A great deal has been achieved in the first 20 years of the J.League, and the official “20^th Anniversary Match” highlighted so much of what is great about the Japanese game.

As chance would have it – or not, depending on how much faith you have in the ‘randomness’ of the fixture computer – the latest clash between Urawa Reds and Kashima Antlers fell conveniently on the weekend when the 20^th Anniversary celebrations were in full swing and was thus selected as the showpiece game.

And why wouldn’t the J.League choose that encounter? Urawa’s phenomenal success off the pitch has seen them generate the biggest aggregate attendance since things swung into action in 1993, and they have come the closest yet of any Japanese team to establishing themselves as a genuine big club. Head outside of Japan and ask your average football fan if they can name a J.League side and the chances are Reds will be one of the most widely known, despite their relative lack of success on the pitch.

Kashima Antlers, meanwhile, may not have established themselves quite so firmly in the consciousness of supporters around the globe but they, too, have a fixed identity – something that is sadly true of too few clubs in Japan. And, most importantly of all, they are winners. Seven league titles, five Nabisco Cups and four Emperor’s Cups are not to be sniffed at.

What better way to show how far the league has come in its opening two decades than a fiery encounter between these two sworn enemies, then. And in a packed Saitama Stadium to boot.

And thankfully the match more than lived up to its billing.

There is genuine animosity between the two sides – a member of staff from one club confided as much before kick-off – and no fan of either team wanted to miss the latest installment, with over 46,000 packing out the stadium despite the rain and fact that the game was being shown live on TV. It speaks volumes, in fact, that in some quarters that figure is being spoken of as ‘only’ 46,000, Attendances are an issue that the league and its clubs need to keep a close eye on, but that figure was more than every Premier League fixture on the same weekend, except for Sir Alex Ferguson’s last ever game in charge at Old Trafford.

Then of course there was the action on the pitch, which like all good games, was aggressive, frenetic, and controversial.

Shinzo Koroki’s decisive goal was quite blatantly offside. Of that there can’t be any debate, and it is beyond doubt that the referee and his assistant made a glaring error.

“Today was the 20^th Anniversary match and both teams did well but it is a shame that while the level of players has improved in the last 20 years the level of officiating hasn’t at all,” Antlers coach Toninho Cerezo witheringly declared after the match. “Everyone here and those watching at home could see the goal was offside but the referee and linesman failed to spot it. It seems like the home crowd made the decision for them.”

His frustration was understandable, but I have to say I think his claims about the level of the officials are wide of the mark. I have said it before and I’ll say it again but until video assistance is mandatory mistakes will happen and referees and their assistants will get things wrong. That is not unique to Japan and not a week goes by without a controversial decision making headlines in one of the world’s top leagues or international competitions.

The lack of discussion about the incident, though, is concerning. Again, this is not the first time I’ve spoken about this issue, but the refusal of any TV station to just come out and say, “he got that wrong” is baffling to me.

In so many ways the J.League has matured and developed since things kicked off on May 15^th, 1993, but the media covering it is still far too controlled. It, too, needs to grow up – and the J.League must allow and encourage that process if the next 20 years are to be anywhere near as fruitful as the last.

Omiya Ardija are top of J1.

I know this is not breaking news but just read that sentence again. It doesn’t look right, does it?

Top they are though, and The Squirrels more than merit place at the summit having been the most consistent side all season. Actually, for longer than that, with them spending the last three months of the 2012 season undefeated in the league as well.

Along with the constantly-referred-to record that is now in their possession (for anyone who’s been otherwise engaged for the past month, they broke Kashima Antlers 18-game undefeated streak, and then some) they are now rather like the Lionel Messi of the J.League, with new records seemingly being broken on a weekly basis. Apparently – according to Ben Maxwell of the J-Talk Podcast – their 26 points from the opening 10 games is a single-season best start, for example.

One person who wouldn’t be concerned with that stat, however, is the team’s coach, Zdenko Verdenik.

I interviewed the Slovenian ahead of Ardija’s game against Urawa Reds last month and he insisted that talk of such things didn’t interest him or the players in the slightest, swatting away my suggestion that sealing the record against Urawa would be especially satisfying.

“For us we want to keep going with confidence as we have been, to continue playing our football and to just take things one game at a time. This game, too, we want to keep going and, of course, to win the game.”

