Agent Orange: NTT DoCoMo Presents, You Make The Call!

Scenario 1

It's 2007 and you are a Dutch manager who is just starting out in Japanese football and who has a famous older brother. You have the task of replacing the team's longtime captain. You have a choice between:

a. A respected veteran midfielder who has been in the league for over ten years and has been on championship-winning teams.
b. A midfielder who has been on the squad from the very beginning and who has been the epitome of professionalism throughout his career.
c. A midfielder coming off of a career season which saw him get National Team recognition.
d. A midfielder coming off of a down year who likes to yell a lot and thinks he's Kazu Miura.

NTT DoCoMo says, YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Scenario 2

It's 2009 and you are a new technical director who is regarded poorly around the league. Your first big decision is to appoint a new coach. Do you:

a. Look for a well-respected foreign coach who will install a system that will define your team's style for the next generation?
b. Look for a well-respected Japanese coach who will install a system that will define your team's style for the next generation?
c. Look for a promising young coach with new and revolutionary ideas that will define your team's style for the next generation?
d. Look for a two-time J-League failure who alienates almost every player he comes into contact with and who wants to install a system built around the diminishing talents of a midfielder who has the ego the size of Mt Fuji, the work ethic of your average tree sloth, likes to yell a lot and thinks he's Kazu Miura?

NTT DoCoMo says, YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Scenario 3

It's 2010 and you are that same technical director. You just went through a horrible season in which the fans called for the heads of both you and your hand-picked coach. Do you:

a. Find a new coach who can build a style around the players you have?
b. Address weaknesses in the midfield and find guys who can be playmakers?
c. Try and work out problems in the relationship between you and the coach on the one hand and long-time team members on the other?
d. Rehire your inept coach and get rid of all your former team leaders, except for the now awful midfielder who blames everyone around him for his mistakes, fails to run on passes that aren't right at him, shows up refs and team-mates any chance he gets and thinks he's Kazu Miura?

NTT DoCoMo says, YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Scenario 4

You are the new coach of a team who is languishing near the bottom of J1. It's half time and your team is losing 1-0 in yet another lackluster effort. Your loudmouth, lazy, inept, decrepit aging midfielder who thinks he is Kazu Miura and is slowly starting to resemble the current 43-year-old edition of him (minus the scoring and leadership) picked up yet another stupid yellow right before the half ended. Do you:

a. Sub him out for a defender and move your free-kick specialist up to the midfield?
b. Sub him out for your team's leading scorer and let your new Korean signing use his speed to exploit the wings?
c. Sub him out for your new Korean defensive midfielder so you can shore up the center of the field and get some attacking in?
d. Let him play it out and hope that he doesn't do something stupid, like yell at the ref and kick the ball away - something he has done in the past on numerous occasions and which usually earns him yellow cards?

NTT DoCoMo says, YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Answers coming up after the break!



Welcome back, everybody!

NTT DoCoMo says, if you answered (d) to all four of our questions, YOU MADE THE RIGHT CALL! Well, not really, but YOU MADE THE DoCoMo RIGHT CALL, ANYHOW!

Now I've seen the replays of the yellow and yeah, it's a pretty harsh call. But I've watched Chikara Fujimoto pull that kind of crap all throughout his Omiya career. I'm a little sympathetic to the ref in this case. When someone continually shows up the refs after calls, you're bound to get a quick whistle. Really, I'm amazed that we are still overpaying this guy. That shouldn't shock you. It shouldn't shock me that we are, again, in relegation peril. But I am and we are, for yet another season. I guess we will either have to go with a new team, or endure Captain for Life. Neither choice sounds appealing to me.

On to happier things.

The D in Ardija Stands For "Douchebag"

At least to me. Last week saw a small news flurry about the "shenanigans" of Vegalta Sendai supporters and Omiya's response to the "unforgivable act". I'm the first one to pile on to our inbred little yellow friends to the North but even I gotta say this is overkill. We look pathetic in this situation... overreact much? Them cheering over the sponsor speech was lame and rude, but filing a protest with the league over it? C'mon! We look like sore losers in all of this. If we did nothing, they would be the ones that looked bad. We managed to lose to them again in a no-lose situation. Awesome.

Their apology had just the right tone to it as well. It reminded me of my RA days back in college. There was a woman that we worked with who wore tight jean shorts that went down to her upper knees. We all used to delight in calling her pants "shants" and she used to get really upset about it. Our hall director called us in and gave us the, "I really think this is a completely stupid issue and she is overreacting in a massive way, but could you guys cut it out so I never, ever have to think about this stupid issue again," speech. The Vegalta letter had the exact same tone.

And before we ask for resolutions for "issues" with teams around the league, shouldn't we get some sort of resolution from Haruo Yuuki and his shenanigans from last year? We're still waiting for the follow-up to the meeting in which the supporters unanimously expressed their disgust at the way Messrs Yuuki and Jang Wae Ryong do business. You gonna let us know when that happens? No?

Muzak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U5HpeA_WSo

Only three more months till Chikara does his annual speech where he starts blubbering again about how disappointing the season was and how hard he's gonna work for an Omiya championship! So it's not all bad news, right?

*