Japan 0 - 0 China
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There really IS only one possible explanation.
Yoshito Okubo and Keiji Tamada must give incredibly good head.
Sorry to be crude, but thats the only possible explanation left, to account for why coach Takeshi Okada continues to call these two players up, and insistently put them in the lineup when there are so many other CLEARLY superior options available. We have exhausted all the football-related options. There is not a single sportswriter, blogger or marginally experienced football fan I know of who still views Okubo as a legitimate choice to play at the international level, so the only possible explanation for his continued presence is that he must be doing a good job of keeping the coaching staff and all his teammates happy, in the locker room. Besides, anyone who is offended by the above comment should be even more offended by the sight of the Japan NT bending over and willingly taking it up the backside from an understrength and pitifully skillless Chinese eleven.
Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Okada? How about you Mr. Inukai? If you do, then there is one easy way to shut me up for good. You assemble the same squad that took the pitch against China, on Saturday evening. I name my own players -- limiting my selection to J.Leaguers only -- and we play one match. Ninety minutes of football. Any time. Any place. Any conditions.
If my team FAILS to win by at least two clear goals, I will promise never write another article criticising the JFA or Japan NT personnel . . . Ever.
If . . . or should I say, WHEN . . . my team stomps all over that joke of a squad that you put out on the Ajinomoto Stadium pitch tonight, Okada submits his resignation and allows assistant coach Oki to take over as NT head coach. At least I have faith that HE knows the difference between football players and cannon fodder.
For those who were hoping to read a bit about the football match on Saturday, Im sorry to disappoint you. But this rant is long overdue. My disgust with the idiotic player selections that Okada has been making in recent months has simply reached critical mass, and I cant put up with this tomfoolery any longer.
I mean SERIOUSLY . . .
Look at the following lineup and tell me what is missing: Seigo Narazaki, Atsuto Uchida, Yuji Nakazawa, Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Yuto Nagatomo, Junichi Inamoto, Yasuhito Endo, Kengo Nakamura, Yoshito Okubo, Keiji Tamada, Shinji Okazaki. .
You say you dont have a clue? Well . . . I already knew that. OK, Ill give you a hint; the two players who come closest to fitting the bill are the two wingbacks - Uchida and Nagatomo. Got it now?
Yes! Thats rightt! Not ONE of the players in the offensive end of the pitch knows how to dribble! Theyre all passers! Every one of them. Take a team like Brazil, England, Spain, Italy, France or Argentina and try to imagine what a joke it would be if every player on the pitch tried to go the entire 90 minutes without touching the ball more than three times per possession? Thats right . . . you cant do it. Because such a scenario in unimaginable. .
A team needs to utilize both passing AND dribbling if they are to have any hope of defeating a quality opponent. To make matters worse, the above lineup doesnt even have a recognizable playmaker. Endo and Nakamura, in a pinch, can hold the ball up and direct traffic, then feed the ball to penetrating teammates. But both are far more inclined to the one-touch "last pass". Unless SOMEONE on the team is able to take charge of the ball, and organize play, all you get is a lot of fancy running that doesnt really go anywhere. Funny . . . . I seem to recall that exact sentence appearing in a RSN article back in 2007, during the Asian Cup. Are you telling me that three years have passed and the message STILL hasnt got through?
While we are on the topic of blatantly obvious, forehead-slappingly simplistic coaching blunders, why not consider one which the Rising Sun News expounded on way back in April of last year. If you want your team to score goals in international matches, it might help if you selected players who are capable of scoring goals against run-of-the-mill J.League opposition. So tell me . . . what do the following players have in common:
Ryoichi Maeda, Naohiro Ishikawa, Hisato Sato, Kazuma Watanabe, Shinzo Koroki, Yu Hasegawa, Hiroyuki Taniguchi, Kisho Yano, Hiroto Mogi, Tomoaki Makino and Yosuke Kashiwagi
Still dont have a clue? Why am I not surprised?
Every one of them scored MORE goals in the J.League last year than either Okubo or Tamada. Oh yeah . . . there is one other thing they all have in common -- they were NOT in the starting lineup on Saturday night.
Just a few weeks ago, the Rising Sun News published a commentary in which we criticised the mainstream sports press for making fun of Okada's insistence that he intends to lead Japan to the quarterfinals of the World Cup this year. While it might seem like a tall order, teams that go to the World Cup need to adopt high goals, and do their utmost to realise them, whatever the odds might b
But if you are going to set high goals, and you expect people to take you seriously, then you at least need to demonstrate that you have a realistic grasp of what is required to meet such a goal. There simply is NO CONCEIVABLE POSSIBILITY that Japan could even make it out of their pool group, if the coach insists on using players whose skill set barely measures up to the standard of competition at the East Asian Championships. Until Okada faces up to this blunt reality, and stops giving playing time to underperforming sluggards, who have had three years to conclusively demonstrate their lack of ability, then it is only natural for sportswriters to conclude that the man is out of touch with reality.
