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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S-Pulse Preview

Pretty quiet week for Omiya, yes? Well OK, maybe not. During that time we've had the first glimpse of Zdenko Verdenik's way ahead via the draw at Sanfrecce Hiroshima, an astonishing 4-3 Nabisco Cup loss to Albirex Niigata with an experimental line-up that included two full debuts, and strong indications that foreign stars Rafael and Kim Young Gwon are both set to leave the club - news stories that have been greeted with shock and disbelief by many Squirrels fans. Lots to get our teeth into, then, ahead of Saturday's J1 match with Shimizu S-Pulse at NACK5.

The Hiroshima game was curiously similar to some of the Greek performances in Euro2012, with Omiya simply hanging on against a dominant attacking team. But hang on they did. Ardija offered virtually nothing as an attacking threat, but on the other hand they worked incessantly on the defensive side of their game. That combined with something of an off-day by Sanfrecce forwards Hisato Sato and Naoki Ishihara eventually led to Omiya picking up a very hard-earned 0-0 draw. 

Would this Ardija team ever have scored a goal of their own? Probably not - Daisuke Watabe came closest to finding the net and as long-term Squirrels watchers will know he has the air of a young man destined never to score throughout the whole of his pro career. Would a Jun Suzuki team have avoided defeat? Also, probably not: Verdenik's predecessor was never able to coax such concentrated work from his players. Was it pretty? Well, definitely not, but it was a start - and it was the sort of gutsy, organised performance that a team wanting to avoid relegation needs to produce.

And a gutsy organised performance was definitely not what was on display from Omiya at Albirex Niigata in midweek. Already eliminated from the Nabisco Cup, the last fixture in the group stage of the tournament gave Zdenko Verdenik the chance to experiment with some of the more remote areas of his squad. The new coach gave full debuts to goalkeeper Keiki Shimizu - a first ever appearance in the Ardija team, after having been a squad member since... 2008 - and young striker Shintaro Shimizu, who previously had under his belt only a handful of minutes as a substitute. It is fair to say that both players will remember the evening.

Shintaro might have tired badly towards the end of the game but by that time his contribution had been well and truly made, scoring with a neat shot from outside the area in the fifteenth minute and then again from close range early in the second half. Sandwiched in between those goals was a rare score from Daigo Watanabe, meaning that Omiya were miraculously 3-0 up with less than 50 minutes played.

After that Kim Young Gwon came off the bench and while it would be unfair to blame the young Korean for what followed, it was from there vertiginously downhill. Omiya's defence underwent a total collapse and there was a strange predictability to the final moments of the match, when Musashi Suzuki first equalised and then scrambled in a fourth goal for the Swans. It was hard not to feel sorry for Keiki Shimizu, who must have come off the field wondering if he had played his first and last match.

Meanwhile his more experienced team-mates Kim and Rafael certainly do seem to have pulled on an orange shirt for the last time. Kim has reportedly already left Japan to sign for a C-League club, while Rafael is widely expected to join former Kashima Antlers coach Oswaldo de Oliveira at Botafogo. These are major players in the Squirrels squad - Kim has just been confirmed in the South Korean Olympic squad and Rafael was last season's top scorer - and the likely departure of the tall Brazilian in particular has provoked an emotional response from Omiya supporters. He is a hero to many members of the Squirrel Nation, especially for a string of match-winning displays against Urawa Reds.

So, do these moves represent courageous, clear-thinking management on the part of Verdenik, or are they more examples of hopelessly misguided decision-making, Ardija-style? I'll restrict my remarks to the footballing and necessarily leave out the financial, as so many aspects of the money side of things are unknown, but I will say this: I think it's good that Rafael and Kim Young Gwon look set to be leaving Omiya Ardija.

He might be on the way out, but Rafael can consider himself unlucky in the way that he has been treated. Being honest, he's a poor chance-taker. It's not his fault that Jun Suzuki felt him to be the main goalscorer at the club when, in spite of the player's ability turn it on for the Saitama Derby, all the evidence says that his skills lie in other areas. Suzuki pushed him into leading the line in a 4-5-1 when a deeper-lying role would be far more appropriate. The departure of Rafael will free up a place in the squad for Verdenik to bring in a new striker who can better complement the other available players and has a better scoring record. 

Kim Young Gwon arrived with a reputation as a promising youngster capable of playing as a central defender or left back. Occasionally he's been a danger from set pieces and Kim also has an eye for a long pass upfield, but when it comes to his main responsibilities he just hasn't been able to fit in. It's sad to say it but Kim stands out in the Omiya defence as an unreliable figure - and the general standard of players in this part of the team is really not great. Jun Suzuki never found his preferred back four and one reason for this must be that Kim has been a disappointment at Ardija: Verdenik's next job will be to strengthen his squad with a more consistent, first choice replacement.

So Saturday's game against S-Pulse will perhaps see a continuation of the new coach's stop-gap Squirrels that performed a smash-and-grab in Hiroshima. Some will be hoping that Shintaro Shimizu gets a chance after shining in midweek, because elsewhere in the squad there is no-one who can be described as a dangerous goalscorer. Another tightly defensive approach looks to be on the cards, then, as Zdenko Verdenik continues to bring about the changes he hopes will lead to Omiya's J1 survival. 

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Kobe Preview

In May the residents of Furtho Towers decamped to Saitama for our annual visit to the mother country and this included a couple of trips to see the Squirrels in action. Leaving to one side for a moment the results and performances against Consadole Sapporo and Kawasaki Frontale, it was interesting to attend live games and so get a sense of perspective on Omiya's play that TV or the internet cannot provide.

Between those matches and the time of writing ahead of Wednesday's Nabisco Cup fixture against Vissel Kobe, Ardija have of course sacked coach Jun Suzuki. A balanced view of his two years in charge at NACK5 has already been provided on these pages by Agent Orange, but with Suzuki's departure it's only fair to acknowledge that a key influence on the Consadole and Frontale games is no longer on the scene.

I don't think it's controversial to observe that that's a good thing. Playing at home against teams who were themselves mediocre at best, it was plain to see that late Suzuki-era Omiya were a shockingly poor proposition. This underlined a comment I made in the aftermath of the defeat by Cerezo Osaka - that Ardija would go down this year unless the coach left. No-one can yet say if Zdenko Verdenik is the man to take the Squirrels forward, but for the time being the veteran Slovenian must represent a more positive option than sticking with his predecessor. 

So what were the gloomy realities exposed by those two matches in May? I think there were four main points...

1. Suzuki's "possession soccer" had no aim

The most important thing to say is that the coach's ethos had throttled the life out of Omiya as an attacking force. Ignore what's implied by match statistics about numbers of shots (an ostensibly healthy fifteen against Sapporo, thirteen against Kawasaki) and believe me when I say that Ardija were never, ever going to score from open play in either game. What goal attempts that there were occurred either from set pieces, such as Kim Young Gwon's header from a corner to make it 1-0 in the Consadole match, or improvised snap shots when opposition defenders were slow to close down on a loose ball.

In other words, throughout 180 minutes of play Suzuki's possession soccer never once led to the direct creation of a goalscoring opportunity. But given that Omiya did actually have the ball for a lot of the time, what the hell were they doing with it if not making chances? The answer is that they were passing, from side to side and back again, in what looked for all the world like an endless training ground routine. Passing, passing and more passing.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with passing and there's nothing wrong with possession. They're both good things, absolutely necessary for winning football matches. But under Suzuki Ardija seemed to have evolved into a team for which possession was the actual purpose of playing and getting the ball close to the opponent's goal was therefore the height of foolhardiness.

2. Omiya never had any width

This one was strange, but so ingrained in the Squirrels' approach that it must have come as a directive from the coach. If ever any Omiya player had the ball in a wide position they would without exception cut inside or lay the ball off to a team-mate. Suzuki's style was incredibly, absurdly compressed into the middle of the field. Any Omiya supporter looking for players like Cho Young Cheol or Daisuke Watabe to make runs down the line to send in crosses would have been very disappointed. Any time it looked like this might have happened, well... it didn't. Just passing, passing and more passing.

3. Omiya were very easy to defend against

The net result of the possession-related approach and the lack of width is that opposition defences - even those of teams as run-of-the-mill as Sapporo and Kawasaki - have a very straightforward ninety minutes when they play Ardija. Omiya's endless, directionless passing game means that even the most average back line will have an age to organise itself and reduce the amount of space in which Cho, Keigo Higashi and Rafael can operate (it's hardly surprising that the latter two players have had such disappointing seasons if they never get any chance to show what they can do).

Life was made more comfortable for visiting defenders by the fact that only Carlinhos would ever look up and try to switch play with a longer pass. This coupled with the Squirrels' refusal to use the wings as attacking outlets meant that there was an absolute predictability to their play. Consa and Frontale knew that Omiya wouldn't use an overlap and so were able to concentrate their efforts on packing the middle, which of course reduced yet further the room available to Ardija's front players. 

