in some of the countless USWNT camps, now that she plays in USA. Some others (rightfully) question one of the article's claim ("Japan’s style of play forced Goebel to adapt to a more technical brand of soccer in a culture that brings its players into the top flight in their mid-teenage years" ... er... I am not sure how many mid-teens are starters in Nadeshiko League, since mid-teen is about 16 in my books...) and ask about Yoko Tanaka, wondering why she isn't a starter. But the comment that startled me the most was this one, by an user nicknamed Steglitz49 : Did we really know about any Kumagai's boyfriend??? Unless this guy was misleaded by the 2011 incident, when Saki blind-dated a guy that wasn't her boy-friend at all (and the mess with gold medal and false messages ensued), Steglitz49 knows something that we don't know? Who's the girl betwenn Bev and his husband? Looks like NZ's Ali Riley?
This guy (steglitz49) is a troll who was (deservedly) banned of WSU. So, please, don't believe everything he says, he is just provocative... And yes, the girl in the middle is Ali Riley.
Semi finals will be held on 17th January, and final on 19th. Instead, National Youth Championship starts tomorrow (3rd~7th), and National Highschool Trounament from 11th to 16th.
Thank you: not that I trusted a random guy's comment, but it's useful to know that he's just a troll! So there's still hope for us for Saki!
That is a great photo and hard to believe it's been a year and a half already. Whose jersey is Mina Tanaka wearing backwards?
I believe it is for Tomoko Muramatsu who was injured late in the training camp. It is hard to tell if she has ever recovered as I don't think she has any playing time at Beleza since her injury.
I hope yes, I liked her so much as a CB the few times I saw her. Maybe with Tomoko in the squad Japan could have beat Germany, who knows?
I hear now the news about storms and blizzards, and temperature under -20° C, on all the East Cost of USA, and New York in particular! I hope our good friends mumf and BtR are ok, safe at home and under a pile of covers! Anyone else of us is from the New York area?
In those holidays I had the time to watch some videos I had postponed: for instance, the following one (that I found with the help of Virany's YT list ) is an interview with Sasaki from about a week ago, with an analysis of Nadeshiko's Japan 2013 season, in preparation for 2014. If some of our Japanese-speaking members can help, I would be very interested in knowing what Sasaki said about the reason of last year's failures and what he said about this year's main target, AFC Asian Cup. Also, in the final part of the video there was a question to Norio regarding Aya Miyama: was it about her captaincy and the pressure that Aya could have felt? Did the girl ask about Miyama's different performances in Belle and NT? What did Sasaki answer?