Cerezo news update

Japanese clubs' fortunes are heavily linked to the companies which own them so this year as Yanmar's stock has risen we have a little bit more cash than usual to spend. Thanks in part to Shinji Kagawa Yanmar has become a sponsor of both Borussia Dortmund and Manchester United. Traditionally Yanmar Deisel's sales have been from industrial farm equipment in Japan but recently they have been expanding by providing emergency power generators in Europe. This explains their push to sponsor European teams and also a newly found desire to back Cerezo to help further increase their international profile. Man Utd are pencilled in for a friendly in Osaka this year. The plan seems to be working judging by this in the Daily Mail mentioning Yanmar in an article. So will this renewed effort lead to wise investments or will we squander the cash on journeymen Brazilians? All of the transfers listed below have been announced on the Cerezo website as of today with the exception of Edno Cunha for some reason. It seems the 29 year old is on loan from Mexican club Tigres. He represented Brazil at U20 level and has played for a lot of clubs in a few different countries managing to score over 10 goals in a season just once in career playing as a second striker. He's pretty much guaranteed to start every game whether or not he's any better than the players we already have so check out his YouTube highlights. His nickname is “The Rock”. Fingers crossed he can do the business in the J-League. As for the other transfers there aren't any players that stand out as obvious starters but they should help be able to help out as squad players. Sadly Daisuke Takahashi is now out of contract and going through rehab for his knee injury after previously fighting back from a fractured skull. Hopefully he can come back from this too. At the moment Takahiro Ogihara remains a Cerezo player despite a bid from FC Nurnberg. He will move but it remains to be seen whether it will happen this winter or more likely in the summer. Yoichiro Kakitani is also interesting a number of European clubs.

IN:

Takeda Yohei from Shimizu S-Pulse

Mukuhara Kenta on loan from FC Tokyo
Kusukami Junpei from Kawasaki Frontale
Toru Araiba from Kashima Antlers
Gu Sung-Yun from a high school in Korea!

OUT:

Kenya Matsui to Tokushima Vortis

Tada Ryosuke to Thespa Kusatsu on loan
Ogino Kenjiro to Albirex Niigata Singapore FC
Kodama Arata to Oita Trinita
Funatsu Tetsuya returns to Toyama Kataller after loan
Daisuke Takahashi released

Still no home win, Inui scores but will it be his last for Cerezo?

An entertaining 2-3 loss to a strong Nagoya team. Inui came off the bench to score our second after Pimpao got the first for Cerezo. Jin-Hyeon had to face another Kennedy penalty straight after saving the first when the referee deemed a retake was needed. This was Nagoya's third of the night. Not for the first time this season the home fans (and Culpi) got peeved with the officiating.

Kennedy gets another penalty chance

Culpi was restrained then stormed off

How many games does Inui have left for Cerezo? Will he be a great loss?

Inui started away to Albirex Niigata but it took an effort from sub Sakemoto in injury time to salvage a point for us in Niigata, 1-1. Still finding it hard to believe the scouts think he's that good but it looks like Inui (4 goals in J1 last season) will be heading to Europe and the Bundelsiga looks the most likely destination. Supposedly his contract has a similar 350k Euro release clause that saw the now highly valued Shinji Kagawa leave for Dortmund. Surely the outcome won't be the same, I expect to see a fair number of bemused Bundesliga fans when they see him in action, even if he is cheap as. Not sure if he'll be starting, on the bench, or left out of the matchday squad (hot inside gossip ahoy!) for Kashiwa Reysol's visit to Osaka which will also see a return to Nagai Stadium this Saturday.

A match made in Osaka

Something old...

Before we became Cerezo Osaka we were Yanmar Diesel and this was our kit

 Something new...

The J-League kicks off today!

Something borrowed...

Most of our new players this season are on loan. I was going to do a preview but instead here's a link to Ryuji Bando's thoughts on the new season from www.goal.com in English, great interview. Also 'borrowed' from the same site, here is an interesting atricle by Cesare Polenghi about the transer system in Japanese football and why it's bad for Japanese clubs. Will anything change in the near future? Finally some comments from Levir Culpi in the Japan Times following our ACL debut.

Something blue...

The Gamba kit, Endo really needs a haircut

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

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...

Transfer and injury update!

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!