Sunday, March 6, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
AUS European Training Centre official open
Minister for Sport officially opens the ETC@ASCMinister for Sport Mark Arbib today officially opened the European Training Centre (ETC), a new base for Australia's athletes in the Italian province of Varese.Speaking at the launch of the centre, Senator Arbib said the Government was committed to ensuring Australia's athletes were given every chance to succeed on the world sporting stage.‘The
Thursday, March 3, 2011
J.League ready for kick off in 2011
 |
| Nagoya celebrate a goal in the Super Cup last weekend Photo: J.League Photos |
It seems like only yesterday that Nagoya Grampus were being crowned J.League champions for the first time, but this weekend sees the kick off of another campaign, with the defending champions eyeing back-to-back titles.
Nagoya open their title defence at home, well one of their two homes, when they host Yokohama F.Marinos at Toyota Stadium on Saturday.
Dragan Stojkovic, hailed by Arsene Wenger as the man to replace him in the hot seat at Arsenal, has made minimal changes to the squad that ran away with the title last year.
The key addition to the squad is that of midfielder Jungo Fujimoto, who has moved across from Shimizu S-Pulse.
Yokohama F.Marinos has had a mixed pre-season, with plenty of changes to the roster which has resulted in a less-than-convincing pre-season campaign.
The pressure is right on F.Marinos this year, with Manager Kazushi Kimura eyeing nothing less than their first title since 2004.
At home you’d fancy Nagoya
Arguably the highlight of the weekend is the Osaka Derby between rivals Gamba and Cerezo.
Cerezo stunned most last season when they managed to stay in or around the top three all year, eventually taking third spot and an Asian Champions League birth.
Their debut in that competition wasn’t the most convincing performance, a scrappy 2-1 win over Arema Indonesia
One player who will be looking to impress more than most will be Brazilian Adriano, who has made the twitch from the pink side of town to the blue side. Cerezo’s top scorer last season with 14 goals will be hoping to continue that form for Gamba this season and has the opportunity first up to deliver a dagger in the heart of all Cerezo fans who adored him last season.
He has been replaced by Rodrigo Pimpão, a 23-year old striker on loan from Vasco da Gama. He will take time to adjust to the J.League, so we might not see his best for a few weeks.
Gamba Osaka
An undefeated pre-season and a 5-1 thumping of a hapless Melbourne Victory in their opening Asian Champions League fixture has them primed for the new season.
Along with Adriano, Gamba has also bought in Kim Seung-yong from K-League side Jeonbuk Motors and he appears to have settled well, but in a number of good performances in the pre-season.
Given the form of Gamba Osaka during pre-season you cannot go past them getting the edge over their city rivals in this one.
Finally, there is much intrigue surrounding Shimizu S-Pulse this season. The Shizuoka-based club shot out of the blocks last season before fading badly.
There has been changes aplenty over the off-season with 15 players moving on, including strike duo Frode Johnsen and Shinji Okazaki.
They are big shoes to fill, with Okazaki Shimizu
To go with all of that, a new coach was bought in with Afshin Ghotbi taking the reigns in 2011.
They face newly promoted Kashiwa Reysol first up, who stole Akihiro Hyodo off Shimizu
It’s a game I expect Shimizu will want to win and despite all the changes, I think they’ll edge Kashiwa
Other games this weekend include (my predictions in bold):
Ventforet Kofu vs Jubilo Iwata
Sanfrecce Hiroshima vs Vegalta Sendai
Avispa Fukuoka vs Albirex Niigata
Kawasaki Frontale vs Montedio Yamagata
Vissel Kobe vs Urawa Reds
Kashima Antlers vs Omiya Ardija
School Games as a legacy for 2012
Jeremy Hunt sets out plans for School Games@DCMSThe School Games tournament – inspired by the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics – will give every child the opportunity take part and compete.As part of the offer:- 500 schools across nine regions will pilot an annual School Games Day: a ’finals’ day stemming from a programme of intra-school competition which will offer disabled children as many
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Mixed night for Australian's in the ACL
 |
| Josh Kennedy escapes a tackle from fellow Australian Adam Griffiths (L) |
It’s a sign of Australia ’s growing engagement with Asia that three Australian’s were involved in AFC Champions League action last night, outside of Melbourne Victory’s clash with Gamba Osaka.
The match between Chinese Super League side Hangzhou Greentown and Nagoya Grampus of the J.League saw two Australian’s – Adam Griffiths and Josh Kennedy – pitted against each other.
And somewhat surprisingly it was the Chinese side that came out on top, winning the encounter 2-0 in front of a boisterous crowd of over 28,000 at the Yellow Dragon Sports Centre in Hangzhou
Adam Griffiths was substituted after just 42 minutes, whilst Josh Kennedy played the full game but was unable to have much of an impact as Hangzhou
On the other side of the continent in Uzbekistan
Jon McKain, previously with the Wellington Phoenix, was in the starting line-up for Al Nassr.
