tl;dr (too long; didn’t read): Can play multiple positions in Back 3, Back 4, and midfield & lead the build-up with passing/carrying. Risk-reward decision making after winning the ball needs to improve when projecting ability to higher competitive levels.

Let’s get started!

• Date of Birth: April 15th, 2006

• Age: 20 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Center Back (Back 4 or Back 3), Right/Left/Center. Center Midfield.

• Club: Fujieda MYFC (J2), on loan from FC Tokyo (J1)

• Squad Number: #2 (J2/J3 100 Year Vision League)

• Height/Weight: 1.82m // 77 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

• VIDEO NOTE: Fujieda MYFC’s HOME kits are purple shirts with pink stripes, purple shorts, purple socks. AWAY kits are white shirt with white socks and shorts with black lettering.

• DATA NOTE: The percentile ranking stats are all from WyScout courtesy of Ben Griffis’ best XI app.

Shuto Nagano was born and raised in Tokyo, he joined the FC Tokyo (Fukagawa) U-15 team back in 2019. He was officially elevated to professional status in 2025 but was immediately loaned out to J3 side Gainare Tottori where he played the majority of minutes. This season he has made the step up to J2 by joining Fujieda MYFC on loan and has been under the guidance of ex-Japan international defender, Tomoaki Makino.

At the national team level, Nagano has been involved since the U-16 level. In 2023 he won the U-17 Asian Cup as a regular and also participated in the U-17 World Cup in the same year. Most recently, good performances at the U-23 Asian Cup in January 2026 meant he rightfully won the Center Back spot next to Rion Ichihara for most of the tournament (as usual Japan rotated a lot throughout).

Nagano turned age 20 this month and 2026 is a critical time for his development and career outlook.

Defending

Duels, Tackling

Fujieda’s aggressive team style means that Shuto Nagano gets into a high amount of duels, at times getting himself into sub-optimal situations to keep up that defensive intensity. What Nagano is quite adept at are the kind of shoulder-to-shoulder challenges and facing off against a dribbler face-to-face. He gets his arms out for leverage, applies pressure and keeps the opponent close. From these situations Nagano can jockey and shepherd opponents away from the danger zones and wait for support to arrive if he can’t win the ball outright by himself. The key for him is about whether he is able to engage in contact, arriving at the right time. Nagano does collect numerous fouls and has been cautioned twice so far this season when he’s just a bit too slow to engage or he is a bit too eager (i.e. making up for a late start) and bumps a bit too forcefully from the back.

When Nagano is waiting in the defensive line, he is very aggressive in stepping up to challenge vertical passes coming into attackers’ feet. I think these are the situations where he looks much quicker on his feet compared to defensive situations in more large open spaces. It’s rare to see opponent attackers be able to turn past Nagano after receiving given the amount of pressure and physical contact he can apply.

Despite his aptitude in enveloping opponents and winning the ball, I do think there are many times when Nagano goes to ground too easily. In these cases he also doesn’t completely win the ball which can allow the opponent to continue their attack with the added burden of Nagano being out-of-play from being on the ground. This issue is exacerbated given his speed issues when tracking back (I’ll cover this in a later section).

Another concern is his ability in the air. Overall by the data, his aerial duel success % is consistently just slightly above 50%. Often times he’ll misjudge the timing of the jump or the flight of the ball. In physical terms I also think he doesn’t have much jumping ability from a standing position, compared to running up to clear or knock back long balls (like goal kicks).

On the positive side, Nagano like in other on-ball situations, has the composure to play a cushioned pass to teammate instead of just clearing it when in space. Although much like in other times when he wins the ball, he runs the risk of counterattacks by giving it away immediate afterwards.

Block & Transition Defending

In an organized block, Nagano is alert in a side-on stance. As the opponent’s possession progresses in front of him he is able to shift his weight quickly to react to passes in front of him, stepping strongly with his back leg.

When covering for his teammates, Nagano tracks runners without issue but I do feel he is more comfortable in a Back 3 setting where there are more defenders across the width of the pitch and therefore a tighter area of the pitch to be responsible for.

This is because I do think across large open spaces, Nagano lacks acceleration1 to intervene quickly. Somewhat mitigating this is that he doesn’t have too many issues when shifting across to cover the wide areas (diagonally inward or outward) as he has good judgment in closing angles and measuring his approach. This is why he’s not nearly put into trouble in defensive transition/counterattacking situations as you might expect.

However, Nagano does have trouble when running backwards and forced to keep an eye on both the ball and his immediate marker off his near shoulder at the same time. Nagano struggles when turning alongside and then keeping up with a runner which provides some potential issues playing in high-line in faster environments.

Box Defending

Nagano plays across the entirety of the Back 3 and his responsibilities can vary but in small spaces inside the box he shows his strengths as a defender. He positions himself well to guard the near or far post zones when playing on the sides of the Back 3 and intervenes with clearances or blocks. Nagano puts his body on the line to block shots as a last resort as well.

On-The-Ball

Buid-Up Play & Passing

Fujieda MYFC over the past few years have been a team that heavily emphasizes playing out from the back. In their 3-4-2-1 formation that current manager Makino has continued to use from Daisuke Sudo’s days at the helm, Shuto Nagano has a high usage rate in the build-up. With the double pivot in front of him shifting around as well as the two attackers behind the striker dropping to receive, there are lot of opportunities for Nagano to play vertical passes. With how the Goalkeeper can push up and the midfielders dropping in, the back-line can also turn into more of a Back 4 in the build-up phase. Even with all this variety, Nagano seamlessly shifts positions all across the width of the defensive and middle 3rd to receive the ball and play passes.

Nagano has the vision and ability to play a wide variety of passes to his teammates from simple recycling passes, lofted or clipped mid-range passes into the midfield, and also angled passes cutting diagonally inside to a central midfielder. When talking about his range as a passer, it’s not just about the distances but the angles he can cover too. This is helped by the fact that he has no issues playing left footed passes and this can be seen clearly when Nagano is at Left Center Back.

Nagano’s passing at longer ranges and its frequency depends on his position within the Back 3 on the matchday and the particular opponent. Having played on both the Right and Left sides, he has a good understanding with various Wing Backs on the team to shift the vector of Fujieday’s attack quickly. Nagano can play long diagonals to the opposite side as well as direct lofted or driven passes down the line.

Despite his various mistakes, Nagano has a strong mentality to persevere and adhere to the team’s style. He is in an environment that has a willingness to accept some interceptions and counterattacks and these experiences should improve his decision making going forward.

One technical aspect I think Nagano can improve on is providing better passes into a teammate’s particular foot that can lead to their optimal next action. Given his vision of the field from the back-line, Nagano should be communicating the intention of his passes to his teammates by being better at correctly placing his pass to their leading or trailing leg to dictate their next moves.

Carrying & Dribbling

Nagano’s passing is supported by his good ball control and even better ability to dribble. Nagano has a good sense of driving into vacated spaces that appear after some combination play among the back-line pulls the opponent to press. He can be a bit risky in this regard especially when on the counter without support around him. His own destabilizing move to break past the opponent also means his own team aren’t always in good position which can lead to counter-counterattacks. These situations where he loses the ball almost immediately after winning it back is something he’ll need to improve on as Fujieda rely on him to be bold and play on instead of just hoofing it clear.

Nagano’s release of the ball can sometimes be hindered by taking too many touches as highlighted above but, as discussed before about his passing range, his through-balls when transitioning from the middle 3rd can break lines and lead to dangerous attacks.

Off-Ball-Runs

When Fujieda are able to push into the opponent half, Nagano doesn’t just sit back to recycle the ball but actively participates in the attack. The team like to switch the vector of their attacks via long diagonals or consecutive passes across the midfield or back-line and Nagano uses this as a trigger to make under or over laps into the final 3rd. He is able to drag defenders along and create space for teammates, especially Yuto Nakamura at Left Wing Back who is great on the dribble. Nagano can also pull wide as part of possession sequences to break down an opponent block along with making 3rd man runs into the box. Fujieda is a team that play very aggressively and Nagano adds depth to their attack by creating overloads down the wings.

Conclusion

Shuto Nagano is another Japanese Center Back prospect that has won significant minutes at the league and (youth) national team level in recent times. His utility across different positions and roles (including in midfield) should be useful to many teams if his trajectory continues at its current velocity over the next few years. Nagano should be a Center Back in a Back 3 (on either side) going forward to protect him from his particular weaknesses. Any prospective team will want to support him with fast players down the wings to be on the receiving end of his passing along with quick Center Back partners that can cover for his jaunts forward with the ball and passing mistakes. Ideally those players will be strong in the air but even with Nagano’s 182cm height I do think there is some potential for improvement in that aspect.

A big draw for prospective teams is Nagano’s constructive ability on the ball. In the build-up phase he can deftly avoid pressure and make passes of various ranges to help a team progress up the pitch. Once the ball is further forward, Nagano then joins the attack in the final 3rd with under-laps and over-laps as well. On the defensive end of things, I have various doubts about his ability in large open spaces especially in transition and his poor decision making to dive in on the tackle can exacerbate dangerous situations (the latter at least can be improved with more experience at the J.League level). However, Nagano can be fairly solid in a mid-low block and inside his own box where space is more constricted for attackers and he can ensnare opponents with his body frame to win the ball. Going forward he’ll need to continue taking into consideration the small details but more importantly maintain consistency on the things he does well on the defensive side of things.

Shuto Nagano has been developing in a good environment at Fujieda MYFC under the tutelage of Tomoaki Makino (a former Japan international defender who also has ample experience in Europe and at the Asian continental level). Compared to his time on loan at J3 side Gainare Tottori last year, he has already shown a lot of growth throughout the 100 Year Vision League which should prepare him when the real competitive season starts in August. He has the trust of the manager and his teammates even at his young age as he has been given the captain’s arm band in a couple of games already this season.

Currently his loan ends in June but I do think spending the full 2026-2027 season at Fujieda is the pathway for him now so we’ll see what transpires. Then, a return to FC Tokyo for the 2027-2028 season makes sense but it’s unclear what the Center Back situation will look like at the capital club2. As inspiration, he could look to the growth trajectory and career path of another FC Tokyo defender in Tsuyoshi Watanabe, who after graduating from the university system spent a few years in J1 before making the leap to Europe in his mid-20s. Shuto Nagano’s potential may not nearly reach the heights of the outstanding defenders of this generation like Kota Takai or Rion Ichihara but I think he can be a solid contributor. He can be a good complement to the aforementioned two as the Center Back that can lead the build-up.