He did allow a glimmer of satisfaction with the team’s resoluteness to slip through, though, adding, “but, we haven’t lost for 17 games which is evidence that our play is stable.”

That is something of an understatement, and that stability has seen Omiya not only record its sensational run but in doing so beat heavyweights Kashima, Urawa, Kashiwa, and Hiroshima on their way to top-spot.

Verdenik’s back-to-basics approach is what set the process in motion.

“At the start, what I did was work on the model and structure for the type of football, in terms of attacking and defending – what we were trying to aim for,” he explained when I asked him how he’d turned the perennial relegation-battlers into such a solid unit. “Through training we made it clear and learned that quickly. Making sure we were able to play within that model and structure is what I did first.

“After doing this basic thing, we would work hard at more important aspects to improve the level of play. And through training we were able to really see the improvements.”

The success so far has been achieved even though Keigo Higashi – the closest Omiya had to a star player last season – has moved on to FC Tokyo, and while some feel that his departure has freed up Cho Young-cheol to exert more influence on the team Verdenik still wants more from the Korean.

“The fact that Higashi left is a shame. Cho Young-Cheol has different qualities to Higashi. Higashi was very good at combining on both sides and creating chances, Young-Cheol is a very impressive player in different ways. He has speed and exceptional ability at breaking through defences.

“Right now what we want from him is to learn and try to take on the qualities that Higashi had. He will become even stronger if he works on his combination play with the players around him.”

Co-operation is key for Verdenik, and he also praised Zlatan Ljubijankic and Milivoke Novakovic for their selflessness, referring to the fact that they think about and provide the team with far more than just goals.

There is still a lot of football to be played, and nobody – least of all Verdenik – is seriously thinking of a title challenge at the moment, but survival will soon be assured and then – assuming, as we surely must considering the way the team has played for the best part of a year, that performances and results don’t drop off – previously unthinkable targets will move within sight.

“The result will come from the quality of play, our good football, and that will determine our position,” Verdenik said. “Of course, if we can continue to perform well and achieve the results then we will be able to finish in a high position.”

You are usually left looking for the positives after a 0-0 draw, but when Cerezo Osaka’s recent game against Oita Trinita ended goalless it wasn’t hard to find the silver lining.

Yoichiro Kakitani was a joy to watch, and his every contribution exuded confidence and class.

He was at the heart of everything his side did going forwards, and the 23-year-old doesn’t so much run with the ball as glide. His awareness of the location of teammates and opponents was sensational, and one piece of play in particular, when he floated through the centre of the pitch, tore in behind the Oita backline and then dinked a glorious chip over Kenta Tanno which flew just a little too high, was worth the price of admission alone.

Not everyone was enamoured with that passage of play though, and after the match his coach Levir Culpi was ruing the fact that his star man hadn’t just put his foot through the ball.

“He made a mistake. It’s not the ball for a chip,” he said to me, before acting out the more direct shot Kakitani should have opted for.

The Brazilian knows he has a fantastic talent on his hands but is constantly demanding more.

“He is good. He has nice technique but he needs more numbers. Effectiveness. Goals, assists. Because he can do it.”

Kakitani should listen to his coach as he has experience in these matters. Culpi was of course responsible for helping to nurture both Shinji Kagawa and Hiroshi Kiyotake, and is unsurprised by the parallels being drawn between them and his current No.8.

“This is natural, it’s inevitable to compare them,” he said. “Shinji Kagawa is a good player because he did. This is the difference, he did. He’s a three-time champion now – two times with Borussia Dortmund and now Manchester [United]. He did. And he scored. He scored 30 goals, maybe, in J2, and he started [with seven] goals in J1 and then goes to Germany. The same in Germany. This is numbers. You need numbers. You play good it’s ok, but you need numbers to be the best.”

That is not to say he doesn’t think Kakitani has what it takes to replicate the success of his predecessors though, and he has sensed a marked improvement in both performances and results since he returned to the club as head coach last August.

“I think it’s possible because he gets better this year. Last year [too] getting better. But I think it’s possible because he has good technique. Speed, left and right [feet] ok. He knows how to score. He knows.”

Another key figure at the club who knows exactly what it takes to be successful is “Mr. Cerezo”, Hiroaki Morishima.

I bumped into the original No.8 in the tunnel at Kincho Stadium after speaking to Culpi and asked him what he felt about the aura he had created around the shirt.