4. Omiya's defensive organisation is not the issue...

It will obviously be interesting to see what changes caretaker boss Takeyuki Okamoto makes for the Vissel game on Wednesday night, especially given Zdenko Verdenik's press conference remarks about improving the organisation of the defence. On the evidence of the matches in mid-May, I don't think that problems in that part of the Ardija team are organisational: we just don't have four especially good defenders, which means that teams who are not run along the lines of Suzuki's Omiya will get decent chances against us. And sometimes they'll score, which meant that most of the time, we'd lose. But Suzuki is gone now. Good luck Okamoto and welcome to Omiya, Verdenik.

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2012 Squirrels Are Go!

Omiya Ardija on Wednesday released the numbered squad list of players that now look set to kick off the 2012 J-League season against FC Tokyo on 10 March. It confirms the arrival over the winter of five brand new players and the return from loan of one other. The new signings are:

• Kosuke Kikuchi, a defender from Kawasaki Frontale
• Takumi Shimohira, a defender from Gamba Osaka
• Carlinhos Paraiba, a defensive midfielder from FC Sao Paulo
• Cho Young Cheol, a wide midfielder from Albirex Niigata
• Yu Hasegawa, a forward from Montedio Yamagata

The returning loan player is forward Masahiko Ichikawa, who spent 2011 at J2 outfit Tokyo Verdy. Midfield star Kota Ueda meanwhile shifts his designated number from 17 to 7 and the full squad listed below also sees a handful of players change their official positions:

• Daisuke Watabe moves from midfielder to defender
• Daigo Watanabe moves from defender to midfielder
• Kazuhiro Murakami moves from midfielder to defender

Here's the full squad:

GK 1 Takashi Kitano
GK 21 Koji Ezumi
GK 31 Keiki Shimizu
GK 35 Shuhei Kawata

DF 2 Kosuke Kikuchi (new)
DF 4 Yuki Fukaya
DF 14 Shusuke Tsubouchi
DF 20 Kim Young Gwon
DF 22 Takumi Shimohira (new)
DF 24 Norio Suzuki
DF 26 Kazuhiro Murakami
DF 30 Daisuke Watabe
DF 34 Yosuke Kataoka

MF 5 Carlinhos Paraiba (new)
MF 6 Takuya Aoki
MF 7 Kota Ueda
MF 8 Keigo Higashi
MF 9 Cho Young Cheol (new)
MF 13 Daigo Watanabe
MF 16 Jun Kanakubo
MF 18 Hayato Hashimoto
MF 23 Shin Kanazawa

FW 10 Rafael
FW 27 Masahiko Ichikawa (returnee)
FW 29 Shintaro Shimizu
FW 32 Yu Hasegawa (new)

But what might this mean when it comes to coach Jun Suzuki's starting line-up against J2 champions and Emperor's Cup winners FC Tokyo? Experience says it is brain-meltingly impossible to predict how Suzuki might deploy the players at his disposal.

For example, if we assume - perhaps wrongly - that Omiya will play a basic 4-4-2 in 2012, the obvious front two following the departure of Naoki Ishihara and Lee Chun Soo is Rafael and Yu Hasegawa, with Ichikawa and youngster Shintaro Shimizu in reserve. However, it is equally possible that Keigo Higashi and dynamic South Korean newcomer Cho might be allocated one of the forward slots, perhaps alongside Rafael and, hey, who knows, perhaps relegating Hasegawa to the bench.

But it's all absolute bloody guesswork with Suzuki. He might perfectly well use Shimohira as a striker and Carlinhos as a substitute goalkeeper for the U12s.

You want an absolute bloody guess as to how things might look? Well OK then. Let's say for the sake of argument that it's a 4-4-2, or otherwise we'll be here all day:

GK Kitano
RB Watabe
CB Kikuchi
CB Young
LB Murakami
RM Higashi
CM Ueda
CM Carlinhos
LM Cho
FW Rafael
FW Hasegawa

For a start there's no reason to think that Takashi Kitano won't continue as first choice keeper after two decent years in the number 1 spot. In 2011 Daisuke Watabe looked like the most favoured right-sided defender until injury ruled him out of the last few months of the season. He's a decent player and deserves the chance.

On the left, the arrival of Shimohira as competition for Kazuhiro Murakami suggests that Suzuki sees Kim Young Gwon's main role as being in the middle of the defence. Potentially, then, the South Korean international will get a starting position in spite of a disappointing 2011 as a partner to experienced new signing Kosuke Kikuchi. Oh, who am I kidding, I have no idea.

Onwards and upwards. In midfield, the final few matches of last season seemed to suggest that Jun Suzuki was losing faith in Kota Ueda as a playmaker. A neat piece of I-have-not-the-first-notion-of-what-I'm-talking-about may indicate that Ueda will get another chance as a creative hub, with Carlinhos taking the place of Takuya Aoki as midfield destroyer.

As far as the wide players are concerned, at least on paper it would be exciting for both Cho and Higashi to get starting places, which surely means that Watanabe and Hayato freakin' Hashimoto will get the nod. Rafael and Hasegawa have to be first choice strikers, although with Suzuki you never know and he might go into the new campaign in the belief that Ichikawa is a world-beater. Let's see how pre-season goes.

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The Squirrel's Eye View: You Wouldn't Blame 'em If...

Now that the J1 season is almost over and the Squirrels have confirmed their place in the J-League's top division for next year, the thoughts of many fans are turning to the all-important topic of changes to be made to the squad for 2012. In among all the possibilities of players to depart and arrive there is one particular overarching question that demands an answer, and that is:

Why on earth would any decent player with a modicum of ambition play for Omiya?

In seven years as a J1 club, Ardija have failed to make any significant on-field progress at all. For the seventh year in a row Ardija have ended up in a battle to avoid relegation. For the seventh year in a row Ardija will finish in one of the four places immediately above the drop zone. Despite having set in January what seemed a perfectly realistic target of 50 league points, Omiya under Jun Suzuki never looked like reaching that goal. Instead, the Squirrels went through another season of struggle that has included - with a single game still to play - just one home win. One. 

In summary, this is not a club that can realistically offer good or promising players the chance to develop themselves or to achieve any professional goals they might have. God knows I wish the situation was different but this is reality - and it has pretty much been this way for, well, seven years.

Here's another question. If you were Rafael, Omiya's top scorer and a player who has reportedly received at least one offer for 2012 from another J1 club, what would you do? Obviously there are matters such as money and family circumstances that affect a player's decision about a contract or a transfer, but leaving these things aside it is hard to imagine that Rafael would be satisfied staying at Ardija. He has managed to carve out something of a reputation for himself in Japan and while Rafa might not necessarily be the big star if he were to move to a different team, he'd more than likely be at a better club with better players and a better chance of finishing in a decent position. It's also hard to imagine that that opportunity will fall into his lap by staying at Omiya for another year.   

There are other players on the Ardija squad that you couldn't blame if they wanted to leave. Among the defenders, Shusuke Tsubouchi and Norio Suzuki have had hardly a sniff of the first team after impressing in 2010. Tsubouchi has picked up some playing time as a substitute and occasional starter - but while no-one would claim that he's the best player in the world, the complete non-appearance of Suzuki has been more difficult to understand. Given that Tsubouchi, Kazuhiro Murakami, Daisuke Watabe, Kim Yong Gwon, Arata Sugiyama and Daigo Watanabe have all been chosen ahead of him at one time or another, Suzuki must be our seventh-choice side back. Really? Why would someone stick around to be that far down the pecking order?

Wide midfielder Keigo Higashi, signed last winter from Oita Trinita, has played a good deal more than was anticipated pre-season, when it was felt that he would gradually be phased in as a longer-term replacement for veteran Chikara Fujimoto. To give Jun Suzuki some credit he has at least recognised that U22 international Higashi brings something different to the team, but the relationship between coach and player hasn't always been plain sailing. 

Higashi is clearly an ambitious young man and at this point in his career, he needs above all to consider whether or not Omiya is really the club that can help him to become a member of the full Japan squad. So do we have a track record in taking good young players to the next level? No, we emphatically do not. The Squirrels have achieved extremely limited success when it comes to bringing kids on from the Omiya youth set-up - and as for full international honours, well, there's always Daigo Kobayashi's single appearance in a friendly five years ago to, er, boast about. That's something for Higashi to consider when he's on one of his trips with the cream of Japanese football's young crop.

Someone whose career seemed to go into reverse in 2011 was another wide midfield man, Jun Kanakubo. After a very encouraging rookie campaign last year things looked less clear cut for the former Ryutsu Keizai University student following the arrival at Ardija of Higashi, but even so Kanakubo can hardly have expected to start only three league games. Like Norio Suzuki, he's not a world beater but he's got skill, some speed and a more than respectable free kick. The fact that Hayato Hashimoto is now being selected ahead of him must tell Jun Kanakubo all he needs to know about his future at Omiya: if a mid-ranking J1 team were to come in with an offer, he'd be crazy not to take it. 

