Verdy gets a midfielder

For the future at least........Kokushikan University product Kosei Shibasaki signed for 2007. The former U-18 player and All-Japan Collegiate is 22 and small......a mere 175 centimeters and 65 kg.

It's not the what......it's the how

Well, the final nail is in the coffin for Verdy promotion. Playing a 3-5-2, Mito got out on the attack early when FW Shogo Shiozawa scored, minutes later Kohei Nishino would notch one of his two goals on the day. Out goes Sugawara, In comes Hiramoto......oh yeah, that reminds me....the lineup

Takagi
Kaimoto, Togawa, Ichiyanagi, Fujita
NAGAI, Tomisawa, Sugawara, Marcus
Hiroyama, Silva

Bench: Tokizawa, Kina, Kanazawa, Hiramoto, Saito

Anyhow second half starts and defender Jungo konno makes it 3-0. U-21 member Ichiyanagi is sent away so U-47 member Tetsuhiro Kina can come in. Great move, Kohei Nishino hits to make it 4-0 a mere three minutes later.

Martin Saito comes in for Hiroyama and scores 6 minutes later. 4-1.....out with a whimper and not a bang. Combined with a tie between Kashiwa and Yokohama FC and the final chance for promotion is out the window. Game Over!!!!!!

Here's hoping that Tokizawa gets a little time in net. Nothin to play for now but pride so let the kids see what they can do.

I'd like to see Tokizawa in net and Killoran on the bench next game......give the kid 20 or 30 minutes. Maybe bring out Yanagisawa for his farewell tour and Ono for some first team stuff.

I'd go with this lineup

Silva and Hiroyama

Marcus
Kuba Ono
Kanazawa

Ishikawa Yanagisawa
Nakano Togawa

Tokizawa

Bench: Takagi, Killoran, Mihara, Kiyama, Tsurumaki

If you don't want to have all the youngsters on the bench at the same time, spread it out over the 5 games but it does no good at this point to have the retreads come out now. If you want to have a sendoff on the 26th..........have at it.

In other news, ZE LUIS went back to Brazil for treatment on his bad hamstring

It looks like we've seen the last of Ze for the season and maybe for good.

It's not the what......it's the how

Well, the final nail is in the coffin for Verdy promotion. Playing a 3-5-2, Mito got out on the attack early when FW Shogo Shiozawa scored, minutes later Kohei Nishino would notch one of his two goals on the day. Out goes Sugawara, In comes Hiramoto......oh yeah, that reminds me....the lineup

Takagi
Kaimoto, Togawa, Ichiyanagi, Fujita
NAGAI, Tomisawa, Sugawara, Marcus
Hiroyama, Silva

Bench: Tokizawa, Kina, Kanazawa, Hiramoto, Saito

Anyhow second half starts and defender Jungo konno makes it 3-0. U-21 member Ichiyanagi is sent away so U-47 member Tetsuhiro Kina can come in. Great move, Kohei Nishino hits to make it 4-0 a mere three minutes later.

Martin Saito comes in for Hiroyama and scores 6 minutes later. 4-1.....out with a whimper and not a bang. Combined with a tie between Kashiwa and Yokohama FC and the final chance for promotion is out the window. Game Over!!!!!!

Here's hoping that Tokizawa gets a little time in net. Nothin to play for now but pride so let the kids see what they can do.

I'd like to see Tokizawa in net and Killoran on the bench next game......give the kid 20 or 30 minutes. Maybe bring out Yanagisawa for his farewell tour and Ono for some first team stuff.

I'd go with this lineup

Silva and Hiroyama

Marcus
Kuba Ono
Kanazawa

Ishikawa Yanagisawa
Nakano Togawa

Tokizawa

Bench: Takagi, Killoran, Mihara, Kiyama, Tsurumaki

If you don't want to have all the youngsters on the bench at the same time, spread it out over the 5 games but it does no good at this point to have the retreads come out now. If you want to have a sendoff on the 26th..........have at it.

In other news, ZE LUIS went back to Brazil for treatment on his bad hamstring

It looks like we've seen the last of Ze for the season and maybe for good.

