Verdenik: The Stats So Far

Guess how Zdenko Verdenik has been doing since he took over as Omiya coach eight league games ago? Agent Orange has been busy constructing the table below, which shows how all J1 clubs have performed since the Slovenian's appointment at NACK5 in the middle of June. Ex-Ardija boss Yasuhiro Higuchi has had a fantastic couple of months at Yokohama F Marinos, undefeated and picking up an impressive sixteen points. Reigning champions Kashiwa Reysol have continued their resurgent form, firing in no fewer than 23 goals that includes four in Verdenik's first match in charge.

Having replaced their own coaches at around the same time as Omiya, Vissel Kobe and Albirex Niigata have both moved up the table, the Swans under new boss Masaaki Yanagishita now boasting the best defence in the division - a rearguard that has been further improved by the addition from Ardija of the experienced Shusuke Tsubouchi. Even Consadole Sapporo, rock bottom all season long, have managed good home wins against Nagoya Grampus and Vegalta Sendai.

And Verdenik's Squirrels? We're last in Agent Orange's table. We have the poorest form of any club in J1. Despite some glimmers of hope during a handful of matches in June and early July, we've actually got worse since the departure of Jun Suzuki - a fact reflected in our drop into the relegation places. One of the division's least able defences has grown weaker with the sale of Tsubouchi and Kim Young Gwon. 

Of the defensive players that remain, captain Kosuke Kikuchi seems for all the world a broken man rather than a leader, the crash and burn of his confidence exemplified by a humiliating own goal against Sanfrecce Hiroshima. In fact there's even an argument that game-but-limited Yosuke Kataoka might now be Ardija's best defender - an idea that would have been laughable in 2007 but is less than amusing in 2012. 

No wonder Squirrels fans have been overwhelmed with relief at the arrival on loan of Hiroyuki Komoto, the Vissel Kobe centre back who in the current squad appears to carry the Squirrels' hopes of J1 survival on his shoulders. Welcome to Omiya, Hiroyuki. No pressure.

1. Marinos 16pts (+6)

2. Kashiwa 15 (+10)

3. Hiroshima 15 (+8)

4. Nagoya 14 (+6)

5. Tosu 14 (+3)

6. Kobe 14 (-)

7. Urawa 13 (+3)

8. Niigata 12 (+2)

9. Kashima 12 (-)

10. Sendai 11 (+3)

11. Kawasaki 9 (-1)

12. Gamba 8 (-1)

13. FC Tokyo 8 (-3)

14. S-Pulse 8 (-5)

15. Jubilo 7 (-4)

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16. Cerezo 6 (-5)

17. Sapporo 6 (-14)

18. Omiya 5 (-8)

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Agent Orange: Keigo, Kim and the King of Saitama

Off the field, I think it's fair to say that Omiya has been one of the more intriguing teams of the week. With new manager Zdenko Verdenik trying to stamp his mark onto the team, it was inevitable that some guys would be leaving and two important players in the Jun Suzuki regime are all but out the door. A third was due to be gone more temporarily and for a happier cause, but now that (luckily for our league chances) looks not to be the case. Diving in...

1. London Calling... And Hanging Up

Tomorrow is final cut day for the Japan U23 Olympic squad. I hate to spoil it for you but Keigo Higashi isn't going to be on it. The number 10 for the young Blue Samurai was a critical player in the team's qualification campaign and ended up as co-leader in scoring. Unfortunately for the young midfielder, he plays in a position in which Japan has an embarrassment of riches. More crucially, he then slumped at a time when he needed to be at his best.

With the foreign-based and more popular domestic choices at coach Takashi Sekizuka's disposal, it was always going to be hard for Higashi to claim one of the eighteen spots. To be fair, guys like Genki Haraguchi, Manabu Saito and Kota Mizunuma (while contributing far less to qualification) have been in better league form and Takashi Usami pretty much claimed his spot at Toulon - a tournament where players were competing against each other as well as other teams. 

It would have been great to see an Omiya player represent Japan in a major tournament but the good news is that we will have the playmaker around to integrate into Verdenik's system, along with possibly two new foreign signings. A little cold but ultimately fair.

2. Kim Young Gone

It's a little hard to fairly judge the year and a half we saw of Kim Young Gwon. On the one hand, he had all the tools to be a very good center back. Getting into the Korean National Team is not an easy achievement, and Young Gwon was quickly becoming a fixture in both their U23 and senior squads. Relatively fast, big, not bad in the air, Young Gwon showed flashes of really good play.

The problem was that he never seemed to mesh with any of the other choices at centerback. During 2011, he paired up with Shusuke Tsubouchi, Yuki Fukaya and Yosuke Kataoka before eventually being pushed out to left side back. This year he had the same troubles consistently partnering with Kosuke Kikuchi. At times he was badly out of position and his decision-making was suspect.

Kim had the potential to be the best foreigner in a fairly good line of centerbacks and he failed. It's off to the big dollars and physical play of Guangzhou Evergrande and I wish the kid luck. It's kind of a shame that the last impression he leaves is a flailing substitute performance in which the team yielded a three-goal lead to relegation-threatened Albirex Niigata.

3. Shift Change

Rafael was really an afterthought when he was signed from Tombense. The first we saw of him was a Youtube video containing his finest moments for second division Turkish side Bursapor. The big Omiya signing at that time was supposed to be K-League legend Dudu, a guy with a good scoring record and a hairdo straight out of a horror movie. Dudu turned out to be one of Ardija's greatest mistakes and ultimately a tragic story, Rafael (in my opinion) turned out to be one of the team's best signings. 

From his first appearance on the field, the lanky Brazilian showed flashes of skill that we hadn't seen since Bare left the squad. On his debut Rafael helped force an own goal in a game against Jubilo Iwata to earn a much-needed point for a sagging squad. His greatest moment in his debut year would come some weeks later, though, when Rafael scored a brace against crosstown rivals Urawa Reds in a 3-0 drubbing. He would go on to score the team's 100th J1 goal as well as being the first Omiya player to notch double figures in scoring in a season. He also goes out as the squad's all-time leading J1 scorer.

It's been very common this season to pile on the shortcomings of Rafael. He's slow. He's a bad finisher. He doesn't score enough. He's overpaid. This season it's been hard to argue that he has been good, because on most days he hasn't. However, he was the most important and best player for almost three years and he could change the flow of a game with one play.

A lot of people have argued that Naoki Ishihara should have been kept over Rafael. To this I'd say two things:

1. I remember those times in 2009 and 2010 when Ishihara was the lone option. He failed at the role. Nobody was really all that high on Naoki in 2009 before Rafael came along - and 2010 was a disaster during the eight or nine games Rafael was out due to injury.

2. It never should have been a choice between the two. Ishihara and Rafael complemented each other well. If I had to choose, I'd still choose Rafael but I'd want both.

The thing that will stand out most for me is the seven goals in six games he put up against the hated Reds. Rafael always performed in our two biggest games of the season. Last year, when we could have been in relegation trouble, he scored the lone goal to put some distance between us and Urawa. They booed and jeered and he loved it. Rafael owned the Saitama Derby and he'll always be one of my favorite Omiya players.

Last night against Shimizu S-Pulse was a nice way to say goodbye. Coming on in the 55th minute, he added a spark to a squad that had no answers on offense. At times he looked gimpy, being outrun by the giant Dutch centerback Calvin Jong a Pin on a few occasions, but he was always a threat. In stoppage time he threaded a nice through ball to Daigo Watanabe, who shook off a challenge and put a bullet through the legs of Akihiro Hayashi. Like the 2012 version of Rafael, the ball rolled at a slow and painful pace towards the goal before inching in. A hard-fought victory and a fitting way for the King of Saitama to exit the stage.