There's only one place to finish an article like this and that is with Naoki Ishihara. Condemned to be a super sub apparently due to Jun Suzuki's twisted logic that no other member of the squad is good enough to play the role, what is certainly true is that no other member of the squad is as good a finisher or as natural a goalscorer. Top scorer in 2010, Ishihara has this year been omitted from the team in favour of players that either were less capable (Rodrigo Pimpao) or were being deployed in a position that they really weren't much good at (Lee Chun Soo). In some senses it would be astonishing if Ishihara doesn't leave and if he does, I for one would be willing him on to prove Suzuki wrong. 

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GGOA Special Feature: What Would WE Do?

Thinking about Omiya's poor form prior to the win over Jubilo Iwata, a couple of things I read stuck in my mind. The first was Agent Orange's Crap Sundae polemic on this very site, as angry and frustrated a piece as he's contributed to GGOA and one that points clearly in the direction of coach Jun Suzuki when it comes to responsibility for the recent Ardija slump. A misguided approach to player selection and deployment are at the heart of the problem, argues AO, citing examples from throughout the team.

Whether or not you agree with the overall theme of that article, it's more or less unarguable that Omiya were one of only a handful of J1 clubs to make significant investment in the squad over the close season. As such, and in the light of the club's target of fifty points in the league this year, it's reasonable to expect some improvement on previous seasons - which Suzuki has not delivered.

So where might the Squirrels' coach be going wrong? Well, another piece I read was this interview in the UK's Sunday Telegraph with new Chelsea coach Andre Villas-Boas, in which he discusses aspects of his tactical ideas. There are a few quotes from Villas-Boas that strike a chord when thinking about this Omiya team, so in this special GGOA feature Agent Orange and I will take a look at three of them and consider how they apply not to the upper reaches of the EPL, but to a club that can't seem to break out of its habitual position near the bottom of J1.

Andre Villas-Boas "Match control always has to have a purpose, a main goal."

Furtho In other words, possession on its own is not enough. Keeping the ball is all very well but if teams do nothing with it they will never create chances, or score goals, or win games. Ardija 2011 do actually keep the ball better than previous vintages were able to, but the Goals For column of the J1 table demonstrates that however much more Omiya have possession, the team don't make chances that the forwards can put away.

Of course that may be due to a lack of quality in front of goal, but it's my perception that the Squirrels don't have a clear idea about what Suzuki's system is, or how they're supposed to construct attacks. What do you think about that?

Agent Orange I almost think an argument could be made that this is exactly what Suzuki's system is designed to do. It seems like he realizes that the back line is awful and he's telling wide players like Lee Chun Soo and Chikara Fujimoto to hold up possession on the wings. There's a lot of passing, but as far as forward movement goes the ball seems to die when it gets out to the side.

I've seen time and time again that quick shots are discouraged in favor of lower-percentage long-range shots. You don't see too many assaults on the opposition net until the last twenty minutes or so, when it seems like the team pushes up in numbers. In a way the style that Suzuki has adopted might be just as defensive as coaches past.

AV-B "As a coach you have to know exactly what kind of players you have and analyse the squad to decide how you want to organise your team."

F So do you feel that Jun Suzuki fails to make the most of the assets he has available to him?

AO Yes, I do. If you look at it in terms of formation, following a flirtation with a 4-2-3-1 system at the start of the year we've reverted to a 4-4-2 with personnel who magnify the weaknesses more than they accentuate the strengths of our team. I think a 4-3-3 in the style of current champions Nagoya Grampus would probably be the best formation for our needs.

F What are the problems with 4-4-2 for Omiya's current squad?

AO Fans of Avispa Fukuoka and Ventforet Kofu might disagree but we can make a credible argument that our sideback play this year has been the worst in the division. All combinations of the limited Kazuhiro Murakami, the inexperienced Daisuke Watabe and the woeful Arata Sugiyama have failed.

The problem gets magnified with the downturn in form of last year's solid central pair, Shusuke Tsubouchi and Yuki Fukaya. Neither have been able to gel with promising Korean defender Kim Young Gwon, while the fourth centerback, Yosuke Kataoka, shouldn't have been an option in the first place and honestly shouldn't play for Omiya again.

And the fragility of the back line is made worse by Suzuki's selection of ageing captain Fujimoto and selfish wing Lee. Fujimoto to his credit has been willing to dig in and get back on defense, but the speed isn't there. When he's combined with the below-average pace of Murakami, the left side is very open to counter-attacking.

The right has enough physical capability but the poor decision-making of Sugiyama and Kataoka, coupled with Chun Soo's less than exuberant displays on defense, leaves keeper Takashi Kitano exposed from that side on a constant basis.

Another problem we have is a lack of size. In order to play the 4-4-2 system as he sees it, Suzuki selects players like Chun Soo, Fujimoto, Sugiyama, Watabe and Kota Ueda, who happen to be very small. We have at least four guys on the field who are between 167cm and 174cm, and a side-effect of that is that we're vulnerable at free kicks and corners.

F OK, that's an interesting one. Villas-Boas actually talks about the role of smaller central midfielders - guys like Ueda, in fact - so we'll come back to that later. But how can 4-3-3 help us to get better results by maximising our assets?

AO We actually ran a 4-3-3 in 2008 for a couple games and had some success with Kataoka in the role of defensive midfielder. However, I think we can do much better with the lineup. Let's make some changes.

I'll start by going with a couple of centerbacks that have combined to go 8-7-0 in the fifteen games they have started together. I think that this year communication has been a problem for Kim and whomever he has teamed up with, so I'd rather have a pair who have a history of working well together - and Tsubouchi and Fukaya fit that bill.

I'd also advocate shifting Kim into the holding position ahead of the back four. The big risk associated with this is that communication is still going to be an issue and Kim is inexperienced as a midfield type. However, his size and athleticism are matched by nobody else on the squad and the new spot gives him freedom to roam forward in the offense or slot into the back when the sidebacks push up. It also takes the pressure off being the last man between the opposition and the goal.

F To me the holding position is the deal breaker, because if you introduce a dedicated player whose job it is to sit in front of the back four and move from side to side as the situation requires, it completely changes the balance of the team. It more or less rules out the option of having a line of three behind one main striker, for example, which I'd previously felt might be a solution to Ardija's goalscoring difficulties.

But I think that the current situation underlines the fact that we need to take a wider view of things: it's one thing just to look at the lack of goals and think, "Oh, we have to reorganise the front players," but to my mind shoring up the defence by allowing Kim to play this role would also give the team a stronger foundation for building attacks. Plus I think he's got the ability to do it well and the slightly more solitary nature of the task might make the communications side of things easier for him.

AO Sideback is a tougher nut to crack. Murakami seems like a lock to play and he does offer something offensively. He might be the answer on the right if Norio Suzuki is given a chance to play on the left. The back four of Murakami/Fukaya/Tsubouchi/Suzuki played respectably last year, I'm not sure why the manager has soured on it so quickly.

Sugiyama is fine as a spot starter or a ten-minute change-of-pace substitution, but he lacks so much that he's a real liability: S-Pulse exposed him in about fifteen minutes, Marinos exploited the matchup and even Sendai had dangerous chances against the diminutive sideback. He's not a serious option.

Somebody who should get a look might surprise you. I think Daigo Watanabe should at least be given a game or two to see if he is the answer at right back. He's been a disaster on the wing but maybe a return to a position he played a lot of at Kyoto Sanga might be the answer to getting the most out of him.

F Yeah, if you were out to surprise me then mission accomplished with Watanabe. How about Watabe?

AO He's not a sideback. He can do it for stretches but a full ninety minutes, game in and game out is too much to ask right now. Watabe had his best moments in 2010 and at the start of this year in a more natural attacking wing position.

I'm not exactly sure why Omiya has taken young midfielders and decided that they should spend all of their formative years at the sideback position. Masakazu Kihara and Taisuke Miyasaki are stuck in this same trap at the moment - and you can compare our young talent to what Urawa is doing. Genki Haraguchi and Naoki Yamada are playing their natural positions and are blossoming. If they had come up through the Omiya system and signed on to the big team, chances are at least one of them would now be struggling to cope with the sideback position.

I understand trying to get what you think are your eleven best players on the field, but you also have to put your players in a position to succeed. Let Daisuke be Daisuke.

F Yeah, right back would probably be the position that I'm least sure about. Murakami isn't that good and he's basically left-sided anyway, Sugiyama isn't a J1-standard player and he's not now going to become one, I share your frustration about this constant tinkering with younger players and the sense that Watabe, Kihara and the hapless Miyazaki really ought to be able to play anywhere at the coach's whim and the performances of Watanabe don't inspire any confidence.

Norio Suzuki may not be the most thrilling of players but he's reliable, solid and can pass the ball accurately to a player wearing a shirt the same colour as his own. That to me makes him a good candidate to be a starting choice defender and left-back is the obvious place. Why he hasn't had a look-in this year is a mystery to me.

