I can hear you: it must be torture! I am trying to imagine how would it feel having one of my favourite Nadeshiko champions playing in my backyard (instead of in Algarve or in any other place that we were used to move to see them), and not being able to watch her, and... Oh, well, it's better not trying to imagine that!
Thank you! I've been following the Nadeshiko for years, but none of my friends do (outside of the World Cup, anyway), so I've never been in the habit of engaging in discussions about them. With last season's matches being streamed, I got used to commentary in the live chats. But, the Empress Cup wasn't streamed and I missed all that back and forth, so I signed on here. I'm definitely a Beleza fan (I even planned a 2019 trip to Japan around one of their matches!), but am even more specifically a Hasegawa fan. I caught the third place match of the 2016 U-20 Women's World Cup and was really impressed by her play and decided to support whatever Nadeshiko League side she played for from that point on.
Yui Hasegawa is definitely a great player and these season she seeemd to add a more accurate finishing to her already impressive resumé: she scored some really spectacular goals and, if you didn't already, I urge you to give a look to the selection of the best goals from this season that we made on the official 2020 Nadeshiko Japan thread (The initial vote already happened, you can see it in the subsequent posts; by the way, I am sure @Lechus7 is quite busy, but I wonder if he is intentioned to trim down the selection we've already made to the absolute best ). Also, as you can figure, Yui Hasegawa is lovely and charming when met in person: I had the luck to see her play at Algarve Cup 2017 and I have a smiling photo of her next to the NT bus after the Iceland-Japan game in that tournament, when she stooped by to say hi to me, @Manchester Nadeshiko and a few other Nadeshiko Japan supporters (back them she was short-haired).
On the Nadeshiko League You Tube channel is a nice little video......'Looking back on the 2020 season'....memories memories
She's amazing. I tell anyone that will listen how great a player she is and have managed to convince a few to pay attention to Beleza. I had a friend translate some of the interviews/profiles she did for some Japanese magazines early last year and she mentioned that she wanted to become more of a scoring threat, so she's definitely worked on that aspect of her game.
Her drive to become better and better is obvious and it's great that she was aware that she was lacking something in the finishing department until a few years ago and she consciously worked to get better at it! If you managed to convince some people to become Beleza's fans (and one of them is also able to translate from Japanese, a feature that few of us here have apart from @unepommekun and @pierre bezukhov), why don't you tell them to join us here? We are a passionate Nadeshiko-loving bunch and we love to add people's insights to our discussion. I guess your particular angle, zooming on Hasegawa, already was useful and interesting.
For non Japanese speaking followers like myself.....On Mana Iwabuchis Twitter is an interview conducted in English about her joining Aston Villa.
In fact she hadn't much space anymore in Urawa: makes sense that she joins a traditional "veterans' paradise" as Chifure.
Due to covid threat January Nadeshiko NT camp is cancelled. 2021年1月実施予定 日本代表チームの活動について #jfa #nadeshiko #daihyo https://t.co/dQJEQ7UVlM— JFAなでしこサッカー (@jfa_nadeshiko) January 19, 2021 Which really makes February US trip a pre-selection for Olympic roster. (assuming both will happen)
Transfer news: 1352165325710651394 is not a valid tweet id 1352131543246860289 is not a valid tweet id
Well, this seems to be an answer both to the worries about Kitamura's future career and to the ones about Beleza keeping losing player without making any significant marketing coups!
Some article says about Yamashita's case. "At the half time In the game vs Ehime (on November 21st), she appealed to the coach to change DF formation, but he denied it and changed her to Kurosawa. She never appeared after the incident. "
Marketing sign indeed, Beleza has no defence but they signing another group of attacking oriented kids. No wonder Yamashita was organising defence by herself )
Now, I agree that Kitamura is attacking oriented, but when I was in France in 2018 to watch the U-20 WWC, I saw her effectively play as a Left-Back. Of course a Left-Back that was well-committed in supporting the offense line, but anyway her starting position was DF and, despite being more attack-oriented, she had some good defensive actions. I know, I know, youth level, blah, blah... but I just wanted to point out that she was played as a DF in the past and maybe she can be played in that role again. Don't you think that she could play on the left a similar role to what Shimizu plays on the right-side?
Apparently, based on good old stories from U-20 Jun Endo is a world-class left-back. In reality, not so much )
Oh, come on! At U-20 WWC Jun Endo was basically always played as a left winger! It was Takakura, later, when she made Endo debut in Senior NT, that repeateadly tried her as a Left-Back (I guess in a desperate move to find a potential replacement for Sameshima, who in fact will leave quite a hole when she'll retire), with of course questionable success. But that Endo was anything else that an attacking MF at U-20 WWC is a legend that you're making up right now (as it's showed, by the way, by the fact that the starting Left-Back was indeed Kitamura!).
I remember that almost all of our topic readers suggested that Takakura should try Endo as a left-back because she played there quite well at Junior level ) Don't mention the greatest right back (Shimizu) in a sentence with those wingers lol How dare you are! To play like Shimizu )) We don't even have any other defenders in Japan who comes close to Shimizu level )) What a great potential back-line for Beleza. No keeper (Maybe Momoka Tanaka) Left-back (non-existent) 2 CB (Kid from the academy (Matsuda) - Miyagawa or Doko (injured) or Muramatsu or Ariyoshi (better be one-legged Doko) And Shimizu Beautiful... But hey, Beleza just signed another 4 attacking players, one younger than another )
Somehow I have a feeling that I it is possible that I might know who your favorite player could be - maybe....
transfer news: Yurina Yamamoto (Tokiwagi Gauken HS -> Albirex Niigata) Keito Numao (JFA Academy Fukushima -> Albirex Niigata) Riko Shimoyama (Nittaidai -> Nojima Stella) in other news 1352472640254922754 is not a valid tweet id Kikuko Okajima appointed vice-president of JFA and a member of "Future Vision Committee"