“The players after me have achieved success,” he laughed, modestly. “I just happened to be the first one and after that the team is taking care of things well.”

Does he feel that Kakitani feels any pressure as the latest to follow in his not inconsiderable footsteps, though?

“Hmm, is there pressure? More than anything I think [the players] are just focused on getting good results. I’m sure Yoichiro feels the pressure of everyone’s expectations while playing but he seems to be enjoying that. And watching him from outside being able to do that is reassuring. Now number eight is Yoichiro’s number.”

That is certainly the case but if he keeps performing as well as he has been then it surely won’t be too long before Kakitani becomes the latest to vacate the shirt and head to Europe. His coach seemed to think that was a realistic target if he applied himself properly, and Morishima agreed – although he stressed that such things shouldn’t be rushed.

“I think now in the J.League we have been producing results. Maybe it’s best not to suddenly go overseas or be in a hurry, the timing is important.

“If he can focus on achieving results here then he will be able to continue onto the next step, I think.”

On that I think we are all agreed.

Lately it seems like there is a handful of ‘derby’ matches every weekend.

Whether it be the ludicrous “SKY Series” (Shonan, Kawasaki, Yokohama – they all wear blue (kind of, in Shonan’s case, but don’t let that get in the way of a snappy title) and are reasonably close to each other), the slightly uninspiring “North Kanto derby” (Tochigi, Gunma, and Mito – they’re all, erm, in north Kanto…) or the barrel-scraping “Top of North Alps” (Matsumoto, Tottori, and Gifu – a grammatically and geographically confusing one, this), there are numerous straight-from-the packet rivalries ready to be consumed.

These are not derbies, though. True derbies are not created by marketing men and women with MacBooks and too much coffee. The ‘Tamagawa Clasico’? ‘Get the river under control’? Really?

Derbies are usually based on little more than the locality of the competing teams but they occur naturally. Really there are only two derbies in J1 right now: the Shizuoka derby and the Saitama derby.

Think of Liverpool-Everton, Roma-Lazio, Rangers-Celtic, these games are about local pride and bragging rights. They can also involve an inferiority complex – often one of the clubs is far more successful than its neighbour, which heightens the sense of occasion when the teams meet. For the weaker side it is the chance to get one over on their bigger rival, whereas for the more successful club it is a matter of not being embarrassed.

Take Omiya v. Reds, for example. The Reds fans are probably more concerned with the fates of Kashima and/or Gamba than they are Omiya. They want to beat them, obviously, but that is more to do with the fact they don’t want to lose face against their less-successful neighbor. (Of course, the rivalry may be heating up a little now that Reds have won just one of the last nine league meetings between the teams and Omiya are going toe-to-toe with them in the league. The fact that the Squirrels bookended their record-breaking 18-game unbeaten run with results against Urawa will also have been especially enjoyable/frustrating depending on which side of the orange-red spectrum you sit.)

In Shizuoka, too, there is the desire to be seen as the best team in the region. Jubilo are the more successful side – in terms of trophies – but in recent years there has been little to separate the teams. Shimizu have frequently been on the verge of establishing themselves as No.1 before stumbling at the last hurdle and shuffling back to the drawing board – no doubt to the joy of the fans in blue just down the road.

The same applies to the local derbies in Osaka (Gamba and Cerezo), Yokohama (Marinos and FC) and Tokyo (FC and Verdy), with both sides having plenty of ammunition as to why they’re the ‘real’ representative of their region.

And these subjective, often baseless, and hugely biased claims are what make the derbies derbies. It is the frustration that builds up over the days, weeks, and years. That idiot in your office who came in in his team’s shirt after they beat yours at the weekend. The anger you feel when one of your players signs for the local rival. That time your team lost because their guy dived. It takes time and is created by infinite small details, all of which occur naturally.

There is also a cross-over here with the other type of derbies. These have nothing to do with how close teams are geographically, but everything to do with success, respect, and ideology.

These rivalries – Barcelona-Real Madrid, Manchester United-Liverpool, Bayern Munich-Borussia Dortmund – are not just based on on-pitch issues and how many trophies each have won, but also draw upon far deeper, more complex factors, encompassing everything from the way the clubs are run – a focus on producing youth players compared to the assemblage of a squad of stars, for instance – to social, political, economical and even nationalistic aspects.