Obrigado to our friend and good luck at Botafogo.

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Agent Orange: Omiya In June, Jun Not In Omiya

In a move that was probably more shocking than it should have been, last week Omiya told Jun Suzuki that his services as coach were no longer required. It's a popular decision among Squirrels fans and one that is not hard to justify. After an offseason in which the team added high-profile signings such as U23 Korean attacker Cho Young Cheol and creative midfielder Carlinhos, expectations were high for Ardija to do well in 2012 - or at least better than the hot mess that we've seen on display for the first three months of the season. It's easy to pile on to Suzuki because honestly he deserves it.

 
However, in another sense it's a bitter pill to swallow. After coming in to replace Jang Woe Ryong in mid-2010, Suzuki did an admirable job in saving the team from relegation and a long-term date with J2 purgatory. In fact it was probably one of the most underrated coaching jobs in J-League history. When Suzuki arrived Omiya was floundering. After an emotional 3-0 win against Cerezo Osaka to start the season, the team had gone on to flatline with an eight-game winless streak. Rafael was out, Chikara Fujimoto was (conveniently) out at the same time and the pairing of Naoki Ishihara and Yoshihito Fujita was not producing the goals. Defender Taishi Tsukamoto's cancer prognosis was in a far more dismal state than it is today.

Jun Suzuki took over a squad that had tuned out Jang, wasn't playing as a team, and looked entirely rudderless. It started small, with a much-needed 2-1 win over eventual relegation victims Kyoto Sanga, hit a couple bumps and got better. Suzuki used the absolutely useless Nabisco Cup competition to give extended looks to afterthoughts in the Jang regime like Takuya Aoki, Daisuke Watabe, Shusuke Tsubouchi and Shunsuke Fukuda. He made some bold and controversial decisions in shifting 2009 MVP Mato Neretljak and North Korea World Cup vet An Yong Hak out the starting lineup. These moves would lead to some good results against Urawa Reds and Shimizu S-Pulse. It looked like Suzuki had stabilized the team.

Unfortunately, Omiya would be hit with another emotional gut punch when the league announced that club president Seigo Watanabe and company were inflating attendance numbers. Rumors were floating around that the team would be forced to give up league points or face automatic relegation. After a few very bad performances including a 5-1 loss to Gamba Osaka, the team fought back from a 2-0 deficit - and the first of many controversial calls to go against them, a good goal called as a no-goal - to tie Kawasaki Frontale.

Another of what would be a string of comebacks happened the next week when Suzuki's future whipping boy, Naoki Ishihara, scored the go-ahead goal and put away Montedio Yamagata. The squad edged FC Tokyo and Vissel Kobe in the last couple of weeks to finish at a team-high twelfth. Jun Suzuki would be the only Omiya coach to end with a winning record (10-6-9) in a J1 season. He did a great job in 2010 and nobody should take that away from him. 
 
His problem came in 2011, when he started to implement his philosophy of "possession football". Combined with new general manager Takeyuki Okamoto, Suzuki looked to put his brand on the squad. Specialists like Neretljak and Ishihara were cast out in favor of guys who were more conducive to a flexible system of ball control and position change. It meant that talented midfielders like Keigo Higashi and Kota Ueda would see more of a role on the squad. Unfortunately, it also meant that mediocre players like Daigo Watanabe and Lee Chun Soo would also feature because they could (allegedly) play multiple roles to a competent standard instead of being great at one position.

Early in 2011, the team was getting results but the rot in the offense and along the backline was starting to show. Blowout home losses to S-Pulse and Frontale would see Suzuki switch to a more negative and boring style. Long-time Omiya players who had seemed destined for the reserve squad like Yosuke Kataoka and Hayato Hashimoto found themselves back in the starting lineup, playing the same overly cautious, mistake-prone style that had led to Ardija hovering around the relegation zone in previous years. Everything old was new again in the Squirrel Nation. 
 
Suzuki took part in another extravagant offseason in 2012, signing four new starters to the squad and retooling the entire left side of the field. Unfortunately, the Omiya braintrust did little to address weaknesses in scoring and the right back. Opposing teams were figuring out that if they were patient, they could sit back and counter and the Ardija defense would give them room to operate. The Squirrels front six rarely break through on offense and a truly dismal start to the season by Rafael and Higashi has helped the team stumble to fifteenth place.

The first option hasn't worked and with the jettisoning to Sanfrecce Hiroshima of Ishihara, a second option is non-existent. It showed in the final game of the Suzuki era when he opted to make defensive-minded replacements while losing 3-0, rather than throwing on more attacking players like Jun Kanakubo (not used until 75th minute), Masahiko Ichikawa (an unused sub) and Shintaro Shimizu (left in Shiki). It was bad decision-making and a sign of weakness on the part of the manager. Most damning for Suzuki was the fact that, unlike in 2010, everybody knew this Ardija team was incapable of coming back from a deficit and was generally boring no matter what the outcome. 
 
Suzuki's last official task was overseeing the reserves lose 3-1 to his former team, Albirex Niigata. The Swans themselves have hardly thrived since his departure and now sit in seventeenth place, looking likely to be in J2 next year. Young striker Shimizu goes down in the books as the last Ardija player to score during Suzuki's tenure. 
 
Part of me is happy that Jun Suzuki was relieved of his duties. Even the wins were not very enjoyable. However, the main emotion I have about the whole situation is disappointment. Suzuki was the first coach Omiya had in J1 with a respectable resume. The team went from Toshiya Miura (who had no J1 experience) to Robert Verbeek (hired because his brother was a respected coach) to non-licensed Satoru Sakuma. Yasuhiro Higuchi came in after a few mediocre seasons at Montedio Yamagata and was replaced by Jang Woe Ryong, who had been awful in stints at Consadole Sapporo and Tokyo Verdy. Suzuki was the first "real" coach we hired. And he succeeded... and then failed. 
 
I guess I'll just end with thank you and goodbye. There's not a lot of anger or schadenfreude with his dismissal. It feels like it's the right time for him to go. And the right time for us to worry about the next person to take the job.        

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Agent Orange: The Day After Derby Day Derby

If you had told me earlier in the week that I had to choose between attending the big Saitama Derby match on Saturday night or going to a training match a day later, I most likely would choose the Derby, but it would be a tough decision. Usually the training matches are not an option for me because they are either located at places that are not feasibly accessible without a car (like Akiha forest), or they are at shitholes that are not feasibly accessible without a car (like Shiki).

I managed to hit paydirt though when our crosstown rivals, the Urawa Reds, were hospitable enough to invite us for a ninety-minute battle of B-level players at an attractive little ground just a fifteen-minute walk from the Saitama Super Arena. Ohara ground is a two-field complex with a two-storey clubhouse staffed by a set of guards wearing red usher jackets and stovepipe hats, like extras from the local theater group's performance of The Nutcracker. Automatically, I'm envious that the Reds' fans and squad have access to a very nice facility.

I thought that there would be a bigger crowd but the slight drizzle and the events of the previous night at NACK seemed to keep a lot of the Urawa faithful away. The last time I went out there, I had to stand behind people who decided that the best place to put their head was right in my sight line of the game. The most noteworthy thing to happen that day was watching Rodrigo Pimpao end his J-League career with a leg injury and unceremoniously (some would say ironically) get hauled off the field in the gardener's refuse cart. Sunday I got a seat in the front row and directly in the center of the field. Best seat in the house!

It was stunning to see the makeup of crowd, an eclectic mix of older couples and teenage girls that would seemingly be a more fitting audience if Akiko Wada ever teamed up with Arashi for another awful Fuji TV variety show. One older man was surprisingly excited to see big Serbian forward Ranko Despotovic, shouting out "Ranko, good luck Ranko!" Despotovic seemed far less excited to see his number one fan. Urawa had a trio of U23 internationals out on the field, Genki Haraguchi teaming with Mizuki Hamada and Shunki Takahashi to form the core of a fairly intriguing lineup. Old faces were also on display as nineteen-year veteran Nobuhisa Yamada continued to wait until Yokohama FC knocks him out with a can't-miss offer.

