Official 2024 Nadeshiko Japan Thread [R] - なでしこジャパン（英語スレッド）

JFA and Nielsen agreed that he will continue to reside in Europe during his tenure. If anything, that points towards an even more EU/US centric squad. This will also mean promising WE league players will be incentivized to move overseas just to be on his radar. It’s only going to get tougher for the league from here on imo.

 

Incheon to Renofa - Tanaka Yoko

https://www.renofa.com/archives/143045/

<Comment>

Hello to all Renofa Yamaguchi FC supporters! This is Yoko Tanaka.

I will be playing for Renofa Yamaguchi FC Ladies from the 2025 season.

I am returning to my hometown of Yamaguchi Prefecture for the first time in 20 years, and I am filled with joy and gratitude to be able to play in front of all of you who have always supported me, even though we are far apart.

From now on, I will do my best to contribute to the goal of winning the league and being promoted to the Nadeshiko League by working together with the staff, players, supporters, and everyone involved with Renofa Yamaguchi FC, and I will do my best to utilize everything I have cultivated up until now!

I also serve as a Yamaguchi Hometown Ambassador, so as a part of Renofa, which is hugely popular in Yamaguchi, I am excited to be able to directly contribute to making Yamaguchi prefecture and the region even more lively in the future!

We look forward to your continued support!

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Managers will always have their biases. Takakura selected a huge number of players, but she certainly had a prediliction for players who wore green. In the beginning Ikeda favoured players he had already managed at junior level.

But towards the end of Ikeda's tenure I felt either he, or somebody in his coaching staff (I think it was one of his staff) was watching the WE League quite closely and it was reflected in some of his selections. Of course having said that, I am still perplexed by Kinoshita not being given a chance to play along with Wakisaka.

Nielsen is not going to know much about the WE League, so it becomes incumbant on the Japanese coaching staff to keep him informed.

I would have preferred another Japanese manager, but I do not get to make the big decisions. Anyway, I now have to put that aside and hope that he can continue to grow and improve Nadeshiko.

 

I may be wrong, but KanNo has almost the same ability as Kinoshita's one and looks more dangerous.
Yamamoto is also quite dangerous, but she should be going overseas in order to be a perfect weapon for NT.

 

Saturdays Empress' Cup - 5th round games

11:30 - Omiya vs Viama
12:00 - Chifure vs Inac
14:30 - Regina vs Ichihara

2 years ago, up to and including the 5th round there were highlights of all the games.
1 year ago there were no highlights but the 5th round games were streamed live.
This year up to and including the 5th round there's no highlights or streaming of live games.

 

I am a little surprised she did not want to stay with Incheon for one last season given that they made it to the last 8 in the Champions League. Although she is not the player she used to be, she is still far too good for the Chugoku League.

Given that Renofa almost qualified for the Nadeshiko League last year one would assume they have improved their chances with Yoko.

Yeah she has been good for about the last season and a half, but I just prefer Kinoshita. They do not really play the same position, but Kanno - from what I have seen - is the more versatile player and as you point out is more likely to score.

Kinoshita just runs the show in midfield for Beleza and does it incredibly well in my opinion.

 

What a shame... Japan had a top women's league for years, and now that we're in a turning point of professionalization in women's football, it seems that most Japanese concerned and/or involved in WoSo consider and act like WE League is a third-tier league instead. Really a bad case of self-fulfilling prophecy now.

Most of the players leaving in the future will end up playing in midfield for their new club and we'll have 20 midfielders and 3 goalkeepers in future selections

 

Since I'm in a mood for ranting (when am I not?), each year we're getting less and less Empress' Cup broadcast by the JFA... At this stage of the competition last year, it was on their Youtube channel, but this season some clubs (only Elfen, afaik) are doing the broadcast themselves.

 

Top rants.....agree absolutely

 

I think you are mixing the JFA up with people who care about women's football in Japan. The JFA is not quite as evil as people on the internet would have you believe, but women's football has never been a major priority for them. If women's football made more money then it would be completely different.

However, there are many people involved in women's football who want the game to grow and want the WE League to improve, but let us not kid ourselves it is going to be a pretty tough battle to compete with Europe and America.

I mean wages have stayed the same in Japan for thirty years and right now the yen is at its weakest against most currencies. Why would an American come and play in Japan for half the money? I can see more Spanish players coming here if there league continues to treat the players the way they do, but they will probably just move to somewhere else in Europe.

However, if women's football continues to grow in Asia I think the WE League could find a lot of players from there. Again it will take time, but I personally see the WE League's future in Asia and I do not have a problem with that.

This is a genuine problem.

My other concern is that good, young players are starting to not even play in the WE League.In an ideal world I want good, young players to stay in the WE League for a couple of seasons before they move overseas.

The way Tanikawa and Koga just left once their time was up at the JFA still annoys me. My worry is that more young talent will get poached before they even play in the WE League. At least I was able to watch Miyazawa, Matsukubo, Fujino and Takashige in the WE League before they left for greener pastures.