These rivalries will eventually emerge in Japan, too. Reds and Antlers, for instance, undoubtedly have very little time for each other, and that dislike will only intensify as the years roll by. They will happen organically though, and don’t need to be formed in brainstorming meetings or to have cute logos or catchy slogans.

The J.League’s announcement that it will be introducing the long-speculated J3 next year is both promising and concerning for the continued development of the Japanese game.

Bringing more clubs into the professional community and assisting them as they adjust to the change from amateur or semi-professional status looks, on the face of it, a positive thing.

Improving the overall structure and organization of the game to a deeper level should enable football to become more varied and widespread within Japan, hopefully enabling the sport to continue to grow and lay down roots in local communities nationwide.

While the expansion does offer many possibilities, however, I can’t help but be a little nervous about what J3 may entail.

Almost every weekend I take in at least one J2 match. While the majority of these take place in Kanto and the surrounding area, I also do my best to get out and about and see matches further afield.

These stadiums invariably provide a very different experience to those of the bigger J1 teams, sometimes in a positive way. I have written before, for instance, about the sense of community in the likes of Tottori and Oita that you really sense being expressed through the local football teams.

Matsumoto Yamaga is another club which undoubtedly serves as a fantastic example of what the J.League’s inclusion policy can produce. An incredible sense of local pride emanates from the fantastic Alwin, where Yasuharu Sorimachi’s side play their home games, with the traditional rivalry between Matsumoto and the neighbouring Nagano having laid the perfect foundations for this.

The average crowd this season has been just shy of the 10,000 mark, a more than respectable figure that several of the more established, ‘bigger’ clubs would love to achieve.

However, Matsumoto are in the minority in this respect, and several teams in the second division have neither the facilities nor fanbase to make any concerted progression up the ladder.

Here I am not only thinking of the smaller, rural clubs that are obliged to stage games at municipal athletics stadiums miles from anywhere at 7pm on a Sunday night, but also some of the fallen giants who must play host in cavernous, near-empty arenas devoid of any character or atmosphere.

Going to see Tokyo Verdy at the 50,000-capacity Ajinomoto Stadium, for instance, is a fairly soul-destroying experience. The tens-of-thousands of grey, empty seats do very little to create, well, anything at all, and the chants of the few hardy souls who have made the journey to support their teams echo around the stadium listlessly. The gloominess must surely be part of the reason why the club has been stagnating in the second-tier for so long.

I was recently in Chofu for Verdy’s game against FC Gifu – another side who represent the dangers of the J.League trying to expand too quickly.

Barely a year goes by without Gifu – or clubs of a similar stature – encountering financial difficulties and flirting precariously with extinction. Instead of spreading the net even wider and trying to create more professional clubs, would the league not perhaps be better served to focus on steadying the ground beneath the feet of its current members first?

The empty rhetoric of Japanese business-speak is also not always productive. Football clubs the world over strive for growth and improvement, but in relative terms. A club that’s just earned a place in League Two in England, for example, would not even be thinking about the European Champions League, let alone speaking about it. V-Varen Nagasaki president Noriyuki Miyata, however, had no qualms about citing participation in the ACL and Club World Cup as his long-term targets ahead of the club’s first ever J2 season. Ossie Ardiles was spouting similar wishes for Machida Zelvia last year – they are now back in the JFL after a solitary year propping up the second division. If fans expectations are unnecessarily built up then they will come crashing down that much harder.

As football grows in Japan the understanding of what ‘success’ means should also evolve. Not every club is going to be challenging for titles, and sometimes just providing fans with the opportunity to enjoy the highs and lows of supporting a team through thick-and-thin is enough.

Clubs – and the J.League as a whole – should not try to run before they can walk.

… Omiya Ardija coach Zdenko Verdenik, however, is less interested in his side earning a place in the record books and more focused on keeping them on their upward trajectory in J1. Here’s my interview with the Slovenian tactician ahead of today’s Saiatama derby against Urawa Reds.

“The J.League is the EPL of Asian football,” Central Coast Mariners manager Graham Arnold declared after his side were defeated by Kashiwa Reysol in the ACL last month.

While that may certainly be true in terms of organization, sponsorship and technical level, J.League clubs have hardly been driving home their supposed superiority in continental competition.

Reigning champions Sanfrecce Hiroshima have, just as in 2010, stunk out their group, earning just one point in four games, losing their first three, while last year’s runners-up Vegalta Sendai have equally struggled to assert themselves in their maiden campaign.