So anyway, that gives a defensive core of...?

AO That gives a defensive core of:

GK Kitano
RB Murakami (Watanabe)
RCB Fukaya
LCB Tsubouchi
LB Suzuki (Murakami)
CDM Kim

F OK, so the next part of the team relates to the other Villas-Boas quote I mentioned. Here's what he had to say:

AV-B "... there are maybe some players more important than others. For instance, many teams play with defensive pivots, small defensive midfielders. And [with a few exceptions] they are players that are limited to the horizontal part of the game: they keep passing the ball from one side to another, left or right, without any kind of vertical penetration. Can’t you use your defensive midfielder to introduce a surprise factor in the match? Let’s say, first he passes horizontally and then, suddenly, vertical penetration?"

F That jumped out at me because since the start of the year I've felt that although Ueda is a really good player, he's stuck in a more defensive, let's-just-retain-possession role when in fact he has the quality to control the team's play much more widely. To use Villas-Boas' terminology, he's spending the vast majority of his time playing horizontally when I think it would be great if he was freer to play more vertical, penetrative passes.

AO Yes, and in my 4-3-3 the offense does start with the pair of Ueda and Takuya Aoki. Pushing them up more is something that I also think will help give them more attacking freedom. They will still be in a position to aid the defense but if they go forward, Kim is covering their backs.

Moving further upfield, Rodrigo Pimpao is a no-brainer for the leading forward position: he has the size and speed to be effective as the main point of attack. It's the two attacking wings that are the difficult choice in this conversation. Rafael has played on the left wing in the past with mixed results. I'm afraid that if he does that he'll get dragged back into defense and be less effective as an offensive presence.

But the difference between 4-3-3 and another option like 4-2-3-1 is that diminutive players like Chun Soo and Fujimoto wouldn't be in the middle - it would be the bigger Pimpao - and Murakami wouldn't be the only man covering the left side: Kim would be back to assist as well.

The right side, in Jun Suzuki's world, comes down to either Fujimoto or Chun Soo. My choice would be Keigo Higashi because he is a much better two-way player - but Chun Soo and Fujimoto have proven to be better at assisting on the offense. I like Higashi because he provides coverage in defense and is another player with good size and strength. He doesn't have the speed of Chun Soo or the organizing skills of Fujimoto but he does have the most upside of the three.

I'm a little hesitant to have Fujimoto and Chun Soo on the bench because neither have shown the inclination to be successful in the role of bench player and Higashi has the tools to slot in anywhere in attack. I guess it comes down to what the team needs most. I think it's players who can defend.

Chun Soo could be the perfect twenty-minute change-of-pace guy off the bench - if he committed to it. His speed against tired defenses would be a valuable weapon - if he bought into it. Fujimoto would be a good option to hold up the ball and ice opponents on those rare occasions we hold a lead. I think both guys have a role, but featuring them for sixty to eighty minutes isn't it.

F I'm surprised that Pimpao is a "no-brainer" for the main striker. Suzuki's on record as saying that he likes to use Naoki Ishihara as an impact substitute who has the ability to reinvigorate the team in the second half. Do you think he's right about that?

AO It's nothing against Ishihara, who I think is one of the most under-rated talents in the J-League. I say it's a no-brainer (and maybe I should qualify that as a no-brainer... for me) for various reasons. I don't think playing one top works with smaller strikers and Pimpao has the size to deal with bigger centerbacks. Ishihara is deceptively strong but he gets worn down after all the pounding. Ishihara seems to be a more versatile player and better suited to filling a slot where he is needed, Pimpao is a more classic forward.

I think it's good to have Rafael and Pimpao start the game because it seems like they already have good chemistry going. Ishihara has a mentality where he could succeed in any role you put him in and he stays focused even after sitting on the bench for eighty minutes. His ability last year to change the game moments after coming on was remarkable and a very rare commodity in the J-League. I also like having a speed guy as plan B.

F Your point about Rafael on the left is a good one. In some senses we're lucky to have a decent-quality foreign player who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty to help out the team. But when he spends too much time tracking back to support the likes of Murakami, he's doing stuff that other players are better at and he isn't doing the stuff that only he can do. It's a total killer of his effectiveness.

Of course the whole point of this exercise is that we try to work out who ought to be doing what, which is achieved by having a good balance in the way that the team is organised. If Rafael is going back to defend a lot, the balance is wrong. But in the system you've described here, Kim can do that or if he's busy, Aoki or maybe Ueda can instead. That's a much better deployment of resources.

Where I actually think Rafael would be best used is in a central position just behind a lead striker. He's good at connecting up the midfield with the front line and not being out on either flank would mean he could use his vision, technique and occasional explosive shooting to best effect. There are going to be compromises in setting out a team and to me the biggest is that if we have a holding midfielder, we can't have Rafael playing in the middle unless he's the main striker - which other squad members are better at.

So where does that leave us with the attack?

AO The offense looks like this:

RM Aoki
LM Ueda
RW Higashi
LW Rafael
FW Pimpao

F We've been frustrated in the past at the way Suzuki uses his substitutes. As you said, things worked out amazingly well with Ishihara for a period last year but as a rule some of the changes made by the coach have been pretty hard to understand.

AO I think a 4-3-3 like this gives Suzuki more options in terms of substitutions:

* he always has the option of reverting to a 4-4-2 or the 4-2-3-1 by removing one of the centerbacks or sidebacks and pushing Kim into the back line
* he can retain the 4-3-3 shape by pushing Kim back and replacing him with Shin Kanazawa off the bench, or by pushing Aoki back and slotting a sub into the middle
* it frees up Higashi to play in one of five attacking positions, or Ishihara to play in one of three
* it wouldn't change things much for a player like Watabe, but Jun Kanakubo could get more looks

There are flaws to this and implementing a new system this late in the season is a risk, but recycling guys in positions where they have previously failed or playing players out of position and expecting good results has so far failed us. So I think it's worth a look. Then again I thought that the J-League was conspiring with FC Tokyo to relegate Omiya and push NTT over as a sponsor.

F Christ, yes, I'd forgotten about that.

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Rodrigo Pimpao Signs!

The Squirrels have confirmed the rumours that have been circulating in both Japan and Brazil over the last couple of days with the announcement that Rodrigo Pimpao has joined the club. The 23-year-old forward played the first half of the season at Cerezo Osaka, scoring four goals in fourteen J1 appearances, but the Cherries turned down the option to extend the loan deal from Vasco da Gama. Rodrigo Pimpao played his last game in a blue and pink shirt on 16th July, a 4-1 loss to Vissel Kobe. He has now signed for Omiya on loan until the end of this year.

The last few weeks have exposed a major area of weakness in the Ardija squad, which the arrival of Rodrigo Pimpao is presumably an attempt to address. Following the injury against Gamba Osaka of Naoki Ishihara, Omiya have been left with a grand total of no attacking options: coach Jun Suzuki evidently feels that teenager Shintaro Shimizu is not ready even for a place on the bench, meaning that Rafael and Lee Chun Soo are the only two forwards left. Both of them have good points but both have been disappointing in front of goal this season - predictably enough, given that neither of them can be considered out-and-out scorers in the way that Ishihara is.

Naoki fans will be concerned that his first team opportunities will be reduced yet further by the new arrival. But given coach Jun Suzuki's tendency to use players out of position (and how Ardija have suffered as consequence of winger Lee being played as a striker, not least in Saturday's loss to Yokohama F Marinos) it is impossible to imagine how Rodrigo Pimpao will be deployed. Regular starter or substitute? One of the two main forwards or an offensive midfielder? With Suzuki in charge, who knows - and this is on top of the things that fans always wonder about incoming players, such as whether they will settle at a new club.

But Rodrigo Pimpao does at least provide a choice. If Shintaro Shimizu isn't up to the job, maybe the Brazilian can contribute, improving the squad and doing a better job at taking chances than Lee and Rafael. He might not be a target man but he's fast and has scored a few times for an erratic Cerezo team struggling to keep its league form going while progressing in the ACL. That might be enough to push Omiya in the right direction by enabling us to win close games like Marinos - which we'd likely have won if Chun Soo and an actual scorer, Masashi Oguro, had swapped sides. But from hereon in it's down to the coach to make the right decisions.

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Fukuoka Preview

It's probably as well that Omiya play at Avispa Fukuoka on Wednesday because anything is welcome that will help to erase the memory of Sunday's frustrating defeat at home to Gamba Osaka. That said, having written again and again and again on these pages about how Naoki Ishihara should be in the Squirrels' starting line-up it was almost exhilarating to be so demonstrably right about something. Ishihara was brilliant. As well as scoring two superb and very different goals, he also held up the ball fantastically well, never giving it away. His policy seems to be that is he can't get in a shot himself he makes absolutely sure that the ball goes to a team-mate.

