Wednesday, August 08, 2007

LOST IN AMERICA-Soilent Green #2

Ohhhhhh, I'm enjoying watching the Beckham non-show parade around the US of A. I'm starting to wonder if he will actually play or if they will just wheel him out for personal appearances. I also got a chance to watch some second division sides play to varying degrees of success. Pretty sure even Kaz Iio could score on the California Victory but I digress.

Anyhow Verdy played a couple of games down south when they went head to head with Avispa Fukuoka (loss) and Ehime FC (tie). Both games took place without the services of Hulk who is still serving a suspension for card accumulation. One notable player was Verdy youth MF Hiroki Kawano, who slipped in for 5 minutes. Ryutsu Keisai DF Masaki Iida was also on the bench for the club, but saw no time in the game.

J1 Shenanigans

Last post, I mentioned the disaster that is JEF Chiba and how I wished for their demise. Well, it seems the geniuses at Omiya misunderstood and decided that THEY would be the team to make the drop. After scathing criticism by Robert Verbeek in the press.....wait a minute...after Robert Verbeek stated the obvious and the girlish and thin skinned mouth breather Satoru Sakuma got his feelings hurt after reading that the team needed help at the forward position and in the back, Messrs Verbeek was summarily dismissed from his position as head man and replaced by......wait for it.......Satoru Sakuma.

If you are not familiar with Satoru Sakuma, he was the man who took Daigo Kobayashi, Yoshiyuki Kobayashi, and Yukio Tsuchiya from relegated teams and made them into a 12th place squad......THAT WAS HIS HIGH POINT

Sakuma was the genius who released Bare and Leandro from Omiya for a head case named Christian and a flop by the name of Saul "Speedy" Martinez. Sakuma was the mastermind who brought in Naoya Saeki and rented him to Avispa during a relegation fight WITH AVISPA. Sakuma was the man who decided that the pairing of Takuro Nishimura and Yasuhiro Hato were even remotely adequate enough to play first division soccer. Sakuma was the man that brought you the two headed forward ghidra known as Morita-Salles. One word....ENILTON.
Sakuma allowed former coach Toshiya Miura to take GK Takahiro Takagi and let him become the best goalkeeper in J2.......leaving the squad with a frail Aratani and an inept Ezumi.

Satoru Sakuma....you sir make Ramos Rui look like a coaching genius.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, that's actually something... I saw Iida in a recent game against Gifu and he was doing great stuff. I fugured one of the forwards would be the first to rise to J. League play, but he's not bad at all.

I think if Mito can pull off tomorrow's game, it'll prove that there is some kind of jinx that Tokyo can't shake at home. I'd suggest the Mito team move to Tokyo for home games except I wouldn't want to move to follow them!

Anonymous said...

He popped in for a short time last year as well....I think Verdy have tied him up.

You might be getting Hulk today

Anonymous said...

USL is the shit. No soccer moms really, and more heart. Although the quality of play is rather low, I enjoy watching guys making an average of $24K battle it out in front of 2,000 (if you Miami FC), or over 11,000 (if your Montreal).

Anyway, I always thought J2 would be fun because all the casual fans leave and it comes down to the hardcore supporters.