For now, I don’t see Shuto Nagano making the step up to Europe until the summer of 2027 at the earliest3. I don’t think there’s any reason to rush him especially given his decision-making and consistency issues that can only be improved with time. I would continue monitoring his progress as his skill-set is valuable to any team that wants their Center Backs to be pro-active in the build-up phase and then join attacks further forward.

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Resources, Limitations, etc.

• Video analysis: DaVinci Resolve 19

• Tactical diagrams: Tacticalista

• Time period: 2026 J2-J3 100 Year Vision League Season

• Footage: Broadcast footage, no tactical camera

• Stats: FBref, Transfermarkt, WyScout, FotMob

• Player radars: Ben Griffis

Here are previous threads from some key games over the past few years:

• Mexico vs. Japan (International Friendly, September 6, 2025)

• AFC World Cup Qualifier, Saudi Arabia vs. Japan (October 10, 2024)

A lot of the issues and concerns I wrote about in those threads above still exist today unfortunately but anyway…

Here were the players called up for the March friendlies:

Despite Takehiro Tomiyasu appearing and playing very well in the past few weeks, he went off injured against Feyenoord and ultimately had to drop out. Tomoya Ando also was injured in the last game before the break and was directly replaced by Daiki Hashioka (who is trying to revive his career back in Belgium).

Kento Shiogai was given his first call-up. Perhaps somewhat late given his super-sub heroics for NEC Nijmegen were a number of months ago and since January he has been stuck in a relegation dogfight with Wolfsburg. Hiroki Ito managed to return from yet another injury setback to return to the team, one of the few positive injury news over the past year I’ll say…

Ryunosuke Sato was the only J.League outfield player called up but he missed all of the pre-Scotland training sessions. The two other J.League players in the squad were the regular back-up goalkeepers in Keisuke Osako (Sanfrecce Hiroshima) and Tomoki Hayakawa (Kashima Antlers). There has been a case for both Taishi Brandon Nozawa (Royal Antwerp) and Leo Kokubo (STVV) to be called up given both have been very good in the Belgian League this season but Moriyasu ultimately went with the somewhat tried-and-tested options between the sticks. I do think Nozawa and Kokubo, especially the latter if he can get a big move to a Top-5 League in the summer, will be the main challengers to Zion Suzuki in the post 2026 World Cup era.

The rest of the squad was fairly familiar given the number of injuries with the likes of Yuito Suzuki, Kodai Sano also picked to make the case in Takumi Minamino’s absence. The one big surprise was the omission of Hidemasa Morita! Moriyasu mentioned the immense competition for the midfield spots but also left the door open for the Sporting midfielder by praising his experience and his ability to easily slot back into the squad if called back up later.

First I’ll go through the Key Takeaways from this window. This captures the gist of what I think we learned from this window so just read that part if you’re busy. If you want to read a more detailed report on both the Scotland and England games then continue onward to the following sections.

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Key Takeaways

The Center Back hierarchy is becoming clear

Since the end of the World Cup qualifiers and the continued absence of mainstay Ko Itakura (only appearing in 2/8 friendlies), Japan’s best Back 3 has emerged. From Left-to-Right it is Junnosuke Suzuki, Shogo Taniguchi, and Tsuyoshi Watanabe. This March window did see the return of Hiroki Ito and he played very well which might relegate Suzuki to the bench, more due to the fact that he is a far more versatile option being able to sub in on either side of the Back 3 and at Wing Back as well. In reserve Ayumu Seko (despite my own misgivings about him) has remained fit compared to everybody else while Tomoya Ando has also emerged as a viable back-up candidate.

This does mean around one more Center Back spot remains with either Takehiro Tomiyasu or Ko Itakura being the leading options. Given Tomiyasu’s supreme quality over any other Center Back if fit, it does stand to reason that Moriyasu would be willing to take him on as a defensive super-sub option if he continues to get game-time for Ajax over the next two months (his latest setback was reportedly a very minor issue but does bear scrutiny). Otherwise, Ko Itakura’s persistent injury issues may finally clear up and his seniority and familiarity with the Back 3 setup throughout the World Cup qualifiers may give him the edge. Of course, either one or both of Itakura and Tomiyasu could simply replace Ando and/or Seko as well!

Koki Machida’s recovery at Hoffenheim is going well as he has finally returned to individual training but it’ll take a lot for him to sneak into the squad at this point (even though I’ve been a big fan of him). This is even more so with Hiroki Ito returning to taking up the “left footed, left center back/full back hybrid” role within the squad. Kota Takai has also suffered a very injury-ridden season and his latest set back prevented him from joining up in March and that most likely does it for his chances for a World Cup place, unfortunately.

Kaoru Mitoma in attack instead of Wing Back

I’ve complained in the past about how having some of our best attackers at Wing Back as they end up spending too much energy tracking back and receiving the ball from a deeper position. With Takumi Minamino’s injury it does seem Moriyasu is more willing to push Mitoma forward in the #10 position more. While this does solve one problem, it has a knock-on effect of diluting the Wing Back depth. If in a best available XI Mitoma is going to be used in attack then it means Keito Nakamura would start at Wing Back. Over the past few years Moriyasu has been able to alternate between Nakamura and Mitoma at Wing Back to keep at least one fresh. Now Japan doesn’t have a good substitute to bring on as “fresh legs” that can take players on and provide attacking impetus with 1v1 dribbling ability that’s very important for breaking down low-blocks.

I do imagine that both Junya Ito and Ryunosuke Sato (if the latter is ultimately chosen) could be shifted across to play as Left Wing Back considering the former has played on the Left before while Sato made a name for himself playing either side as a Wing Back last year for Fagiano Okayama. There are some other more defense-first options like playing Junnosuke Suzuki (like in the England game) or Tomoya Ando at Wing Back instead to keep the attackers in reserve but that comes with its own pitfalls. It’s another interesting conundrum as the attack has been doing fairly well even without Takumi Minamino.

Back-up Striker options

One of the big stories surrounding the March window was the question of the back-up to Ayase Ueda. Koki Ogawa had been the front runner throughout the past few years but his lack of league minutes since late January has alarm bells ringing. I still do think he gets picked considering his physical profile can’t be replicated by the other options (aside from Yuki Ohashi but I don’t think he is a realistic option at this point).

All eyes turned to the double call-up of both Keisuke Goto and Kento Shiogai, the latter earning his debut vs. Scotland. Goto played decently well against Scotland but his lack of physicality raises concerns and while he is a viable option given his play-making abilities, I don’t think in terms of profile he’ll take up Ogawa’s spot. Kento Shiogai had a lively, powerful performance and I think he has a potential place as the “super-sub” role when Japan want to go with two strikers up top when chasing a goal. Given Daizen Maeda is more likely to play Wing Back or in one of the #10 spots behind the striker, I could see all four of Ueda, Ogawa, Goto, and Shiogai taken but it might be prudent to drop one of Goto or Shiogai to focus on other positions.

So then, the guy to fall out of favor is most likely Shuto Machino as he doesn’t quite differentiate himself compared to the aforementioned options with a clear specific quality (he’s more of a jack-of-all-trades that flits between striker and one of the #10 spots) and his league form is extremely patchy given his lack of playing time.

What to do about the potential injury returnees?

Takehiro Tomiyasu, Wataru Endo, Takumi Minamino, Koki Machida, Ko Itakura.

The above are the major injury concerns by key players heading into the World Cup. Tomiyasu is here despite only having a minor setback recently because of … well his past history. I don’t have Kota Takai here because he’s not a major figure in the squad (yet…).

Anyway, there is a limit to how many “walking injured” players Japan can/should bring, especially if Moriyasu is serious about going far in the tournament. There is always a higher risk of these players getting re-injured with the strains of tournament football so balancing the need for their quality with the overall depth/health of the squad is going to be a massive decision to make in late May. I would be hesitant about picking all five from here, I might only take two of the five (Tomiyasu and one of Endo or Minamino - whoever is more fit).

As I explained in a previous section I think our current Center Backs have shown enough to be somewhat okay with leaving Machida and Itakura out but Tomiyasu is a special case. The midfield has been rejuvenated with Kaishu Sano and Daichi Kamada as first choice but Joel Fujita not quite showing his club form for the national team might mean Endo can come back in if he proves his fitness (and/or Hidemasa Morita). The attack and the high press look fine even without Minamino but he has been a key figure and Japan’s top goal scorer so it’s hard to leave him out if he proves his fitness by the end of May.

Whatever happens, it’s genuinely a headache for Moriyasu and I do sympathize with him as these choices are going to be super difficult decisions.

I think it’s really important to look at squad building, especially at the international game, as not just about positions and pedigree (where a player plays, etc.) but also about their specific role in the squad. I do think too much of the assessment of the Japan National Team by foreign observers centers on scouring the Wikipedia page for where in Europe a player plays with complete disregard of their role within the team, how their form/function differs from their club team, etc.

Scotland vs. Japan

Japan started with a fairly rotated line-up vs. Scotland. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Zion Suzuki starting. Given how he’s only been back for a few games at Parma, I think Moriyasu wanted to get him back up to speed as soon as possible.

Chances were given to Kodai Sano, Joel Fujita, and Keisuke Goto. Moriyasu in the post-match presser spoke about how he preferred to use young, inexperienced players from kick-off because they would be better mentally and physically ready by taking part in the pre-match warm-up, knowing that they will get at least 45 minutes of playing time, rather than just potentially/possibly coming off the bench in the 2nd Half.

Given the line-up, it was understandable but nonetheless frustrating that Japan looked out of sorts to start the game. Some poor defending by Tsuyoshi Watanabe against Lyndon Dykes set up McGinn to cross for McTominay (sneaking into the box as Sugawara was ball-watching…) for Scotland’s best chance of the match, only thwarted by a great reaction save from Zion Suzuki. However, slowly Japan were able to settle things from around the 15th minute onward.

The game flowed more kindly for Japan as they established themselves with both Ao Tanaka and Joel Fujita dropping deep to support the build-up play and calm things down. While nominally Japan started with a Back 3, the central midfielders’ support meant that it looked more of a Back 4-ish shape in-possession.

