After the tragedy in March the J.League acted swiftly and en masse to help the situation. Further to the official recovery efforts the side closest to the disaster hit region, Vegalta Sendai, embarked upon a fantastic run of results that saw the usual minnows vying at the top of the table.
I spoke to several Vegalta fans to find out just how much of an impact the side’s efforts had had in the area for No. 1 Shimbun.
More and more players are leaving the J.League for Europe in what is mostly a positive development for Japanese football.
The lack of money coming in to compensate for these departures is a concern though, as I discussed in Number 1 Shimbun this month.
In the build up to the World Cup fnals I decided that Japan’s head coach, Takeshi Okada, had taken enough stick from the media and deserved a little support.
As a result I wrote an article for the Number 1 Shimbun, which can be accessed by following this link. (It can either be read as a webpage or you can download the magazine as a pdf.)
Having spent a season watching football in stadiums across Japan but struggling to find a quality TV highlights show I began to muse about why there was no Match of the Day in the country. These musings eventually turned into an article for the Number One Shimbun, which can be found by clicking the link below.
http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/5320
Sakka Nihon 