Official 2018 J1 Thread

wake the ******** up sendai

 

Sho Ito with a hattrick He hasn't scored in the league since October 2017, and then suddenly goes on and bag 3 goals yesterday. We'll probably have to wait until 2020 for his next goal then.

 

These are Muto-esque numbers .

 

Yuki Muto, yes.

 

lol @ Marinos

And just look at this masterpiece!

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did not expect goke-masuyama up front for vissel before this season.

machida back from nowhere after a big injury.

 

I really liked what I saw from Masuyama back in 2015 and 2016 as well so hope he can get a proper run this time. There's something un-Japanese about him, and he adds flair to the team.

 

Iniesta looked good on the ball yesterday, but also had a couple of dangerous ball-losses that could have costed them dearly.

His understanding of the game is obviously unrivalled in J.League, but just like when it was Podolski who played Kobe's way of playing are very predictable in that everything has to go via Iniesta. Hopefully the surrounding players in midfield and up front will be able to get on the same wavelength as Iniesta eventually.

And on another note, it's a crime that Kazuma Watanabe is not starting for that Kobe-side. The team with him and without him are 2 different beasts. Being the captain as well, he should be indispensable for the team but their manager doesn't seem to understand that.

 

i was expecting big things from him when he signed from higashi fukuoka. physically he’s quite solid and carries bit of arrogance on the ball. unrelated, but i think he’s half filipino.

 

He is. Japanese father, Filipino mother.

 

Kentaro Oi is the Messiah of Jubilo Iwata!

 

Fantastic goal by Iniesta!

 

Wow Iniesta! Wow Fabricio! (though he was offside btw)

Great goals again!

 

Got to say that Iniesta, Podolski, Torres and to some extent Jo are raising the profile of the league. The last couple of rounds have been even more interesting than normal, and it seems more Japanese people are watching too.

Vissel Kobe's home attendance seems to have gone up by 7-8000 so far, and FC Tokyo's match against them attracted 44 000 (although in the end Iniesta didn't play) and if we can see similar numbers for other teams too the average attendance of the league might rise dramatically (that is if they skip midweek matches, when the average attendance usually plummets from around 20 000 to 10 000). Sagan's attendance have also increased by quite a lot it seems.

Neither Kobe or Sagan have a particularly big stadium though, but it's nice to finally see near sold out venues on a more regular basis. That can only be a good thing in the long run.

If we look away from the superstars mentioned above, I think the overall quality of the other foreigners in the league is also quite high these days.

 

Fabricio seems to have a really good start for Reds as well with 5 goals in 6 games.

 

Yeah.

And the overall quality of the European players in the league seems to have gone up as well, not to mention the arrival of all the Asian talent especially from Thailand.

 

The league is especially interesting on the bottom this year. The league is split into two groups with the three top teams and the rest where the point difference between 18th and 4th team is only 12 points. With all the big teams struggiling to stay in J1 I can't wait for the final rounds! It will be really interesting.

Reds and Nagoya didn't waste time during WC break and are best teams in the league so far after restart.

And the overall J Leagues exposure to the entire world rised with Iniesta's goals being posted in the media all around the world. Great job from Mikitani again.

 

Funny thing is his company don't really have the best reputation in Japan. Rakuten were actually criticized in the past for issues such as software problems, etc.

 

Not to mention their failures earlier with for example Ilhan Mansiz, the colour/uniform change, spending big bucks on high-reputation Japanese players like Okubo and foreigners like Kim Nam Il, Leandro, Pedro Junior etc.

So not everything Mikitani have done have been all good.

 

Ilhan Mansiz transfer was atrocious, he was not even a star. The reasons which brought him to fame were his golden goal against Senegal at the 2002 WC, and his look which gained him massive fandom amongst females back then.

 

Musashi Suzuki scored his 6th goal of the season!

He previously scored 7 goals in 5.5 J1 seasons combined.

One more goal and he will score in this season as much as he scored in his whole previous J1 seasons.

@Saku² your boy is exceeding expectations this season! Or shall I say that Takuya Takagi is a magician?