You are the weakest link...........goodbye

Ahhhhh...........You've been voted off the island. Uhhhhhh.......You're fired. No whammys? According to J Leagues official site, these three gentlemens services are no longer needed by the good folks at Tokyo Verdy 1969 http://www.j-league.or.jp/release/000/00001463.html

According to the wire, Takaki Shigemitsu, a 23 year old project who has not appeared in any games for Verdy this year, Koji Maatsura, who put on two of the most pathetic displays of striker ineptitiude that I have had the misfortune of sitting through, and J League dinosaur Kenichi Uemura, who debuted for Sanfrecce Hiroshima in 1993 when the league started and had one pathetic performance in the 2006 campaign.

The J League wire is less than reliable, Basilio's release took a couple of months to come to fruition so who knows when the team will announce this has taken place.

Vissel tied Ehime in a thrilling 0-0 match......Ehime managed 3 shots on goal. The tie means that Verdy is virtually eliminated from winning the J2 championship.

Also El Golazo rated Ichiyanagis performance in the U-23s 2-0 win over U-23 China as a 6.....not too shabby!

Coming up next is Mito at AJINOMOTO.......i'll be in Komaba watching Omiya take on Tokyo's other gaseous team. FC Eneos. I will try to wake up a 4am and watch the NTV replay. No promises though.

News about the future

Well it looks like Rui is officially back for another year.

http://www.verdy.co.jp/news/report/?cmd=DispNews&news_id=265

The team extended the sloppy one for one more year at about 30000000 yen

The team is now in the opening stages of building a squad for the next campaign. The company line on this year's failure is that the team got a late start building a squad that would compete

Here is the official statement of a committee being formed for next year's acquisitions

http://www.verdy.co.jp/news/report/?cmd=DispNews&news_id=264

The t-shirts......another bad Hiramoto design being sold at the next game.

Nikkan Sports has an article about the Ramos resigning, and also drops a little tidbit about who the next foreign signing target is...................HULK. Dangerous striker, big head case.....I just don't know!

http://www.nikkansports.com/soccer/p-sc-tp0-20061026-108570.html

bad techno

http://music.mu-mo.net/album/?distribution_id=ABSH-10119

My Dream Team is Verdy-Dave Roberts

30 seconds of sheer ear irritation

I think it was written in 2000 when Verdy started the swoon

Two results from below

First off.....Kazu1968 reports about the game against OME FC.....no scores or results but an interesting setup http://ameblo.jp/kazu1968/entry-10018664255.html

The team, bereft of Midfielders due to injury, first team use, and loans, went with a 4-3-3 formation loaded with defenders

FW Kiyama Maatsura
Hiramoto

MF Ishikawa Yanagisawa
Hagimura

DF Hayama Shigemitsu
Aoba Nakano

GK Wakai?

I think this is what the system might look like next year. Ramos likes to use tweeners and threw in Saitoh in the "tip" of the diamond that Marcus sits in. If the team stays relatively unchanged, I imagine it will look something like this:

FW Silva Hiroyama (tweener)


Spear Marcus

Branch Ono Ze Luis

D mid Tomisawa

out D Ishikawa Kaimoto
central Togawa Ichiyanagi

GK Takagi

Bench: Tokizawa (GK), Kanazawa (D mid), Hiramoto (FW), Ohashi or Saitoh (offensive utility)
Fujita or Aoba (DF)


Youth team notches win #1 in the Sahara Cup

Playing in a 4-5-1 Verdy youth notched a 2-1 win over Urawa youth to get their first victory in three matches Yuki Kobayashi and Toshikazu Soya notched scores to lead the squad.

So that's nice.

Tiekushima Vortis

Well, it wasn't the result Verdy needed or wanted but it was a very hard fought match. The scoring started in the 6th minute with a strike from Yasutaka Kobayashi, 14 minutes later Silva notched his second goal in 2 games. Early in the second half, Nozomi Hiroyama put Verdy up 2-1..........it would be a very short lead however as Vortis got even on a knock by Vortis midfielder Andre. 2-2 Final

Both teams were very even according to the numbers, notching 19 shots apiece and earning an equal 6 corners. Would have been nice to watch.