Yuito Suzuki looked especially bright down the Right working well with Yukinari Sugawara to create some chances or at least push forward into the final 3rd. The finishing touches were lacking though as Suzuki, Kodai Sano, and Ao Tanaka all missed chances to score.

Compared to the Right side, the attack down the Left was almost non-existent as although Hiroki Ito performed well on his return to the national team, there was a lot of awkwardness with Daizen Maeda and Kodai Sano ahead of him.

Both teams went into Half Time not quite satisfied.

For the 2nd Half, Moriyasu made a trio of changes with Junnosuke Suzuki, Shogo Taniguchi, and Kaoru Mitoma coming on for Hiroki Ito, Tsuyoshi Watanabe, and Kodai Sano respectively. Ito’s substitution was a planned one as Bayern Munich had requested his playing time to be limited for obvious reasons.

The biggest change in the 2nd Half was how the central midfielders stopped dropping into the back-line to support the build-up play, even in the period when Scotland decided to press more intensely. After a nervy start where Scotland were able to push in, Japan gradually figured out their build-up play and once again the tide turned toward the Samurai Blue. With both midfielders staying further forward it did mean Japan were also able to get forward and push Scotland into their own defensive 3rd better.

Kaoru Mitoma provided an immediate spark from the Left #10 position with some sumptuous passes while Junnosuke Suzuki provided his usual ball progression from Left Center Back. The left side unit in general, especially when Keito Nakamura replaced Daizen Maeda at Wing Back was really great in my opinion. It was the perfect blend of ball progression through passing and carrying/dribbling. It does seem like this is the best possible unit on this side of the pitch going forward.

It wasn’t all completely Japan’s way though as some poor defending from both Ayumu Seko and Daiki Hashioka allowed Scotland with a few glimpses of goal.

For the final 15 or so minutes, Moriyasu went with another one of his surprises by springing a very attacking 3-1-4-2 formation. Daichi Kamada came on as the single pivot while Mitoma and Doan turned into box-to-box #8s, and Kento Shiogai came on for his debut up top joining Ayase Ueda.

Having both Shiogai and Ueda up top meant that at least one could remain forward if the other dropped deep. Throughout the past few years, a challenge has been that Ueda would drop and hold the ball up but the #10s and the Wing Backs wouldn’t exploit the space left behind so this was a nice alternative to the usual formula.

The goal was an extremely well crafted move with Mitoma and Nakamura exchanging lanes and then Junnosuke Suzuki motoring up-field on the under-lap to cross the ball in. Shiogai managed to shield and somewhat lay the ball off to Junya Ito who bamboozled Scotland’s defender and goalkeeper before slightly scuffing the shot into the net.

Overall, I felt Scotland didn’t really press with much intensity (aside from a spell in the 2nd Half) and they didn’t really go all the way to Zion Suzuki when Japan passed the ball back to him. Junya Ito showed his worth again as a super-sub, adding pace and directness against tiring legs in the 2nd Half.

One final note was that I felt the Scotland home crowd at Hampden Park was very tame. It was quite disappointing as I could very easily hear the player’s voices and also the minority of Japanese fans chanting from the broadcast… It didn’t feel like the high-pressure away game atmosphere that this game was supposed to simulate.

Winners

• Yuito Suzuki: He was a big positive especially in the 1st Half as a lot of attacks came through his ability to drive forward with the ball down the Right. With Minamino’s absence and Junya Ito, Ritsu Doan needing to be kept at Wing Back, Suzuki did quite well to be in consideration for the final squad.

• Hiroki Ito: Had a good 45 minutes. Still a big concern that the Left Wing attack with Maeda was non-existent (not solely on him) but defended well & kept the ball moving with crisp passing in the build-up.

In between?

• Keisuke Goto: When he was able to find that little pocket of space, his lay-offs + flick-ons were good but he’s still poor at handling actual contact from defenders. There was a noticeable difference when Ueda came on and was able to win headers and do hold-up play while under pressure from defenders in the 2nd Half. Defining Goto’s exact role within the striker unit is somewhat difficult in this sense. He is a tall guy but without the physicality, a decent play-maker but not quite the #10 type compared to the other attackers like Yuito Suzuki, Ritsu Doan, Takefusa Kubo, etc.

• Daizen Maeda: Worked hard as usual but he’s another player I would rather see playing in attack... I do think he is 100% on the plane given his versatility and the fact that there isn’t anybody with his pressing speed & intensity for the kind of man-to-man high press that Moriyasu is going to spring on opponents at various periods at the World Cup.

Losers

• Kodai Sano: Watching him for NEC Nijmegen this season, the role he was given against Scotland stands in contrast to his club team. For the Dutch side, Sano plays much deeper and keeps the ball moving through his technical abilities in passing and carrying. He also does a lot of defensive work as the screen in front of the defense while the players in front of him press high up. Understandably it was then quite hard for him to impress with the rotated line-up around him especially with Daizen Maeda as his Wing Back made the odds stacked up against his favor. Nevertheless there were certain moments where we saw his technical magic, including a chance from outside the box, but ultimately it was a frustrating outing for the younger Sano. Given where Kodai Sano and Joel Fujita play for their respective clubs, it might have been more interesting to see their positions swapped in the starting line-up…

• Joel Fujita: Unable to quite show the dynamic performance that has made him one of St. Pauli’s most important players this season. Perhaps it was a bit ironic that he has mostly been playing as one of the attackers rather than in the double pivot in the past few months for the Bundesliga side. I don’t think he was bad vs. Scotland but he isn’t showing enough to be a true starter. With Endo’s injury, I can still see Fujita going to the World Cup but he won’t get a whole lot of minutes at this rate.

• Daiki Hashioka: Only called up as a last minute replacement for Tomoya Ando, Hashioka didn’t really impress and was ghosted past by George Hirst for a shot in the 88th minute. Hashioka’s career has been on a big decline after his move to Luton Town fizzled out and he’s only been called up in the past few years because of the massive injury list in the Back 3. If the likes of Tomiyasu, Takai, Ando, Machida were all fit he would be nowhere near the squad. I’d be very worried if Japan bring him along to the World Cup and we have to play him. It’s a shame because he really did look quite good at Sint-Truiden a few years ago.

England vs. Japan

As one might imagine from the Scotland game line-up, Japan went all in with their best available players against England. Unfortunately, with England’s own injury crisis, the hosts didn’t line-up in kind. Even more disappointingly Harry Kane who was tipped to start by Thomas Tuchel in the pre-match presser suffered a minor knock and was left out of the game entirely. The two somewhat surprises for me was Junya Ito starting from kickoff and Hiroki Ito getting the nod again.

Japan started the game alternating between a high press, then retreating to more of a mid-block 5-2-3 shape. The defense constantly shifted between a Back 4 and Back 5 as one of the Wing Backs would push up then the other defenders would slide across. The Front 3 did a good job of pressing England’s defenders while also alert to Mainoo-Anderson in the double pivot by pressing at certain angles and keeping the two in their cover shadow.

Japan’s goal came from this shape as Mitoma tracked back to tackle Palmer and launched a lightening counterattack. Keito Nakamura’s bursting run forward was found by Mitoma and then the Brighton man received the ball back in the box to score with a composed one touch finish.

Below is a really good video breaking down Mitoma’s role in the goal by @FathalliMo on Twitter (click the link for the original tweet).

As the game wore on both teams had a number of chances with Keito Nakamura coming closest with a curled effort in the 68th minute after another good passing sequence. Zion Suzuki became more active as England started to pile on the pressure.

The last 15~20 minutes, especially when Tuchel put Dan Burn and Harry Maguire on to threaten Japan more with set-pieces allowed Moriyasu to test Japan’s defensive shape & resolve. Junnosuke Suzuki was subbed in as a Wing Back to test a more “defensive” option there. In the end, Japan did enough to keep England out (including Sugawara clearing off the line) to see out the win. This result will do wonders for confidence across the defensive unit knowing that similar threats will exist against the Netherlands and other opponents at the World Cup.

Winners

• Daichi Kamada & Kaishu Sano: Together the two were imperious in midfield. Working extremely hard and matching England duel-for-duel. Sano stood out for his interceptions while Kamada covered for defenders in the box a lot and also took charge in possession from the build-up phase. The Moriyasu era has largely been dominated by the twin pillars of Wataru Endo and Hidemasa Morita, it’s clear there’s a new duo leading the midfield now.

Losers

• To be honest I don’t think there were many in terms of players that actually got on the pitch. Perhaps Kodai Sano is one considering he was left out of the matchday squad entirely. Also Ryunosuke Sato missed the chance to impress Moriyasu given his sickness and understandable reluctance on Moriyasu’s part to put someone like Sato on when defending the lead against a team like England.

• While Shuto Machino did come on he didn’t get to do a whole lot. Of course, given the game state it’s not really his fault. However, compared to the impact that the other strikers (except Koki Ogawa but his role is clear in my opinion) were able to show, I think Machino’s place in the squad is on a knife’s edge…

Conclusion

Ultimately, the March friendlies provided a lot of insight to how Japan are shaping up for the World Cup. The games allowed Moriyasu to try out a super-attacking formation vs. Scotland and then a super-defensive formation vs. England which simulate some potential scenarios that Japan should face in the big event.

Some quick notes on Japan’s Group F opponents:

• The Netherlands “on paper” should provide the sternest test for Japan especially as they are the first opponent of the group stage. While their performances haven’t really been great they still have world-class players on world class teams in most positions (along with teammates of the Japanese players at the club level).

• Tunisia are a bit of an enigma. They strolled through their World Cup qualifiers without conceding a goal but their group consisted of some pretty poor teams. A poor AFCON showing also meant the dismissal of Sami Trabelsi so watching back those games won’t be too much help to prepare. The new manager is Sabri Lamouchi who managed Ivory Coast in the past and helped defeat Japan in the 2014 World Cup. Their March friendlies showed a squad with an interesting mix of young and old including the first time call-up of Rani Khedira (brother of ex-German international Sami).

• Sweden won against Poland in the final UEFA play-off to secure their spot in Group F. Despite their horrendous qualification campaign, Graham Potter’s appointment have turned things around somewhat on top of the fact that they still have quality players (Gyökeres, the return of Isak & Kulusevski, etc.) that can hurt many teams in this tournament.

I might write a more detailed look at Japan’s Group F opponents closer to the World Cup.