Omiya played the usual suspects, starting eleven guys who looked eerily similar to the awful 2009 squad that took us to fourteenth place. Captain Yuki Fukaya continued the trend of team captains using their leadership abilities to guide practice squads in B teams. He teamed with Yosuke Kataoka - the man who never fails to fail.

Early on it was Ardija who took the offensive initiative, with Hayato Hashimoto getting left wide open twice and having a one-on-one situation with the keeper. The first time he crossed to nobody in particular instead of taking a shot. The second time he eschewed the shot again and found a target along the goal line. Unfortunately it was one of the ballboys. It's comforting to know that he is as good in practice as he is in games. Jun Kanakubo came close to scoring with a rocket shot off the crossbar.

The star of the show in the first half, however, was  Despotovic. Deemed a bust by nearly every pundit in the Japanese media, the big striker played the game like it was for a championship. He got back on defense, he muscled Omiya guys off the ball, he slid for loose balls and ran non-stop for a good sixty minutes. When the linesman called him offside, he gave him an earful in Serbian, probably making him the only one in attendance who understood what he was saying.

Reds head man Mihailo Petrovic was conspicuously not in attendance. Maybe I'm the only one (not involved in personnel decisions for Urawa, anyway), but I didn't think it was a bad idea to bring Despotovic back for another go with a coach who seems to be able to... how do I put this delicately?... coach. The big guy did nearly everything right except for one thing: shoot. His targeting was way off. He did manage to get the ball in the net one time. Unfortunately for him it was the net pushed off to the side of the field and not the one located immediately behind Omiya's goalkeeper.

Halftime and the teams were knotted at 0. All the teen girls gathered around the fence near Urawa's bench and snapped shots of Haraguchi. Superfan snapped shots of Despotovic, who snarled at him. Norio Suzuki took his shirt off and it looked like he is on the Kataoka diet. The guy is ripped. He looked like a WWE wrestler. I always thought he was kinda waif-like, but no. He's deceptively a monster. Fukaya came off and it was Hayato in the back as a sideback. That was never gonna end well.

The second half saw Shintaro Shimizu come on to play at his old stomping grounds as a member of Urawa Youth. I can criticize Jun Suzuki for a lot of things, but not including Shimizu on the first team bench is not one of them. The kid doesn't look ready. In fact Masahiko Ichikawa looked better than him by a substantial margin. 

Kota Ueda had a rough day, turning the ball over on numerous occasions and failing to connect with his attacking players. It makes me sad because this time last year he was probably the best player on the team and now his confidence seems to be completely gone. I guess that's why Suzuki is the fourth-highest paid manager in Japan!

However, Yu Hasegawa surprised me with some very skillful play. He linked well and was rewarded with a very easy opening goal. Watching him in this game, I kind of understand why he was signed. He's a little more Yoshihito Fujita than Hiroshi Morita. Ichikawa was pulled off for a youth team player I don't know. I looked him up on the official website and still don't know him. He was kind of anonymous.

Urawa equalized on a set piece when Hamada managed to slip the man marking him and get his head on the ball. The slack Ardija defender? Jun Kanakubo... haha, just kidding! Yosuke Kataoka, of course! Near the end of the game, one of the few number twelves in the league, Koji Noda, managed to dribble around a stationary Omiya defender and score the winner past long-time squad keeper Keiki Shimizu. The statue-like Squirrel? Yosuke Kataoka... haha, just kidding! Yosuke Kataoka, of course! Wait, really?

Game over, but I gotta admit it was the best time I've had at a match that Urawa won. Hasegawa and Kanakubo looked good, Hayato and Kataoka looked like garbage and it didn't cost us any points in the standings! Good day indeed! I have thoughts about the slightly more important Saturday affair but I'll leave those for another post

More training matches please! Orange! HAPPPPPPPPPPPPPY!! Football!!!

Don't make me stop the bus!   

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Agent Orange: 28 Days Later

We should have known better. It's been 28 days since we began the season and a credible start has been replaced with a more lethargic and confused body of work. Ardija 2012 at times looks like a functioning unit: a nice save here, a good shot attempt there. At times it resembles a real team.

But there's a problem... we're dead from the neck up. The team can get up and down the field but it seems as if it has no coherent plan or purpose from week to week. There is no attack and there are no real answers. It's a zombie squad at the moment and it's eating away at the enthusiasm of the fans and the players.

I saw the frustration boil over today after the game. Two forty-something "supporters" shouted insults directly at Daigo Watanabe. Daigo yelled back at them. The two very brave men, secure in the knowledge that there were security guards and Yuki Fukaya in between Watanabe and their persons, egged the midfielder on to come on over and fight them. Watanabe for his part made the faux-macho move of half heartedly going towards them while being held back by the light touch of our captain. Both sides were justifiably frustrated.

I just don't get singling out one player in a case like today. Watanabe has been less than spectacular in his stint as an attacking Omiya midfielder. He's not a very intuitive or skilful player. He's overly cautious and give up a lot of space on defense. In other words, he's an awful player. But that's not his fault. He was trying his best, he just wasn't good. Again.

I'm not exactly sure who was good today. Takashi Kitano was allright. The entire backline allowed a ton of space after the first Cerezo goal. Takuya Aoki didn't offer anything on offense and was weak on defense. Rafael was a non factor. Carlinhos didn't play great. Jun Kanakubo and Cho Young Cheol were fairly impotent. Why single out one player in that situation?

I get angry when Yu Hasegawa comes in and is used as the "joker" because large, slow players aren't good in the role. I get upset when Hayato Hashimoto plays his stale, slow, unskilled game. I get infuriated when Yosuke Kataoka is allowed to bumble around for half a season making continually stupid mistakes. But that's not their fault. We know who they are. We've had years of games to show us who is a good player or who isn't. We know what roles are the best fit for each player on this team. If they can't perform in the system we have, after a while we should stop blaming them for their (numerous) shortcomings and blame the real culprit.

I'm not talking about Jun Suzuki either. Suzuki doesn't have a clue about how to play attacking soccer. After a year of watching him use ultra-cautious mistake-prone players while wasting talented guys, we knew who he was. There should be no surprises about the team not being able to function as a scoring unit. While it's a little stunning that we have yet to shut anybody out this year in any semi-competitive competition (even training matches), even that shouldn't come as a huge shock considering we built that part of our team around the less than airtight defensive players from 2008-2011 Gamba Osaka and Kawasaki Frontale.

Playing possession soccer isn't an awful idea. Playing possession soccer with Takuya Aoki as one of your two conductors and a rotating right side of less-than-stellar skill players is. And encouraging your players to shoot as little as possible is tantamount to tactical masturbation. Sure you work up a sweat, but you accomplish nothing and everybody that sees you do it is rather disgusted with the whole show.

If we are going to lay blame, it starts and ends with the dead brain leading the zombie Squirrels to another year of oblivion. It's General Manager Takeyuki Okamoto's fault. Okamoto stripped down and rebuilt this team in his and Suzuki's image. We have no attacking players on the bench. We have no team speed outside of the starting XI. We have nobody we can rely upon at crunch time to create something on their own when plan A breaks down. We are bad and boring. And Okamoto signed off on it. We're dead. We just don't know it yet.

Things that have pissed me off

1. The Nabisco Cup I have been an unapologetic, unabashed hater of the Nabisco Cup. This year is no different. I think the whole competition is a waste of time and an excuse to get key players hurt. Remember last year, when Rafael got injured at Urawa Reds and we played a game with a two top of Rodrigo Pimpao and Chikara Fujimoto? That sucked.