Around the League

Yokohama managed only 6 shots against cross-prefecture rivals Shonan Bellmare but it was enough as the King himself, Kazu Miura notched the only goal. Takanori Sugeno turned away 16 shots to post the shutout

Vissel went up to Sapporo to face a reeling Consadole side. Consadole is still reeling.....4-1 Kobe

Ehime slammed Kusatsu 5-2 to move up to 9th. Tosu also got a result over Yamagata 3-1.

The table now with 6 to go

Kobe 83pts
Yokohama 82pts
Kashiwa 78pts
Vegalta 68pts (game tommorow vs. Mito)
Sagan 67pts
Verdy 63pts

Consadole was officially eliminated from promotion contention with the loss.

Finally, Ultranippon has a nice video clip of the 1994 Verdy squad........I'm gonna try and steal it!

The Vortis lineup

VERDY 1969

GK Takagi
DF Kaimoto-Togawa-Ichiyanagi-Fujita
MF Ohashi-Tomisawa-Marcus-Sugawara
FW Hiroyama-Silva

Bench GK Tokizawa-MF Nagai-Kanazawa-Kina-FW SAITO

Good to see Saito back on the main squad........although I can't criticize the Silva/Hiroyama pairing at all.

Three matches Verdy at home 4-1,Tokushima at home 2-0, Verdy at home 4-2, ????

That's Better!!!!!!!

After a demolition at the hands of Kashiwa, Verdy needed a nice sorbet to cleanse the pallete. What better salve than the blue and green mermen of mighty Shonan.

Out went Hagimura, Out went Ishikawa, Ze Luis sat with injury, Mizuhara wasn't even allowed in the stadium...

In came Ichiyanagi after his U-21 snub....Taisei Fujita lined up along side him with Togawa and Kaimoto.

Tomisawa and Sugawara filled in the middle with Ohashi and Marcus. Silva and Hiroyama were up top. As almost always, Takagi took his place between the pipes.

9 minutes in, Ohashi scored giving Verdy a much needed fast start. The start of the second half saw Tomisawa put in number two. Silva got on the board 20 minutes later. Only a late goal by Bellmare after a mad rush made the score closer than it really was. 3-1

Around the League

Well, my preseason pick, Consadole Sapporo is now 21 points out of first place with 7 games to play. So unless the top 3 teams lose every point between now and the last game of the season, it's over for them.

Ehime pulled off a nice little ambush on now third place Kashiwa Reysol. Going into the final stretch, it is a three team race for #1 with Vegalta having an outside shot at stealing the playoff spot

1. Vissel Kobe 80 pts
2. Yokohama FC 79 pts
3. Kashiwa Reysol 78 pts -1 game
4. Vegalta Sendai 68 pts -1 game
5. Sagan Tosu 64 pts
6. TOKYO VERDY 1969 62pts
7. Consadole Sapporo 59 pts

Look for matchups on the 11th between Kashiwa and Kobe and Yokohama Kashiwa to sort everything out.

J SOCCER

Never got around to doing this and I should of but Alan Gibson runs a little site down south called J Soccer which covers Japan soccer in general and Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe in particular.

Anyhow, I'm still a little pissed about his glee over my poor little United States squad getting dryhumped by the world in June's little German Soiree but it's a good site and I reccomend it.

http://www.jsoccer.com

Every time a window opens......a door shuts

Ze Luis is out for 4 weeks with a pulled hamstring. Good timing with the return of El Capitan.

El Golazo was alot less generous with the team efforts on Saturday.


Takagi 5
Kaimoto 5.5
Togawa 5.5
Hagimura 4.5
Ishikawa 5
Ohashi 4.5
Marcus 5.5
Ze Luis 5
Tomisawa 5
Hiroyama 5.5
Silva 5.5

Nagai 5.5
Ono 5.5
Hiramoto 6

Ramos 5

Finally, Verdy youth got destroyed by Yokohama FM youth 4-0. Lost weekend

All over but the crying

Well........Verdy got pasted 4-1.

