After the tragic events that took place in the Tohoku region of Japan last week, football has been placed very much in perspective.
The J.League and JFA have done well to bear this in mind, and I discussed their reactions in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami here.
As the 2011 J.League began I used my Weekly Soccer Magazine column to explain why there is nothing quite like the full domestic season.
Phew, the new season is finally here!
And 2011 begins with Japanese football very much on the up. The country have become the champions of Asia for a record fourth time, more and more players are getting their chances in the big European leagues, and there are some fantastic young players emerging in the J.League to take their places.
I know football doesn’t really ever stop and since the 2010 J.League season wound up we’ve had the High School Championships and the Asian Cup to keep us occupied, but you can’t beat the season proper can you?
These tournaments provided some fantastic moments of entertainment and gave us addicts the fix we needed to see us through until March 5th, but they are only bite-size versions of the real thing; they are like the Hollywood movie version of a really good book. All of the key events still happen and you enjoy it while it’s there, but there is never quite the same sense of anticipation or involvement. It all comes and goes too quickly.
With the full season every emotion is longer-lasting. You find yourself caught up in it and it begins to take over your whole week. The newspapers, websites and (of course!) magazines are checked daily for the latest updates on the injury to your star striker, the joy of victory stays with you until the next game and fills you with optimism and hope, while the frustration, anger and pain of defeat lingers and lingers.
The start of the season is unique too, because it is the only time that everybody is feeling optimistic. At the J.League’s Kick Off Conference, for instance, I spoke to players and coaches from eight different clubs – seven of them were talking about becoming champions of their respective leagues.
Before a ball has been kicked there is a clean slate, a fresh page and anything is possible. Regardless of the improbability of your side winning the league (or even staying in it), there is always that sense of what could be.
We all try to predict what will happen and are sure that these teams will be relegated, this guy will be top scorer and that so-and-so will be playing for Barcelona in a year’s time. But it is never that easy, there are always surprises and shocks that nobody could have foreseen, and this is why the game is the most popular in the world.
Consider, for example, the fates of FC Tokyo and Cerezo Osaka last year. No-one (and you are lying if you say you did) will have predicted that the Nabisco Cup champions of 2009 would be relegated to J2 or that the newly promoted side would play their way into the AFC Champions League. In fact, if it had been announced that one of those teams would finish third from top and one third from bottom it would have been unanimously decided that Cerezo would be heading back to where they had come from.
Indeed, this is why no good football movie has ever been made. Trying to replicate the natural drama, tension and surprises of the football season is an impossible task.
Even as you read this I am almost certain to be looking a little foolish, and my predictions from last week’s magazine will already have taken a knocking after the first round of matches (or I’ve got everything right and will be receiving a visit from the police shortly with regards to match-fixing).
Everybody’s heads are in the clouds at the moment, and it is a shame that the majority of them will be brought crashing back down to earth over the coming weeks and months.
Here too drama, twists and turns are available in spades though, and while the more ambitious aims may be shelved once a few knocks have been taken, there is still plenty of room for excitement.
Just consider the joy on display at Saitama Stadium on the last day of the 2010 season. Vissel Kobe would not have set out to stay up by one point, but each setback brings about a new set of targets – and achievement of them is just as enjoyable.
Only one team will win the league, but there will be lots of room for celebration in 2011 – that’s a prediction I am confident about.
There may no longer be a huge amount of prestige attached to winning the English FA Cup – largely because there is no real benefit of winning the tournament – but the winners of the football association cup in Japan certainly have an extra incentive.
Although many see the Emperor’s Cup as little more than a consolation prize, I am happy that the winners get Japan’s fourth and final Asian Champions League spot. As far as I’m concerned, winning a trophy is more of an achievement than finishing fourth in the league and the ‘Champions’ league should be contested by champions.
Speaking after Kashima defeated Shimizu on New Year’s Day, Oswaldo Oliveira was delighted to have won the competition for the second time and his comments highlighted the importance of adding the extra incentive of a Champions League spot to the competition.
“I was worrying about this (qualifying for the Champions League) because it will be our fourth time to play in the tournament since 2008. If we missed out on 2011, I would feel very sad.”
“I couldn’t allow myself to end the year without winning a title so this victory means a lot to me.”
Match-winner Takuya Nozawa also reflected on the value of the victory, commenting that, “We really wanted to qualify for the Asian Champions League and we got it done. Although we weren’t able to win four straight J.League titles I feel that in part we made up for it by winning the Emperor’s Cup.”
This hits the nail on the head, and while a strong league finish demonstrates consistency over the course of the season it does not bring with it the same thrills and tensions as a cup run. Players should want to be winning trophies rather than finishing in third place in the league.
Last weekend was the third round of the famous English FA Cup – the tournament on which the Emperor’s Cup is based. Despite the history and tradition attached to this trophy however, very few of England’s big teams are really too concerned with the competition any more, with fourth place in the Premier League offering more financial gain and the chance of Champions League football. The FA Cup does not currently provide a gateway to that continental competition.