The midweek game at Kashima pissed me off to no end because, (a) Cerezo got the Wednesday off to prepare for Omiya while we had to travel up to Ibaraki and, (b) Suzuki opted to go with eight starters, including our whole midfield, for 90 minutes instead of throwing on the reserves and preparing for the much more important J-League match.

The best member rule is no longer being enforced as strictly as in previous years. Yokohama F Marinos, Consadole Sapporo, Shimizu S-Pulse and other teams have opted to give some of their less-used players a chance to get some time in a competitive game. We went with a "strong" team and fell flat on our faces. It's coaching malpractice to try for both wins and fail badly both times. It's criminal that we didn't use our young striker Shintaro Shimizu in a game that cost us nothing to lose.

2. International Men of Misery If I'm going to be honest, most of the officials we have had this year have called games pretty professionally. However, when we get our matches called by the International Professional referees, we seem to lose. Our three losses have come with internationals Tojo, Iida, and Nishimura directing action in the middle. Tojo called a fair game in Sendai while Junpei Iida made a mess of the opening game, penalizing both teams unfairly. In hindsight, I can't really complain about either.

Today's judge, the illustrious Yuichi Nishimura, seemed to give "the benefit of the doubt" to Cerezo today, making numerous calls around the Omiya penalty area that were dubious at best. I'm not sure about the penalty call so I'm withholding judgement on the ultimate game decider but Mr Nishimura was favoring the away team all afternoon. Omiya did end up with more free kicks at the end of the contest but all but two were set in the Omiya end of the field. Cerezo received ten in Omiya territory. 

To add insult to (fake) injuries, he allowed the Cerezo side to milk aches and pains that came on the slightest of touches, reminiscent of the abominable performance in Shizuoka last year. It was a pretty embarrassing display by an official who has a "world class" reputation.

3. 45-60 minutes In the first 45 minutes of our league games, we have allowed one goal. After halftime adjustments are made, we have allowed six. Much like last year, we come out of the tunnel and promptly capitulate to opponents. This is a pattern that has plagued us throughout the Suzuki era and will no doubt continue until GM Okamoto decides that enough is enough and puts us all out of our misery (I'm going to predict after a big loss to Urawa Reds in two weeks, although history says it will be in May at Jubilo Iwata. Three of our coaches have gone to the great coaching beyond in Shizuoka).

4. Who's Next? Even if we do fire Suzuki, and we will fire him soon, it's pretty much too late. The time to get rid of a coach is in the offseason when it's a buyers' market. Right now the list of potential coaches is thin. Chances are we will bring in a retread like Toshiya Miura to take over and play even more cautious soccer. It's likely that Okamoto (the team's former youth manager) might take the reigns himself or promote Tomoyuki Ishii to the top post. Whoever it is, it's not going to be very good.

5. House of Horror Since the start of 2011 we are 2-9-9 in our league games at home. I think we need an exorcist or a match and copious amounts of gasoline, but neither are probably realistic options. The one thing the team could have done was to scrap the old, tired, well past its sell-by date intros with the A Team music. It was cute in 2008 when we first did it but now it's getting on my nerves. And why do we keep playing the same crappy techno music that we used last year when players were coming out to start the game?

If we actually were successful with that music then OK, keep playing it. But we aren't and it sucks. My choice this year would be Trent Reznor's version of Immigrant Song, from the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but at this point I'd even settle on some old school Celine Dion if it would get us a couple more victories. In the immortal words of Twitter warrior-poet Joey Barton quoting somebody else....Hang The DJ!

Not even May and I already hate this team.

Orange! Stop taunting Daigo Watanabe, assholes!! Football!!!

Happy Easter.

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Agent Orange: One Year On

I have an admittedly conflicted relationship with Vegalta Sendai. In 2006 I was both entranced and repulsed as their fans threw a collective tantrum over a series of dubious calls in a game against Tokyo Verdy. I was less impressed with their performance against us in an Emperor's Cup game in 2009. 2010 had them up there for me as the least likeable team in the J-League. They played a rough, cynical game and their fans were kind of jerks.

2011 hit and everything changed. The team responded and came together under incredible circumstances, the fans showed a lot of grace in a horrible situation and everybody kind of took Vegalta as their (to regurgitate the cliche) Second Favorite Team. It's impossible not to admire them for that.

Four days after our third visit to Sendai and I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about the club. During the pre-match moment of silence, I honestly wasn't thinking about the people of Sendai. I was thinking about the kids at my school who were preparing for graduation. Last year, they were under their desks (or running terrorised around the hallways in tinfoil earthquake hats). I don't really know people from Sendai save the ones I see at Vegalta games. I'm sad about what happened, but it's become like Afghanistan or Haiti or someplace faraway where tragedy has occurred. I'm not sure exactly what I can do now. It was a touching moment to hear silence in a crowd of thousands. I was far less impressed with the people patting themselves on the back for starting the "Nippon" cheer first.

Saturday's game was not enjoyable on many levels, mainly because it's hard to tell how to react appropriately. Or how to judge the Vegalta fans appropriately. At about the 70th minute, Keigo Higashi went down for the second time in the game with Omiya trailing 2-1. One of the gentlemen on the Sendai side used the ambulance sound on his bullhorn and then shouted a mocking, "Are you OK?" which got a hearty chuckle out of the home faithful.

Never mind that this was the second Japanese Olympian to go down to injury in two Sendai games, or that it's fairly unlikely that someone might be milking an injury late in a game in which they are trailing, it just seemed like a dickish thing to do. At the time I was appalled. "How dare you, Sendai fan, mock an injured person after everyone was so nice to you?"  Then I felt guilty about it. Who am I to criticize somebody who went through watery hell?

Now that I think about it, doesn't he have the right to act like a dick? And don't I have the right to react to him being a dick? Or to dislike Vegalta in general? I guess I wish I could hate Vegalta without looking like I hate Sendai, or not like their fans while being glad they're around to... well, not be liked. Is it possible to love Sendai and hate Vegalta?

 

Four Games In And What Do We Know?

 

After 450 minutes of watching Omiya 2012 - including the Hangzhou Greentown pre-season game - two wins, two losses and a fluke tie tell me that we are fairly mediocre. Vegalta really showed our strengths and limitations. Early on we were successful in getting the ball out wide and crossing into the middle. We looked dangerous on the break and on corner kicks. Sendai managed to break down the defense with an offsides goal and a shot that hit the bar. That's when the game was lost.

 

There is a strain of cautiousness in the Ardija team DNA that has been around since promotion in 2005. After the early score you could see the team slowly sinking back. There were a lot of risky backpasses. Cho Young Cheol had an isolation on the wing on numerous occasions but Rafael, Daigo Watanabe or Takuya Aoki would choose to pass the ball around the defense rather than springing the speedy Korean for the attack.  

The difference between Ardija and Vegalta isn't really a matter of talent as much as it is a matter of style. Vegalta runs a hybrid of the Kashima Antlers style of play. They press hard on defense, daring officials to call fouls on them and clogging the passing lanes and getting out on the break. Their goals aren't really things of beauty, but a group of players push forward and put themselves in good positions to get rebounds. It's Bash and Dash. In 2010, it was very hard to watch because there was really no subtlety to it and it seemed as though some players were not on the same page. 2011 saw the team come together and really buy into the Makoto Teguramori system. Year three looks like being when we will see the finished product on display.

 

Their success lies in the pressing attack. During the game, many Omiya players were lifting their legs up like they had just stepped in dog crap. About 45 minutes of constant pressure cut the offensive players off from the back line and isolated the less effective ball handlers on the squad, forcing them to do something they are not well equipped to do: make decisions quickly.