But what made that exhilarating was the incredible contrast when Lee Chun Soo came on after Ishihara picked up an unlucky ankle injury. I thought this would mean that the game would take a turn for the worse from an Ardija perspective but I didn't realise it would go that badly wrong. Of course Chun Soo never came close to scoring a goal - it's looking increasingly unlikely that he will do that again between now and the end of the season - but the South Korean couldn't maintain possession if he was on his own in the middle of a field with only a football and a giant pot of superglue for company.

And it was this latter aspect of Lee's play that turned the game so dramatically because when Ishihara had been there, Ardija were able to keep the ball in the attacking third of the pitch really very well. Once Omiya realised that Gamba's defence is terrible (doesn't everyone in the Eastern hemisphere know that Gamba's defence is terrible?) and that the lacklustre visitors appeared to believe they had won the game after scoring early, the Squirrels controlled the play for a good 30 minutes in the middle period of the match. That period of dominance ended the moment Ishihara went off, because the ball simply bounced off Lee and the Omiya defence is now too weak to be able to deal with the amount of pressure that they suddenly were under from Gamba's speedy front line.

Ardija have already announced that Ishihara will be out for three weeks, meaning that ahead of the Fukuoka game coach Jun Suzuki has fundamental decisions to make about virtually every area of his team: who will he play up front with Rafael? What's the best way for the midfield to provide additional defensive cover and to be able to support the attack quickly? And what can be done to bolster a back four that is looking increasingly shambolic? Ishihara's departure underlined the extent to which every part of a team is connected to every other part. His absence means that Suzuki has to solve the conundrum of how these things fit together and if the Squirrels are not to slip further down the standings, he has to do it quickly.

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The Squirrel's Eye View: Rafa Stars, Watanabe Mars

All told it was an amazing game at NACK5 on Saturday evening, with enough twists, turns and incidents to have filled three or four more workaday fixtures. A draw probably works out at a fair result although Omiya and Urawa supporters will both feel that their team could and should have won it. Even so, after nine rounds of the season Ardija are still left without a home victory while Reds slip catastrophically back into the relegation zone.

It was a close-fought first half, Urawa having more of the possession but Omiya defending well with an aggressive pressing game. Only once was there a loss of concentration that allowed Edmilson a header with only Takashi Kitano to beat, but the big Brazilian wasn't quick enough to get into position and ended up directing the ball away from Kitano's goal. At the other end an early Lee Chun Soo free kick was saved by Nobuhiro Kato, who also tipped a fizzing long-ranger from Rafael over the bar.

But Kato, almost unbelievably making his league debut in his eleventh season as a member of the Urawa first team squad, could do little about the Ardija striker's next attempt on goal. Daisuke Watabe found space down the Squirrels right and sent in a dangerous cross for Rafael to steal in front of the defender and steer in a brilliant header. And so Omiya went in at half time 1-0 up, reward for their hard work in defence and an incisive piece of attacking play.

Even if they continued to have trouble creating clear-cut chances Reds looked more dangerous at the start of the second period, Yosuke Kashiwagi in particular catching the eye. But when Yuki Fukaya banged in a free header to make it 2-0 to Omiya against the run of play, it seemed as if the Squirrels were on course for a win against their local rivals - if they could keep the energy levels up. Seconds later, however, Reds were handed a lifeline when Chikara Fujimoto was perhaps harshly judged to have fouled Marcio Richardes in the penalty area. Edmilson took what seemed like months to prepare for the kick but despite his apparent nerves he sent Kitano the wrong way and the visitors were back in it.

Urawa then took control of the midfield with Omiya having to be content with occasional counter attacks, most of which seemed to peter out when Lee Chun Soo gained possession. The lumbering Edmilson, who mostly served to blunt the Reds attack, managed on one occasion to cause panic in the Squirrels defence when he fired against the post from a narrow angle, but the equaliser when it came was from a different part of the team entirely. Genki Haraguchi burst into the right-hand side of the Omiya box and despite the attention of Watabe and Fukaya the youngster managed direct a shot in at the far post even as he stumbled to the ground.

Poor defending it may have been but the finish was extraordinary and looked set to pave the way to an Omiya defeat. But however much the momentum of the match was in their favour, Reds by this time had little else to offer as an attacking force and Ardija fought their way back into the match, substitute Naoki Ishihara adding instant quality on the break with his speed and awareness. In the closing seconds Ishihara fed Lee in an excellent position and the Korean's scuffed shot crept past Kato to strike the right-hand Urawa post. In a melee of players scrambling for the rebound Kota Ueda prodded the ball towards the line and it would have gone in had Daigo Watanabe not helped it on its way... from an offside position.

A certain goal - an almost certain Omiya winner - was therefore ruled out and a tempestuous game ended level. In the dressing room afterwards Watanabe may have detected a degree of frostiness in the attitude towards him of his team-mates, but for coach Jun Suzuki there are some positives at least to have come from the match. Aside from the Haraguchi goal it was basically a strong defensive performance, the introduction to the team of Shusuke Tsubouchi having added solidity on the left-hand side. With three goals in as many games Rafael is now looking a lot closer to his best and it was encouraging to see Ueda pick up an assist for the Fukaya goal. Now, if we could just have Ishihara in the starting XI...

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The Squirrel's Eye View: Postcard From Home

Sorry things have been so quiet round here lately. It's a touch ironic that going to Japan means I'm less able to keep GGOA updated regularly, although on a more positive note it does enable the more-or-less annual gathering of the GGOA Tribe to take place, if two people traipsing around tea shops and patisseries can be said to constitute a tribal activity. Anyhow, in the unlikely event that you were worrying about the site, worry no more as things should be getting back to normal over the next few days. I'm going to restart things by stealing an idea from my colleague Agent Orange and thereby reviewing all that I learned about Omiya Ardija in a rainy spell out Saitama way, via the games against Shimizu S-Pulse and Cerezo Osaka.

1. Jun Suzuki may not be a great coach, but he might be a lucky coach. Why isn't he that good? Well, Suzuki's job first and foremost has to be to extract the maximum level of performance from the players at his disposal and Suzuki is not doing that for Omiya. A couple of examples from the Shimizu game:

* the Squirrels really did not know how to attack S-Pulse from open play. They could happily get the ball 25 or 30 metres from goal but then had little idea of how to proceed because of the low number of attacking options. Omiya rarely got more than one or two players in the opposition penalty area. This dithering uncertainty has to be Jun Suzuki's fault.

* contrast this with the opening Shimizu goal, when a hardworking but wrongly deployed Rafael lost possession by playing a backheel fifteen metres from his own goal-line. The ball was instantly played into the Ardija box and in a flash Alex Brosque was one of two forwards in the goalmouth able to beat Takashi Kitano. Although it's hard to imagine Omiya scoring a goal like that because we can't get players into danger areas so quickly, the main point to be made here is that Rafael ought to be in the team to play backheels fifteen metres from the opposition goal-line. If he is tasked with supporting Kazuhiro Murakami, Rafael can't hurt the opposition with his attacking skills and - not to criticise the player - he'll be unreliable as a defender. This misuse of resources has to be Jun Suzuki's fault.

Why might he be a lucky coach? Well, ignoring the actual quality of the performances, the style of play and the use of squad members, the results he's achieving are okay - most Squirrels fans would probably love to finish the season in the team's current placing of ninth. But to have come away from Osaka with three points and a clean sheet was fortunate indeed and came about just as much because Cerezo were wasteful in front of goal (hello, Rui Komatsu) than for any other reason. Put another way, Suzuki can't really claim that Omiya won that game because of any specific measures that he took. On another day Ardija could easily have lost 3-0.

2. Takashi Kitano was very nervous playing in wet weather. The conditions in both games were appalling for all the players due to the heavy rain, but Kitano especially looked unsettled, jittery and lacking in confidence. I still can't quite believe that Cerezo failed to score against such a shaky keeper. Let's hope it was purely to do with the rain and he's okay for the derby match at the weekend because Kitano put in an unacceptable level of performance.

3. Huge credit is due to the Ardija ground staff for their work in maintaining a stunning playing surface at NACK5. Considering the amount of rain the pitch was simply superb - much better, it should be noted, than at Cerezo's Kincho a week later.

4. We're not seeing the best of Kota Ueda. For a start aside from the stunning free kick against Kashima Antlers back in March, his set pieces haven't been nearly as good as I'd hoped. But more generally I think that Ueda is a great player: he's very neat and controlled, rarely makes a mistake and is already a key performer in the middle of Omiya's midfield. Which makes it all the more frustrating to watch him because it feels like he's stuck with playing short passes that serve only to help the team maintain possession: Ueda doesn't drive Ardija attacking moves as much as I think he could, there's a caution to his play when he has the ability to dominate.

5. We're still waiting for Takuya Aoki and Daisuke Watabe to stop being promising young players and start fulfilling their potential. To take Aoki first, there's a sense that if he was a stronger and more dynamic force at the heart of the team, Ueda would actually be freed up to spend a lot more time directing attacks. Hence Aoki's ineffectiveness is reducing the number of opportunities that Ueda has to play a more offensive role. He doesn't feel truly comfortable as a member of the team, although a goal or two might settle him down if he can eventually control his appalling shooting. It feels as if the development of Aoki since he came to Omiya from school has been a disappointment, bearing in mind how long the player has been involved in the international set-up - and it certainly doesn't surprise me that he's just been dropped from the U22s while Keigo Higashi has retained his place.

