Official 2021 Nadeshiko Japan Thread [R] - なでしこジャパン（英語スレッド）

Waiting for tomorrow's big match Juventus-Milan (and for "minor big match" Sassuolo-Fiorentina), in Serie A Femminile Florentia San Gimignano vs San Marino Academy has been played today.

It ended with a 0-0 draw that's not a bad result at all for San Marino: this result puts them at 9 points, 5 points ahead of Napoli, that will play tomorrow in Milan vs Inter (at the moment, Napoli is in the relegation zone, while San Marino aren't).

Shiho Kunisawa played the whole match, she had more than decent grades and she saved a shot on the goal-line.

 

Don't get me wrong: more professionalism in women's football is good for the players and it made possible that Yui Hasegawa landed in my town in the first place.

But there are downsides also: today, Juventus-Milan will only be broadcasted and streamed on pay-TV channels (that I don't have, because I usually don't care for men's football games they use to broadcast). So, despite living in Italy, I'll probably be stuck with a live-ticker as everyone else. Unless I am going to find some pirate-streaming later, but I won't hold my breath for it...

 

Although it only marginally touches the subject of this thread (and it's also in Italian!), I want to share this video @sbahnhof posted on the Women's league in Italy thread, because there is one scene that's really worth seeing. At 18'45" Mana Mihashi tries to translate a sentence from Japanese to Italian with the help of an automatic translator: the sentence is so easy that I would be able to translate it myself, despite my poor Japanese, but the result in Italian is quite disappointing; it says: "The solution that I come from Japan is the cauliflower midfielder"! Of course Mana's face, after that, is like...

Sassuolo's captain explains that the problem with Mana is that she doesn't speak English and no-one in the team speaks Japanese: so they're forced to teach Italian to her, sometimes with comical outcomes.



In other words, I daydreamed about Juventus-Milan all week, but in the end I think that a win by Juventus remains the most likely outcome: it's true that Juventus have only won by 1-0 from PK the 1st round match, but they're still too much strong on the Italian scene; they won three consecutive title and half their team is made of top Italian NT players, while the other half is good internationals.

One can hope, but I am trying to stay with my feet on the ground about this match.

 

Juventus-Milan starting line-up have been announced, at about an hour from the start, on usually reliable milanenews24 website: it looks like Yui Hasegawa will start in a sort of 3-4-1-2 line-up, with Yui probably as a Left-Winger (supported on her side by Italian NT Full-Back Bergamaschi) and Vero Boquete working just behind the two strikers Giacinti and Dowie to support them.

 

Thank you very much!!!

 

As I expected, Juventus is ahead already at 8' with Bonansea.

Milan is playing only on the Right-Side, it seems: few chances for Hasegawa to play the ball.

 

Actually Boquete too plays too much far from the opponent box. Milan should give much more continuity to their offensive action, but it's difficult now that they're 0-2 and that Juventus scored with two so depressingly easy goals.

Actually now, at 43', Milan had scored from a CK action, but referee whistled an imaginary foul (basically, if a GK have an awkward play, she can always count on the ref calling a "confusion" foul ).

Juventus-Milan 2-0 at HT. Let's see if something will change at HT.

Edit: Milan had a pair decent chances, but Juventus basically broke Milan's defense with no problem for their two goals.

 

Now Milan are at least shooting, but Boquete's and Dowie's effort are very high over the crossbar and frankly forgettable. The ref doesn't help by not calling a PK for Milan.

 

No luck for our top-players overseas, today: Juventus-Milan 4-0 FT (Hasegawa on the pitch for the whole match), while Manchester United-Aston Villa just ended 3-0 (Iwabuchi equally on the pitch the whole match).

 

A scene from today says it all, I guess: in the middle of 2nd Half, the game is on 2-0, so theoretically there is still some chance for a comeback (actually not); Hasegawa takes a CK and accurately finds Boquete completely free at the edge of the box. Vero shoots... and the ball points at some far away cloud in the sky. A perfectly executed scheme... ruined by the poorest finishing! You don't expect this kind of shot from a supposed top-player.

 

Surely Juventus isn't well-positioned in Europe yet ; there is something to be said in their defense, though: in the last two editions of the competition they were paired with Barcelona and with OL in the Round of 32. How many other clubs in Europe would have done better, given these pairings?

That's not to say that Italian football is up there with the strongest leagues, but probably they could do a little better with some more luck in the draws.

Well, at the peak of the "Green Machine era", how many "real" opponents had Beleza in Japan, apart from the "clasico" vs INAC? That's not to say that Italian league can be compared with Nadeshiko League, but the problem of dominant clubs is actually everywhere.

Of course Nadeshiko League is much more technical than Italian League can ever hope to be (thus all the "oooh" and "aaah" from the media as soon as they've seen Yui move on the pitch or touch the ball), but I guess being confronted with much more "physical" European leagues can anyway help our players facing match-ups with this kind of teams in international competitions.

Hey, let her stay here at least for long enough that I can actually have the chance of going to the stadium to see her! What kind of a joke would it be if she'd remain in my town only for as long as the venues remain off-limits because of the Covid?

 

After Kunisawa's 0-0 draw with her San Marino Academy and Hasegawa's 0-4 loss with Milan, another Japanese-related result was due from Serie A Femminile, and it's a good one: Sassuolo has beaten Fiorentina by 1-0 and is now "just" 5 points behind Milan, at third place.
Mana Mihashi had the assist for the lonely goal, as you can see from highlights :

 

Let's hope it finally happens!

In the list of the things I've missed in this pandemic year, Nadeshiko Japan matches are up there quite high!