The game report is here

http://brilliantomiya.blogspot.com/2006/10/verdy-livesort-of.html

Usually I would knock the efforts and abilities of Verdy in general and Ramos in particular but today I think it would be more genuine to salute the great play of Kashiwa. That passing yesterday was a clinic in how to play the beautiful game. There wasn't one instance where I could say definetely "Verdy blew it" or " (Probably Hagimura) made a stupid move". It was a clinical beating by a team that really wants to be and deserves to be Top Flight.

What will J2 look like next year?

If everything holds form........it looks like Cerezo Osaka and either Kyoto or Avispa will be a new member of J2. But things could change........let's take a look

1. Avispa Fukuoka (19 points 17th place)- With only 3 wins in 27 contests, Avispa seems to lack the depth and talent needed to compete in the big leagues. 26 goals in 27 games actually puts them under 1 goal per game. they tried to address this problem by adding Kazunori Iio.....think about that for a minute.....in fairness he has notched 3 goals since the move.

2. Cerezo Osaka (19 points 18th place) Bottom of the table for the lions share of the season, Cerezo Osaka has just been putrid. Takuya Yamada was supposed to be the big signing to push a squad who was one minute away from a title but he has not been an exotic terminator.....he has been rubbish.

3. Kyoto Purple Sanga (20 points 16th place) Defense like a sieve and a breakdown of their two foreign imports. Hashiratani's brother really made a hash of a team that was unstoppable in last years second division. The defense has been particularly atrocious, letting up 62 goals (2.3 GAA)
Paulinho has been the lone bright spot in a dismal season, could he be the next Washington?

4. Omiya Ardija (31 points 13th place) After the exodus of Gral, Saitama's real team has flatlined. Daigo Kobayashi has been brilliant for a large part of the season and former Verdy/Kobe/Kashiwa defender Yukio Tsuchiya has been solid but other pickups like Yoshiyuki Kobayashi and Kota Yoshihara have been disappointments. The inability to create any sort of attack has really vexed the squad and they are now in an 8 game tailspin which has seen them earn 2 points with ties to Kyoto and Avispa. In a normal year, they would be odds on favorites for relegation but the bottom three have shown little signs of fighting their way up.

5. FC Tokyo (30 points 14th place) The gasmen have been downright erratic. today's 5-2 loss to Sanfrecce sums up their season in a nutshell.......jump out to an early lead and then collapse. Like Omiya, they have been in a prolonged slump losing 6 of the last 7 games (including losses to Kyoto and Cerezo). Tokyo derby yet again?

6. Sanfrecce Hiroshima (30 points 15th place) Probably the least likeliest to fall after their turnaround in form. Absolutely horrid early but really capable of knocking anyone off. 2 national teamers and a good keeper should have these guys up higher in the standings.

Tokyo by far has the worst schedule with games against Gamba, Jubilo, Kawasaki, Urawa, and Oita in big eye on the last day

Sanfrecce has arguably the easiest with matchups against the bottom three.

If I had to guess, I'd say Avispa and Kyoto will be the two to drop outright and Cerezo will find a way to either get to the playoff or pass FC Tokyo or Omiya and get to the 15th spot. I say this because Cerezo historically manages to avoid the drop.

But I wouldn't be surprised if something different happened.........7 games to see.

Verdy live.....sort of

Check out the comments section

Scores from around J2

Without divulging results from today's game, the scores from this afternoon's J2 matches

Mito 1 VISSEL KOBE 2
Consadole Sapporo 1 Montedio Yamagata 1
Thespa Kusatsu 0 Sagan Tosu 0
Shonan Bellmare 2 Tokushima Vortis 4 (4 goals scored by Vortis after the removal of Yuhei Ono)
Ehime 1 VEGALTA SENDAI 2

no favors for Verdy today.

Verdy Live.......or not.

The game will be shown at 7pm so I'll do some writing then while I watch.

Lineups are in and let's get to it.

Kashiwa

GK Minami
DF Kobayashi, Okayama, Kobayashi Yuzo, Ishikawa
MF Kurakawa, Ochiai, Diego, Ricardinho
FW Fransa, Suzuki

Bench

Noguchipinto, Kitajima, Hirayama, Kondo, Yukihiko Saito

VERDY 1969

GK Takagi
DF Ishikawa, Hagimura, Togawa, Kaimoto
MF Marcus, Ze Luis, Ohashi, Tomisawa
FW Hiroyama, Silva

Bench

Mizuhara, Ichiyanagi, Nagai, Ono (Here you go Ultranippon), Hiramoto

Big game......the biggest of the year for Verdy.....until next week.