Meanwhile Watabe seems to have become Suzuki's first choice at overlapping right back and as in the latter half of last season is getting a good run in the starting XI again. He's probably the best option in that position when compared with the likes of Arata Sugiyama although he can be bossed by bigger or more experienced opponents. The goal against Cerezo gave a glimpse of what Watabe can bring to the team as he floated in a beautiful long-range pass that Higashi headed on for Rafael to score, but these moments are few and far between. Rather like Aoki you get the feeling that if Watabe could score a goal - and don't forget he was a striker for Omiya Youth - he'd really believe that he belongs as a first team player. Hitting the post against S-Pulse with the score at 0-0 won't have helped.

5. I'm right about Lee Chun Soo and about Naoki Ishihara. To recap what will be a familiar story to GGOA readers: it's no surprise that Lee's early-season burst of goalscoring is beginning to look more and more like a flash in the pan. He isn't the main striker that Suzuki imagines him to be and can't connect with his team-mates when he's up front on his own. After Lee got sent off against S-Pulse it really made no difference to how Omiya were playing because he was making no contribution. If he's going to be in the team it needs to be as a basic winger with simple responsibilities that tally with his strengths. Ishihara is a different type of player, a goalscorer first and foremost but ridiculously hardworking and unselfish, always quick to assess a situation and lay the ball off to a colleague if they are in a better position. And where's he spending most of the season? On Jun Suzuki's subs' bench. Looks to me like another misuse of resources.

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Kashiwa Preview

So apparently there's a football match on Saturday; more than one, by all accounts. Well, that's really good news and I'm looking forward to it. But I ought to let you know what I've been doing over the last three and a half weeks, in particular. To do that we have to jump back to the end of February, when Squirrels fan and non-league blogger Michael Hudson asked me to write a piece about Japanese football for a website he'd set up. The purpose of the site was to promote Michael's own Northern League Day event, which aimed to encourage football fans in the north-east of England to attend local non-league matches on one particular weekend in April as a means of celebrating the grassroots game.

I began writing an article about Cobaltore Onagawa, a non-league team based in the north-east of Japan that had been formed in 2006 with the specific intention of encouraging young kids in the small provincial town of Onagawa to stay in their home community and not move to the big cities. My hope was that this might be an interesting and unusual topic for Michael and his readers, containing some parallels with the circumstances surrounding Northern League Day and also making a point about the relationship between a football club and its community. That was the idea, anyway.

I was half way through the article when on 11 March the tsunami struck. Onagawa, on the eastern tip of Miyagi prefecture, was just about the closest town to the earthquake's epicentre and as such it experienced catastrophic levels of devastation. The whole of the main part of Onagawa was destroyed by a wave that reached twenty metres in height and toppled over reinforced concrete buildings. Visiting Onagawa in mid-April, tsunami expert Harry Yeh of Oregon State University - a person who has visited and studied tsunami-affected areas from Nicaragua to the Indian Ocean over the course of nearly twenty years - described himself as “totally, totally stunned” at the level of destruction in the town and its surrounding area. Most recent estimates suggest that more than 1300 of Onagawa's 10,000 population are dead or missing.

The days following 11 March were confused and confusing, but even so it was clear that Onagawa, like other communities along that stretch of coast like Kesennuma and Ishinomaki, had suffered appalling damage. It was also apparent that the football club were playing a significant part in the relief effort. There was serious concern as to the whereabouts of Cobaltore's player-coach Reiji Nakajima but, like all the other members of the first team squad, he was found unharmed. Nakajima, who in 2002 played a single J2 match for Ventforet Kofu, joined his team-mates in working alongside the police and military with the immediate tasks of clearing debris and distributing food and drink to the evacuation centres on higher ground.

Meanwhile I was getting on with the real hard work of sitting at the laptop, sipping coffee and looking out of the window, wondering how the hell I was going to finish my article now that this had happened. What made it easier for me was the realisation that the selfless actions of the Cobaltore players - most of whom, like Nakajima, come from elsewhere in Japan and could have been forgiven for heading back home at the earliest possible moment - were entirely in keeping with the notion of a club so closely bound together with its community. Cobaltore was founded in order to hold the town of Onagawa together. Now, its purpose had shifted to helping Onagawa to begin again, after the tsunami had done its best to wipe the slate clean. I emailed the finished article to Michael and he put it on the Northern League Day site.

A couple of days later, someone named Fightswithivy posted a Comment about the article. "There has GOT to be something we can do to support this town," it read. Well, yes. The calamitous events of 11 March coupled with the response of the Cobaltore players to those events led me to the same conclusion. I wanted to help Onagawa and its football club. Fightswithivy and I quickly exchanged emails to introduce ourselves to each other (she was English but had spent some years living in Japan, had visited Onagawa, loved it and had a close friend whose family come from the town) and share ideas, and Onagawa Supporters was born. Armed with the basic tools of the modern-day campaign group - a Wordpress website, a Twitter account, a Facebook page and an email address - we started trying to raise money and tell anyone who would listen about Onagawa and the football club that had been formed to save a town, but was now trying to beat the tsunami.

In fact, the tsunami has only increased the need for Cobaltore, as the temptation for youngsters to depart Onagawa for the bigger cities has inevitably become that much greater with so much of their community in ruins. While the club is already organising training sessions in the neighbouring city for youngsters who are holed up in evacuation centres that have no electricity, the situation now is that Cobaltore will likely fold without outside help. The first team has had to withdraw from the Tohoku League this year and hence Cobaltore have no source of income from ticket sales - or from merchandise, almost all of which was lost when the club's office in the middle of Onagawa was destroyed.

Put simply, Onagawa Supporters want to raise funds that will enable Cobaltore Onagawa to stand on its own two feet again and thereby give the town a fighting chance of survival as a community. So what have we accomplished since the end of March? Well, here's a few things:

1. we're in regular, frequent contact with Onagawa. This means that we have reliable on-the-ground information coming direct from the community that we're trying to help.

2. we're in consultation with management at Cobaltore, developing plans as regards how best to use the funds we raise. For example, it may be that we provide more ongoing support for the sorts of youth and junior team events touched on above. We hope this will not only help see the kids through these dark times but also constitute a step towards Onagawa’s long-term survival.

3. we've set up the Onagawa Supporters.com website to accept donations via Paypal, credit card and bank transfer, if you want to contribute to Cobaltore and the future of Onagawa. It probably goes without saying that we especially need football fans to donate; thank you to the many people from all over the world who very kindly have already done so.

4. we're working on fundraising and sponsorship ideas, and are following up on suggestions. For example, if it's possible to do so we'll sell Cobaltore replica shirts. We're also considering the idea of an honorary club membership scheme.

5. we're working on press releases and ways of drawing wider attention to the situation in Onagawa and at Cobaltore. For example, we think that football clubs and fans in the UK and around the world will be interested in and want to support what Cobaltore are doing and as such we're working to identify contacts who can help us to make the appropriate connections.

6. we've been tweeted about by British comedian and actor Stephen Fry and football writer Henry Winter, together with everyone's favourite tearful North Korean, Chong Tese (it could be that this is the only circumstance under which those three names will ever be written in the same sentence). We've received coverage from independent football websites the72.com and When Saturday Comes.

7. for the first and no doubt only time in my life, I've done interviews with the Wall Street Journal's Tokyo bureau - the English version is here and the Japanese is here - with the Daily Yomiuri and Weekly Soccer Magazine. The WSM article, by Sean Carroll, is in this coming Tuesday's issue (26 April).

So I've been pretty busy and a side-effect of that is that the kind of topic that's normally discussed here on GGOA - Jun Suzuki's tactics, Chikara Fujimoto's attitude, Naoki Ishihara's moustache - has slipped down the priority list. As I said at the start of this piece, I'm pleased that J-League football is starting again and of course I hope that Omiya can win the Noda Line derby against Kashiwa Reysol on Saturday. But can I get excited yet about whether Norio Suzuki gets a place in the team, or exactly how Lee Chun Soo is deployed to greatest effect? I must admit that I can't. It'll come back, I'm sure. But it'll take time.

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The Squirrel's Eye View: The Good, The Bad &... The Good & The Bad

Looking back on Sunday's action-packed J1 season-opener between Omiya and Kashima Antlers, it would be silly to pretend that Ardija deserved more on the balance of play than the point that they ended up with. The Squirrels may have taken the lead on no fewer than three occasions and then conceded the final equaliser in a thrilling 3-3 draw in the third minute of injury time, but making a case that they should have won the match is decidedly tough going. Where we are on much firmer ground is in saying that Omiya were responsible for all six goals in a match that swang backwards and forwards between absolute Ardija brilliance and total Squirrel disaster.