 

Every Sendai player looks invested in Teguramori's way of doing things and their team looked like a complete unit on the field. It's not attractive but it's something that I kind of admire. Getting guys to buy into a dour system is difficult. Sendai seems all in.  

 

The two teams that beat Omiya this year have both been physical and quick on defense. I think that's going to be a problem all year long. Jun Suzuki wants to play a ball control style. That means long lulls in attack, lots of back passing and side passing, and lots of caution. The right side triumvirate of Kazuhiro Murakami, Aoki and Watanabe have offered little in the attack and give too much room on defense. The back line and offense have shown little chemistry but I'm less concerned with that, considering Rafael is rounding into form and Cho Young Cheol is still trying to fit in.

 

Losing to the top two teams in the division isn't that bad considering how other teams have fared. The problem seems to be that Suzuki has no Plan B and can't adapt to teams that play more physical styles. That's really what is going to be the difference between Omiya being a midtable team pushing towards challenging for the ACL and pushing towards a spot on the bus to Toyama next year.

 

Trending Now

 

I'm not crazy about a right side of Murakami and Watanabe but I can see the logic of having veterans out there with a relatively young XI. What concerns me more is the fact that Hayato Hashimoto and Yosuke Kataoka keep popping up on the bench. It happens every year that the anti-intellectual, reactionary and utterly negative stylings of these two tend to get their services called upon after shattering defeats - and Sendai should be considered shattering. I'm nervous that Hashimoto will get the call next week for Higashi and am absolutely petrified that Kataoka will come in soon after for one of our centerbacks. The earlier it happens, the less hope our team has of doing anything except surviving.

 

Too early to be this negative, but I've seen this show before.

 

Orange! Scared shitless about the next 31 games!! Football!!!

 

Rafael, where have you gone?

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Agent Orange: Carlinhos' Way

Because I have no idea how to write about yesterday in a consistent, flowing bit of prose, I'm opting to write in the "diary" format. Many writers better than myself have used the diary format to put out interesting articles. Ben Mabley has a series out about the Club World Cup that is both longer and more interesting than the actual event, but I digress. Here goes... and I'm sorry.

It's raining or cloudy when I wake up. I don't really know which because I am too damn lazy to look out the window. That is pretty damn lazy. I bought a ticket but I'm debating whether or not to go to the game because I feel lousy and it is going to be broadcast at 7pm on TeleTama anyway. It's a chance, however, to see a team who I have never seen before: Hangzhou Greentown, headed by the owl-like Takeshi Okada. Barring a shock run in the Emperor's Cup, or a first round match up with a University team who has green uniforms, Omiya won't play another team in green this year. I wolf down some Costco frozen pizza - delightful with a dash of tabasco - and head out for NACK5.

1pm and the lineups are out and I'm considering whether or not to turn around and go home. The good news is that all five of the new signings will start. The bad news is that Hayato Hashimoto is playing as the shadow striker behind Yu Hasegawa, and Daigo Watanabe is starting on the right. Good to see that coach Jun Suzuki is in midseason form.

Now I'm in Omiya and headed towards the Orange Square club shop. I'm debating now about buying a season seat before or after the game... or kind of at all. I made up my mind during the week that I was going to buy a season pass, but I'm looking at the lineup and having second thoughts.

At Orange Square. I'm buying. My problem is that I had to get another ticket on the last day of the 2011 season because my membership card doesn't work on the scanners. During the awful Kashima Antlers game in November, which actually killed a small part of my soul, I had been delayed a good ten to fifteen minutes because my card didn't work. I was asked if I had my receipt or other proof that I had a season seat and I said Yes. I then held up my membership card and season seat card, which absolutely baffled the girl and her supervisor for some reason. I guess it was my fault that I don't carry around receipts for things that I bought eight months ago.

I buy my ticket. The people at Orange Square are very helpful with my member card problem and set up a new membership for me. I wish the rest of the team worked as well as the ladies at Orange Square. Arguably the best part of the club.

I'm walking through Omiya Park. In terms of urban stadia, it's the best walk in Japan. Shizuoka has the unique mountain setting around Outsourcing but it's uphill and you need a car (or much better lungs) to get there. Omiya has the turtle pond, the shrine, the strange stone edifice right outside of the stadium... much better than anything else I've seen in Japan.

Up to the gate, nobody around. Great! Oh wait, I have to go around the stadium to Gate 2 because counting is hard, I suppose. Full house. I can see the strictness.

There's 7000 people tops. Thank God they didn't ask me for a receipt for my ticket.

One thing you might not know about me is that I absolutely hate assholes who wear team gear for teams that aren't playing that day. During the Fan Festa event at the end of January, some tool was wearing a Yokohama F Marinos scarf. Great scarf! It would look even better in, you know, Yokohama. Or shoved up the guy's ass.

Anyhow, I get to Gate 2 and the first thing I see is two fucking morons smoking and standing around in their Urawa Reds parkas. One of them is Japanese and the other is a foreign guy who has the build of Fred Flintstone. Of course a foreign guy shows up to NACK5 in an Urawa parka. I mutter under my breath and walk on, hoping the douchebag doesn't come up to me and start talking about how much better the Reds fans are.

Fred Flintstone turns around. It's not Fred Flintstone at all. It's new Urawa coach Mihailo Petrovic. Yabba dabba doo! I still think he's a dick for coming to an Omiya game in Urawa gear, or just for taking the Urawa job.

I'm at my seat now. Hangzhou Greentown has a travelling group of two supporters. They also have some really ugly uniforms, which remind me of the times that I had to drop stuff off for my mother to the old ladies in my neighborhood. I swear in every one of those ladies' houses they had stale, hard ribbon candy in glass candy dishes. Every time I tried to grab a piece, the whole assortment of candy would come out of the dish in one big blob.  

Talking of uniforms, Goal.com hates Omiya's this year but seems to like things with lines and waves that don't really make sense. I think that the Albirex Niigata away jersey is the best, followed by Shimizu S-Pulse and their globe shirts, and ours. Every time I look at Sanfrecce Hiroshima's uniform, I can see a sailboat if I relax my eyes. Urawa's are bad because they have the dyslexic "energy drink" sponsor plastered on the front, along with the Greek restaurant badge. FC Tokyo also has a really awful uniform compared to the nice one they had last year. And LifeVal sounds like a feminine hygeine product.

Game time. I'm already sad watching Watanabe send a cross over the endline. Hayato is already walking. Has he taken up the mantle of Chikara Fujimoto? Ten minutes in and Hayato muffs a wide open chance, bouncing a header off the turf and ricocheting the ball over the crossbar. Don't think he could accomplish that again if he tried.

Greentown's former Kawasaki Frontale player Renatinho looks dangerous. It's getting distressing watching him muscle Kazuhiro Murakami, Watanabe, and Takuya Aoki or Hayato off the ball at the same time. The ball is predominantly on the right side of the field. When it goes to the left, Takumi Shimohira and Cho Young Cheol are showing flashes of skill but the ending isn't there. The left side is all new players and the right side is all returnees. Watching this game, you wouldn't know it.

Hangzhou opens the scoring when Murakami and Watanabe fail to close on Fan Xiaodong who sends a nice cross to the hurdling Wang Song. I'm not sure if I'm getting the names right. All the names are on the scoreboard in kanji, which is confusing as hell considering you have Japanese, Chinese and Korean players on the field.

Hangzhou is getting most of the early calls - not surprising considering that today's ref is the noxious Hiroyuki Kimura. Hangzhou goes in studs up. Foul for us. Second one is even worse and gives Omiya a free kick right outside the box. Hangzhou is arguing and pushing, a lot like the language students in my house. I really want to win this game because I don't like the guys in my house. Why?

