Japan Plays Iceland

Apparently Japan has a friendly with Iceland this Friday. Since it’s not a FIFA international day, the team will be comprised entirely of domestic players who won’t miss any club matches or have to travel halfway across the world both ways. The Iceland team will also be made up of players from their domestic league (except for a couple in Norway and one in Greece). Unsurprisingly, the Icelandic league plays during the summer because of frigid arctic winters.

The Japan team…

Goalkeepers (rookies in bold): Takuto Hayashi, Kaito Yamamato, and Shusaku Nishikawa.

Defenders: Yuichi Komano, Daiki Iwamasa, Yasuyuki Konno, Yuzo Kurihara, Naoya Kondo, Masahiko Inoha, Ryota Moriwaki, and Tomoaki Makino.

Midfielders: Yasuhito Endo, Kengo Nakamura, Yuki Abe, Chikashi Masuda, Yosuke Kashiwagi, Ryota Isomura, and Gaku Shibasaki.

Forwards: Naohiro Ishikawa, Ryoichi Maeda, Yoshito Okubo, Jungo Fujimoto, Junya Tanaka, Hidetaka Kanazono(injured), and Yuya Kubo.

In all, nine debutants, including three who are 20 or younger. In particular, I’m looking forward to seeing Junya Tanaka (the Japan Footblog J. League Player of the Year!). He had a great Club World Cup, and hopefully he can play well and solidify his place in the national team. After leading Kashiwa to promotion and then the championship, Tanaka finally gets his chance with the national team. There is no place for Marcus Tulio Tanaka, who can’t seem to get a game under Zaccheroni.

Zaccheroni will probably be experimental in this game, so it’s difficult to predict who will be in the starting xi. I would say Tanaka, Fujimoto, Maeda, Nakamura, and Endo are all pretty certain starters among the front six. In back, Komano and Konno are locks. I don’t have a clue who will start in goal.

The experts (message boards) seem to think that youngsters like Shibasaki and Kubo are being brought along just to experience the senior team and are unlikely to play. That’s kind of disappointing, but I’m sure they’ll get their chance in the future.

Overall, experimental or not, I don’t think Japan will have too much trouble in this friendly. After this, World Cup qualifiers start up again.

Other news: Keisuke Honda played for CSKA in the Champions League against Real Madrid. Honda came on as a sub in the 68th minute and played well. The match ended 1-1, a good result for a team in the middle of its winter break, against an opponent that has been redefining ‘steamrolling’ in its domestic league.

Japanese Players in Europe

Despite Shinji Kagawa’s injury, this was a very good weekend for Japanese footballers in Europe. The star was Ryo Miyaichi who scored his first goal in English football in a 2-0 Bolton win away at Millwall. Ryo ran past the Millwall defense and curled into the back of the net to give Bolton a 1-0 lead in three minutes in. After the match, he said that the finish was inspired by Thierry Henry and Robin van Persie: “When I was at Arsenal, I saw many times Henry score same way during training. [Robin] Van Persie also did it, from the right flank. They showed very good example for me. That’s why I could score today.” (Guardian) This was Ryo’s second appearance for Bolton, and they have both been good performances.

Mike Havenaar scored his second Eredivisie in a 4-1 defeat to Twente. Mike came on as a substitute in the 73rd minute, and scored in the 88th, with the score at 4-0. The loss leaves Vitesse in 7th place, but on the bright side Mike continues to play well! Michihiro Yasuda also played in this game

Shinji Okazaki scored an outrageous overhead kick in Stuttgart’s 4-2 defeat at the hands of Hannover. Stuttgart slipped to ninth with the loss. Still, a great goal, and the proper celebration given the score.

Maya Yoshida scored as Venlo smacked fellow strugglers De Graafschap 4-1. Robert Cullen came on for the second half. The win brings Venlo to within two points of safety.

Tadanari Lee scored his first goal for Southampton in a 4-0 win over Derby County. Lee came on in the second half and scored in the 75th. It was a great goal.

Nagatomo played well again, however Inter lost again 3-0 to Bologna. It was Inter’s third straight loss, and third straight game in which they failed to score. They are now in seventh place.

Finally, Kagawa will miss Dortmund’s next few games as he injured his ankle during midweek training. He had been in great form, which makes the injury all the more disappointing.

