It's a blog (in English mostly) all about football...in Japan with the J-League and Cerezo Osaka, in the English Premier League with Spurs and anywhere else the football takes us.
New manager Yuji Okuma started with a win against Jubilo Iwata who are 3rd in J2 and as we are currently 3rd from bottom in J1 that should make us pretty evenly matched right? Just over 4000 people turned up for this in a stadium that was used in a World Cup so you can imagine it looked a bit odd. Kusukami started and showed what he can bring to the team by setting up Minamino who finished well for the first. Ryo Nagai worked tirelessly all night and was rewarded with a goal he took thanks to his speedy footwork and thinking. Our injured captain Yamaguchi wasn't missed as we got our first meaningful win in a long time. Everyone put a decent shift in tonight compared to our performances in the league. I'm hoping Okuma doesn't feel pressured to bring back any big names, match-fit or not, for the next game on Saturday against 6th place Kashiwa Reysol. Kagawa has returned to Dortmund recently but in bigger news Mitch Nichols quietly joined Perth Glory on loan after a ridiculously wasted (first?) spell in Osaka.
The unusually sparsely populated I4
This is what a world cup stadium looks like for a dry Wednesday night Emperor's Cup game in Osaka
Someone's sitting there mate
The acoustics are great in Yanmar Stadium so their efforts were heard
Lonely jobs, all of them, cameraman (or woman?), manager and linesman (or woman or assistant referee?)
New gaffer Yuji Okuma gets nervous as he is surrounded...by drink bottles lined up and ready to spring the offside trap
Oita
Trinita currently languish at the bottom of J1 but left with a point
despite hitting the woodwork in quick succession. To be fair to
Cerezo they did manage a pretty decent 16 shots this game whilst always
looking susceptible to an Oita counter. Edno was dropped today for
the first time but looked lively when brought on. As usual our
brightest spark throughout was Kakitani who seems likely to leave
this summer with Dortmund being touted as one possible destination.
This was the first game this season in the slightly revamped Kincho
Stadium with a larger standing section behind the goal which our fans
celebrated by chipping in together to pay almost a million yen for a
new banner.
If you wear the away colours in this section you can't watch the game, new rules this season.
Locals show their support
Trinita supporters gave it their all to help lift their team
We didn't play well. Inui set up Pimpao's header for the first goal and Pimpao also finished well from a fortunate free kick. We conceded a penalty for handball but Arema didn't play well either. Bo-Kyung Kim showed some nice touches and hit the crossbar. Perhaps I've been watching too much Premier League recently but I think we'll struggle against Gamba this Saturday if we don't improve our performance. I'm a little scared to be honest. Inui did little to remind people why he is capped at full international level despite his assist. At least Pimpao couldn't have done more, he only had two good chances and he finished them. Limping ex-Cerezo star Kagawa Shinji, now of Borussia Dortmund, gave an interview at half-time which was a nice distraction from a pretty poor game attended by just over 10000 people which was a disappointing number for our first game of the season.
Arema fans adding to the numbers while the stewards make sure there's no trouble
We have signed Rodrigo Pimpao an loan from Vasco da Gama. Although any player can be made to look good on youtube highlights he does look like he could do a job in J1 for us. While looking for the video you can watch here I also came across another of his youtube videos where he fractures his arm. It's horrible, so no link, I can't erase the memory of watching it! Don't do it is my advice. Spurs meanwhile have signed Steven Pienaar who was pretty cheap as his contract is up this summer but it's difficult to judge how often he will play. Time is running out for Spurs to sign a much needed striker or indeed offload one, Robbie Keane to Cerezo perhaps? Anyway enjoy some Brazilian magic from the new Cerezo frontman. In other news Shinji Kagawa is out for the rest of the season by the looks of it. After a couple of goals in the Asian Cup for Japan and attracting the attention of Man U too. Don't do it Shinji, stay with BVB!
Took a trip to see Shinji play in Germany, he got subbed in the second half, Dortmund lost, got stuck in Franfurt because of the snow and Lufthansa lost our luggage...Dortmund fans were great though. We were in the standing section and they were serving hot mulled wine in very large cups.