1. Because when they talk to each other in their room they scream and it comes through the wall in a form that sounds like the adults in Peanuts cartoons.

2. Because they can't take a dump without crapping all over the toilet seats.

I don't know if any of them are Hangzhou fans but I like to think they are... unless Hangzhou wins. Carlinhos gets speared down, no call.

Halftime. Outside of some flashes from Carlinhos and the left side wings, we look like a team headed to J2. Yosuke Kataoka is on the bench, always a threat to come in and make everything worse. All the other subs would be preferable to either Watanabe or Hashimoto.

I move to the supporters' section and stand with one of my fellow road travellers. We talk about how bad Hayato Hashimoto is. I'm glad I'm not alone in this thought.

Same lineup for the start of the second half. Carlinhos is beginning to take the game over. You saw him doing it the first half but now he is everywhere on the field. The ball is going away from the right side and is firmly on the left. The short passing game is really good but the ball seems to end up with Murakami, Hashimoto or Watanabe. Carlinhos takes his first shot of the game and misses wide but pumps his arm in the air in the universal sign to Make Some Noise! 

The supporters have a Carlinhos chant that is sung to the tune of La Cucaracha. The original song is about about a cockroach who can't move because he loses his back legs. Not your finest moment, supporters.

Sub time. Keigo Higashi comes on for Hashimoto. A game-changer. Three minutes later, Cho Young Cheol comes across and puts in a lovely shot past the keeper. I hope that Jun Suzuki is not toying with the idea of playing Keigo as the Joker, like he did with Naoki Ishihara last year. I'm still stunned that Hashimoto got the start over Kota Ueda or Jun Kanakubo. I don't know why Rafael is out and now I'm wondering if we will see him anytime soon. I haven't mentioned Yu Hasegawa up to now because he looks pretty bad. I bestow the name Hiroshi Morita Junior on him, even though he does seem to work much harder than our former striker ever did. Hasegawa reminds me a bit of Yoshihito Fujita.

Goal two comes on a corner in which Yuki Fukaya dives for a header and deflects the ball across goal to a sliding Cho. I don't remember seeing any goals like that before. Omiya is controlling the game.

Renatinho is headed off the field. I don't know what he did at Kawasaki to get himself banished to the C-League but he is a good player. Kim Young Gwon is on for us and the team is pushing much farther forward now. Ueda gets a few moments on the wing and his play with Carlinhos looks dangerous already. Shintaro Shimizu gets a minute of play time to create something. He doesn't. 

Game over. Cho is very good at speaking Japanese which surprises me a bit. He's been here five years so it shouldn't, but it still does. Carlinhos gets a bit lost and doesn't make it to the semi-annual (God, I hope not... please at least seven this year) victory bow in front of the home supporters. Oh well, I'm glad I went and I'm home just in time to watch the replay and get mad again at Hayato Hashimoto.

Quick Thoughts

1. Carlinhos is better than Ueda.

2. I don't think Aoki is better than Ueda, but he's bigger and since Carlinhos is small it makes some sense to have Aoki in the team. However, Watanabe is small and nowhere near the player that Ueda is.

3. The only player on the team that I would like to see less in a game than Hayato Hashimoto is Yosuke Kataoka. That being said, I'm glad we don't have a situation like the one going on with the NBA team I follow, the Los Angeles Clippers. For a long time the Clippers have been the laughing stock of pro sports. This year, they have vastly improved and have much higher expectations. There still are some guys that aren't really good players though and one of them, Ryan Gomes, made a horrendous decision that cost the team a victory against league power San Antonio Spurs. After the game, Gomes and his family received death threats from "fans" of the Clippers. I don't ever want to see Kataoka or Hayato play for Omiya, but c'mon... death threats? That's too far. 

 

4. Kosuke Kikuchi and Takumi Shimohira looked good together. Kim and Shimohira seemed a little more erratic. I liked Shimohira's speed and short passing game but the crosses and finishing need work.

5. The reserves also beat Greentown 4-2 earlier in the day, Jun Kanakubo and Masahiko Ichikawa scoring two goals apiece.

Orange! Happier!! Football!!! Cho gets the hero.

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Agent Orange: Taking You To Greentown

The latest instalment of the ridiculously prestigious Saitama City Cup this year sees the two-time defending cup champion - yes, that's our boys - take on their most mysterious opponent ever, Chinese Super League side Hangzhou Greentown. Greentown got themselves in the Japanese press by hiring Japan's 2010 World Cup coach and national treasure Takeshi Okada. While most of the players on Greentown (or even the team itself) might be a mystery to you and I, they do have a couple of links to the J-League and to Omiya Ardija players past and present.

First, let's dive into the history of Hangzhou Greentown.

Wikipedia advises that Greentown began as Zhejiang Green city soccer club in 1998. The following year, like Omiya, they would start their life in the professional league ranks. 2001 saw them buy the charter and starting lineup of Jilin Aodong (now Yanbian FC) and move up to the Second Division of Chinese football. Greentown would miss out on promotion to the top level after a controversial 6-0 defeat to Changchun Yatai FC, as well as other mysterious losses. It would be revealed later that members of the team were taking bribes to throw contests.

After a several tumultuous years in the Second Division and numerous name changes, Greentown would in 2006 achieve promotion with a second place finish, just as Omiya had done a couple years earlier. A dour 2009 season saw the team finish in fifteenth and avoid relegation only due to another gambling scandal involving Chengdu Blades and Guangzhou FC. 2010 would however be the most successful year for the squad, with a fourth place finish and a spot in the ACL.    

Takeshi Okada became the surprise hiring as the team's new coach in the close of the 2011 season, after being linked heavily to Ardija's crosstown rival - and three-time Saitama City Cup losers - Urawa Reds. Immediately after his signing, Japanese tabloids were abuzz over who Okada would take with him to China. Former Kawasaki Frontale striker Juninho, legendary Gamba Osaka conductor Yasuhiro Endo and our own Rafael were all linked with moves to the nouveau riche Chinese Super League squad. Instead, Okada opted for other veterans of J-League campaigns. 

Mazola is speedy Brazilian midfielder who comes out of the FC Sao Paulo system and may even have run into new Omiya signing Carlinhos there in between loans out to other clubs. He spent 2011 at Urawa and showed signs of real talent, but never really seemed to fit in with the giant Japanese squad. This was illustrated in a controversial 3-2 loss against Vissel Kobe in which Mazola scored a game-tying goal only to see his teammates rush over and mob Yosuke Kashiwagi, leaving the mercurial dribbler to perform a painful and pathetic celebration alone in front of the home supporters (check the video at around the 4-minute mark).

 

Renatinho is a controversial striker who looked to be the heir-apparent to Juninho at Kawasaki. He scored 21 goals in 56 appearances for Frontale and thrived when he was the main target, but a failure to blend with Juninho and some outbursts during the middle of 2010 led to a parting of the ways. Still young at 24, Renatinho looks to get his career going again and possibly move on to bigger and better things. An Omiya connection is that he was teamed with current Squirrels Kazuhiro Murakami and Kosuke Kikuchi during his time in Kawasaki.

Jeong Dong Ho spent last year on loan to J2 side Gainare Tottori after two years of barely seeing time at Yokohama F Marinos. Ho is on the fringes of Korea's U23 squad and so probably is well known to Omiyalympians Cho Young Cheol and Kim Young Gwon.

Kim Dong Jin is a veteran of the Korean National squad who might be best known for scoring the winning goal in a 2008 Olympic match against Honduras. Formerly, the left back played with ex-Omiya midfielder Lee Ho for Zenit St Petersburg.

