Saturday, December 06, 2008

How do I put this........

Verdy goes back down to J2 after putting up a valiant yet ultimately predictable losing effort against former city rivals Kawasaki Frontale. Sadly, the most predictable thing about it was one of the dodgy J League refs would put his nose into it by making an absolute abortion of a call. How that is a straight red is beyond me. How that is a PK is beyond me. How that is anthing but a card for simulation is on me. Seriously, why did he intervene in that when Kawasaki was handling Verdy fairly easily, just missing on a bunch of close shots.

Garbage call, garbage ref. I haven't been one to jump on the "J league is filled with a bunch of BS refs who are either corrupt or incompetent" bandwagon. And I don't think I am one-sided in my criticism. But that was garbage. End of story.

So where do we go from here?

Nagai and Fujita are not options now that J2 has been "acheived". they shouldn't hsve been options in the first place especially now that the team has decided on a youth movement.

FACES YOU WON'T SEE

Shigenori Hagimura got his walking papers yesterday. Not my favorite player by an stretch of the imagination but he did put in a couple good efforts.

Coach Hashiratani will hand in his resignation after taking the drop. The team is looking at internal candidates like Takagi and Matsuda......the coach of NTV Beleza of the women's league.
http://www.sponichi.co.jp/soccer/flash/KFullFlash20081207006.html

Another note in the story is that Diego is being actively pursued by both Kobe and Kyoto, who both now seem to be linked to every player imaginable. I think he will be gone.

Not sure about Rui, especially if Nakata and his compan take over.

FACES YOU MIGHT SEE

Verdy has a bunch of guys out on loan who could be coming back. Kenta Togawa and Yuzo Ichiyanagi might be called back for defensive reinforcement (I'm gonna say yes on Togawa and
no on Ichiyanagi) and maybe Sagan Tosu mid Leonardo, who isn't impressive but he is very cheap.

Finally I leave you with a song

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=0bM0wVjU2-k

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well we are done then...bad calls agreed in the final game but on another day we could have been 4 down by the time the penalty was given. We lost a bad decision by the referee in the final game but over the course of the season we very simply haven`t been good enough in all departments.
If you are in the bottom two after a 34 game season then its because you are the 17th best team in the league. Not a good number whichever way you look at it.
I don`t take yesterdays game as the final nail as I would say it was pretty much a foregone conclusion before we kicked off. We were down before today, we went down when 1-0 up against Urawa and conceded in the last minute, we were down when we couldn`t put Sapporo away even after all and sundry had given them a beating to send them down early. We were down when JEF were on their own terrible run and we couldn`t put them away. We were down when Diego was suspended for the most important part of the season (and more importantly we had NO-ONE to replace him). We were down when Leandro was being played continually even though he was AWFUL and keeping Kawano out. The whole Hulk mess...I can`t even be arsed.....Still guys, let`s not be all down hearted, we are about to go on a 3 month unbeaten run!!
Also, by the looks of things there are gonna be some AWFUL teams in J2 next year, let`s see if we can finish above them!! A sad weekend but hey, there is still next season and I for one refuse to be downhearted!! We will be back, maybe not next year or within a few years, (unless there is some shedload of cash that some unwitting Russian billionaire wants to throw away). The sponsors are withdrawing according to the papers, the stormclouds are gathering but we can all rest safe in the knowledge that we aren`t and never will be as fundamentally dull as FC Tokyo!!
The ONE highlight of the season was pissing in FC Tokyo`s chips at Kokuritsu...deafening silence at the end. Fantastic!!
Onwards and (temporarily hopefully) downwards the Boys March On!!

Anonymous said...

ps An absolutely MIGHTY congratulations to JEF United for an unbelivable escape!! OK it was at out expense but nobody can deny that Miller has performed a MIRACLE there!!

SMB said...

Did you go? I went to Iwata. I was giddy like a schoolgirl and praying to god Verdy would have pulled one goal to have Jubilo and their crew of dirtbags go straight down. Nanami had a nice ceremony at the end and Fukunishi and Hattori sent their well wishes from Verdy ground.

Anonymous said...

No, I had to work and tape the game, the wife forgot to tape it so I taped the NTV version to watch this afternoon. I switched the computer on this morning and my opening screen is yahoo.jp which had a picture of Hashiratani with his head bowed which annoyed the crap out of me as Id done everyhting to avoid the score till that point. I watched this afto anyway and to be honest we deserve everything we got. We have been POOR all season. The only guys I think can come out with credit this whole season for are Tsuchiya, Diego, Kawano (when he`s been on)and surprisingly enough Iio. I don`t blame Hashiratani to be honest (apart from the Kawano/Leandro thing) and I`d give him the start next season for the sake of continuity and see how he goes.
Player of the Year for me, Diego. The ONLY threat since Hulk left. Special mention for Tsuchiya too, great effort in a shit defence.

Anonymous said...

Well, we are coming to J2 :(.

I think Verdy had bad luck, a lot of matches Verdy played good but hadn't goal without Hulk.

I'm a sad but as Nick said there is still next season and I'm sure we will be playing for coming to J1:).

In my opinion Tsuchiya, Kawano, Diego, Hulk and Doi were the best of the season (to be honest I only see 4 or 5 matches of our green team so I can be wrong, of course ^^U).

See you next season Nick, Steve and Ultraverdy! ¡Vamos Verdy!

Anonymous said...

Bad luck for us... unfortunately we are back in J2... i hope this trip is just for one year (like Hiroshima this season).
We are still proud, and green forever !
See u Ultranippon too ;-)
No One Likes Us, we are Verdy, super Verdy !!!
Everywhere, Always.