Urawa Reds, too, made a much-feted return to the competition this year but don’t look a patch on the 2007 vintage which sealed Japan’s first ever triumph in the competition, and were schooled in Guangzhou and surrendered the lead in both games against Jeonbuk to take just one point from the pair of matches.

The only positive for the Japanese game has been the dominant form of Kashiwa Reysol, who have surged into top spot in Group H, all but ensuring their progression to the next stage.

The excuses for this underwhelming set of circumstances are oft-trotted out and, to be honest, not especially convincing.

Travel, tough schedules, and a not-taking-it-seriously approach are all used to explain the struggles of J.League sides; none of which stand up to stronger scrutiny.

Playing twice a week, in domestic and Asian competition, is undoubtedly not easy but is hardly unique to the Japanese participants. The J.League, too, has done all it realistically can to help its participants out by arranging their schedules as kindly as possible after the more gruelling away trips.

Their opponents are also required to clock up the air-miles, while problems aren’t just encountered on the road, with Sanfrecce, for instance, losing both of their home games.

This is where the “not bothered about the ACL” excuses start to crop up. Squad rotation and the muted atmosphere in the stadiums would appear to back up the claim that players and fans aren’t especially fussed with the competition, but the suggestion that there is a “let’s just get it over with” mentality is a little hard to swallow.

I have a feeling that instead of a lack of motivation the problems may be mental, and rooted in the comfort of the domestic game.

Part of what makes the J.League the ‘Premier League of Asia’ is its cosy, safe, and somewhat synthetic style. Players from rival clubs all seem to get on well, there is rarely, if ever, any real needle in games, and the atmosphere barely varies from venue to venue.

Now consider the desire of foreign teams to beat their Japanese counterparts. Remember the way Cerezo Osaka so meekly collapsed after allegedly being pelted with staples in the away leg of their quarter final against Jeonbuk in 2011? It is not especially surprising that Sanfrecce – one of the ‘nicest’ clubs you could encounter, complete with their good guy talisman Hisato Sato and cute goal celebrations – struggle to cope with the rough and tumble of streetwise and highly motivated opponents.

Vegalta, too, are inexperienced and perhaps a little naive, and while Urawa should be made of sterner stuff half a decade of underachievement has left them brittle; it sometimes seems that fear of letting down their support may have overtaken the fierce desire to repay it with success.

Which leaves Reysol, the club with the only intimidating stadium in Japan and a squad riding high on success after successive triumphs in J2, J1 and the Emperor’s Cup.

There is a sense that the ACL trophy is the only thing missing for this group of players and instead of fearing failure they are single-mindedly focused on this next target. The savvy of their foreign players adds to this, primarily the sublimely talented – in the dark arts of gamesmanship as well as the more camera-friendly aspects of his play – Leandro Domingues, and you get the sense that Jorge Wagner and Cleo – who has previous experience in the continental competition – are determined to prove themselves outside of Japan.

That gusto appears to have rubbed off on their teammates, but sadly not the other J1 participants.

“Us players are supposed to dish it out for 90 minutes. It’s up to the referee to decide what is and isn’t a foul. Then, once the game ends, it should all finish right there and then. Going up against a great champion like Cavani, giving each other hell for 90 minutes then being able to walk off as opponents who respect one another is the beauty of sport.”

I read this quote from Juventus’ Giorgio Chiellini a few weeks back and was so impressed that I made a note to jot it down. He was speaking after a match against Napoli, during which he and Edison Cavani had physically pummeled each other from start to finish, and while I didn’t know when or if I would ever have an opportunity to call upon the Italian’s wise words, they were refreshing in the modern game where there seems to be increasingly less mutual respect between opponents.

Then last week myself and Andrew McKirdy of The Japan Times were invited onto J-Sports’ “Foot!” to discuss the J1 match between Omiya Ardija and Kashima Antlers and I was reminded of Chiellini’s comments.

Ordinarily it isn’t possible to pick up on all of the nuances of the games I watch from the stands, and it is usually only the key moments which leave an impression. However, my concentration levels were far higher at NACK5 knowing I was going to be asked to dissect the game afterwards.