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As a bonafide Shogun Soccer Scouting series takes up a lot of time, I thought I’d write something quick and short on a number of U-20 players to whet the appetite, if you will. Of course, I’ve already written about some like Ryunosuke Sato or Yotaro Nakajima…

While for others like… let’s say Joi Yamamoto, Gaku Nawata, Rei Umeki you probably don’t need to be reading this newsletter to know about them as there’s plenty of buzz on social media already! I might write something more substantial on Gaku Nawata later this year if he can start and play for the majority of the 90 minutes in more games.

So, basically players born after 2006-ish. Also, let’s be clear. These profiles will be brief. There are no conclusions yet. Just some players that might be interesting to keep monitoring. Some “ideas” if you will.

Let’s get started!

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Kento Hamasaki

• Date of Birth: June 16th, 2007

• Age: 18 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Attacking Midfielder (Box-to-Box, #8 Type)

• Club: Vissel Kobe (J1)

• Squad Number: #28 (J.League), #52 (Asian Champions League)

• Height/Weight: 1.65m // 60 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

Kento Hamasaki is another player to come through Vissel Kobe’s academy which has been producing a number of J.League ready players recently through good investment (it’s not all been about signing Galacticos like Andres Iniesta and friends…).

A left-footer but playing usually around the right in both a #10 and #8-ish role typical of a Vissel Kobe midfielder in recent years (even with the managerial change to Michael Skibbe). He works really well with the Right Back and Right Winger in the final 3rd to make rotations and combination plays to break down blocks. His main weapon in these situations are under-laps in the half-space to receive to get shots off or crosses in.

Hamasaki is quite exciting to watch on the ball due to his lovely ball control in tight spaces, agility to shift his body to change directions, and slip past opponent pressure. On the other hand, he is of course as anybody can see, quite small…

Of course, as with many young attackers, his next step is to refine his final output, whether it be a pass, cross, or a decisive shot all of which has been a bit lacking despite his ability to get into some good positions with the ball.

One last thing I will note is that he is very one-legged at the moment. If he were more willing to use his weaker Right foot I think he could be an even bigger threat.

• Match to watch: Asian Champions League Group Stage vs. FC Seoul (Feb. 10, 2026)

Ayumu Furuya

• Date of Birth: May 9th, 2007

• Age: 18 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Striker

• Club: Vegalta Sendai (J2)

• Squad Number: #34

• Height/Weight: 1.76m // 79 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

There’s been a decent amount of social media buzz around Ayumu Kameda over at Kataller Toyama (maybe he’ll appear in a future newsletter in this series) but I wanted to highlight a different “Ayumu” today, Vegalta Sendai’s Ayumu Furuya. What piqued my interest in him was how strong with his back-to-goal he is already, being able to shield against proper professional opponents way older than him at his young age.

Aside from his hold-up play, Furuya also makes runs behind or wide to stretch the defense, creating space for himself or others.

Inside the box he hasn’t been able to take advantage of the chances that have come his way despite some good movement or positioning. Funnily enough, the one goal he has scored so far this season was an extremely difficult chance, a lobbed shot over the keeper from outside the box! Also he makes sure to follow up on shots from teammates for potential rebounds.

Compared to the other players mentioned here, Furuya has played the least amount of minutes and probably the most “raw” player among those in this newsletter. Time will tell if his other non-physical, technical tools can improve further and he adds more goals.

With manager Yoshiro Moriyama having already rejuvenated Vegalta Sendai over the past few years by working with the recruitment team to cut down the squad’s average age (and his experience as Japan U17 national team manager), Furuya’s future should be in the right hands, someone who can guide him toward a level where he can become a main starter at the J2 level… and perhaps beyond.

• Match to watch: vs. Tochigi City FC (February 7th, 2026)

Soichiro Mori

• Date of Birth: June 29th, 2007

• Age: 18 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Right Full Back, Right Wing Back

• Club: Nagoya Grampus (J1)

• Squad Number: #44 (J.League)

• Height/Weight: 1.80m // 70 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

After spending some time with Nagoya Grampus’ U18s, Soichiro Mori got his debut last season for Nagoya Grampus under Kenta Hasegawa’s guidance and made a decent number of appearances at Right Wing Back from the summer months of 2025. These experience led him to the U20 World Cup in the fall of 2025 where he only played in the dead-rubber group stage game vs. New Zealand (well, and 3 minutes against Egypt in the opener). Mori was also a regular in the U23 Asian Cup a few months ago until he lost his place and did not appear in the semifinal or the final as U23 Japan went on to win the tournament.

Under Mischa Petrovic’s new Grampus team, Mori’s role has changed from a more conventional Full Back/Wing Back to more of a Winger as per the Austrian tactician’s proclivities. In possession, Petrovic has his Wing Backs set up very high-and-wide as kind of a Front 5-ish shape and not involved in the build-up much at all as that’s left to the Center Backs and Central Midfielders instead (if you want more details, refer to my J.League season reviews of years past when Petrovic was in charge of Consadole Sapporo). Mori has taken to this more attacking role with aplomb through his darting diagonal runs inside, a notable example being the goal he scored against Avispa Fukuoka (see below video clip). Otherwise, Mori relies on his physical traits to engage in the robust up-and-down movement required of Wing Backs (Nagoya still form a Back 5 out-of-possesion) along with far posts runs into the box for crosses.

In this role he needs to be aware of making space for others, especially when the Right Center Back of the Back 3 pushes forward. Mori has been quite adept at these positional rotations on the Right side to maintain possession in the final 3rd with the Right Center Back (usually Teruki Hara) along with a number of attackers in the Front 3 that drift towards the Right. Of course, he also does regular wide activities like making runs or carrying forward to cross the ball.

One key aspect to continue monitoring is how he develops defensively as while he can be quite proactive on the front foot in the high press (like against Gamba Osaka, see video footage below), I want to keep an eye on him more when he is defending deeper in a block (body shape, preventing crosses, etc.) as part of a Back 5 or Back 4 (issues in the latter we saw at the U23 Asian Cup).

• Match to watch: 2nd Half cameo vs. Gamba Osaka (February 18, 2026)

Makoto Himeno

• Date of Birth: August 12, 2008

• Age: 17 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Wide Midfielder, Right // Left

• Club: JEF United (J1)

• Squad Number: #37

• Height/Weight: 1.71m // 66 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

Makoto Himeno made waves at the tail end of last season. He made his professional debut. At 17 years old. In a play-off semi-final… and scored a goal for good measure! With JEF United’s ascension back into J1, Himeno has earned a decent amount of playing with the occasional start.

Himeno is a dribbler who prefers receiving the ball to feet (rather than running into space) to take defenders on. This is his main weapon but as you might imagine from a 17 year old, he’s not quite yet got the strength to consistently beat his man.

Defensively he does a decent job tracking back to keep JEF United’s compact 4-4-2 shape and what I’ve liked is how he doesn’t go blindly rushing forward in high press situations. He’s quite aware of his responsibilities and will hold off on charging forward if the opponent Full Back/Midfielder is available out wide.

Despite his age he is already trusted with taking set-pieces: corner kicks and direct/indirect free kicks. Even more interestingly, he’s willing to take them with either foot so that he can play inswingers from either side! Although so far it hasn’t led to a whole lot of chances, it does show you how much confidence the team have in his abilities. Due to his two-footedness he can play on both sides of the pitch as the wide midfielder/winger as well which increases his utility on the team.

• Match to watch: Cameo vs. Machida Zelvia (February 27, 2026)

Special mention: Yoon Sung-Jun

• Date of Birth: May 4th, 2007

• Age: 18 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Center Defensive Midfield

• Club: Kyoto Sanga (J1)

• Squad Number: #25 (2025 J2 season)

• Height/Weight: 1.70m // 67 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

A big surprise after manager Cho Kwi-jae chose his Zainichi Korean compatriot, Yoon Sung-Jun, to start against Avispa Fukuoka on matchday 3 for his league debut (his pro debut was in the League Cup in the 2025 season). Yoon is a deep-lying central midfielder operating in a double pivot or as the single pivot. He has good defensive positioning for interceptions and is also quickly activated to collect loose/2nd balls. Yoon mostly supports attacking play in the final 3rd as a safe nexus for back passes and also takes up positions for a rest defense role in possession play. He does have moments of penetrative/progressive passing that show potential for more direct contributions in attack though.

I’m going to be honest and say I’m rather frustrated he’s going to pick playing for South Korea given how he’s lived in Japan his entire life and been brought through the J.League academy system. It’s his choice, of course, but I wish it weren’t so!

• Match to watch: League debut1 vs. Avispa Fukuoka

There are other players that I wanted to list here but wweeeeeelllllll I might be writing in detail about them once more games have been played so I’m keeping those names close to my chest for now! Again, no conclusions… yet. Just some “ideas” to monitor as we progress through the half-season and then the full 2026/2027 season! Perhaps I’ll come back to these in another update alongside a few more players I’m watching.

I’m hoping to return to some fully fleshed out editions of the Shogun Soccer Scouting series in the next month or so before the summer transfer window rumor mill starts (oh and other features on that big event called the World Cup I suppose2).

Thanks for reading!

(Bonus points3 to those who understand the reference in the sub-title!)

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In lieu of other players that I could be writing about I’m going to anchor myself to Ichihara. Hopefully I can find footage easily enough once he’s in Europe. Well, let’s hope my confidence was placed in the right player in five years time!

Let’s get started!

tl;dr (too long; didn’t read): Excellent in the air due to both physical & cognitive attributes. Incisive passing in the build-up phase. Composure & leadership at domestic & international levels. Some concerns with speed/acceleration in high-line setting.

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• Date of Birth: July 7th, 2005

• Age: 20 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Center Back (Back 4 or Back 3), Right/Left/Center

• Club: RB Omiya Ardija (J2)

• Squad Number: #4 (2025 J2 season), #5 (Youth national team)

• Height/Weight: 1.87m // 81 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

• VIDEO NOTE: RB Omiya Ardija’s HOME kits are navy shirts with orange patterns, orange shorts, with white lettering, orange socks. AWAY kits are white shirt with navy sleeves, white socks and shorts with black lettering. Ichihara wears #4 at the club level. He wears #5 and the captain’s armband for the youth national teams.

• DATA NOTE: The percentile ranking stats are all from WyScout courtesy of Ben Griffis’ best XI app.