There was a warning as to the more disastrous side of things in the third minute, when a straightforward Antlers corner caused panic in the Omiya defence, which scrambled the ball away only after two desperate interventions by goalkeeper Takashi Kitano. The match then moved into a more balanced phase, as the Squirrels coped well enough with Kashima's movement while Daisuke Watabe caught the eye with his positive intent on the Ardija right-hand side. But the first instance of great skill took place when Kim Yong Gwon displayed extraordinary vision and technique to cut open the Kashima defence with a lengthy pass that left Lee Chun Soo with a simple task to beat Hitoshi Sogahata from close range.

Just eleven minutes in, then, and the Squirrels were a goal ahead at the home of one of the J-League's true giants: starts to a season don't get a whole lot better than that. For the rest of the first half Kashima had slightly the better of things, but a combination of excellent goalkeeping by Kitano and international forward Shinzo Koroki's mind-bogglingly poor display meant that Omiya kept their noses in front until the break. Ardija worked hard in midfield and tried to attack whenever possible, although at the same time there was a sense that the back four would find it difficult to keep up the energy levels and concentration required to deal with the Antlers' mobile front players.

In fact, the home side's equaliser two minutes after the re-start came as a result not of quick passing but from another routine Kashima corner that the Omiya defence failed to deal with, leaving Masahiko Inoha to fire the ball past Kitano. A soft goal, and one scored at a time that suggested the home team were all set to take control of the rest of the match. But just a couple of minutes later, to the astonishment of all, the Squirrels retook the lead through debutant Kota Ueda, whose truly world class free kick from 25 metres left Sogahata with not even the slightest chance. So beautifully struck was it that the ball was still curling outwards when it hit the inside of the side-netting.

Again, however, a moment of magic at one end was undone by feeble organisation at the other, as Daiki Iwamasa then exploited more sloppy Squirrels marking at a corner to power in a header for equaliser number two. And with Omiya tiring after the exertions of the first half, this time it really did seem as if Kashima would go on to take all the points: the pressure on Kitano's goal increased and the Squirrels' attack subsided, as Watabe was pushed back and the ponderous Rafael disappeared from view almost completely. But despite the flow of the play, in 64th minute Lee Chun Soo gained possession on the left touchline, advanced infield and then curled a magnificent shot into Sogahata's top corner - the third outstanding Omiya goal and the third time Jun Suzuki's team had gone in front.

For the rest of the game, Kashima threw everything at Kitano and his defenders, who it has to be said were given little assistance by their attacking colleagues. On three or four occasions Ardija had good counter-attacking opportunities only for the moves to break down due to sluggish play or poor co-ordination between Rafael, Lee and substitute Keigo Higashi. There was a palpable lack of certainty as to whether to go for goal and finish the game off or to try and simply hold on to possession. As such, of course neither occurred successfully and it was unfortunate but at the same time not exactly a surprise when in the third minute of injury time, Tsubouchi deflected a low cross into his own net to tie the game up at 3-3.

Positives to come out of the match? Well, even though the closing seconds were such a disappointment, there certainly are good things that Suzuki can use to motivate his players during training this week. It was a game illuminated by three pieces of Ardija play of top quality - the sorts of things that Omiya supporters normally have to wait years to see. Two of those highlights came from new signings Ueda and Kim, which suggests that there has indeed been a step up in the overall level of the squad. And of course we got a point at Kashima Antlers, which most fans would probably have been delighted with at kick-off.

The negatives clearly came in the shape of woeful defending at set pieces and anonymous performances by too many players, such as Rafael and right-sided defender Arata Sugiyama, whose J1 calibre was again called into question. And the reality is that if instead of Koroki Kashima had fielded someone with even basic finishing ability, they may have scored six. Omiya also reacted badly to being put under pressure, even Kitano flapping aimlessly at a Yuzo Tashiro header in the closing seconds that almost stole a win for the Antlers. Still - if all the games are like this, 2011's going to be an incredible season.

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Omiya, Kings Of Saitama

After a series of training matches against J2 and university opponents, on Sunday the Squirrels stepped up their preparations for the new J1 season with the first friendly of 2011 against a top-division side. Neighbours and rivals Urawa Reds were the visitors to NACK5 Stadium for the latest edition of the so-called Saitama City Cup and of the two coaches it is undoubtedly Jun Suzuki of Omiya rather than Reds' Zeljko Petrovic who will be happier about the outcome. A 3-0 scoreline might be somewhat harsh on Urawa in terms of the balance of play, but Suzuki's hardworking Ardija certainly deserved the win for a particularly impressive second half performance.

For the supporters there were three eye-catching aspects to the Omiya starting line-up, as Korean youngster Kim Yong Gwon was selected in the middle of the back four, fellow new signing Kota Ueda appeared in midfield and Daisuke Watabe popped up as a wide player in a notional 4-3-3. But formations, tactics and style seemed to go out of the window for both sides in an extraordinary, almost anarchic first 45 minutes which was played at such a high tempo that quality football was practically impossible. Couple that with referee Yoshiro Imamura blowing every time anyone fell over and it was just about the scrappiest half of a football match anyone could wish to see.

Reds perhaps had slightly the better of things, but the combination of Kim and Shusuke Tsubouchi kept the door tightly shut in front of the Omiya goal and keeper Takashi Kitano was left only with the simplest of stops to make. After the re-start, however, Urawa seemed to lose their energy and Ardija began to take control, ex-Jubilo Iwata man Ueda impressing in the way he co-ordinated the Squirrels' play with his vision and simple passing. But it was defender Kim who scored the opener eight minutes into the second period, firing in from the edge of the area when Reds keeper Norihiro Yamagishi was left unprotected by his team-mates.

Shortly afterwards the fans got their first glimpse of two other newcomers to the Omiya squad as Daigo Watanabe replaced Arata Sugiyama at right back and U22 starlet Keigo Higashi came on for Chikara Fujimoto in an attacking midfield role. Higashi had a disastrous first few minutes, conceding the ball in a dangerous position that led to a Reds near miss and also picking up a yellow card from Mr Imamura. But it was at the other end that the referee had the greatest impact on the match when in 72nd minute he sent off Urawa defender Nobuhisa Yamada for an apparently accidental off-the-ball clash with Tsubouchi that also resulted in a penalty, easily converted by Rafael.

In holding on to their lead Ardija were aided by Urawa's consistently poor use of set pieces - surprising indeed bearing in mind the abilities of key new player Marcio Richardes - and the total anonymity of forward Edmilson. The Squirrels had several half-chances to score a third via a series of quick breaks mainly involving Higashi and another substitute, Naoki Ishihara, and their efforts finally paid off in injury time when Higashi finished from close range after another counter attack. A good performance and a superb result, then, that gives Omiya fans considerable cause for optimism ahead of the 2011 campaign. Bring on the Antlers.

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Hi Everybody, We're Back

I guess it's time to come out of hibernation. So what's been happening while we've been taking a bit of a nap?

Well, Omiya coach Jun Suzuki and his 2011 first team squad have been busy on their two pre-season training camps, first on the Pacific island of Guam and more recently in Miyazaki in the far south-west of Japan. Despite brief rumours in the press that Japan international winger Daisuke Matsui was an Ardija target there have been no further signings since the arrival at the club of midfielder Kota Ueda from Jubilo Iwata. And if we assume that Ueda's signing is indeed the last of the close season, this means that the Squirrels are heading into the 2011 campaign with a slightly smaller squad than last year: you could argue about equivalence all day long, but in crude terms reserve goalkeeper Daisuke Tada and forward Masahiko Ichikawa are the players who haven't been replaced.

So it's been quiet on the transfer front and there's also been a peculiar lack of activity as far as friendly matches is concerned. Usually the Guam camp can be relied upon for at least three training games against Japanese, Korean or local opposition, but this year there was just a single encounter with Consadole Sapporo that ended in a 4-1 Ardija win. Some clubs such as Gamba Osaka abandoned plans to go to Miyazaki due to the eruption of a volcano nearby, but Omiya went down to Kyushu and played friendlies against Miyazaki Sangyo Keiei University (4-0), Fukuoka University (12-0) and finally J2 side Fagiano Okayama (4-1). Impressive enough scorelines, perhaps, although it's rather mystifying that the Squirrels will only on Sunday play their first preparatory match against J1 opposition.

This comes in the shape of the so-called Saitama City Cup, which this year is appropriately enough a derby against local rivals Urawa Reds. And predicting a line-up for the game is tough, in part because the teams for both the Fukuoka University and Fagiano Okayama games haven't been fully released and in part because it is difficult to guess how or whether Suzuki will use any of the new signings, such as Ueda, Kim Yong Gwon, Daigo Watanabe and Keigo Higashi. The Saitama Shimbun newspaper has reported that Suzuki has been experimenting with a 4-2-3-1 formation, which is music to the ears of at least one supporter (me, in case that wasn't clear), but trifling details such as who might have been selected in each position are frustratingly absent.