In a see-sawing contest, Pakhtakor looked headed for a home win first up before disaster struck when Serbian defender Bojan Miladinovic conceded an own goal in the 88th minute, levelling the scores at 2-2 which is how the game finished.
Normal service resumes for Melbourne in Asia
 |
| Lee Keun-ho celebrates Gamba's third goal last night |
Another trip to Japan
In two previous trips to Japan the Victory have lost 0-2 to Gamba Osaka in 2008, and 0-4 to Kawasaki Frontale last year.
Throw in last night’s disaster and the scorecard makes for horrible reading: P3, W0, D0, L3, GF1, GA11.
Oddly, there was an air of cautious optimism surrounding Melbourne Victory fans in the lead up to last night’s clash. Gamba were yet to start their season and had only played a handful of pre-season games. They weren’t “battle hardened”.
Victory on the other hand were coming off the back of a season, albeit one that never reached any great heights, and were primed for battle.
That optimism lasted all of three minutes, which is how long it took for Gamba to expose Victory’s weakness – defending at set pieces.
An early corner wasn’t cleared and Tukuya Takei, who had space aplenty on the edge of the box, fired home the opener.
A bad start turned into a nightmare just minutes later when Muscat
The nightmare became a full blown disaster on 11 minutes when Victory gifted Endo acres of space, with the crafty playmaker playing a delightful ball in behind that hopelessly exposed Matthew Kemp, allowing Adriano to cross the ball low across the box to find Lee Keun-ho to tap in a third.
In the space of 11 minutes the game was over as a contest, all without Gamba working up a sweat. They could afford to sit back a little more and cruise in third gear for the remainder of the game and that is just what they did.
Sadly it was the tactics of Melbourne Victory that played as big a part as any in their downfall.
Victory have showed a worrying naivety in previous ACL campaigns, refusing to change their normal system of play when faced with a different opponent and different tactics. It had been exposed many times before and the hope, for Victory fans, was that the club had learnt from this and would alter their tactics this time around.
They didn’t.
What we saw was Melbourne
There now have to be serious doubts over his ability to take this side forward. Already it is looking like this could be another failed ACL campaign.
For a club that has aspirations of being the biggest club in Australia and a big player in Asia , that is not even remotely acceptable.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Money should not be the focus
 |
| Hideo Hashimoto (L) takes on Adelaide United's Cassio in the 2008 AFC Champions League Final |
It’s almost kick off time for another edition of the AFC Champions League, and that can only mean one thing – the ready-made excuses will start coming thick and fast from Australian fans, media and occasionally, even A-League clubs themselves.
“Cashed up” “heavyweights” “endless resources”, they’re all claims we’ve heard before and for the most part they have no basis.
It would be a wrong to completely ignore the fact that J.League, K-League and CSL clubs do have more money at their disposal, but to use it as justification or an excuse for why their clubs have success over A-League sides masks the real disparity between the nations.
That comes at a more basic youth development level.
Take Gamba Osaka for example, three of their starting XI in the first leg of the 2008 ACL Final, as well as Takumi Shimohira who came off the bench, are products of the Gamba Osaka youth system.
Two of those players, Takahiro Futagawa and Hideo Hashimoto, as well as Shimohira, are still with the club, while Michihiro Yasuda left during the January transfer window for Vitesse Arnhem in Holland
The latest off the production line, Takashi Usami, is rated as the best player to come through the Gamba Osaka youth system and already has Bayern Munich interested in him. All this for a kid who is only 18 years old.
Sydney’s J.League opponents this year, Kashima Antlers, are in a similar boat with two of their starting XI from the weekend’s Super Cup coming through the Kashima youth system, while another handful were plucked from straight High School and have spent their entire careers with Ibaraki-based club.
It is these youth systems that currently set Japan , in particular, apart from Australia
Any new side that wishes to enter the J.League, be it in J1 or J2, must have an U18, U15 and U12 team to compliment their senior team.
Not only does this ensure a strong connection with their local community, something that has been critical in seeing crowds rise over the last decade, it also allows the clubs to work with their best local talent from an early age.
Doing so gets them into the “system” and by the time they are in their late teens many are ready to take the step up to senior team action.
Compare that to the A-League where it is left to local clubs with part-time coaches to nurture our best talent until they reach an age where they are eligible for the National Youth League. Even then there is often a large disconnect between the NYL side and A-League side.
This year’s ACL has yet to kick off and already the same excuses are being bandied about.
Grantley Bernard, writing in the Herald Sun on Saturday, got the ball rolling when he wrote, "... (that's) all part of the test against big Asian teams that have unlimited resources and money while the A-League teams in the Champions League remain restricted by the salary cap and squad sizes."
It is lazy an innacurate to focus purely on the monetary aspect and it serves Australia no good as it looks to gain more respect within The AFC. It's the old Aussie arrogance rearing its ugly head again - it's not that they're better than us, it's just they have more money!
Instead of focusing on that one aspect, fans, media and clubs would be better served by actually learning a few lessons from a league that has been there and done that when it comes to setting up a new league and new teams.
They may just be surprised by what they find.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)