Not been able to go to any games for the past couple of months but managed to make it yesterday. We won 1-0 against Kamatamare with an injury time goal but it was one of the dullest games of football I have ever witnessed. The manager Kobayashi is pretty decent at organising our defence at this level but we are boring and uncreative when attacking, relying too often on long balls and crosses. Prior to yesterday's game we were 12th in the league with 4 wins, 4 draws and 5 defeats. We had conceded 8 goals and scored 7 (bottom of league in terms of goals scored). We are still bottom in terms of goals scored with Ryukyu and Tottori (20th and 18th in table) scoring 9 goals each. All other teams around us have similar GD but have scored twice as many, so at the very least are having some excitement each week. Our goals against is joint best with Kitakyushu who are 3rd, but personally I doubt I will see us promoted back to J2 or even an exciting game so long as we keep this manager.
Played against Sagamihara today hoping to bounce back from a 4-1 defeat last week. Started off well going 1-0 up after 1 minute but conceded due to sone bad defending on a corner. Both teams had their chances in second half with Sagamihara going closest a couple of times, but 91st minute saw the biggest farce I have seen with one of their chances clearly going out for a goal kick before being kicked back in by one of their players with one of their strikers pouncing and scoring. The linesman was too far back and didn't have a good enough view I am guessing. A 5 minute argument between our players and the officials with a replay on big screen showing the ball clearly going out wasn't enough to change the decision (maybe ref's hands were tied by that point?) and we lose 2-1. To top this off we missed the train back into town by 2 minutes so now I have to wait 35 mins until the next one.
A rare win on Saturday as we went from 1-0 up, to 2-1 down and eventually 3-2 winners with our new signing from Senegal getting on the score sheet and putting in a good performance from the bench. As always we had a solid 20 or so minutes of looking like a team who knows how to play football and the rest was just hoof ball and headless chickens. No chance of promotion this year but get a new (hopefully younger) manager when the season ends and try to improve next year when Japan switches to a summer to spring season rather than Feb to Nov one.
Former Norwich City Sporting Director joins RB Omiya in Japan I see Stuart Webber got himself a nice job out in Japan. Article mentions an interview back in January where he spoke about wanting to work abroad but he's been open about that for years.
Missed posting about a few games. Today we played Fukushima United and got a 1-0 win, with them having a goal disallowed for offside in the 80th minute. We are currently 7th in the table and 2 points from a playoff spot. Lost last week but in the 7 or 8 ganes prior to that we were u defeated and climbed up the table. Still have a tendency to try longball as our plan A, but generally we are playing much better than we did at the start of the season.
1-2 defeat at home to Gifu today pretty much guarantees we won't make the playoffs. A shame as we managed to beat 3rd placed Osaka last week away. Another season in J3 next year which will be the inaugural year of Japabese football following the same calendar as Europe. 4 more games to go and then have to wait until August for league football.
Enjoyed reading this thread, Sandsy. To gain promotion to J3 seems crazy. I watched a YouTube Football Manager series last year after J-League was introduced & the sheer amount of teams vying for very few promotion spots was insane
We won yesterday and it seems that every other result has gone in our favour. After last week it looked like we had no chance but I think teams around us have been losing recently and suddenly we are 1 point from playoffs again. Either that or a team was docked points for something To my knowledge JFL (kind of like a Japanese Conference league) and above is fairly simple, though a couple of years ago it got confusing as they changed the number of teams in the top leagues. That saved Tochigi in J2 but we got relegated a year later anyway Below JFL is when it starts splitting into the regional leagues and I am not 100% certain how it works from there. I actually did a Japanese run on FM21 after downloading a Japanese league pack and took Tochigi City (our local rivals who have been bankrolled by some wealthy businessman and are currently sitting top of J3 after numerous back-to-back promotions) and took them from some Kanto league all the way to J1. Think in that I had to do a few 1 off games against other regional champions to get promotion, but not sure if that is true to life.
2-1 win in final home game of the season means that after the Kitakyushu and Kanazawa game went in our favour after a 92nd minute winner, we go into the final game next week 1 point behind both teams and possibly Nara if they win tomorrow.
The reserve goalkeeper is retiring so had a lot of videos from former teammates and what not. Shinji Kagawa made a special appearance to give him some flowers. Not sure where/if they played together but Kagawa is still active in J1. Seems they both played together in Osaka at the start of their careers. Keeper spent most of his career there, Kagawa returned a couple of years ago.
Half time in final game of season. Good news is Tochigi are winning 1-0 while Kitakyushu and Nara are drawing. Bad news is Kanazawa are winning 3-1 against a team with nothing to play for.