 

Saturdays Empress' Cup - 5th round results - pt1 (morning kick off games)

Omiya 0aet1 Viama (Yamamoto 110)
Chifure (Kishi 19, Tochitani 88) 2aet3 Inac (Mizuno 48/90, Narimiya 98)

 

Chiba Remina:

 

Saturdays Empress' Cup - 5th round results - pt 2 (afternoon kick off games)

Regina (og 10, Takahashi 26, Ueno 120+1) 3-2 Ichihara (Okada 48, Kobayashi 83)

------------------------------------------------------------

Sundays Empress' Cup - 5th round games

11:00 - Nojima vs Belle
11:30 - Mynavi vs Cerezo
13:00 - Albi vs Nagoya
14:00 - Beleza vs Jef
14:30 - Nagano vs Urawa

 

That means next week Inac against Regina and again the 28th (Kracie Cup Final)

 

Of course, I'm not contesting that there are people who want the women's game to grow domestically. Otherwise you wouldn't have clubs like Viamaterras still popping up and attracting good crowd, if no one cared.

Disclaimer: The rest of my post doesn't concerned what you say in yours, but I need to vent somewhere

My current gripe with the whole situation is with an that seems to be taken for granted but I disagree with: grass is greener oversea, something that seems to be the basis of JFA's strategy and the willingness of players to move oversea.

@pierre bezukhov mentions salary for instance, but the situation is not much better where Japanese players are going like in Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, etc. Only the US and England seems to be an exception in that regard. It's not just salary, when talking about attendances, transfers, etc., a lot of noise is made for it when under the facade, it doesn't always look bright. Behind the huge crowd to see Arsenal, you have games like Everton against Leicester (played at Goddison Park!) that attract the same numbers than Elfen. West Ham? Their attendances aren't good either.

When talking about women's football growth, there is two things to consider and differentiate imo. First, how it stands compared to men's football, because this is a guideline for potential growth (or errors to not repeat). I'll talk about that later.

The second is how it stands on its own, because this is where we can see how solid the foundations are. For that second point, only the US is a standout in my opinion. It's the only country where the sport is big on "its own merit". Even in England, the current popularity is build around the Lionesses' recent successes and the starification of some players. The big attendances come in part from the popularity of the Alessia Russo and others, hence why Everton/West Ham/Leicester/etc. actually don't have attendances that stand out compared to Japan. In fact, I'll be bold and say that the Japan is - not counting the US who is an outlier - the country who has the most solid Women's Football fanbase. I've mentioned Viamaterras at the start of the post, but what about INAC? We take then for granted, but clubs like them are dying in Europe. Sure it's a sign that more investments are made from top men's club comparatively to Japanese J-League sides, but it's also a sign that in these countries there is not a solid foundation of WoSo fans to support these type of clubs if they're not attracted by the badge of the men's club they support. In Germany, 1. FFC Frankfurt had to merge with Eintracht Frankfurt, Turbine Postdam current situation is... terrible. Yet they were two massives WoSo clubs that couldn't survive because of lack of engagement for Women's Football on its own. An exclusively women's football club can only have the hope of being a top club in Europe if there is a Michelle Kang popping up to use you as an asset. There is an actual community that love Women's Football for its own merit, in Japan.

Now, to that there is an easy counterpoint: this isn't a basis solid (like in the US) enough to compete with Europe. To which I agree. We come back to the first point, about how men's football invest in the women's side. There are investments and efforts that come from the clubs, but others from the federation. This is where my issue is and all my rants are about: the JFA never tried. To be honest, WE League was created mostly out of necessity, because it's the "right" thing to do in these days, for the same that reason that in France (where I live), Women's Football is going through some changes, rebranding, restructuration, etc. It's because if they don't, there would be eyebrows raised and complaints made from a lack of care for women (which would be deserved). The whole strategy has been about underselling the domestic league: poor international communications (Twitter account only translating the tweets, not the visuals, website's english news sections completely dead, etc.), a terrible deal with DAZN (both financially and for visibility). As mentioned in another post, less and less care for the Empress' Cup. WE League Cup (I know, it's not really the JFA's fault for that) got extended but to the detriment of quality (terrible scheduling, mid-week game early in the afternoon, no more multi-camera broadcast, no more commentary, no more visuals with line-ups/subs/etc.). What do M. J League and M. JFA (forgot their names, whatever) have to say when they start their interim as WE League chairman and co-chairman? Constant doom-saying. No money, no attendance, the situation is dire, etc. Great message to send to the clubs, players and fans. Especially when more and more players are already leaving. But as I try to argument previously in the post, the situation is... not that bad.