Thursday thoughts

First things first.......Kashiwa vs Verdy will be on TV CHIBA at 2 pm.......I have no money but I do have TV CHIBA so I will be watching at home in front of my TV and computer so I figured I might do a play-by-play in the comments box........anybody out there that wants to join in the discussion, come on by! My one problem might be with internet access, though. A group of Italian and French Tourists are living in the house and downloading stuff like crazy so my internet connection is wishy washy at best. Anyhow, I hope it works!

CORRECTION

I guess Babelfish was less than reliable in translating the Ruy has no hair. He still has his jheri curls and beard.

EMPERORS CUP 2006......A.K.A. The big Verdy flameout

Well, round 4 is up and the little team that did, A.K.A Tochigi SC, heads down to Shizuoka to face J1 upper crust in last years Emperors Cup runner up Shimizu S Pulse. I'd kind of like to see them do some damage now that they sent Verdy to the showers. Other lower division matchups include Top table and defending Emperors Cup holders Urawa Reds at home against Shizuoka FC. In fact, Urawa has the enviable position of being in line for 3 home games (Komaba, Saitama 2002, Saitama 2002) before the semi-finals. Little brother Omiya gets a "home" game in Akita (near Sapporro) when they take on YKK AP in a game that is set up to be an upset. Finally, Banditonce Kobe gets a chance to shock another upper division squad when they face the slumping but dangerous Gas Men from Ajinomoto, A.K.A FC Tokyo.

Other matches to watch for will be Vegalta Sendai at Nagoya Grampus 8 which pits Joel Santana and his three striking Brazilians against the young Grampus side and Frode Jonsen, Norwegian super striker.

Montedio Yamagata goes to Kofu to face Ventforet in Kose. This features a matchup of two former Omiya strikers who got cut because they can score. Version 1 is Bare the Kofu King.....Version two is El Golazos top rated player in J2 this year, Leandro, who managed 3 goals in 60 minutes in Montedios 6-2 3rd round victory.

LAST STAND 2

I'll give more details later but Verdy goes up against their UBER-NEMISIS in Kashiwa Reysol. You might remember Reysol giving Verdy the old heave-ho last year. No? Maybe you saw the first match between the squad this year, which sent Verdy tumbling out of the upper eschelon and showed me what a tool Dedimar truly is. Maybe you saw the 4-1 pasting when Verdy last visited Kashiwa, which shattered the back line and caused a giant shake-up. Maybe you bought the hype after a 4-1 mirage in game three of the series which allegedly put Verdy back on track only to see them drop two in a row. Last stand time.......will we see some surprises? Ono returning? Martin up top? Yanagisaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa hell no, even Ramos isn't that delusional.
Sugawara and Kanazawa are out for the game so we will see a new mid in the middle.

Morimoto Mania and a new Verdy blog

Our friend Ultranippon has branched out and created his own Verdy espanol blog, titled Ganbare Verdy http://www.ganbare-verdy.blogspot.com/

Another Verdy english site has popped up..................actually English and Japanese titled
Glamourous Verdy and Diary http://ameblo.jp/yu-verdy1969/

Finally, one of the posters on Bigsoccer put up a link to his new Morimoto fan site.....he calls it Morimoto Mania!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.morimotomania.com/

No word on the new Tetsuhiro Kina mantasy fun blog.

The other match on Saturday

Verdy blog had a detailed post on Verdy's training match against another JFL side at Yomiuriland. JEF Club came into town sitting in 11th place in the third division.

Verdy had some surprise guests in the lineup as old friends Martin Saito, Captain Ono, and blog-boy Yanagisawa all played full games for team green.

The lineups:

GK Tomisawa
DF Fujita, Yanagisawa, Nakano, Aoba
MF Ono, Kuba, Sugawara (Killoran), Tsurumaki
FW Saitoh, Maatsura

Goals by Saitoh, Tsurumaki and a double by Maatsura gave Verdy a 4-0 victory over JEF Chiba's farm team.

