Saturday, December 31, 2005

Wish list

Here is a New Year's wish list for the Green Machine

1. Ruy Ramos proves me wrong: I have many, many doubts about the qualifications and competence of this man as a coach but I'd love to be the the first to say I was wrong. I think he's going to be the J-League equivalent of Magic Johnson (Who had a fantastic debut and flamed out)

2. NTV continues showing Verdy home games: There was nothing more enjoyable in the middle of the night than watching Verdy repeats at 3:00 (With the exception of watching Jo-o.....the show about competing hostesses). I hope they continue because it would give me a chance to see some J2 games this year.

3. Young messrs Morimoto and Kobayashi continue developing into great players: Verdy is fortunate to have an abundance of young talent offensively..........I think Daigo Kobayashi will be the star in J2 next year.

4. A championship for the Omiya Ardija (oops, wrong site!)

5. A respectable showing in the Asians Champions League: The league is giving TV69 the shaft bigtime! I hope they go farther than Gamba. I'd love to see them take it all, although the talent and the schedule are going to prove to be a daunting task.

6. Continuing success for the youth team: One of the few bright spots for the green has been their youth program. Recently they made it to the knockout rounds in the J Youth Sahara cup, getting knocked out by Yokohama FM youth. To quote singing diva and part time crackhead, Whitney Houston; I believe the children are our future........obviously Verdy does as well.

7. Defense, Defense, Defense: Verdy let up a league leading (by far) 73 goals. They really need a couple of good young keepers and some solid backfield players. Yoneyama is out the door and some of the older players will probably follow. Don't expect to see Toda, Yamada, or Uehara next year.

8. Young foreign talent: With the exodus of Gil and Washington Verdy has some spots open for a good foreign player to add to the young abundance of talent.

9. Another miracle run in the Emperors Cup: I would actually love to see them win another Emperors Cup just to make the league squirm again about the ACL. (If Omiya doesn't win it of course.......DAMN! wrong site!)

10. A happy and peaceful New Year for everybody except the Urawa Reds

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can`t believe how many players have left either!!As our two best players; Washington and Soma were always going to leave but Im surprised anybody bothered picking up the most hapless defenders ever to grace the field!!i thought we`d still have the treat of seeing them bumble along in J2. Also Ramos reaks of "numpty" don`t reckon he`ll be around too long....my wish is to see Takagi shown the exit on account of his appalling haircuts for the last few seasons. Any team that has a dandelion in a pink top in nets deserves relegation!! We can`t complain really.. Its gonna be a long season me thinks. If Ramos is on about raiding the retirement home, how about Big Pat Mboma, or Edmundo.I hear Bobby Charlton is free on most Saturday afternoons.

SMB said...

I actually thought some would stick around because of the ACL but they all bailed. I guess they acted like individuals on the field.......might as well be consistent.

I actually kind of dig the Valderrama that Takagi sports. At least it's not a Nakata mullet! It also has an added benifit of distracting attention away from all the soft goals. Seriously, that defense did him no favors, especially since it was a 3-5-2, it left him exposed. It also didn't help that they were a man down a couple of times and they had a couple of blowouts. I really like the guy they brought in from Shimizu......I think he'll have a good year.

Thanks for writing Nick! Hope you can keep contributing.