Two huge games - Arema is our first ACL game and the Osaka derby is our opening game in the J-League!

The tickets sold out fast for the Osaka derby (as they always do) on the opening day of the J-League season and the game before that will be the visit of Arema FC from Indonesia next month. The away game in Indonesia is during Golden Week which should see a decent number of our supporters making the trip despite the price hikes during that period. So here is some information from, wikipedia of course, about Arema and the only recent news I could find in English about them here which looks impressive. Finally please note this is the emblem of our Asian rivals. Anyone that can help with more information and/or links would be helpful!

Welcome to the jungle

Furthermore in case there are any fans coming over from Indonesia that can't read one of the three Japanese alphabets perhaps this could be useful:

This is where to find us

Of course we lost to Blackpool!

Standard stuff from Spurs, an great win followed by a missed opportunity in the league. We need a striker who can score. Still it's much better than any number of seasons I can remember as a Spurs fan. But the failure to land a goalscorer in January despite some desperate attempts could prove costly. We missed lots of chances and it still seems strange to see a formerly pointless QPR midfielder turn into an entertaining manager for the Seasiders.

"I for one would love to see him in that chair"

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1359214/Harry-Redknapp-England-says-Blackpool-boss-Ian-Holloway.html#ixzz1En4Y9Cvk

Cerezo Asian Champions League Group G Fixtures

Here are all of the fixtures for our group known by me as 'the group of the unknown.'

	02 March 2011 19:00	JEONBUK HYUNDAI MOTORS (KOR)-SHANDONG LUNENG FC (CHN)	Jeonju World Cup Stadium
	02 March 2011 19:00	CEREZO OSAKA (JPN)-AREMA INDONESIA (IDN)	Osaka Nagai Stadium
	16 March 2011 15:30	SHANDONG LUNENG FC (CHN)-CEREZO OSAKA (JPN)	Shandong Luneng Stadium
	16 March 2011 15:30	AREMA INDONESIA (IDN)-JEONBUK HYUNDAI MOTORS (KOR)	Kanjuruhan Stadium
	05 April 2011 15:30	AREMA INDONESIA (IDN)-SHANDONG LUNENG FC (CHN)	Kanjuruhan Stadium
	05 April 2011 19:00	CEREZO OSAKA (JPN)-JEONBUK HYUNDAI MOTORS (KOR)	Osaka Nagai Stadium
	20 April 2011 15:30	SHANDONG LUNENG FC (CHN)-AREMA INDONESIA (IDN)	Shandong Luneng Stadium
	20 April 2011 19:00	JEONBUK HYUNDAI MOTORS (KOR)-CEREZO OSAKA (JPN)	Jeonju World Cup Stadium
	03 May 2011 15:30	AREMA INDONESIA (IDN)-CEREZO OSAKA (JPN)	Kanjuruhan Stadium
	03 May 2011 19:30	SHANDONG LUNENG FC (CHN)-JEONBUK HYUNDAI MOTORS (KOR)	Shandong Luneng Stadium
	10 May 2011 15:00	JEONBUK HYUNDAI MOTORS (KOR)-AREMA INDONESIA (IDN)	Jeonju World Cup Stadium
	10 May 2011 19:00	CEREZO OSAKA (JPN)-SHANDONG LUNENG FC (CHN)	Osaka Nagai Stadium

 

Amazing scenes at the San Siro

    Who would win? (Jordan is 59 but...)

I'll have a couple quid on Joe

Well done Spurs, great stuff, Crouch somehow always looks like he'll score in Europe, good work from Lennon too for the goal. AC Milan were petulant to say the least but what can you say? Sandro was very impressive and Redknapp knows what he's doing. The 'amazing scenes' in the title refer to Gattuso and ex-Milan player/hard man turned Spurs coach Joe Jordan. The last thing I would have expected was the Milan captain losing it after Jordan supposedly called him a "f******g Italian b******d" which Jordan denies. Milan meet UEFA today to find out how long his ban will be. Perhaps AC Milan owner and Italian PM Berlusconi is happy with him for deflecting media attention away from his personal life with an audacious headbutt after the final whistle? Bring on the second leg (we won 1-0)!