Of the new players, only Ueda's likely role in central midfield seems to be clear and so with that important qualification in mind - and discarding all of the other winter signings - here is a view of the Omiya team that I'd like to see play against Urawa on Sunday and at Kashima Antlers in the season opener on Sunday 06 March.

---------------------- Ishihara --------------------

---- Kanakubo --------- Rafael -------------- Lee ---

---------------- Ueda ----------- Kanazawa ---------

Suzuki ------ Tsubouchi --------- Fukaya ----- Watabe

----------------------- Kitano ---------------------

Starting at the top, Naoki Ishihara is without doubt the best goalscorer at the club and so therefore it makes sense to utilise him as close to the goal as possible - especially bearing in mind his abilities as a close-range finisher, demonstrated to such devastating effect in matches such as the crucial draw with Vissel Kobe at the end of last season. Ishihara has a decent understanding with Rafael and it also makes sense to use the cheery Brazilian in the middle rather than on the wings, where the speed and skill of Lee Chun Soo in particular can cause trouble for most defences. On the left, Jun Kanakubo had a good rookie season in 2010 and has earned his place ahead of existing alternatives such as the perpetually underachieving Hayato Hashimoto and Chikara Fujimoto.

Ardija have always lacked a strong presence in central midfield and it is to be hoped that Kota Ueda will finally be the player to provide it - and because Takuya Aoki's continuing presence in the Japan U22 set-up his Squirrels career has yet to take off properly, it could be Aoki who makes way for Ueda alongside old favourite Shin Kanazawa. A first-choice defence is probably less clear-cut, as Yuki Fukaya didn't shine as much as expected in 2010 after his move from Oita Trinita, although Shusuke Tsubouchi was one of the unexpected stars of the side. Daisuke Watabe partnered with Lee on the right could be a mouthwatering prospect if one of them remembers to defend from time to time and Norio Suzuki is a solid if unspectacular choice on the left ahead of Kazuhiro Murakami. Goalkeeper Takashi Kitano won the GGOA Player of the Year last year: enough said.

Do Omiya have a better squad now than was the case twelve months ago? More this year than has been the case in any recent pre-season, it's very difficult to say until the league action actually starts. Defender Kim and midfielder Higashi are two of the most important new players, but they're both very young and Kim spent 2010 with a team that got relegated, while Higashi was in the bottom half of J2. It would be asking a lot to expect them to slot into a new side at Omiya and to bring about the sort of improvements that will enable Ardija to achieve this year's target of fifty points. But we're optimistic, of course. And another win over the Reds on Sunday would only whet the appetite for Ardija's seventh J1 season even more.

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The Squirrels Squad - Winter Changes

A glance at a calendar with even the most modest level of functionality would indicate that we're at the start of a New Year, so what better time to review the changes that have so far been made to the Squirrels squad which finished the 2010 season and is being prepared for 2011. Who's stayin', who's gone, who's arrived and who don't we know about yet. So let's get goin'.

Goalkeepers

Staying: Reserve Keiki Shimizu has signed up for what will be his fourth year at Ardija following graduation from Ryutsu Keizai University. And the number of games Shimizu has played so far in his professional career? That would be none whatsoever.

Gone: Daisuke Tada came on loan from Cerezo Osaka at the start of 2010 and has gone back to the Cherries after not getting a sniff of Squirrels first team action. Oh, wait, he was an unused substitute in one of the Nabisco Cup matches.

Don't Know Yet: The big two, i.e. first choice Takashi Kitano and his deputy Koji Ezumi. It would be good - very good - to see both of them stay on, but you couldn't blame Ezumi at 32 for feeling less inclined to spend another year sitting on the bench at Omiya when he could be playing regular first team football elsewhere.

Defenders

Staying: In the middle of the back four, 2010's unexpected star Shusuke Tsubouchi has made permanent his loan from Vissel Kobe; Yuki Fukaya stays, as does younger reserve Shunsuke Fukuda. On the sides, veteran Arata Sugiyama probably can't expect to be much more than a substitute, but having arrived in the summer Norio Suzuki was a valuable addition to the squad in both defence and midfield.

Gone: After a very impressive 2009 and a rather less impressive 2010, Mato Neretljak heads back to the K-League. Rumours still circulate that his replacement might be a returning Leandro; it all seems to depend on whether Fluminense will offer him more money to stay with them in Brazil.

Arrived: Kim Yong Gwon, a South Korean U21 international signed from FC Tokyo. Impossible to say how he might fit into the team, especially given how much Jun Suzuki changed things around in defence during 2010.

Don't Know Yet: Of course Taishi Tsukamoto isn't in a position to play football, but an update from the club as to his current situation would be appreciated; Shotaro Kudo was promoted from the youth squad in September, but there hasn't been any mention of him since then.

Midfielders

Staying: Jun Kanakubo had an excellent rookie season on the wing, youth and U21 international Takuya Aoki finally eased his way into the team and although Kazuhiro Murakami had something of a disappointing year after moving from Kawasaki Frontale, he did enough as an overlapping sideback to earn another deal. Taisuke Miyazaki's permanent move up to the first team squad is confirmed, Masakazu Kihara will hope to make the kind of impact in 2011 that fellow newcomer Kanakubo did in 2010 and Hayato Hashimoto looks set to be a squad player.

Gone: Ryohei Arai and Kohei Tokita will stay on loan for 2011 at FC Gifu and Oita Trinita respectively. An Yong Hak was released and has since signed for promoted Kashiwa Reysol, as well as being named in the North Korean squad for the forthcoming Asian Cup finals. Lee Ho, too, was let go; rumours that Shimizu S-Pulse were interested don't seem to have come to anything yet.

Arrived: Japan U21 international Keigo Higashi from Oita. Will the signing of Higashi mean that anyone else can leave...?

Don't Know Yet: No news so far on Chikara Fujimoto, Shin Kanazawa or reserve winger Tomoya Uchida; Seo Yong Duk is still loaned out at FC Tokyo and there haven't been any indications whether he'll stay there, come back to Omiya or leave.

Forwards

Staying: Key man Rafael sticks around for his third season in an Omiya shirt; Lee Chun Soo wants to try and get back into the South Korean national side - although he'd probably prefer to play at Omiya as a winger rather than a striker - and although young Daisuke Watabe has been used in midfield and even as a sideback rather than up front, he's started to show signs of first team quality.

Gone: Big striker Yoshihito Fujita heads back to J2 to re-unite with his old Sagan Tosu coach Yasuyuki Kishino at Yokohama FC.

Arrived: Shintaro Shimizu comes from local High School champions Seibudai.

Don't Know Yet: There's been no announcement on Masahiko Ichikawa, but more seriously than that it's not good that we're still waiting on top scorer Naoki Ishihara.

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TENTH IN '10!! - A Round-up

Just to pull together into one place what we hope has been a wide-ranging and interesting GGOA 2010 review, in the form of the series of TENTH IN '10!! posts that have been running on the site since shortly after the end of the season. Here are links to all the articles, covering what we here at GGOA feel have been the most important elements of the year.

1. The Rise & Fall Of Haruo Yuuki Agent Orange asks some pretty searching questions on the departure from Ardija of Technical Director / Evil Mastermind Haruo Yuuki.

2. The Rise & Rise Of Shusuke Tsubouchi Signed on a season-long loan, expected by all to be pretty rubbish, but Shusuke Tsubouchi turned out to be one of Omiya's stars of the year; Furtho pays tribute.

3. The November Turnaround And thank God for it, says Furtho, as the by-now traditional late-season surge in form saved the Squirrels from the drop, again.

4. The Krispy Kreme Formation If only Ardija's team were not shaped like a donut and actually had something solid in the middle, laments Agent Orange, adopting the confectionary metaphor to end all confectionary metaphors.

5. Naoki, North Korea & The Nationals Agent Orange raises his hat to An Yong Hak as the first ever Omiya player to appear in the World Cup Finals. But why, he goes on to ask in his characteristically forthright manner, does Naoki Ishihara keep getting overlooked for Japan? Eh? Why?

6. Getting It All Ryong A particularly witless piece of punning from Furtho on the early season departure of coach Jang Wae Ryong and his replacement by the superhero that is Jun Suzuki.

7. The Lost Boys Of 2008 Agent Orange on the mixed fortunes of the young players who joined Omiya in 2008 - including the tragedy of cancer victim Taishi Tsukamoto.

8. Crowdgate Ardija manage to antagonise the J-League in about the most ill-advised manner possible, by systematically publishing false data about their match attendances. Media goes into frenzy! Punishment is imposed! Club president quits! And Furtho ponders what it might all mean.

9. The Fujimoto Story The decline into uselessness of Omiya captain and major irritant Chikara Fujimoto, discussed by Furtho while attempting not to get overcome by exasperation.

10. Six Years Of Survival Agent Orange concludes the series in uplifting fashion, by examining how the hell it is that Omiya manage to avoid getting relegated.

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