Japanese Players in Europe

Borussia Dortmund maintained its two-point lead atop the Bundesliga with a 1-0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen. The match was settled by a brilliant individual goal by Shinji Kagawa. After a poor start to the season, he has really hit form and, with Robert Lewandowski, has been Dortmund’s best player in the absence of Mario Gotze. He has now scored four times in 2012, leading Dortmund to top of the table and an undefeated record on the year.

Ryo Miyaichi made his English debut, playing the entire second half of Bolton’s 2-1 home defeat to Wigan. He was brilliant throughout and almost salvaged a point for the Wanderers, forcing a great save from Ali Al-Habsi. Manager Owen Coyle singled Ryo out for praise in his post-match interview.

Mike Havenaar played the entire match, as Vitesse lost 3-1 away to Feyenoord. Red-hot Man City loanee John Guidetti had yet another hattrick for Feyenoord who moved up to fourth with the win. Michihiro Yasuda was an unused substitute.

Shinji Okazaki scored once as Stuttgart smacked Hertha Berlin 5-0. The win lifts Stuttgart to 9th in the table. Makoto Hasebe and Wolfsburg are one spot ahead in the standings, winning 3-2 over Freiburg. Captain Hasebe played the entire second half. Meanwhile, Takashi Usami was an unused substitute as Bayern beat relegation-bound Kaiserslautern 2-0.

Both Maya Yoshida and Robert Cullen played as VVV beat Groningen 2-0, to climb further from automatic relegation. Yoshida played the entire match, while Cullen came on as a late substitute. Meanwhile, Yoshiaki Takagi maintained his place in the first team as Utrecht drew 1-1 Ado Den Haag.

Sorry for the long absence readers, I will be posting more regularly now.

Mike Havenaar Scores His First Eredivisie Goal

Mike Havenaar made the switch from J. League to Eredivise this winter, moving to Vitesse Arnhem. Last week he came off the bench to make his debut. Today, he came off the bench once again, and scored his first Eredivise goal, against giants PSV no less. Vitesse ended up losing 3-1.

Mike came off the bench on the 81st minute and took just three minutes to get Vitesse a goal. From J.2 to scoring a goal against a perennial Champions League team in a year, it has been a rapid rise for Mike. Hopefully he will keep banging them in, for club and country.

Here’s the goal.

And here’s his postmatch interview (it’s in Dutch).

Award Winners

Here are the winners of the three Japan Footblog Player of the Year awards.

Shinji Kagawa is the winner of the Japanese Player in Europe award. While he was injured for the second half of last season, he has played well for so far this season and has combined well with the likes of Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski. Early in the season, he struggled and was criticized for some of his performances; however the poor early form was probably a result of the entire team playing badly. As Dortmund has climbed up the table over the past two months, Kagawa has been in good form, scoring and creating some excellent goals. While overall his club year was not significantly better than Nagatomo’s, who has recently been outstanding for Inter, Kagawa was at the heart of all things good for the national team. He was vital to the Asian Cup triumph, despite breaking his foot and missing the final. His heroic two goal performance against Qatar was especially memorable. He was also wonderful in the 3-0 win over Korea over the summer and World Cup qualifiers so far.

Note: A reader pointed out to me that Eiji Kawashima had a very good season for his club Lierse, saving them from relegation, and should have been nominated for the award. I agree and have now officially nominated him! Sorry for my initial oversight.

Marcus Tulio Tanaka is the J. League Japanese Player of the Year. While his team Nagoya Grampus did not win the league, they probably should have. They played the best football, and he was the heart of the league’s second-best defense. He was not booked the entire season and also scored six goals. Nagoya will be the team to watch in this year’s Champions League.

Ryo Miyaichi is the Young Player of the year. While Japanese football overall enjoyed a great year, none of the senior players had a particularly incredible year for their club. This was not the case for the young players, with three or four having great years. However Ryo just shades it for me, ahead of Usami and Ibusuki. While he hasn’t played as regularly at Arsenal as we all hoped, he was incredible for Feyenoord in the first half of the year. I don’t want to understate how good Ryo was with Feyenoord–he was amazing. While he was in the Eredivisie, he was arguably the league’s best player and steered Feyenoord from relegation to respectable. All at the age of 18, freshly plucked out of high school. For his time at Feyenoord alone, he wins the award. At Arsenal, he’s played mostly for the reserves and in Carling Cup matches. He spent some time out with injury. Fingers crossed, this year he will emerge as a really special player.