Off topic, I'd kind of like to see other squads have lower level clubs like this. I know of two (Tokushima Vortis Amateurs being the other........although come to think of it, I dunno which team is which.)

Well.......

Meet Kentaro Yoshida of Tochigi SC........He managed to score the 1 in the 1-0 upset of legendary former Emperors Cup holder Tokyo Verdy 1969 1-0.

I guess they can concentrate on not being promoted to J1 now.

Other J2 teams to fall by the wayside are Yokohama FC (Kazu and Takaki with links to Verdy) and Vissel Kobe (Atsuhiro Miura and Rakuten had former Verdy links) as well as bottom barrel Mito Hollyhock.

UHhhhhhhhhh......

Emperor lineup

Verdy Tochigi

Mizuhara-GK-Hiroaki Hara 1
Kaimoto-DF-Shuhei Takano 4
Togawa Toru Yamazaki 13
Hagimura Nobumasa Yokoyama 6
Ishikawa Yuji Endo 3
Ohashi-MF-Toshiaki Hotta 8
Marcus Yamada 33
Kanazawa Satoshi Takahide 16
Nejime Hiroshi Tanekura 5
Silva-FW-Yoshihide Nishikawa 7
Hiroyama Kentaro Yoshida 11

Bench-Verdy : Takagi, Ichiyanagi, Nagai, Kina, Hiramoto
Tochigi : Akihito Hoshi 31, Youhei Kikuchi 29, Kenta Nagai 25, Fumihiko Kayashima 17
Yoichiro Honda 28

No Ze Luis, Takagi on the bench and two fossils in Nagai and Kina are 1 and 2 on the sub depth chart..........it would have been nice to see one of the younger guys get a run as a sub in the midfield or d......maybe give Killoran a taste today but it's not an absolutely stupid strategy.

Game time in t minus 2 minutes!

News for Wednesday

We start off our news for Wednesday with a brief preview of the Tochigi Emperors Cup match. Tochigi is a JFL squad that currently sits in 7th place. Tochigi got to the 3rd round by beating Saga University 3-0 in the first round and Saitama Shobi Gakuen University 2-0 in the second round. the team is led by Midfielder Kentaro Yoshida (10 goals) and FW Tomohiro Sano (7 goals) as well as a defense that has posted 7 clean sheets in 22 games.

If you want to find out more about Verdys opponent, look here http://www.tochigisc.com/index.html

4 SIGNINGS FOR 2007!!!!!!!

Christmas has come early for Verdy transaction fans........couldn't keep a straight face on that one, I mean it's been 3 weeks since we signed somebody so it was due to happen. But anyhow, 4 young guys are cming in to offer support.

Osama Elsamni was a member of Verdy youth this year. You might remember him from the Prince League, scoring a tying goal in the ill fated final 8 match. Osama just turned 18 last week and hopes to follow in the line of Verdy forwards who came from the family.

Taira Inoue comes from Hosei University. A 23 year old forward who made the best 11 for his college division, Inoue was a former member of the Japan U-19 squad. Short kid, probably a burner.

Kensuke Fukuda is a 22 year old defender from Meiji University. Fukuda is a product of the Yokohama F Marinos youth programs.

Junpei Shinmura is the youngest of the 4 signings. The 17 year old is a senior midfielder from Riseisha High School who helped the school gain a best 16 spot in the 2004 national high school tournament.

I'll be excited to see them suit up next year........for Tokushima Vortis.

STREAMLINING FOR PROMOTION

Got this little nugget off of Verdyblog. It seems as though Ono, Ichiyanagi, and Tomisawa have a picture up on the Verdy website without hair. The three (with varying lengths of hair) decided to go "Saito" in order to psyche themselves up and help Verdy reach J1.

You are probably saying to yourself........so what. Fair enough. Here's the deal, RUI decided that it was a great idea.....so according to Babelfish, Ramos cut off all his hair and shaved his beard, shocking the staff and players. I imagine he probably looks like Verdy kun, the Verdy mascot with his egg shaped head and beak like nose.

Nikkan Sports has the story here http://www.nikkansports.com/soccer/p-sc-tp0-20061004-99049.html