In last year’s third round – when Premier League teams enter the draw – Manchester United lost at home to Leeds United, who are now playing in the third tier of English football, while Liverpool fell to defeat against Championship side Reading at Anfield; both teams had bigger fish to fry.
This lack of interest in the cup was then contrasted by the depressingly over-the-top celebrations by Tottenham Hotspur when they beat Manchester City to secure fourth-place in the Premier League.
Champagne corks were popping and the manager, Harry Redknapp, was showered by a bucket of iced water as the players celebrated their achievement.
Redknapp, who had won the FA Cup with his former side Portsmouth in 2008, made it abundantly clear which success he valued more greatly, exclaiming that.
“It’s even better than winning the Cup. The Cup you can win with some lucky draws. You all know that if you can get some nice draws, three or four wins and you are there. But I think this a better achievement.”
He then continued by claiming that, having secured a qualification spot for the European competition, his team’s final league position didn’t actually matter too much.
“I just wanted to finish fourth but the chairman has just asked me who Arsenal are playing on Sunday and I think he wants to see if we can finish above them. I’m just happy with fourth.”
This is a sad indication of the plight of modern football, with finishing fourth in one competition – not even a medal position in other sports – being deemed of greater value than coming first in another.
Unfortunately, such an attitude is understandable though, and, while it would be great for teams to want to win a trophy for nothing more than prestige and glory, the financial pressures on professional clubs these days mean that is just not realistic.
By having the final ACL position tied up with victory in the Emperor’s Cup, the JFA is doing better than the English FA in keeping its teams interested in its cup competition though, and as long as that bonus is attached to lifting the trophy, J.League teams will have to keep treating the tournament with respect.
I wanted to write a season review and look ahead to the next one for my last Soccer Magazine column of 2010. The congested structure of the Japanese football season made this a little tricky though…
As I sat on the plane to England for my hard-earned Christmas holiday I began to write this week’s column. Seeing as the 2010 season has almost concluded and the New Year is fast approaching, a reflection on the past season and look forward to the next initially seemed like a good idea.
Then I stumbled upon a problem. Just when did the last season begin, when would it finish and when exactly would the new one begin? I began to go through my notes and searched for a period in the last year-and-a-half when there hadn’t been any Japanese football taking place.
It turned out there hadn’t been one, and there wasn’t going to be for some time to come.
To demonstrate the intensity of the schedule, put yourself into the shoes of Endo Yasuhito for a moment.
The 2009 J.League season started in March and officially came to an end with a 2-0 victory over JEF last December, but there was still the Emperor’s Cup which didn’t conclude until New Year’s Day 2010.
A couple of weeks after winning that he was training with the national team in preparation for the East Asian Championship and just 10 days after China secured victory at Kokuritsu he was back in action for Gamba, playing against Suwon in Korea in the ACL.
The 2010 J.League season was then underway, but, mercifully, after just 12 rounds of matches there was a break. Oh, not for Yatto, as this ‘break’ was for the World Cup and he was off to South Africa (via Switzerland and Austria).
After playing every minute for Okada san at the tournament there was still no time to put his feet up as J.League games were back on and his team needed him after a fairly miserable showing in the first part of the season.
He helped to turn things around for Nishino san, got his regular spot in the J.League Best Eleven and can finally look forward to…the Emperor’s Cup. Again?! Oh well, just three more matches at the most and then he can take some time off.
But wait! The Asian Cup!
OK, if he can just put it in in Qatar and then surely he can take it easy for a little while?
Oh no, hang on, then the 2011 ACL and J.League season will be getting underway, then there’s another ‘break’ – this time for the Copa America – the end of the J.League, probably the Emperor’s Cup (there’s always the Emperor’s Cup – if only he had Tulio’s timing when it came to injuries)…it never seems to end – and potentially won’t until January 2012, almost three years after this sequence began.
This, of course, is an extreme case but it demonstrates wonderfully the problems that the current fixture list makes possible for the best Japanese players.
Also, while only a small minority of players take part in this whole schedule, the J.League as a whole is not helped by all of these mini-breaks which disrupt the flow of the season and detract from the momentum of the title chase and relegation battle.
The only answer, in my opinion, has to be a shift to the European August – May season.
This would not interfere with Japan’s major bi-annual tournaments (the Asian Cup – interestingly, with the 2022 World Cup in mind – is only being held in January this time because of the intensity of Qatar’s summer) and commitments such as the East Asian Championship could always be used to provide University or fringe players with vital national team experience.
The Nabisco Cup could cease it’s group format and become a simple knockout competition – which would make it easier for it and the Emperor’s Cup to run within the regular season – and it would also mean that clubs could easier deal with the increasingly frequent loss of their best players to the European leagues, with their departures coming in the Japanese off-season, rather than in the very middle.
Bringing about such changes would surely provide J.League players with more recuperation time and, most importantly, give the league the chance to run consistently, from start to finish with no breaks – which can only be a good thing for all concerned.
Sakka Nihon 