Du Wei is a big centerback who joined Greentown in 2011 after an extensive stint at C-League powerhouse Shanghai Shenhua. Du appeared in the 2002 World Cup and serves as captain for both the Greentown and the Chinese National Team. He has no links to any current Omiya players but was a teammate of our Honduran mega-flop Saul "Speedy" Martinez. 

On the coaching side, Takeshi Ono is Okada's right hand man and a former manager of Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Ono took over Sanfrecce in 2003, one year after former Omiya captain Chikara Fujimoto had helped crash the team onto the jagged rocks of relegation before bolting to Nagoya. Ono stayed until the start of 2006, when he would be canned after a slow start. Later that same year his replacement's replacement would join the club: a man named Mihailo Petrovic, current coach of (three-time Saitama City Cup losers) Urawa Reds.

Hangzhou has taken part in a few training matches this year against J-League teams, beating Shizuoka sides Shimizu S-Pulse 3-2 and Jubilo Iwata 2-1, as well as playing a pair of games versus J2 side Kyoto Sanga (a 2-2 tie and a 6-0 loss).

What about us? We will go into next weekend's game with questions surrounding the identity of our front six. The Js Goal website and El Golazo have both reported that new midfield signee Carlinhos has an injured right foot. The extent of the injury is unknown but it's likely we won't see the midfielder in the Greentown game.

Goal king Rafael is also out with an injury to his groin. The target man has found the net in both the last two SCC matches and is now looking to overtake Bayern Munich's Lukas Podolski as nothing less than the all-time leading scorer in the Saitama City Cup. Kim, Cho and Keigo Higashi all have midweek Olympic qualifiers and are currently training with their Olympic squads. I imagine all three will see time in the game as substitutes.

In the training match against Tokushima Vortis, Jun Suzuki opted to go with something close to my previously-mentioned "Fucking Dope" lineup. Yu Hasegawa started in place of Rafael as the lone top striker, being aided by a trio of Hayato Hashimoto, Jun Kanakubo and Daigo Watanabe [oh man that hurts to write - F]. It's likely that Watanabe and Hashimoto will get the starts in the game [ditto - F].

Hashimoto currently (and shockingly) is tied for second among all-time scorers in SCC history. A brace could see the overly cautious midfielder as the goal king for the competition -  and would also provide another indication that the Mayans were correct in predicting 2012 as the year in which the world will come to an end. 

Among the midfielders Takuya Aoki looks to be the only sure starter going into the game. The backline probably will see Yuki Fukaya and Kosuke Kikuchi team in the middle of the defense with Takumi Shimohira paired either with Kazuhiro Murakami or Daisuke Watabe to form a back four. Takashi Kitano starts in goal.

If conventional wisdom holds true, Hangzhou should be a very physical test for Suzuki's team. It will be interesting to see how tight the game is called and if the official in charge is more inclined towards Omiya as a national representative or Okada as a national hero. I'd venture to guess the latter, but hey, that's just my paranoid mind (and two years of being at the bottom of the league in fouls received) taking over.

Bring on Greentown! Orange! Happy!! Football!!! Until Yosuke Kataoka fucks it all up, of course!!!!

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Agent Orange: Two Left Feet

For all the mysteries surrounding the lineup choices of Omiya coach Jun "Fucking Dope" Suzuki, there are some things that we do know.
 
1. Takashi Kitano, Rafael and Takuya Aoki are pretty certain to be in the starting lineup against FC Tokyo on opening day. During Suzuki's reign, all three have been consistent starters, only missing because of injury or suspension. Both Aoki and Kitano started every game last year.
 
2. New guys get shots. Unless you are 18 years old, chances are you will get an extended look during your first year with Jun Suzuki. Some numbers to back that up:
 
2010 

• Norio Suzuki  19 games
• Lee Chun Soo  16 games
• Lee Ho 15 games

2011 

• Kota Ueda  31 games
• Keigo Higashi 27 games
• Daigo Watanabe 23 games
• Kim Young Gwon 27 games
• Yosuke Kataoka 15 games
• Rodrigo Pimpao  9 games

 
Chances are that in 2012 Cho Young Cheol, Kosuke Kikuchi, Takumi Shimohira, Yu Hasegawa, Masahiko Ichikawa and Carlinhos will get all the chances in the world. 
 
3. There will be guys who don't play. Suzuki makes it pretty clear when he is not that enamored with players. He hinted at not being all that high on Chikara Fujimoto at the end of 2010, when the longtime captain was benched in favor of Daisuke Watabe for the two final matches of the season. He then went and signed a replacement for Fujimoto in the form of Keigo Higashi. Mato Neretljak saw his minutes curtailed during the long Nabisco Cup break when Shusuke Tsubouchi took his spot. An Yong Hak lost his position after, ironically, a strong showing in the World Cup. 
 
I guess what I'm saying in a roundabout way is this: if you are Kota Ueda, you should watch your back. For some inexplicable reason, Suzuki soured on his key playmaker near the end of last year, benching him in favor of the hardworking but limited Shin Kanazawa. The most recent deal made during the offseason has brought in FC Sao Paulo conductor Carlinhos, whom I know little about except for the fact that he's small, getting paid a lot, and Cerezo Osaka seemed to really want him. 
 
There have been some questions about who Carlinhos is going to compete against in the center of the field, with the presumption being that Aoki would be replaced. I think that's wrong. It's going to be Ueda. We've seen that Suzuki rates Aoki while showing signs of squish about the former Jubilo man. 
 
More importantly though, it's about the feet. Both Carlinhos and Ueda are reliant on their left foot. And conventional wisdom in the J-League is that if you are left-footed (and not a striker), you play on the left.
 
Weekly Soccer Digest projected starting lineups for all eighteen teams in J1. Of the 72 left side positions (centerback, sideback, center mid and wing) over forty were predicted to be left-footed players. The 72 right side positions only provided starting slots for three left-footed players (two were midfield/striker hybrids in the Mihailo Petrovic system, Yosuke Kashiwagi and Koji Morisaki, and one was Shunsuke Nakamura). 
 
I guess what I'm saying in a roundabout way is that, unless you are Shunsuke Nakamura, you aren't going to play on the right with your left foot affliction. As a left footer, I'm clearly offended [me too - F]. 
 
I hope that Suzuki finds a creative way to get all of his best players on the field. Past precedent suggests that I should not get my hopes up. 
 
What To Expect When You're Not Expecting Much
 
I think Suzuki will start out with a 4-2-3-1. I don't think it's going to be 4-4-2 considering that we don't have many strikers on the squad. I'd like to see this lineup on opening day:

GK Kitano

LSB Shimohira

LCB Kim

RCB Kikuchi

RSB Watabe

LCM Carlinhos

RCM Aoki

LW Cho

RW Higashi

UT Ueda

FW Rafael

 
I think on paper this is our strongest attacking lineup. There's size, speed and coverage against an FC Tokyo squad that will be playing their third game in a week. Unfortunately, I know there's not a chance in hell of seeing this lineup on opening day. Instead I think the lineup is going to look more like this:

GK Kitano

LSB Kim

LCB Kikuchi

RCB Fukaya

RSB Murakami

LCM Carlinhos

RCM Aoki

LW Cho

RW Watanabe

UT Higashi

FW Rafael

 
In the past, Suzuki has used Kazuhiro Murakami and Yuki Fukaya like a security blanket. He's not afraid to pull them for a couple of games but he always seems to stay very close to the veteran duo. It's pretty much a lock that all four foreign players will get on the field. Where Kim plays is the big question. Hey, just for kicks:
 
The Fucking Dope

GK Kitano

LSB Murakami

LCB Kikuchi

RCB Kataoka

RSB Watanabe

LCM Carlinhos

RCM Aoki

LW Hashimoto

RW Cho

FW Hasegawa

FW Rafael
 
I know that once during training camp in Miyazaki Suzuki will trot out a lineup like this against a girls' junior high school and the team will look moderately reasonable. I know we will see a lineup like this at least once during the season and I will be angry before, during and after the game. Maybe Rafael gets injured and it's Masahiko Ichikawa, maybe Shin does a start for Carlinhos. Whatever. I know this because it happens every year.

