Avispa Fukuoka were almost relegated in 2019, but some smart work on and off the pitch leaves them in pole position for promotion back to J1 with less than a third of the 2020 season to play… (日本語版)

The climax to the 2020 J2 season will take on a very different complexion this year, with only two promotion spots available and the play-offs having been shelved on account of the coronavirus.
This is a shame for neutrals and clubs alike, depriving fans of the extra excitement produced by the end of season deciders and also meaning more teams will have less – or, more precisely, nothing – to play for once they are too far adrift of the pacesetters.
A quick glance at the table suggests at least 10 teams are already in that boat, and it will be interesting to see how or if they manage to keep their motivation as the fixtures continue to come thick and fast over the next seven weeks. On the flip side, concentration and determination will be more crucial than ever for those clubs still in the running for a place in J1 in 2021, with the insurance of a play-off berth gone and no second chances available.
Avispa Fukuoka are currently in pole position with an eight-point cushion to third-placed V-Varen Nagasaki, after a sensational recent run of form that sees them unbeaten in 15 and having won 13 of their last 14. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a club that has achieved promotion to the first division on three previous occasions, they have in many ways provided a textbook example of how to navigate the choppy waters of the second tier.
First of all, after last year’s disaster under Fabio Pecchia and Kiyokazu Kudo saw them avoid relegation by just four points, the club hired a manager with a clear and effective style in Shigetoshi Hasebe. Hasebe arrived after two impressive years at Mito Hollyhock, during which he demonstrated his ability to earn the trust of his players and foster a strong team spirit by steering the Ibaraki minnows to the brink of the play-offs – ultimately only missing out last year on goals scored.
The 49-year-old is straightforward in his approach to the game, sticking to a traditional 4-4-2 set-up in which each player is expected to put in plenty of hard running in and out of possession.
“I want my teams to play aggressively in the transitions between defence and attack, in both directions,” he told me ahead of his first year with Mito in 2018.
“I want them to place importance on being able to look after the ball, but of course in the flow of the game there will also be times when we don’t have the initiative. Because of that we also have to defend aggressively, but I don’t want us to just sit back and get bodies behind the ball the whole time. My style is to have the team play aggressively.”
That was borne out in his two years with Hollyhock, and Avispa helped lay the foundations for this year’s success by backing their new boss in the transfer market and bringing in players like Emil Salomonsson, Asahi Masuyama, and Juanma Delgado to enact that aggressive style. Hasebe also brought his captain Hiroyuki Mae with him, and having been crucial to Mito’s success in 2019 the 25-year-old has played a similarly vital role at Best Denki Stadium this season.

Indeed, Avispa are yet to lose with the Hokkaido native in the side, and it is no coincidence that the team’s only patchy run of form – when they lost four in five games in the heat of summer – came when he was unavailable for selection after testing positive for the coronavirus.
Mae hasn’t been the only standout performer in the team’s current run though, and Takumi Kamijima and Daiya Tono, who also only joined the club ahead of the 2020 campaign, have shone at opposite ends of the pitch. The loanees from Kashiwa Reysol and Kawasaki Frontale, respectively, came in under the radar slightly and weren’t widely expected to become regulars in Kyushu, but both have played in every game so far and embody the industrious approach of their manager, with Kamijima contributing to the best defence in the league and Tono pressing from the front and keeping opposing defenders constantly occupied, as well as chipping in with seven goals.
Of course, success over the course of a whole season requires more than just a few players to be at the top of their game, and it is essential to have strength in depth to maintain consistency – this year especially, with the re-worked fixture list meaning teams hardly have any time at all to recover between games. In this way too, Fukuoka and Hasebe have outshone almost every other team in the second tier in 2020 – with the possible exception of Tokushima Vortis, who just so happen to be Avispa’s closest challengers at the time of writing – in that they have a well-rounded squad of players all capable of making contributions when called upon.
The packed schedule has forced the majority of teams to make fuller use of their squads than they would in an ordinary campaign, but few have managed to achieve Avispa’s dependability while doing so, and while others’ form has ridden the waves to varying degrees Avispa, that blip in August and back-to-back defeats at the start of July aside, have enjoyed relatively smooth sailing.
Of the 29 players to make it onto the pitch this season 22 have appeared at least 10 times, and every position has at least one capable option ready to step in and ensure the player they are deputising for isn’t missed. Masaaki Murakami, for instance – who like Mae played under Hasebe at Mito last year – has slotted effortlessly between the posts and conceded just twice in nine games since Jon Ander Serantes picked up an injury, while the likes of Masato Yuzawa, Kennedy Egbus Mikuni, Jun Suzuki, Takaki Fukumitsu – another who worked with Hasebe in 2019 – and recent signing from Montedio Yamagata Yuya Yamagishi also offer high quality reinforcements when things need freshening up a little.
With 13 rounds remaining there is still too much football to play for anyone to get ahead of themselves, and as the finish line draws closer there will be additional pressures for teams at the sharp end to deal with. Hasebe’s cool, calm approach and Avispa’s balanced and talented squad has worked wonders thus far though, and they look very well placed to make a strong challenge for another return to the top flight come December.