The last round of Asian qualifying for the Brazil 2014 World Cup gets underway tonight, and Japan’s first match is at home to Oman.
Ahead of the game I gathered the opinions of Mike Havenaar, Yasuhito Endo, Shinji Kagawa, Ryo Miyaichi and Keisuke Honda for a preview for The Daily Yomiuri.
The J.League is steadily earning a reputation for being an open and competitive division. The first third of this season has been no exception, and while some of the bigger clubs struggle in the lower-reaches of the table several unfancied sides are leading the way in J1.
On Saturday I was at Saitama Stadium to see two of these sides – Urawa Reds and Shimizu S-Pulse – go head-to-head, and gathered some thoughts from those involved on their title chances in 2012.
Last week I visited Urawa Reds’ training ground in Saitama to interview defender Tomoaki Makino.
He was keen to talk his future ambitions, J.League referees and the Olympics and you can read the full article here.
Last week I attended a dinner at which Argentinian football great Ossie Ardiles was the guest of honour.
After a long and distinguished career as a player and coach Ardiles is now in charge of J2 side Machida Zelvia, and he is in no mood to slow down just yet. Here is my feature on him from today’s Daily Yomiuri.
This weekend I was at Nihondaira Stadium for the Shizuoka Derby between Shimizu S-Pulse and Jubilo Iwata.
I provided a match report from that game and a round-up of the rest of the J1 action for The Daily Yomiuri on Monday.
This week Japan U23s made sure of their participation at the London Olympics by defeating Bahrain 2-0 at Tokyo National Stadium.
Ahead of the game I sat down with the side’s captain Kazuya Yamamura, and after the victory got some reaction from head coach Takashi Sekizuka, goalkeeper Shuichi Gonda and goalscorers Takahiro Ogihara and Hiroshi Kiyotake.
The 20th J.League season gets underway on Saturday and my preview is in today’s Daily Yomiuri.
It’s in three parts, the first of which is key info and a prediction for each team. The second is an interview with FC Tokyo’s new coach Ranko Popovic, while the third features comments from Dragan Stojkovic (Nagoya Grampus), Nelsinho (Kashiwa Reysol), Yoshito Okubo (Vissel Kobe), Jorginho (Kashima Antlers), Jose Carlos Serrao (Gamba Osaka), Mihailo Petrovic (Urawa Reds) and Nobuhiro Ishizaki (Consadole Sapporo) on the upcoming season.
Japan lost 1-0 to Uzbekistan on Wednesday night, condemning Alberto Zaccheroni to his first home defeat in charge of the Samurai Blue.
After the match I gathered reaction from Zac and the players for The Daily Yomiuri.
Japan play their final match of the 3rd Round of Asian Qualifying for the 2014 World Cup against Uzbekistan tonight.
Both teams are already through so all eyes are on Alberto Zaccheroni’s team selection, and in particular Ryo Miyaichi.
A couple of weeks ago I headed to Southampton to speak to Saints’ new signing Tadanari Lee.
The former Sanfrecce Hiroshima striker spoke of his reasons for moving to The Championship side, focusing on his desire to improve as a player.