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Defending

Ichihara has ample experience in a Back 3 and Back 4, performing roles all across the back-line. In the past season he’s had to deal with tactical changes due to a managerial change from Tetsu Nagasawa to Yuki Miyazawa. For most of his time at RB Omiya Ardija, Ichihara was set up a bit deeper in a Back 3/Back 5 block. In the last month or so of the 2025 season, the team switched permanently to a Back 4. In general they were also a lot more aggressive in their defending and the block height (at least from my eyes) was set higher too. For a bit more detail on their season, check out the J2 Season Review!

In line with what I tried to do with the Shion Shinkawa report, I’m going to dig real deep into Rion Ichihara’s aerial duels in particular. I’ll cover the other aspects of his game too but in less detail.

Aerial Duels

One thing I did notice since the last time I wrote about him is that Ichihara has grown a wee bit taller (185cm » 187cm according to Soccer Digest) and put on more muscle. Of course, winning aerials is not just about physical ability. A large part is cognitive! In this sense I think Ichihara has a good eye for judging the flight of the ball, identifying where the ball will drop, and takes up positions quickly before the opponent.

Another cognitive function is scanning at the right times and adjusting body shape to keep vision on both the runner(s) and the ball as much as possible. Ichihara does well with his footwork to shift and adapt to the play in front of him. His awareness of the situation around him gives him the wherewithal to also place cushioned headers into the path of his teammates instead of simply clearing it away.

Still, the physical aspects can’t be ignored. After taking up good positions for aerial balls, Ichihara initiates contact with the attacker in a variety of ways. A slight bump to unbalance or destabilize the opponent’s jumping attempt. Ichihara also uses his arms as leverage across his opponent or hold down the attacker while simultaneously pushing off the ground.

Of course, it’s not always possible that the defender can take up a position ahead of the attacker. In which case, Ichihara uses momentum in his favor for winning aerial duels. Ichihara has very good jumping ability, not just relying on his height for headers, and usually makes contact with the ball at the apex of his jumps. As seen throughout the footage in this section, he performs good leaps using a single leading foot from a run up and stationary jumps with both feet. Ichihara does occasionally foul from tussling a bit too much so he needs to be a bit more careful there.

Overall, Rion Ichihara’s aerial ability is superior when looking across Center Backs in the J2 league and shows promising signs of translating to a higher level given his experiences against continental and non-Asian opponents as well. His dominance in these situations is even more impressive considering the fact that Ichihara assumes a majority of the responsibility for these duels on the teams he plays for (in that he doesn’t simply have a big win % because of a smaller sample size). As with most cases when a player makes the jump over to Europe, I imagine his aerial win % will dip initially but as long as Ichihara acclimatizes it should stabilize over time.

Box Defending

In his own box, Ichihara has a commanding presence due to his vocal communication with his teammates. He is organizing the back-line before and after crosses or set pieces. As an individual contributor, Ichihara has great awareness when defending crosses, even when running back quickly he makes sure to scan around which allows him to react to block crosses or get between the intended target to clear it away. Box defending was my main concern two years ago but since then I think Ichihara has improved in terms of being a better judge of the flight of the ball and properly setting himself up for dangerous situations.

One point I want to mention is one particular aspect of his athleticism. He has really good core and leg strength to be able to plant and absorb momentum quickly to stop and shift his weight when reacting to crosses/passes in the box.

Block & Transition Defending

Ichihara’s command of the defensive line obviously extends to outside the box as he marshals the line height well. He maintains good spacing with his fellow teammates and keeps a clear field of vision across the defense line. This allows him to be in position to support his teammates engaging the ball carrier, to then shift into the vacant space when an opponent bypasses them. Ichihara has quite a slim body frame for a Center Back yet is aggressive in challenges and wins a majority of his duels across the pitch. Sorry about the quality of the image below but it’s coming directly from Opta Japan’s social media account…3

Ichihara relies a lot on his anticipation. In physical terms, pay attention to his shifting body shape in the footage below as the play develops quickly in front of him. I find Ichihara to be quite light and agile on his feet to shift directions mid-run from a half-on stance to react and intercept passes.

These aspects are quite important as his acceleration is not all that good while his top-end speed built up over time is decent but certainly not elite. I won’t go as far to say he’s slow but I do think he has trouble with fast attackers in a straight foot-race.4 We’ll need to carefully monitor how he does in higher blocks against much faster opponents in an European setting as he didn’t have to contend with these situations very often at the J2 and Asian continental level.

This does mean he has to slide to tackle or block at the end of his sprints that wouldn’t be necessary if he was a bit quicker. It’s also an issue when the tempo is fast and the opponent plays a ball to a player between-the-lines, Ichihara doesn’t step up from the defensive line quickly enough to close the distance and he can get bypassed by quick 1-2s or combinations around him. This is something to keep an eye on as he gets minutes in Europe.

Finally, I’ll note that Ichihara has a very clean bill of health. Throughout his 2.5 years as a professional he has barely missed a game from injury or sickness. His league game absences are mostly as a result of being called away for youth Japan national team duty where he also plays the majority of minutes. Most recently he had a very minor ankle problem that forced him off in the semi-final of the U-23 Asian Cup a week ago but he was back without issue for the final against U-23 China a few days later.

On-The-Ball

Icihara isn’t just a leader defensively but takes charge in possession as well. On the ball Ichihara is fairly comfortable under pressure, able to use both feet, and not often caught out on the ball. His movements with the ball is about quick changes of directions with shoulder drops to evade opponents. He also likes to employ the pull-and-drag-back to escape tackles (the Sergio Busquets move). What I like in particular is his spatial awareness to turn against the direction of opponent pressure as he is receiving the ball.

Regarding his passing, Ichihara doesn’t simply recycle it around but can provide some thrust with his line-breaking passes into the midfielders. Like with his ball carrying, Ichihara is good at disguising his intentions with his body shape and ability to find passes at tight angles. He maintains his value in more settled possession when the team is pushed into the opponents half. His aforementioned carrying ability also allows him to be an asset when he wins the ball and starts counterattacks.

Ichihara also possesses significant range with his passing. From simple long balls over the top on his particular side of the pitch or more raking long diagonals to the opposite Wing Back or Wide Midfielder allows Ichihara to change the tempo of his team’s possession quite quickly. I do think this is an aspect that he’s improved upon since the last time I wrote about him. From a quick look at WyScout data, his long pass completion % improved from 47% in J3 2024 to 61% in J2 2025.

A nice bonus is that he is somewhat of a threat from set-pieces despite only the solitary goal for Omiya this season (it wasn’t even a header, actually). In addition, what’s probably more widely known is his goal scoring exploits for the national team as he is an excellent, composed penalty kick taker.

Conclusion

Rion Ichihara is another Center Back prospect that has popped up in recent years as Japan have started producing multiple defenders at the top European league standard. With ample experience in both a Back 3 and Back 4, Ichihara is able to perform roles all across the back-line. He is a captain at the club and youth national team level, showing composure and leadership that belies his youth. What’s also noticeable from his various interviews is his positive personality, if you look around you can translate some of his interviews from after the U-20 World Cup or the U-23 Asian Cup.

A key skill is his proficiency in aerial duels which as described above is a mixture of both physical and cognitive abilities. As a leader in the back-line he organizes his teammates in box defending as well as controlling the line in a block. On the ball, Ichihara is comfortable maneuvering under pressure and has the build-up capacity to play more vertical passes into midfield rather than simply recycling it around (even if as the data below shows he is not doing it at high volumes).

As you might imagine there has been a number of interested parties looking to bring Ichihara to Europe in the past few years as his appearances at the domestic and international level increased. Currently the biggest rumor is centered around AZ Alkmaar, a fairly regular Europa/Conference League participant; no mean feat in a league where the continental competition slots are usually dominated by the Big 3 of Ajax/Feyenoord/PSV which creates a hard ceiling for the rest. One could perhaps say he could’ve jumped a bit higher but AZ Alkmaar seems like a logical first step into European football. Give Ichihara two years or so and he should be able to move up to a Top 5 league. I even wrote in Part One that:

I think he can be a true asset for a Top 5 League European club (perhaps around Europa League level to start) in the next couple of years. [note: written in early 2024]

Perhaps some of his athletic limitations place a ceiling that will prevent him from going to the truly elite Champions League/domestic title contender type teams but I think he’s shown enough already that you can project a pretty good career from here on out. Overall, here are some potential routes of Rion Ichihara’s career progression:

• Bear case: Ichihara has difficulty adapting to a European league standard at a consistent level. Aerial success rate plummets & he can’t keep up with the increased speed of play.

• Neutral case: Aerial success dips a little but stabilizes over time as Ichihara gets used to an European league standard with time. After initial adjustments establishes himself as a clear starter and helps AZ Alkmaar to consistently get into the Europa League, maybe even a deep run in the competition. Stays for two years before making a jump to an upper-half Top 5 league team.

• Bull case: Immediately wins a starting spot on AZ Alkmaar and makes a case for a World Cup squad spot (very unlikely but again, these are just hypotheticals). After a fantastic 2026-2027 season (highlighted by a deep Europa League run, for example) is quickly targeted by an upper-half Top 5 league team in 2027.

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Resources, Limitations, etc.

• Video analysis: DaVinci Resolve 19

• Tactical diagrams: Tacticalista

• Time period: 2025 J2 Season, Japan Youth/National team

• Footage: Broadcast footage, no tactical camera

• Stats: FBref, Transfermarkt, WyScout, FotMob

• Player radars: Ben Griffis

Although usually an attacking midfielder/second-striker type player, Shion Shinkawa was deployed a lot as the striker in a Front 3 for Sagan Tosu in the 2025 season. As a result he performed a lot of box runs and off-the-ball movements in general so that is what I’m going to be writing about today. There are probably other players where this analysis is more applicable but I’ve watched him a lot (i.e. I don’t want to waste all the edited footage that I worked on a few months ago) and he’s the one getting a transfer right now!

Let’s get started!

• Date of Birth: August 6th, 2007

• Age: 18 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Attacking Midfielder, Striker, Second Striker

• Club: Sagan Tosu

• Squad Number: #47 (2025 season)

• Height/Weight: 1.71m // 65 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

• VIDEO NOTE: Sagan Tosu’s HOME kits are light blue patterned shirts with pink markings, light blue shorts, with white lettering, light blue socks. AWAY kits are white shirt, socks, and shorts with black lettering & light blue highlights. I’m using footage from the 2025 J2 season. Shinkawa wears #47.