Premier league magic

Everyone has been talking about the Rooney goal although the man himself wasn't that good in the derby apart from his goal. So here instead is Trevor Sinclair's overhead kick for QPR, this from a player who also managed to play well for England in a World Cup! For Spurs Nico did the business again ensuring we stay in the top 4 and look, dare I say it, comfortable there. The Croat outscoring Torres recently...

                                                                               

Ronaldo retires

Enjoy 53 of his goals over two years while he was still a wonderkid at PSV, a true great, shame about the injuries. Thank you for the memories! Too good for words just enjoy...

Thanks again J-Sports 2 and a short roundup of the week

England won against the Danes. Everyone was raving about Christian Eriksen who plays for Ajax for now.

No debut for Kyle Walker and Defoe stayed on the bench but Dawson played for a while. Lots of other Spurs players had a run out mid-week though including Sandro for Brazil who lost against the French. Lucky Harry, couldn't get rid of Nico Kranjcar during the window and he ended up scoring a beauty to get us the 3 points against Bolton, live on J-Sports 2 last weekend. Our game tonight against Sunderland is also going to be shown on J-Sports 2 which is a rare double treat for Spurs fans in Japan but this one will will kick off just before half two on Sunday morning over here. No Bale, Van Der Vaart, Modric, King ( of course, back soon? ) and Kaboul. Xavi the Spain and Barcelona maestro gave an interesting interview this week, Scholes eh?

Stadium choices for Cerezo, Spurs and West Ham!

Tickets went on sale yesterday for our first home Asian Champions League game against Arema from Indonesia. This game will be played in Nagai Stadium, the one with a running track. The choice is most likely down to the fact you can fit a lot more people in this stadium but the fans are pretty far from the action, West Ham take note. Our first home game in the J-League will be in Kincho stadium which has a reduced capacity but the fans are much closer to the action, possibly the closest you can get in Japan. It's a difficult one, since I've been watching we rarely get huge crowds at the former World Cup venue, with the athletics track. Look at the layout of the two stadiums below. The prices are the same for both stadiums with the pink being sections being the cheapest! It seems odd that Cerezo can choose between 2, or indeed 3, grounds all in the same park while Spurs and West Ham have both been encouraged to go for gold, in the Olympic sense so to speak in East London.

Kincho Stadium

Nagai Stadium ( Complete with athletics facilities! )

So West Ham won the bid to take over the Olympic Stadium. It is going to be in East London but there are so many question marks about the future under the Hammers. Can they fill the stadium (heading into the Championship as they are) ? Will the Boleyn faithfull be happy with having the track between them and the players? So it's back to the drawing board for Spurs and the new stadium but here's a quick reminder of what the club had on the drawing board for the Olympic site ( no athletics stuff here! ).

London - look at what we could have had...

Capello's Latest England Squad...International news

The current squad includes Jermain Defoe, Michael Dawson and Kyle Walker from Spurs, no room for the recently playing decently Lennon though which is odd. Fair play to Kyle Walker for his call up at right back, a position Harry has tried three players so far in the league for us... Walker has also scored more Premier League goals (1) than Defoe (0) as of today, here is his effort against Fulham.

 

One of our right backs...playing for Villa

Good luck to him if he gets his first cap against Denmark later today. Lampard has been named captain as the other conteders are out. It might not be the pick the pick of the friendly internationals, France vs Brazil could be interesting, but there's enough to keep Spurs and England fans interested. Although if you live in Japan watching it live is possible but needs some stamina and you should be willing to bend the law a little. Redknapp has withdrawn Peter Crouch and Van Der Vaart (Holland) due to injuries or he's playing things safe.

Asian Champions League Cerezo kit!

Here it is, a must buy, much like the Spurs UEFA Champions League kit who knows when the next chance will come around. Looking forward to Cerezo and Spurs meeting in the World Club Championship this millennium.