While I am certainly in no danger of becoming a blackboard aficionado in the style of Foot! Tuesday’s Ben Mabley, I have to admit it was interesting to run such a fine toothcomb through the action, and also – upon reviewing the DVD of the match the next morning – to see how many details get misremembered when you only see them live once.

One of the incidents that I didn’t have any trouble recalling, though, was the clash between Antlers’ striker Davi and Ardija’s young centre-back Shohei Takahashi just before full-time.

There had been a couple of minor comings-together between the two as the game wore on, the last of which prompted the Brazilian to flick a hand into his opponent’s chest. Takahashi pondered what had happened for a second before crumbling to the floor, supposedly in a bid to have his assailant sent off.

That was never likely considering the pettiness of the whole incident, and the situation was swiftly diffused as players from both sides gathered around and Davi laughed off Takahashi’s complaint and reaction.

Prior to that I had actually been paying closer attention to an intriguing battle towards the other penalty area as Daiki Iwamasa and Yu Hasegawa frequently clashed, clattered and bickered with each other whenever the ball was within range (and sometimes even when it wasn’t).

While those two kept the referee busy it never looked like it would boil over into anything malicious though, and speaking to Hasegawa after the match he confirmed as much.

“I like to play like that,” he said. “It’s all part of the game.”

He concluded by pointing out that he and Iwamasa are on good terms and that the words they exchanged as Hasegawa was substituted with 19 minutes to play were not combative but congratulatory, on a battle well fought.

It wasn’t at this point that I was reminded of Chiellini, however, but instead the next day when we were recapping what had gone on between Davi and Takahashi.

It turned out the incident hadn’t been quickly resolved, and Takahashi had maintained his grudge beyond the final whistle, petulantly slapping Davi’s hand away instead of shaking it as it was proffered.

Plenty of giving hell there but very little respect, and certainly no champions.

Takahashi, of course, is still young and in the heat of the moment it is not always easy to keep your emotions in check. Even so, hopefully his coach or captain have had a quiet word and told him to cut back on that side of things and focus more on what he is good at – which on the evidence of his overall performance and, in particular, Beckenbauer-esque run and assist for Omiya’s vital second goal in the same game, is playing football.

It was an opportunity missed but Japan’s failure to make sure of their place at the 2014 World Cup against Jordan is far from the end of the world, and it would still take a hugely unlikely sequence of results to prevent them from making it to a fifth straight finals.

However, the fact remains that Zac Japan didn’t deserve to take anything from the below-par showing in Amman, and the performances of several key players do provide some cause for concern.

Legitimate questions can now perhaps be asked about the impact that relegation to J2 with Gamba Osaka has had on the form of Yasuyuki Konno and Yasuhito Endo, with neither covering themselves in glory last Tuesday and both struggling to strike up a productive partnership with Maya Yoshida and Makoto Hasebe, respectively.

As if it needed further reinforcing we now also know just how vital Keisuke Honda and Yuto Nagatomo are to the Samurai Blue’s Plan A.

Honda’s presence in the hole behind the striker not only causes opponents headaches as they try to deal with his physical threat and ability to thread defence-splitting passes, but the CSKA Moscow man also provides a key link between midfield and attack, shoring up the spaces in between the lines that were often far too vast in Jordan.

Nagatomo’s absence, too, was glaring, and his rampaging runs forward from left back were sorely missed whenever Japan tried to piece together a way through the resolute Jordanian back line.

All being well both will return in June when Australia visit Saitama though, and while there is much to ponder before then this is certainly not the time to panic.

It is tempting to call for some fresh faces and for Zac to shake things up a bit, but that is rarely productive in international football, where consistency is key.

Consider, for instance, the team that started Japan’s first game in the final round of qualifiers for South Africa 2010: Narazaki; Uchida, Nakazawa, Tulio, Abe; Endo, Hasebe, Matsui, Shunsuke; Tatsuya, Tamada.

That doesn’t differ greatly to the side which lined up against Cameroon for the opening match in Bloemfontein, and despite a far from spectacular qualifying campaign the core of the team remained intact. The centre-backs and central midfielders, in particular, were constant.

The biggest change was Okada’s decision to switch his formation at the last minute, replacing Shunsuke with Keisuke Honda, but at the time Shunuske was not playing for his club – and as the key creative influence for Japan that was understandably a problem. With Honda making waves at CSKA the manager had little choice but to drop the player who until then had been the focal point of the side.

