Thanks for the link Lechus Empresses Cup Final 2020.....Beleza 4 Urawa 3 M.N. in depth analysis of the game..........4 3.....we won......yipee
In the end, since I wasn't sure to get the link to watch it, I gave up and Christams' holdydays' laziness won: I slept through the morning and I missed a wonderful game! I was right to figure that it was going to be a great battle. Oh, well, * shrugs * I am going to enjoy it in highlights! Thank you very much, guys, for the comments. And this is the end of season 2020. Soon we're going to sail to 2021 and professional league.
Nakano leaving is not a great loss. She is technically a very good player, but her work rate leaves a lot to be desired. She also was not used that much this past season. So far most of the players who have left Nojima were not used that much by the coach. Even Sakuramoto was starting fewer games this season, which leads me to think that the club are trying to overhaul the squad with younger players. However, losing Minamino will be a blow. She is technically very good with the ball and has a fantastic work rate, which a team like Nojima needs. She has been at the club for seven years - since the old challenge league days - so I am sure it was not an easy decision for her. Her press release on the Nojima website indicated that she needed a new place to grow more as a player. Nojima has been her only team outside of school. Nojima will need to find a replacement for her. Before her departure I said they needed another striker, so now they need two. I wonder if they will get anybody. They need somebody or otherwise it is going to be a very long season next year.
By the way, JEF already had an excellent striker in Otaki. I wonder if Minamino has been signed as her replacement (thus indicating that Otaki would plan to move or to retire) or if they have a two-strikers line-up in mind to try to jump up a level and to actually being contenders for the title: in fact an offense-line of Otaki and Minamino supported by Naruyama sounds quite intimidating, at least on paper.
Otaki is quite old, but I imagine she will stay at JEF for another year. She had a good season. Getting Minamino is nice, but I am not exactly sure they need her. For me JEF need a new central midfielder who is good, somebody like Sumida would be ideal, but I doubt she is leaving Sendai. Although Minamino is a good player, I am not sure she makes JEF better. JEF's problems were not scoring goals last season it was defending and their keepers making far too many mistakes. For me they need a midfielder, defender and a keeper before adding somebody like Minamino. If I were JEF I would be looking for an overseas keeper. There has to be a half-decent keeper finishing college in America right?
Narumiya to INAC! 🔴お知らせ🟡このたび、2021-2022シーズンの新戦力として、ジェフユナイテッド市原・千葉レディースよりMF #成宮唯 選手が、INAC神戸レオネッサに加入することが決定しましたのでお知らせします。▼本人コメント全文・詳細情報▼https://t.co/2u0k2LwscU#INAC神戸 #NewChallenge pic.twitter.com/2oFZhpwVaq— INAC神戸レオネッサ公式 (@inac_kobe2001) December 31, 2020 Empress Cup final highlights
Now I see why JEF went after Minamino. JEF are going to miss her. She is fast, really skillful and does so much work off the ball. Big loss for them in my opinion. Losing Iwabuchi has forced INAC to move for probably the next best player in the league that plays like her. Obvously Narumiya is not technically as good as Iwabuchi, but her work rate will help, especially considering how little Tanaka does defensively. That is not a criticism of Tanaka that is just the way she plays. Narumiya will probably get picked for Nadeshiko, because she plays for INAC now.
Yes!!! It's the first thing I thought. Or maybe the second : the first was that one of my favourite players in Nadeshiko League had been signed by my favourite club, thus making it stronger and making it easier for me to root both for INAC and for Narumiya. Second, that there was finally a solid chance to see Narumiya wearing again Nadeshiko Japan's blue, after her Youth Teams' career. Oh, and I had missed the target about JEF: I though they had signed Minamino to possibly replace Otaki, while in fact, as @pierre bezukhov pointed out, it was to replace Narumiya instead (although this is kind of apple to oranges to me, because, as much as both Narumiya and Minamino are offensive players, they have very different set of skills and positions on the pitch ).
I didn't watch all of the footage posted by @Sirtel (in particular I skipped the one with the award ceremony so far), but Naomoto's video is sure interesting. She tends to attract fouls (as, I guess, @pierre bezukhov had pointed out) and she has quite peculiar ways of taking set pieces. Also, I wasn't really aware that she was playing so positioned to the Hidari-Side, these days. I wonder if her set-pieces' taker role can in any way translate into National Team: after all, apart Nakajima, I don't think we had many specialists in the starting 11 lately (I am nostalgic of the days when every set piece was Miyama's duty and every Miyama's set piece was a danger! ). To keep up with NT considerations, one of the many things I appreciate in Jun Endo is that she has something that our old friend And G used to say most Japanese players are missing: the ability to sling powerful and accurate shots when needed! It is true that finishing has always been a problem for our National Team and it is also true that many of our players from the past weren't actually kicking the ball as they were supposed to be in front of the goal. Now, Endo instead (as seen in the action of her goal in the final, but also of one of her goals in the semifinal and in other countless occasions) knows exactly when and how to hit the ball when she is in a position where the only thing she has to do is to bury it in goal. We do need a player with this kind of shot. For the rest, it looks like I really missed a great game and Urawa were probably a little unlucky: they ended the First Half two goals behind while hitting the posts twice with Sugasawa and Takahashi and being in general at least as dangerous as Beleza (or anyway that's what I get from the footage I've seen, although I admit I didn't see the whole match). It's worth noting that Rikako Kobayashi, with her brace in the final (including the decider), became the top scorer of this Empress' Cup Tournament with 6 goals (Jun Endo is second with 5 and three players are at 4, Maya Hijikata, Haruka Hamada and Kozue Ando).
1st January 2021.......00.00hrs JST Happy New Year to all the female footballers of Japan......Thank you for playing the beautiful game.
Apparently the Brazilian source was wrong: we should meet Canada and not Norway at SheBelieves Cup: A source with knowledge of the situation says that Norway is NOT part of the 2021 SheBelieves Cup plans, contrary to that recent report from Globo. Instead, Canada is expected to be the fourth team.So, #USWNT, Brazil, Japan & Canada in February, assuming it happens.— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) December 30, 2020 Assuming there is a SheBelieves Cup in February, which U.S. Soccer seems confident there will be: Japan and Brazil FAs have each announced that they will be involved alongside the #USWNT.https://t.co/eegnqJeHARhttps://t.co/Pi2yfashYh— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) December 19, 2020