• DATA NOTE: The percentile ranking stats for the radar viz are all from WyScout courtesy of Ben Griffis’ best XI app.

Off-The-Ball Movement

When making runs against the defense, a player needs to consider both the lateral gaps (between individual players in the defensive line) along with the vertical gaps (in most cases the pockets of space between the midfield line and the defense line). To exploit these it’s not simply about speed but well-timed accelerations and decelerations into these gaps when they open up either through the defenders actions or by moves initiated by the attacker himself. In certain cases, pausing or even stopping outright, the absence of further action is also the key. With human vision being limited from a bio-mechanical standpoint, a big emphasis is placed on attackers to position themselves on the “blind-side” of a defender.

There’s a lot of decision-making, often in split-seconds that the attacker needs to make to get a good shot on goal. The way to identify these gaps is to have good spatial awareness which comes from scanning. The act of swiveling your head or body to scan isn’t just about the frequency but about the when/how, making sure you are doing so in the right moments. You don’t want to get caught out scanning just when a teammate is passing/crossing the ball toward you as you then are reacting instead of anticipating and moving first. A really good overview on this whole topic is “3 Level Scoring: A Framework for Analyzing Box Movement” by sthsthburner that helped me organize my thoughts for this particular newsletter.

The simplest kind of movement is seeing a gap and running hard and fast through it. Given Shinkawa’s decent speed and acceleration, he can pull this off with ease at the youth (club and international) and J2 levels.

Before getting to more intricate movements deep inside the box, Shinkawa also shows good runs for opening space for others, also being able to pause and stay in a good position to receive.

As the play progresses behind him, Shinkawa is adept at sneaking away from the nearest defender’s field of vision, forcing the defender into the dilemma: continue watching the ball and lose the attacker, or watch the attacker and lose sight of the ball.

Lastly we get to a few examples where Shinkawa uses a combination of the different types of off-ball movement seen in previous clips. These “double movements” involve shifting into the defender’s blind-side and then darting back in front with a strong step to accelerate to create that bit of separation from the defender.

Throughout the footage, you can see how Shinkawa tries to time his scanning and movements to align with his teammate’s actions. This is a crucial point and being on the same wavelength as your teammates, building that chemistry through practice sessions and communication is a very important part of success in these sequences.

Shion Shinkawa exhibits a lot of the good aspects of off-the-ball movement at a very young age in a professional league setting which bodes well for his future. Of course, one also has to remember that this is all being done against J2 defenses. He will face-off against smarter, agile, and more physical opponents in Belgium… and beyond. Shinkawa still has more moves to master along with simply gaining more reps on the kinds of movements he is already good at but the ingredients are there to see.

Summary

While this article was focused on Shinkawa’s box movement, I’ll give a broad summary of what I think of him in general here but in bullet-points.

• I think Shinkawa has a very good 1st touch to settle passes or take the ball into his stride without breaking momentum in his runs.

• Shinkawa does tend to struggle with keeping the ball with back-to-goal vs. defenders when coming under immediate pressure.

• It is far more ideal when Shinkawa receives vertical passes in pockets of space so he can turn forward before pressure/contact arrives.

• He is quite good at taking down lofted balls and is able to drive forward on the half turn when peeling out wide. In these situations he can take the ball in his stride with his good touch and shield the ball, riding contact with momentum in his favor.

• Shinkawa has a quick trigger to get shots off before the “gap” closes but there are also times where he rushes and doesn’t quite have the composure to take the best shot.

• Could improve on jumping for headers, the timing of his leaps as he does get into good positions in the box.

• As described above, Shinkawa makes lots of great movements in-and-out of the box to get away from defenders. Therefore he should be able to accumulate lots of xG that hopefully turns into actual goals as his composure improves, especially if he is given the proper supply of passes and crosses.

• What’s nice about Shinkawa is that he can generate his own shots off the dribble too. Good at carrying forward in transitions from the middle 3rd of the pitch. Powerful strides from out wide and cutting in (see first goal vs. Roasso Kumamoto). He really comes alive in attacking transitions with runs forward with/without the ball in support.

• Moderate defensive work-rate. Inhibited by lack of frequent scanning that allows opponents to escape from his marker or cover shadow to receive the ball and bypass Shinkawa’s position in the press/block.

I’m quite interested to see where Shion Shinkawa plays for Sint-Truiden, both in the remainder of this 2025/2026 season and beyond. While he is known to be more of an attacking midfielder/second striker type, Shinkawa spent most of his appearances for Sagan Tosu in 2025 as an out-and-out striker at the tip of a 3-4-2-1 formation. It was rather intriguing that his manager Akio Kogiku would play him up top even at times when fellow teenager Daichi Suzuki, an actual striker, was also on the pitch. Shinkawa played considerable minutes for an 18 year old debutant, even if most were coming off the bench. He played in 33 out of 38 games but only started six.

My line of thinking is that with Keisuke Goto playing so well but with no buy option (Anderlecht still rate him highly), Sint-Truiden want to ease in another striker for the next few months to get ready for next season. However, there has been speculation that Shinkawa is more of a replacement for Ryotaro Ito at the #10-ish position which has made me re-think quite a bit. It is absolutely true that he doesn’t quite have the size to be playing striker full time, at least as he is physically right now at the level required in the Belgian league. Perhaps Shinkawa will grow a bit more and get used to competing physically with some time but it may be best to ease him in from a slightly deeper position.

I’m also surprised that Sint-Truiden bought a player at this age. I don’t think they’ve bought someone this young since Takehiro Tomiyasu. Sint-Truiden have largely refrained from buying Japanese teenagers to keep faith in their local academy talent from the Limburg area. This is the type of balance that the Japanese management have enforced to ensure that the local identity of the team remains intact and keep local fans invested.

Back to Shion Shinkawa, I do consider him one of the higher-end of the current teenager generation of Japanese attacking talents (somewhere in between the Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032 Olympics generations) but obviously at just 18 years old he still has a long road ahead of him. There are plenty of things he’ll need to continue developing, including his already-good box movements that I highlighted here today.

Hope you enjoyed this! I was getting rather tired of the usual format so I thought I’d spice things up a bit. It’s also a lot less video work I need to do which is the most time-intensive part of doing these.2 Let me know in the comments or DMs about:

• Did you enjoy this different format?

• Is it better to have more shorter posts somewhat regularly than a long post every four-ish weeks (well, outside of the transfer window)?

• Are there specific things you want me to highlight for other Japanese players?

Thanks for reading!

As an aside, another good J2 player with great box movement is Hiiro Komori. I wrote about his “fox-in-the-box”-ness for JEF United last year and there are lots of video examples involving the concepts I talked about above too.

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Resources, Limitations, etc.

• Video analysis: DaVinci Resolve 18

• Tactical diagrams: Tacticalista

• Time period: 2025 J2 Season

• Footage: Broadcast footage, no tactical camera

• Stats: FBref, Transfermarkt, WyScout, FotMob

• Player radars: Ben Griffis

As an aside, I made a short thread on Tomoya Ando who made his move to St. Pauli official (also on BlueSky if you prefer that) on New Year’s Day. I’ll keep posting my thoughts on various transfer moves and “contract” “renewals” (air-quotes because well if you know, you know) of J.League players online on Twitter/BlueSky throughout January!

In case you missed it over the holidays, I also wrote a long, full-length analysis looking at Ryunosuke Sato!

Anyway, let’s get started!

tl;dr (too long; didn’t read): Tough tackling, hard-running “terrier”-type midfielder. Circulates the ball safely in possession but attempts higher risk passing in transitions related to former team’s vertical style. Low amount of dribbles/carries.

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• Date of Birth: August 13th, 2002

• Age: 23 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Central Defensive Midfielder (Single Pivot, Double Pivot)

• Club: Sanfrecce Hiroshima

• Squad Number: #14 (2025 season)

• Height/Weight: 1.75m // 73 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

• VIDEO NOTE: Sanfrecce Hiroshima’s HOME kits are purple patterned shirts, navy shorts, with white lettering, purple socks. AWAY kits are white shirt, socks, and shorts with black lettering & purple highlights. I’m using footage from the 2024 (Shonan Bellmare) and 2025 (Sanfrecce Hiroshima) J.League J1 seasons. Tanaka wears #14.

• DATA NOTE: The percentile ranking stats are all from WyScout courtesy of Ben Griffis’ best XI app.

Defending & Physicality

The first and foremost thing you’ll notice about Satoshi Tanaka is how frequently he engages in duels. He is pro-active and loves to charge out to close opponents down. Even if he can’t win the ball outright, Tanaka keeps contact to occupy the attacker for help to arrive. Sanfrecce Hiroshima’s team style meant that the double pivot were very man-oriented and press high up the pitch so Tanaka’s risk-taking matched what the team wanted to do defensively. This was especially so as the team had a very good Back 3 ready behind him to cover. However, Tanaka and the midfield were bypassed frequently if they weren’t aligned with the pressing from the Front 3 which is something that needs to be considered when viewing his video footage. Simply due to the absolute volume of duels Tanaka gets into, it also does mean despite his abilities he does get dribbled past often as well.

Whether in the press or in a mid-block, Tanaka’s short but stocky build helps with his tackling and this physical profile pairs well with his fantastic awareness/anticipation for intercepting passes. He has very quick reactions and the explosiveness in his first few steps to lunge in to stick a leg out to block or wedge his body between the ball and his opponent makes him an ideal “destroyer” type midfielder. In deeper block situations, Tanaka covers well for teammates. He maintains support at a good distance and is quick to engage when they are bypassed. One glaring weakness Tanaka is his lack of aerial ability. He is quite short and doesn’t have a great jump either. Overall, Tanaka has shown considerable physical intensity in the J.League over the past few seasons. He is quite quick in comparison to most central midfielders in the league and gets through a lot of “high intensity” actions per game.

One fun bit of trivia is that despite his combative nature, Tanaka did not receive a single yellow or red card in the entirety of the 2025 season! It is a bit odd considering in the prior 2024 season he had six more cards despite making only 12 more fouls overall but it’s impressive nonetheless.