Now there is no such need to revamp things, and there aren’t any players on the fringes of the side who you feel would really improve things.

Takashi Inui, for example, was given the chance to start against Canada and did not seize his opportunity. Three times in the first half he failed to convert chances and at the World Cup finals you may only get one.

While the opportunity to fine-tune and decorate a squad with qualification in the bag does have its merits, the lack of truly competitive edge can hinder a side – just consider Brazil’s meek performances as they attempt to prepare to host next year’s tournament with a series of friendlies – and needing to take something from the game against the Socceroos may actually benefit Japan more than being able to coast through it.

From an excitement point of view I’m far from the biggest fan of the predictable nature of the squads Zac selects and his substitutions – Mike Havenaar as the instant go-to-guy is particularly uninspiring – but the Italian is not employed to make me happy, he’s paid to win football matches.

The Jordan game was a setback but as things stand Japan are still in a fantastic position, and Zac is surely entitled to the odd off day. Things are still a lot brighter than they were ahead of the last World Cup, so for now let’s give Zac and the players who have taken Japan to the brink of qualification the benefit of the doubt.

This year Shimizu S-Pulse once again came into a new season with more focus on what they had lost than gained, and after their first three league matches things aren’t looking especially promising.

Eternal optimist Afshin Ghotbi refused to dwell on the negatives ahead of the first game – insisting that the focus should not be on who had gone (most notably Genki Omae) but who’d arrived (primarily Bare), and even after his side needed to come from 2-0 down to eke out a point against Omiya Ardija in Round 1 he remained positive.

“We are a young team and to see this kind of heroic effort and comeback and resilience was very promising for me and our fans and I’m very excited about how we’re going to grow as a team in our future games,” he said.

That growth was stunted the next week though, when Yokohama F.Marinos obliterated S-Pulse 5-0 at Nihondaira.

The contrast between experience-laden Marinos and youthful S-Pulse laid bare the difficulties that may lie ahead for the Shizuoka side, and there have been suggestions that Ghotbi’s insistence ahead of the game that his young charges had a physical advantage over their more senior opponents may have backfired, with the Shimizu players perhaps not prepared for such dynamic opposition.

Indeed, with an average age of around 24 it does seem that S-Pulse currently lack that level of composure to not only take more from games, but also to cope with the dips and swells that occur within each match.

“It came from a tactical game to a pretty emotional game and it was just a fighting game,” Calvin Jong-a-pin surmised of the opener against Ardija. “It pretty much suits us well and we came back to 2-2 and even had two chances to make 3-2.”

Of course, such slapdash play is not especially effective in the long run, and S-Pulse under Ghotbi have always aspired to a far more attractive style of play than hoofing it long to the big man. Jong-a-pin conceded as much.

“Normally we don’t play like that. Normally we like to play organisational football and passing combination football and play between the lines but we needed to force something because we were 2-0 behind. We were just pumping in the balls and they couldn’t handle that. If it’s going well, why stop?”

Such reasoning perhaps works in the odd game, but after the humbling by Marinos it appeared as if Shimizu’s young charges were seeking solace in their more direct approach from the start in their third match, against Shonan Bellmare.

Ghotbi did not seem especially pleased about that, with his team again needing to come from behind in to take a point.

“In the first half we could not play our football, we played too many long balls and that’s why we couldn’t create the openings that we were hoping for,” he noted afterwards.

He suggested that lack of J1 experience was part of the reason they got off to such a slow start, but again professed to having high expectations for the season.

“People have to be patient, we need to build this team game by game. But I have no doubt of the potential of this team and I believe that at the end of the season when we all sit here together again we will be scratching the top.”

That looks a little far-fetched given the current situation, and his goalkeeper Akihiro Hayashi suggested that the side is in desperate need of somebody to take charge out on the pitch.

“Last year’s veteran players had good quality and also good leadership but [now there are] no leaders.” He told me after the 1-1 with Shonan. “Somebody has to be a leader. We need leadership.

“[We’ve] lost confidence. I’m not nervous, I changed my mind from last year, also [from the] last game [against Marinos] – day-by-day is fresh thinking. But the last game was not a good result. You can’t [completely] change your mind.”

It is understandable that there are doubts in the changing room after such an unimpressive start to the season, and in Ghotbi S-Pulse do have a coach who knows how to inspire. He will certainly need all of his motivational skills to dig them out of their current rut.