Some notes about the Asian Cup

Congratulations to Japan, Zaccheroni and finally Tadanari Lee for this spectacular winner!

The final also saw fans with tickets being locked out but not to worry Qatar has many years to avoid a repeat before the World Cup. Low attendances in the tournament could have been due to the poor showing from the teams from Qatar and her close neighbours.

The January transfer window

So Harry Redknapp (or just Levy?) bid for a number of strikers, Aguerro, Llorente, Carroll, Negredo, Forlan, and even midfielder Charlie Adam and utility man Phil Neville. This despite Luis Fabiano having been the most likely mover. At the same time he loaned out Robbie Keane to his first love, West Ham, he scored of course in his first game there, while our three remaining strikers have struggled in the league. We got stuffed by Fulham, down to ten men for some time, but thanks to Peter Crouch's 2nd league goal of the season beat Blackburn. The similarites between Peter and Cerezo's Rui Komatsu are either endless or non-existent depending on whether you are aware of either of them by the way. Anyway Harry seems to have given up on a Champions League qualifying spot although he did say we weren't in the market for any more players before our last minute let downs so let's see what he really means later. The Torres transfer shows the importance of Champions League football for world class players which might be worrying for us Spurs fans (we do have some world class talent) depending on the final table come the end of this season. Torres vs Liverpool and Adriano vs Cerezo on their debut games for their respective new clubs, nice. Chelsea just reminding everyone that their recent success is largely due to Roman's checkbook and fax machine (both still heavily involved in football but largely redundant elsewhere). Mercenaries, outcasts or boyhood supporters, only time will tell. At least we have shown we have cash to spend unlike Arsenal who probably do have money but Wenger knows best. This window around £225 million was spent in England compared to about £30 million last year. Hungry, talented players available for relatively cheap seem to be the best option. Look a the list (link below) and think about how many of those players did not/have not yet prove/proven their worth. With this in mind perhaps Juventus want BAE? Tottenham make the British transfer top ten list thanks to Dimitar Berbatov, outgoing, maybe we could be on the incoming list but if we really meant it we would have started the bidding earlier, not a problem. Then came Andy (when's he due back in court?) Carroll. He is now, quite ridiculously, the 8th most expensive football player of all time! Does that seem right? Yuto Nagatomo went on loan to Inter from Cesena who got Davide Santon in return which has been dominating the sports news here in Japan, rightly so. Pienaar has recovered from his fellow newcomer South African mistaking his head for the ball to be available for the game against Bolton at the Lane later. Thank you J-Sports for showing the game on J-Sports 2! COYS

Sumo scandal to increase football gates? I hope so...

Err...it must have been the calculator.

The whole story can be viewed here but I'm sure that this kind of stuff doesn't happen in the J-League. Plus match-fixing isn't illegal in sumo? Keep sumo alive but football is the way forward...unless it's in Italy's Serie A/B/C where the sumo-style shenanigans wouldn't be worth mentioning. The 11 million project is the attendance target for the J-League. The president of Omiya Ardija resigned last year due to...attendance-fixing, which to be fair isn't as serious as match fixing, he didn't understand the rules of recording his clubs attendance (how complicated could it be)!

Waiting for the season to kick off!

Our first game will be against Gamba away with Adriano lining up for the home team. Gamba have also signed Seung-Yong Kim from Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, the team we face in the ACL, so perhaps they may have done us a favour? Our fixtures for the season have recently been added to the Cerezo site. We have signed a young centre-back from North Korea, Song-Gi Kim and Amaral has left the club. We also have Shu Kurata on loan from Gamba. In the last few seasons Cerezo have followed an odd pattern of being very good, then getting relegated so I'm not sure what to hope for this season. If Inui can up his game once more and remind people why he has been capped at full international level and Bo-Kyung Kim, who has returned from loan in J2 with Oita, (8 goals in 27 matches for the attacking midfielder) contributes and Pimpao scores some of those goals you can see elsewhere on this site, and Mr.Nagai steps up  we need not worry. But we are Cerezo and after the highs come the lows. Too much thinking too little football...