Attacking

I used to think that Tanaka’s best position was as a single pivot or #6 deep lying midfielder. If you look back at old season reviews I did mention that he occasionally showed more attacking instincts but he was a bit limited by his deeper position back then as a single pivot in a three-man midfield. Since he returned to Japan after an unsuccessful spell at Kortrijk is when I felt Tanaka tangibly and consistently started to provide more impact in the middle 3rd and final 3rd of the pitch. After a season at Sanfrecce Hiroshima it’s clear a box-to-box role either as a #8 or in the double pivot suits him the best now.

In the build-up phase, Tanaka is mostly involved in securing possession with the Back 3 in deeper areas rather than being the leading conductor. For Sanfrecce a lot of the ball progression comes from the Back 3 like Tsukasa Shiotani or Sho Sasaki who play the ball into the Wing Backs. On occasions Tanaka plays a vertical pass on the half-turn too to varying degrees of success. His passes and general actions are mostly from his dominant Left foot.

Tanaka’s own ball progression usually comes from right after he wins the ball himself. He can be a bit overeager to play these quick vertical passes in attacking transitions but this is aligned with Sanfrecce’s style. As a result, despite his ability to be more of a conduit in settled possession, his passing success is a lot lower than you’d expect from a central midfielder. This is probably the aspect in Satoshi Tanaka’s passing profile that differs the most from Ao Tanaka, especially since their roles in their respective teams are/were quite different. Satoshi Tanaka’s passes are usually short in length with the occasional medium-distance through-balls from the middle or final 3rd. He is not one to make long-distance, especially aerial, balls across or down the length of the pitch (although again, this can be simply related to team style).

Tanaka prefers to keep the ball moving rather than holding it on for too long himself and has rather low carrying/dribbling numbers. However, he is good at shielding the ball for a bit and maneuvering away to escape pressure. There are times I do think he could do a bit more to push forward with the ball himself and drive into gaps in the opponent’s lines but on Sanfrecce Hiroshima there were other players that took up this task more naturally instead. It’ll be intriguing to watch how this aspect develops at Fortuna Düsseldorf.

What’s been more noticeable at Sanfrecce Hiroshima is Tanaka’s support in the final 3rd. From making under-lapping runs forward to support the Wing Backs and in both transition and more settled possession sequences, Tanaka also provides an additional box presence for Sanfrecce’s crosses on occasion. There’s not much to write about in terms of goal scoring though. He takes somewhat speculative shots from outside the box // around the “D” arc from 2nd/loose balls or passing sequences that fall his way.

Conclusion

Satoshi Tanaka is the archetypal “destroyer” type midfielder, hounding after opponents and winning the ball. Following his tackles he displays a forward-thinking mentality by trying to pass it forward to start counters quickly that aligns with his J.League team’s play-style. Tanaka plays with an aggression, a physical intensity that should allow him to keep pace with the roughness and speed of the 2.Bundesliga and beyond.

I don’t have a good understanding of how Fortuna Düsseldorf1 play aside from what I can infer from their worrying results that has them near the bottom of the table. They seem to play either a double-pivot or three-man midfield with a Back 3 behind so Tanaka should be familiar with the general shape even if the more minute details are different. To be quite honest, I’m rather surprised that Tanaka is “only” going to the 2nd division especially when you compare him to positional and near-age peers like Sota Kawasaki and Kaishu Sano who went straight to the Bundesliga from J1. There are no guarantees that Satoshi Tanaka will be a success for F95 but I’d be surprised if he doesn’t. While jumping into a relegation dogfight is always difficult, there should be expectation and therefore pressure on Tanaka to play well at this level. He’s grown considerably after his first attempt at Europe with Kortrijk didn’t go as planned and he’d be highly motivated to succeed, especially with relegation on the line.

I’m concerned with the 900k Euro transfer fee which seems eye-popping-ly low for a J.League regular on a strong team who also has youth and full national team experience. Perhaps there was some release clause specifically for foreign clubs as Sanfrecce Hiroshima bought Satoshi Tanaka from Shonan Bellmare for just a bit under what they are selling him to Fortuna Düsseldorf (given what’s been reported in the papers, so take that with a pinch of salt)…2

My personal gripes aside, here are some potential routes of Satoshi Tanaka’s career progression:

• Bear case: Unable to adapt to the speed of 2.Bundesliga and/or injuries strike to hamper his integration. Fortuna Düsseldorf also get relegated which leaves Tanaka in an awkward career/contract limbo.

• Neutral case: In around two full seasons he makes it into the Bundesliga with F95 or another top flight team picks him up. Tanaka establishes himself in a top 5 league as a starter in a mid-table or slightly above team (Conference/Europa League competition level). If not, possibly gets picked up by an EFL Championship club as well.

• Bull case: Takes the path of Wataru Endo, albeit from a slightly younger starting point. Hits the ground running in the remainder of the 2025/2026 season to then earn a move to the Bundesliga proper within a year... and possibly beyond within two years.

Thanks for reading!

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Resources, Limitations, etc.

• Video analysis: DaVinci Resolve 18

• Tactical diagrams: Tacticalista

• Time period: 2025 J1 Season, Japan Youth/National team

• Footage: Broadcast footage, no tactical camera

• Stats: FBref, Transfermarkt, WyScout, FotMob

• Player radars: Ben Griffis

Also, this past Monday was the 3rd anniversary of Shogun Soccer! Thanks to all those who’ve supported my work. With the 100 Year Vision League & the 2026 World Cup next year, I’m hoping to provide even more insight in 2026 & the years to come.

Anyway, today’s topic is Ryunosuke Sato who really exploded after a good season on-loan at Fagiano Okayama and some good youth national team appearances, all leading to a full national team debut!

tl;dr (too long; didn’t read): Wonderful 1st touch & close control in dribbling/carrying but final 3rd output can be improved. High defensive work-rate but defensive utility limited by small size. Should be playing centrally instead of out wide.

Let’s get started!

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• Date of Birth: October 16, 2006

• Age: 19 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Right/Left Wing Back, Right Winger/Attacking Midfielder in a 3-4-2-1 (club), 4-2-3-1 (national team), etc.

• Club: Fagiano Okayama (J1 - on loan from FC Tokyo)

• Squad Number: #39 (2025 season)

• Height/Weight: 1.71m // 65 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

• VIDEO NOTE: Fagiano Okayama’s HOME kits are maroon shirts with white sleeves, maroon shorts, with white lettering, maroon socks. AWAY kits are grey shirt, socks, and shorts with black lettering. Sato wears #39.

• DATA NOTE: The percentile ranking stats are all from WyScout courtesy of Ben Griffis’ best XI app.

Attacking

On the ball, the thing you’ll immediately notice about Sato is his technical close ball-control initiated by his excellent first touch. He is very adept at spinning and turning forward in tight spaces due to the agility and balance afforded by his small stature. A signature move you’ll see him make often is to do a 360 degree turn with the ball to escape a tight marker and give himself space for his next action.

Sato has a preference for keeping the ball tight to his body and ideally you want to give him the ball to feet, then have him carry/dribble rather than run-on to long(er) balls into open space. A virtue that accentuates his ball control is the composure that Sato exhibits in possession. He has a calmness after winning or receiving the ball to make the right passes or carry forward under pressure from opponents.

His dribbling style is about quick changes of direction with light touches. He tends to catch defenders off-guard with how agile he can be when running with the ball. However, given his small stature it can be easy for opponents to bump him off the ball and Sato is dispossessed quite often. Sato also doesn’t have the explosiveness in his first few steps that allow him to burst past defenders with pace, which is why he relies heavily on his balance and agility instead.

As mentioned above regarding his close ball control, this aspect ties into how skilled Sato is in combination play. He is quite involved in pass-and-move sequences in small spaces. For Okayama he was adept at dropping and staying in open areas in the middle 3rd during the build-up phase. In terms of ball progression, he is less of a passer in this phase but more of a receiver who then turns to drive up the pitch. Given his experience as a #10 type player, either from Wing Back or as a Winger he shifted into more central areas on occasions to receive the ball between-the-lines. These qualities make him more of a play-maker in a possession-oriented side rather than stuck out wide as he can play passes with both feet along with his limited top speed. You see this aspect of him much more for the youth national teams.

In general, I do think Sato has great vision especially in the final 3rd but the execution can be lacking at times for more simpler passes. Of course, criticism can be difficult to direct solely on him due to his team’s quality issues in the final 3rd. As a newly promoted team, Okayama struggled mightily in attack having entered the final 3rd the second least in the entire league and entered the penalty box the fifth least which all led to the fifth worst non-penalty xG created. On top of the fact that Okayama didn’t have the ball very much in most games, some context is needed in assessing Sato’s attacking output along with his deeper position at Wing Back. Even still, it’s very clear Sato had a considerable impact on the team with his chance creation abilities.

One concern is that his aerial crossing could be better, even accounting for the fact that cross completion is very difficult in general. Sato is much better when he is able to pick out ground passes and through-balls into the box rather than having to loft it in the air. Sato does take set-pieces often for both club and country but I do feel that’s somewhat a result of a process of elimination given he is not going to be much use in the box anyway. Sato can clearly provide the occasional good aerial delivery but it is something he could work on to be more well-rounded as a shot supplier in the final 3rd.

The headline grabber for Sato this season was his 5 goals, however this came from just 2.46 xG and 3.37 xG On-Target (Source: FotMob) so there was a solid chunk of luck or streaky good finishing there from xG over-performance. In terms of technique though, Sato does have decent placement and prefers to stroke his shots with the inside of his foot. He doesn’t take too many shots with his laces and doesn’t get a whole lot of power on them anyway.

Of course, this is coming off a small-ish sample size (33 shots) considering his deeper position and Okayama’s blunted attack making it difficult in various situations to complete a pass or shot (of varying quality). Still, his profligacy shows up in the youth national team setting too. Sato is more of a creator than a goal scorer himself.

Defending

Sato’s time at Fagiano Okayama this past season highlighted his extremely high defensive work-rate. Sato presses with intensity but of course, it’s not that he’s simply running around a lot. What I like about his defending is that he is very good at setting up his body shape properly when approaching an opponent to cut their options.

Sato has a good understanding of defensive strategy across different club/national team contexts and has an awareness of his surroundings as he pushes forward to press. He makes things easier for himself and his fellow defenders by scanning his teammate’s positioning before challenging.

Unfortunately, Sato’s downside as a defender comes from the fact that he is dribbled past very often. His small body means he can’t really block off or stop dribblers easily. Naturally struggles in long aerial balls as well. His stature also means he can’t quite block opponent crosses either when defending the wings. While Sato does get out-muscled, the positive is that he doesn’t pull out of duels. Sato always fights for the ball and perseveres despite his physical disadvantages.