The JFA don't want to bother with the league (as you say, no money comes from it) but definitely don't want to lose the status of the NT. Despite the whole discourse about improving when playing oversea, it hasn't been very obvious so far. I don't see many improvements. There's not a lot of margin of progress, to be honest. After all, Nadeshiko Japan is a top 8 nation. It's already a top nation. The goal of incentivizing players to move oversea is to keep them at a good level for the NT to still be in that top 8 without having to care with domestic football as much. The situation is different from Japan's men. J League wasn't a top league, but men's football had the potential growth, being the most popular sport on the planet behind la pétanque, so building your NT by sending your talents in Europe to improve your results can indeed increase the interest domestically. It works, as the J League is growing in popularity. The women's side, however, already had a top league with a top NT. So where would the growth come from domestically?* Seems like JFA don't bother to find an answer to that.

Now we come back to the choice of having a manager from oversea, based in Europe. We had head coach of the NT with biases before, as @pierre bezukhov mentioned in a previous post. In fact, most managers do. Especially for national teams. It makes sense: your time with the team is more limited, so you build your team around a set core of players you think you can get the most of in that limited time. Sarina Wiegman is criticized by English fans for that a lot, despite her success with the Lionesses. It can be annoying, but we know that in these situations they don't actually limit their choices. They do consider the other options. We see it when Ikeda gives Nakashima a chance for instance. It just doesn't happen often enough for us, or not to the players we like the most, etc. so we complain. The big difference here is that it seems we will be in a situation where they will actually limit their choices. Of course they won't stop completely calling players from WE League, there is gonna be a few here and there. But it'll mostly be to overcome depth issues, like with fullbacks due to the ACLs of Shimizu and Endo. For instance, if Nielsen calls Hayashi, some (including me ) will ask "Well, what about Wakisaka?". Before, we could answer to ourselves: "It's a choice from Ikeda!", now it'll be "Did they even watch and consider her?".

All that could result in what have been already talked about: more players leaving Japan, being moved to midfield in their new clubs (why would it stop? the reasons invoked about pace, physicality or techniques made sense), and we'll have a balance/depth issue for the NT and a weaker league in the process.

* In my opinion, starification helps. JFA auctioned players shirt earlier this year. I didn't look at how much was raised by each players at the end of it, but when I looked during the auction, Tanikawa was the most popular. Outside of missing on her prowess on the pitch itself, we'll also miss the interest the public had in her with her not playing in the WE League. She didn't even come from a club academy, so when we think of Tanikawa, we'll never think of her wearing the badge of a Japanese club, unlike older big names of the Nadeshiko. No Japanese fans of a club will be on repeat saying she came from their academy, or that they play for her club. Golden boot Miyazawa? She didn't even receive the trophy that made her grow in popularity that she already was on a plane heading to England. We miss a lot of growth by making inviting for these players to leave the league.

Anyway, I need to pee so the post end here. In the meantime, it appears that Sanfrecce avoided an upset, Viamaterras went through and it almost don't feel like an upset, while Elfen keep proving they've become an annoying team to play against for the big three, even it ended up with the same scenario as last year's Empress' Cup game between the two clubs.

 

Point in case.
In Netherlands - one of the faster developers of woso in EU - club like INAC.... couldn't even exist before. Only now KVNB (Dutch FA), puts a highly consequential vote to its members on whether to grant an independent women’s club a licence to compete in the Eredivisie for the first time.

I agree on WE League beeing an outlier on various topics among many other leagues in EU (for example: grassroots developement, contracts policy, care for pregnant players and those with small children, active supporters base) but at same time I'm under impression that the league and people who want to grow it... are constantly fighting an uphill battle against indifference of many football policy makers in Japan.
Introducing two or three small reforms (at low cost) would elevate this league internationally to the status it deserves. (put it on DAZN to watch inernationally, make dedicated media chanell in English across various social media platforms, get rid of one year contracts - move toward 3 years options - especially for academy grown players)
Really at this point it does look a bit like a very possible WE League success... is just too much inconvenient for some people among football stakeholders in Japan to happen.

 

We're gonna become conspiracy theorists at this rate

@pierre bezukhov made a good point talking about the AWCL and focusing on Asia. There are still room for developments in Japan thanks to that. In fact, we can look even further than Asia. Banda or the Chawinga sisters all played in China at some point. This is what Japan could be aiming for, in a realistic manner. The clubs obviously have a part in this (and some try, at the risk of failing), but as you say, policy making by higher officials also need to be adapted. There's already some policies in place regarding South-East Asian players, I believe, to make things easier for clubs. It could be expanded, even if it also lead to less successful transfers (what about O'Neill at JEF United? She doesn't seem injured). Unfortunately, they don't seem to have this kind of ambitions.

 

In fact, it's a rare name, and if it is not a name, it is read ippo (one step).
Her name is Iduho according to the team page, but would not be Izuho more accurate?

 

Nostalgia alert:

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I believe someone mentioned Saori Yoshida on the forum. Here is she in "action":

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It's a case of romanized spelling.
You know about kana.
Her name is いづほ.
The dull sounds of たちつてと (ta, chi, tsu, te, to) come to だぢづでど. In that case you want to write them (da, di, du, de, do) down, but (da, ji, zu, de, do) are closer to Japanese pronunciaitons.

 

I checked it. She played in only two games as a NT member in 2010.