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

I'd super-rep you if I could: for me too, this is one of the main reasons I follow women's football in general and Nadeshiko football in particular (let's say, for instance, that Italian women's league is of course much better than Italian men's league, but it's anyway more, let's say "theatrical" than Nadeshiko League. And I am not necessarily talking about dives. Oh, well, we're Italian: it's a stereotype, but it also has its part of truth ).

 

Tomorrow, three matches involving Japanese players will take place in Serie A Femminile:

- at 12:30 CET, Napoli-San Marino Academy. For San Marino, it will be a key-match to remain in 1st Division: they're now level with Napoli but with a worse goal difference. Napoli have done much better than San Marino in the last month, to the point that they've managed to catch up with them, while coming from behind, and now they threaten to go ahead with a win. Meanwhile, two San Marino's key-players are out with an ACL since last week! Quite difficult test for Shiho Kunisawa and for her team, but she's highly regarded as one of the players who could keep San Marino's hopes alive. A recent article on an Italian website claims that Kunisawa's cousin is a famous sumo champion: I didn't know that!

- at 15:00 Roma-Milan (that I hope will be streamed as usual on Milan AC's Dailymotion channel): the match won't have much to say as much as Serie A's rankings are involved, since both teams' placements are by now quite set in stone, with just 4 match-days to go: Milan are 2nd-placed, 6 points behind Juventus and with a 8 points advantage over Sassuolo; Roma are 4th-placed, 6 points behind Sassuolo and with a 7 points advantage over Empoli. The real interest of this game is that it's the anticipation of the Coppa Italia final that will be played on the 30th of May in Reggio Emilia (in the same stadium where I saw Saki Kumagai win one of her countless Champions' Leagues with OL : how I wish I could go there to watch Yui Hasegawa too! ). It will be interesting to see if the teams will try to keep their cards close to their chest in this league match or if they'll anyway choose an open approach and try to win no matter what.

- at 15:00, Hellas Verona-Sassuolo; Sassuolo don't have much more to ask to this season: their 3rd place is quite safe, but to try to catch up with Milan at 2nd-place (thus qualifying to the Champions' League) they have to hope that Milan gain less than 4 points in the next 4 matches (while so far Milan have won all of their games in the league, except the ones vs Juventus). Mana Mihashi's team will have the advantage of the direct clash at home vs Milan on 16th of May, but it will be a difficult task anyway, and they'll surely have to win all of their remaining matches to hold any chance, including the one from tomorrow (shouldn't be the most difficult one, anyway, since Verona mathematically avoided relegation with their win from two weeks ago).

Stay tuned for the outcome of this Japanese-Italian connection tomorrow, on this thread!

 

I wasn't aware Japanese sumo supporters were so undisciplined: or throwing the pillows is a common form of celebrations?

 

While we wait for Roma-Milan this afternoon, a priceless video-Tweet! Hasegawa's team-mates are having fun at confusing her: instead of teaching Italian to her (or along with doing that), they keep teaching her local vernaculars. Some weeks ago, Giacinti, in an interview, had told how she was teaching the dialect from Bergamo to Yui. Now, Deborah Salvatori-Rinaldi and Linda Tucceri-Cimini, who are both from the central region of Abruzzo, hold an hilarious lesson for Yui, including gestural language! For records, I am Italian, but, being from the North of Italy, I can't tell you at all what kind of phrase they're teaching to Yui! I don't understand a word either.

STANNO INSEGNANDO L'ABRUZZESE A YUI HASEGAWA, VOLO 🤣🤣🤣🤣 #followtherossonere #Milanfemminile #yuihasegawa #abruzzo pic.twitter.com/DfeWMm8mtX

— Maria Antonietta 🍩 (@ciambella86) April 30, 2021

 

Roma-Milan streaming link, kick-off at 15:00:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7cd3of

Difficult match, Milan could easily lose it.

 

The 0-0 score stayed until the end of the match, but it was anyway an entertaining match and Yui Hasegawa played it well (despite missing that goal in 1st Half). Sassuolo got closer to Milan in the rankings, now 6 points behind, but I am confident that Milan should be able to keep their advantage, even should they lose the direct clash, scheduled two weeks from now.

Talking about Sassuolo, Mana Mihashi's team comfortably won their away match in Verona by 0-4, with a brace scored by their Maltese baby-talent (she'll turn 17 on the 5th of May) Haley Bugeja, thus keeping their hopes alive to catch up with Milan.

Bad news from San Marino, instead. Not only San Marino lost 5-0 to Napoli, thus facing relegation barring a miracle in the last three games, but Shino Kunisawa got an injury in the warm-up of the game so she didn't even start! San Marino Academy managed to at least keep it close until 70', when they were down by just 1-0, but then they collapsed.

I'll make sure to post highlights og the games when available.

 

No luck so far with Napoli-San Marino highlights, but I guess, in a Nadeshiko perspective, this match is less important to see, since it was just a bad loss and actually there wasn't even a Japanese player on the pitch, since Kunisawa got injured in the warm-up.

Verona-Sassuolo:




Roma-Milan:

 

No stumbles at all from Iga, uh?