Widely reported this morning was the baffling news that S-Pulse have offered soon-to-be-out-of-contract captain Shinji Ono a one year extension at a FIFTY PERCENT REDUCTION of his current wages.
The man himself said he may well be playing elsewhere next season (who can blame him!?), and this would be an absolute disaster for the team Ghotbi is trying to build.
26 year old Toyoda was the J2 top scorer for this season just ended with 23 goals in 38 games. Rather less impressively he has scored just 6 goals in 54 games at J1 level.
21 year old Yoshida is a local lad from down the road in Fujinomiya.
The next round of the cup is at Nihondaira versus JEF United. Kick off is at 3pm, December 17th. If we get through the 1/4 final (24th) and 1/2 final (29th) are both in Osaka at the Nagai Stadium.
Kashiwa Game
The game tomorrow with Kashiwa is completely sold out, and it looks like sunshine. :)
Globe
After six years in the wilderness, S-Pulse have announced a glorious return to the globe motif on their shirts for next season. You have no idea how happy this makes me. I might even buy one. :)
As the title says, and as announced today. Well, the first part of it was a no-brainer, but the other two names are a slight surprise, but only because they're decisions not based on length of time at the club. This clearly is the post Kenta era, and having given it some thought, both thoroughly deserving of the opportunity. Both Takahara and Bosnar are worthy vice skippers, and good luck to them.
Iwashita on for Bosnar (45) Ito T. on for Ono (69) Omae on for Hyodo (83)
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It's a bit different to England. The honour of being the ones to put the final nail in a team's relegation coffin is something you enjoy every moment of. You rub their noses in it over the course of the 90 minutes, and afterwards revel in the footage of their fans crying on the terraces. That's not exactly what happened today as we put our total against Shonan for the season to 11, at the same time ensuring they are down and out with four games still to play.
BeforeAfter
We weren't great, but Shonan are bottom of the table with 16 points for a reason. After sending them back to J2 after just one year back in the top flight what did we do? Why, we sang their team's name. Then they sang ours. Then all the women in the crowd burst into tears at the touchingness of it all. Yep, it's not quite the same as back home.
The first half was pretty uninspiring truth be told, with the most interesting thing being Nishibe breaking the goal. He stopped a corner going straight in, but wasn't able to stop himself tumbling into the side netting, pulling down a stanchion with him. It took a while, but the goal was fixed and play restarted. Rather than the clock stopping as you might expect, the interruption was added on as stoppage time. Hence Ono latching onto a perfect pass by Jungo to smash the ball home - in the 57th minute of the first half. It took the roof off the stadium, and changed the game.
A 57th minute first half goal? This was the reason
Up until half time we'd not really troubled the Shonan goal, but in the second half Bellmare's pretty clueless play was finally made to pay. Johnsen bagged a first goal for a while, and not long after the Ref went momentarily mad and awarded the softest penalty I've ever seen. Not only was Okazaki not fouled (merely made contact with a Shonan defender), but when he finally lost his footing (it wasn't a dive) he was a good foot or two outside the box.
Well, whatever. It made no difference. Shonan didn't get relegated on a dodgy penalty. They've been poor all season. After that, apart from one very good save from Nishibe, it was all S-Pulse, and Okazaki bagged a brace to take his total up to 13 for the year so far. Four games to go. Can we make an ACL position? Probably not, but that's not going to stop me and my UKU buddies hitting Sendai for a weekend of football, booze, scarf twirling and arm waving S-Pulse style!
While I've got your attention, football writer and fellow S-Pulse fan Mike Tuckerman, these days reporting from down under, wrote a piece on our very own Aussie hero, Eddy Bosnar. Check it out here.
Ito on for Hyodo (59) M. Yamamoto on for Edamura (81)
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Later, because I'm on may way out. A great game, though, and one we should have won right at the death when we were two on two, but delayed with the through pass just a fraction too long. That said, Kashima hit the bar and looked way more like scoring in the second half. The result lets Nagoya extend their lead at the top after they won with an 88th minute strike. For a city of 2.1 million (three times larger than Shizuoka), and a team on the verge of their first ever J. League title, wouldn't you hope they'd attract a few more than 13027 to a game? I'm not dissing the team - they look like they fully deserve the title, and I know the team and fans will revel in it, but it's be good to see Nagoya City can get behind it's team a little more - they deserve it!
Videos
Not had a chance to write much about the game yet, so here's a video instead. If you're anything like me you'll be re-watching Ono's stunner over and again.
In a busy S-Pulse Friday, our squad numbers, new kit, and club catchphrase for 2010 were all announced today.
Kit
Click here for the new kit's feature on J's Goal. A nice kit, but it's not very different from last year, is it?
Squad Numbers
New squad numbers are available here, with the biggest change being Kaito Yamamoto claiming the number one shirt from the retired Kakegawa. Nishibe remains at number 21 and maybe this will set the tone for who'll be starting between the sticks this season. We can hope.
Ono takes up the number 30 shirt.
Our new arrivals can be seen in S-Pulse colours for the first time here, and you can read a few of their comments (in Japanese).
Catchphrase
After the last two years of "We Believe" this year sees us change to the wonderful "The Confidence". Bit of a random use of English, but I know what they're getting at. :)
Barry writes: Shinji Ono signs for Shimizu S-Pulse.
The signing of Shinji Ono was officially announced today. The former Asian Player of the Year, who has been playing in the Bundesliga since 2007, was born and raised in Numazu in the east of Shizuoka Prefecture, and attended high school in Shimizu. Apart from the fact he's one of the biggest names in Japanese football, it's great to welcome such a local hero back home. Read the Sky Sports report here.
A quick look at Mixi reveals the extent of Ono's appeal; while the S-Pulse community has 11113 members, the dedicated Shinji Ono community has 11371. A scan of comments on the Ono group suggests we'll be selling a lot more shirts and a lot more tickets off the back of him signing. This is all excellent news for S-Pulse as a club, but most importantly Ono's acquisition will mean we have the midfield presence we were lacking last year. A direct line from Shinji Ono to Shinji Okazaki is a truly exciting prospect.
Barry writes
