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.
Zaccheroni's JFA (Samurai Blue) beat Stojkovic's J-League (Team as One) 2-1 last night. A free kick from Endo and a calm finish from Okazaki in the first half followed by a crowd pleasing wonderfully taken goal by the Japanese (44 year old) legend Kazuyoshi 'King Kazu' Miura. All the proceeds from this match go towards helping those affected by the earthquake/tsunami on March 11th.
A moment's silence
A sold out Nagai Stadium
In other news England drew with a vibrant Ghana side 1-1, the 8th most expensive player ever, Andy Carroll, scoring for England before Sunderland striker Asamoah Gyan scored an injury time equaliser. But of course the main story is about Japan with many supporters at Nagai Stadium donating plus the magic of seeing a Japanese superstar footballer scoring in front of an adoring crowd. Gambare Nippon indeed. Anyone watching Football Italia many years ago might remember this from Kazu while he was playing for Genoa in Serie A.
Cerezo won 2-0 against Kyoto Purple Sanga in a charity match on Saturday with goals from Takahashi and Pimpao. J1 and J2 fixtures will now resume from the 23rd of April and our ACL game against Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors on Tue 5th April in Osaka is unaffected. England beat a poor Welsh team 2-0, Lampard pen and Darren Bent goal early in the first half. Tomorrow there is a huge charity game between the JFA and J-League in Nagai Stadium, tickets selling out ridiculously quickly along with huge queues in Nagai park to watch the practices today and yesterday. The highlight of this weekend fixtures for me though was one particular friendly, Brazil v Scotland, played at the Emirates for some (£$?) reason, why not in Scotland? The emergence of the next Brazilian superstar perhaps? Enjoy Neymar (he's 19, which might explain his haircut!)...
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...
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?
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.