It's why I think we will finish in our normal spot between twelfth and fourteenth. We have the talent to push up near the top half, but for whatever reason the cockroaches on our team always survive the atomic devastation of their bad performances and live to scatter around in the crevices of NACK5. 
 
I do like the uniforms though!
 
Orange! Happy!! Uniforms!!!

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Agent Orange: Awaiting Year Eight

It's been about two months since I've written and there has been a reason for that. In mid-November I was sitting in the supporters' section for the Kashima Antlers game in a very cold rainstorm, after being questioned for a good five minutes about the validity of my season seat pass. Earlier in the day we had locked up our position in J1 so I had hoped that maybe Jun Suzuki would dip into the bench and shake things up.

Instead he opted for a very "defensive oriented" squad with attack-minded players like Naoki Ishihara and Kota Ueda left off the starting XI for Lee Chun Soo and Shin Kanazawa. Yosuke Kataoka, Daigo Watanabe and Hayato Hashimoto retained their starting spots despite putting in consistently substandard performances. No starts for young guys like Shintaro Shimizu or Taisuke Miyazaki despite the game being meaningless. The sixteenth home game of the season came and went and we blew a fortunate lead for the umpteenth time. I had pretty much lost interest in the 2011 edition of the squad.

I had planned on going down to Sanfrecce Hiroshima the following weekend but decided to pull out at the last minute because I didn't really want to spend more money on the team. Again, I was hoping that with Rafael ruled out maybe Naoki or some of the kids would get a start... no. Instead Suzuki doubled down on the mediocrity and opted for erstwhile captain Chikara Fujimoto to go along with a squad that rivaled 2007 in terms of negativity. Long story short, Kataoka commited two awful fouls which led to him being shown the door and Sanfrecce gaining a two-goal lead on their way to an easy win.

The last game of the season against Ventforet Kofu was enjoyable because Chun Soo was out with injury and Kataoka was out with stupidity. And I was angry. We had possibly our best outing of the year because we had eleven guys who just played and attacked. Seventeen games it took the squad to just play good, attractive, attacking football. I just sat there wondering why we couldn't do that all year... and then Chikara came in. For whatever reason, the team stopped attacking on their own and focused on getting him one last goal. The end of game ceremonies all centered on him which, while not surprising, kind of annoyed me.

Since then I have held my tongue because a lot of people felt sad over losing our "captain". I am not in that camp. I'll say it out loud. I'm glad Chikara Fujimoto is gone. And I don't care who knows about it. I'm also glad that Lee Chun Soo is gone. If that makes me less of a fan, so be it - but there was a cancer on our team that started with those two killing our offense every chance they got.

It's been a good offseason for the most part, if only for the fact that we've subtracted some guys who were more concerned with themselves over the team, but I'm not sure if we have enough to do much more than we did last year. I guess I like the Cho Young Cheol signing - combining him with Ueda and Keigo Higashi gives us a very good midfield on paper and an extreme upgrade over the Fujimoto, Kanazawa, Hashimoto and Kohei Tokita midfield of 2009 that we all complained about. I know nothing about Carlinhos except that Cerezo Osaka seemed to want him a lot, which is good if you look at Martinez and Amaral as examples of central mids they targeted in the past.

Kosuke Kikuchi adds another central defender, Takumi Shimohira adds another sideback and Yu Hasegawa gets to be the guy who makes spot starts for Rafael. I'm angry that we lost Ishihara because our coach is a fucking dope, but you know it's probably better that he's gone because he wasn't gonna play... because our coach is a fucking dope.

I guess the team is better but deep down, I have a sick feeling that it will take one bad loss before Kataoka is stinking up our back line and a couple more for Hayato to absolutely clog up our offensive flow like a Roppongi toilet after happy hour. The news that Kim Young Gwon has extended his contract is good because although he might not be a great player at least he takes up one of the back four spots. That narrows the odds of Kataoka starting.

Anyway, it's been two months and I'm still trying to find motivation for 2012. I'm seriously debating whether or not I'll buy a season seat.

Happy New Year.

Orange, blah blah blah, hey opening up against FC Tokyo at home! Like our chances!! Not fucking really!!!

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Agent Orange's Safari Planet

Two years ago in Kobe, I had a now legendary encounter with a Humboldt penguin outside of Home's Stadium. When it happened, I thought it was a once in a lifetime event. Really, what were the odds of repeating the experience of coming across a small polar creature standing in a wading pool outside of a football ground in the sweltering heat of a Japanese summer?

Gloriously, I was mistaken. Outside of historic (trans. old and crappy) Todoroki stadium on Thursday, Kawasaki Frontale was putting on a fan event complete with food, souvenir booths and an event stage with an adjoining animal pen. Oooh! Animals! I'm in!

There was a sign advertising a petting ground for large, sedated creatures that resembled giant gophers. It turned out they were capybara. If you are not familiar with capybaras (as I was not until I perused Wikipedia), they happen to be the largest rodents in the world. Native to South America, the capybara are noted for their gentle nature and their ability to remain underwater for long periods of time. These cousins of the squirrel can reach up to 100kg in weight, much like Vegalta Sendai midfielder Diego, and eat as much as 3.5kg of grass a day. Very nice animals, kind of similar to an old labrador retriever. I definitely want one laying around my room. 

Two things surprised me about capybaras, though. First, petting them is kind of like petting a Christmas tree. They have long, coarse, quill-like hairs covering their body. Second, they really don't have any smell... unlike your average Tokyo salaryman, who has perfected the art of offending, confounding and nauseating with an odiforous and pungent blend of cigarettes, sweat and toilet stench, topped off with a hint of desperation and a touch of garlic. A veritable potpourri of BO!

If the capybaras had been the only animals I encountered at Todoroki, my day would have been complete. However, only a mere stall away, another surprise awaited. Not one but TWO majestic Humboldt penguins stood around grooming themselves and taking in everything around them, like a young Tom Jones accepting a pair of undergarments from a middle-aged temptress in the second row. 

If I had had any doubts about the result of the upcoming match with Frontale, they were crushed in an instant. Up until that point, Omiya was undefeated in games before which I had seen a Humboldt penguin... the stats stood at a resounding 1-0-0 if you are keeping score at home. Victory was in the bag, even though the last time I visited Kawasaki we lost badly, Klemen Lavric ended his Japan career with a petulant ten-minute performance and a seagull crapped on me right as the final whistle sounded. I don't know if the good people of this little Kanagawa burg felt bad and decided to make it up to me with a menagerie of creatures. Maybe they did. I was already satisfied with my trip and nestled in, awaiting the game. 

Wait! What's this? Kawasaki had one more surprise before the opening whistle! An alpaca! Hmmm, would the alpaca throw off the good mojo of my visit with the capybaras and the penguins? Are alpacas good luck or bad luck? As I watched, it got perilously close to keeper Takashi Kitano, who couldn't decide whether to pet the fuzzy creature or run as far away as possible. Luckily, the South American fur machine found the Todoroki turf more to his/her liking (I apologize for my lack of detail regarding the alpaca's gender but I didn't get close enough to check the pipes) and deposited some of Kanagawa's finest grass into its belly. What a delightful little beast! 

As for the game itself, absolutely horrifying. A goal in the first minute combined with 89 minutes of defensive play. Thank God we don't have to do that again... do we? 

Well enough of that. Capybaras! Penguins! And alpacas! In the words of immortal gay dude George Takei, oooh myyy! 

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