Ex-Squirrels Update

A quick survey of how some ex-Squirrels are getting on at present. In Brazil, Denis Marques has started a quarter of Fluminense's 37 games, scoring twice for the league leaders, while big defender Leandro is a first team regular at mid-table Goias - although he has picked up no fewer than twelve bookings and two red cards. Daigo Kobayashi has finished a successful season in Norway, where despite cash worries at the club Stabaek supporters are generally keen to make the loan deal permanent. However, there is no indication as to whether Omiya's former star will return to Saitama, stay in Scandinavia - where he has evidently enjoyed things both from a footballing and personal point of view - or move elsewhere.

Klemen Lavric's Sturm Graz are fourth in the ten-team Austrian Bundesliga, seven points behind leaders Rapid Vienna. The Slovenian scored his first league goal for Sturm in midweek last week in the 2-1 defeat by Rapid, but has been in and out of the starting line-up. Meanwhile in Japan, Takuro Nishimura failed to get a deal to last him over the winter with a US-based futsal team and is currently training with the Nagoya Oceans futsal club, although he has a 2010 contract with Portland Timbers. J-Leaguers Hiroshi Morita, Jun Marques Davidson and Manabu Wakabayashi have however been released by Ventforet Kofu, Albirex Niigata and Tochigi SC respectively.

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