An aspect of defending that Sato improved on a lot in my opinion is his ability in a block. Sato built a good understanding of his place in the Back 5 at Okayama and developed a good awareness of runners in-behind and ability to shift his body shape to force opponents wide in the mid-block. Sato’s experiences at Okayama in the top flight as well as his time at various levels of the national team demonstrated his ability to defend as part of a unit from a number of different positions on both sides of the pitch.

Physicality

Sato possesses incredible physical output. Throughout the year he has shown the endurance to play at high intensities for extended periods of time. Looking at the J.League’s official data, Sato frequently shows up as the highest (or close to) within his team for sprints and distance covered in defense and attack, across all 3rds of the pitch. You can browse the data here. The sprinting/distance covered metrics across different contexts are the bottom eight selections in the first drop-down menu on the left (his name in Japanese is “佐藤 龍之介”).

As mentioned in a previous section, his acceleration is just about OK which limits his potential to play as a touch-line winger, especially if tasked with hitting large open spaces. His actual top speed is somewhat fast at 33 km/h but is not anywhere near the elite tier even in the J.League. I’ve discussed Sato’s body size disadvantages a lot already so I won’t reiterate all the negatives again but he does have a real good sense of balance and agility that helps him on the ball.

Conclusion

Ryunosuke Sato is another player from FC Tokyo’s academy production line having been with the club since 2016 as a 9~10 year old. Throughout his youth club and national team appearances he had shown potential but it was only from this year that the 19 year old got a taste of regular top flight action. From an unfamiliar Wing Back position Sato exhibited enormous physical output up-and-down the wing while maintaining his great technical qualities. Whether in transition or in possession sequences, Sato’s ability to receive and carry was an important part of Okayama’s ball progression. In the final 3rd his dribbling made him a threat, although his final output was somewhat limited by his own lack of execution and team strength issues.

The biggest concern for me right now is that Sato is continuously being mis-profiled as a wide player when he should be playing more centrally as a #10, basically given more freedom to drift and combine where he pleases. While his physical endurance is considerable, I’ve made many mentions of his limited top-end speed and explosiveness that prohibit his potential as a winger in a top European league.

The output in the data radar below is skewed by his deeper position along with team strength and playing style. When looking at Sato’s data here (or in other platforms that might be available to you), one must understand the context of Fagiano Okayama as a newly promoted team, this season being their debut at the J1 top flight level. Fagiano Okayama were a middle-press/block team with heavy emphasis on transitions from short or long counterattacks. As mentioned previously, they had the second lowest average ball possession in the league which meant limited opportunities for Sato to get on the ball and do interesting stuff. For more insight into Sato as an attacker it is worth looking deeper into his youth and full national team appearances as well as what happens to him next season with FC Tokyo.

Sato’s performances across the contexts of his club team and national team highlight his adaptability to different play-styles. Sato demonstrated a lot of growth to adapt to a completely new team and win a spot on a promoted team desperate for results at a new position at Wing Back. Originally playing from the Right, during the season he then took on another challenge of playing on the opposite Left flank when asked by his manager days before an actual game. I was initially very skeptical of the move as a young, small attacker going on loan to a newly promoted team is usually a recipe for disaster but Fagiano Okayama’s staff and teammates provided him with a very good nurturing environment for him to succeed.

Sato’s future is obviously not at Wing Back but his experiences there have made him a more well-rounded player, presenting a remarkable ability to support his defense either in a block or in the press. To get the best out of Sato you want to give him fast runners around him out wide to give him targets for his through-balls. A striker who can make smart runs behind and/or willing to drop and combine with Sato would also add synergy. On the defensive end, his lack of size is a concern so you do need to make sure the rest of the team is balanced in terms of bigger/aerial profiles (especially for set-piece defending).

Ryunosuke Sato offers a compelling case of another young Japanese attacker with a high potential ceiling but patience is needed to iron out his flaws. He not only needs to get playing time in his natural attacking position but also be on a team where he can get more touches on the ball compared to his time at Okayama. This is so he can work on his consistency and get more practice with his decision making. Whether he can get that at his parent club FC Tokyo given the capital club’s recent struggles remains to be seen…1

I do think Sato has a future in a top 5 European league, although again aside from his considerable endurance the other limited physical traits gives me some pause on whether he can make it to the elite tier clubs (the league title, Champions League contending clubs). A big question is whether a “top” team wants to “get in early” and gamble that he can handle the big step-up as well as start credibly improving his production by placing him alongside better skilled players.

Ryunosuke Sato’s initial priority when going to Europe should be to find a team that will give him game-time in a 1st division first and foremost, even if it’s more likely to be in a top 7~9 league rather than a top 5 one. In that sense, his choice to stay with FC Tokyo to guarantee playing time at his hometown club ahead of the World Cup rather than a risky European transfer may prove fruitful for his future prospects. A World Cup appearance will make a sterling case for his transfer to Europe in the future but he has many rivals across both Wing Back and attacking positions so it won’t be easy2.

Overall, here are some potential routes of Ryunosuke Sato’s career progression:

• Bear case3: Continues to be mis-profiled as a wide player and doesn’t get the necessary minutes as a #10. His lack of speed and size limits his potential to a mere hard-working Wing Back/Wide Midfielder with good technical qualities.

• Neutral case: Returns to FC Tokyo mixing time at both Wing Back and as an attacker before heading off to Europe for a non-top 5 league club in the summer of 2026 or winter 2027. Continues to play out wide to somewhat limited effect and doesn’t get into a top 5 league for the first few years in Europe.

• (Admittedly very) Bull case: Sato plays in his favored #10 position for the majority of minutes at FC Tokyo and (somehow) manages to get on the plane for the 2026 World Cup. Some decent cameos there push him up the priority list of European clubs who have been tracking him for several years. Buoyed with confidence, Sato immediately earns a place as a starter on a mid-table-ish team in a top 5 league.

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Resources, Limitations, etc.

• Video analysis: DaVinci Resolve 18

• Tactical diagrams: Tacticalista

• Time period: 2025 J1 Season, Japan Youth/National team

• Footage: Broadcast footage, no tactical camera

• Stats: FBref, Transfermarkt, WyScout, FotMob

• Player radars: Ben Griffis

Thank you all for your support this year! This might be the last newsletter of 2025. I’ll be enjoying the holidays but still doing some prep work for newsletters in anticipation of January transfer window activity (of course, a lot of teams might announce before then so…).

This review consists of:

• The league table

• A section on every J2 team: Summary overview, tactics, data, players, etc.

• A section on the different types of data viz: Explanations and link to the viz for every team

Some notes, warnings, disclaimers, etc.:

• All the data stuff is done with R.

• All the tactical stuff is created using Tacticalista.

• To keep up to date with all of what’s happening in J1, I made a giant Twitter thread of lots of cool informed people to follow on Twitter for English language/international J.League content. You can find it here!

• You can also follow me on Twitter, BlueSky, LinkedIn!

• All of the shots and xG related stuff you see in the viz are non-penalty stats. Exceptions are stuff like the time interval and scoring situations plots. When I mentioned these stats in writing I usually mean non-penalty at the team level. At the player level it depends as some of my sources don’t go down to stripping out penalty xG.

• Data sources: Transfermarkt, Sporteria, Football-Lab, FBref, Footy-Stats

• Player radars: Ben Griffis’ bestXI app

• Once again, this has taken up a gargantuan amount of time for me to watch/read/code/compile/organize so the best thing you can do for me is share it out to the world, especially if you work in the football industry!

Anyway, let’s get started!

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League Table

Mito HollyHock finally made their great escape after spending the past 25 years in the 2nd tier. It’s quite remarkable considering they had not finished higher than 7th in their entire history thus far. After spending big on players and a shiny new stadium, V-Varen Nagasaki’s investment paid off with promotion and avoiding the play-offs. JEF United, Tokushima Vortis, Jubilo Iwata, and Omiya Ardija were left to fight it off in the play-offs as Vegalta Sendai agonizingly missed out on the last matchday. After a lot of drama, JEF United won the play-offs to punch their ticket back to J1!

There was drama at the bottom too as Kataller Toyama managed to overcome a -4 goal difference in the last minutes of the game to crawl ahead of a unwitting Roasso Kumamoto. Renofa Yamaguchi’s win over Omiya was also in vain while Ehime FC had been confirmed relegation for quite sometime before the final matchday.

Mito HollyHock (1st, 70 Points)

• 20 Wins // 10 Draws // 8 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Mito // K’s Denki Stadium

• Manager: Naoki Mori

• 55 Goals (tied 6th); 34 Conceded (tied 2nd)

• 43.29 non-penalty xG (10th); 40.99 non-penalty xGA (8th)

• Top goal scorer: Arata Watanabe (11 goals plus 2 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Konosuke Nishikawa

Mito HollyHock were unequivocally the biggest surprise of the season led by Naoki Mori. They were leading the league for a good chunk of the 2nd half after a slow start. This included a 15 game stretch where they didn’t lose a single game! A rocky end to the season nearly derailed things when they lost to three of their promotion rivals in the final six games. However, they managed to steady themselves and win the final game of the season for the J2 championship title and their first ever promotion to the top flight!

What stood out for me when watching Mito were their lightening quick transitions. They were always aggressive, pressing or counter-pressing to win the ball and found willing runners behind through the middle like Arata Watanabe or support down the wings in the form of their Full Backs. Arata Watanabe and Shunsuke Saito combining quickly with limited support was a common sight.

Shunsuke Saito, although he missed a number of games while busy on international duty with the U-20 National Team, still managed to score 8 goals from out wide. He is a fast, technical player that is great on the dribble and perfect fit for Mito’s transition game. However, one warning is that a lot of his value is coming from “kick ball hard, ball go in net” energy where his xG and xG per shot numbers are nowhere near his goal tally. His 8 goals came from just 3.7 xG.

Arata Watanabe had a come-back season for the ages, 13 goals from 9.2 xG and 7 assists after some very drab years at Oita Trinita (of which I was heavily critical about in the past... sorry!). It was Watanabe’s career best season and to me he was Mito’s most important player as he was the spark that ignited attacks as he would usually be the first or second player to receive the ball in good spaces after the ball was won.

Otherwise players like Hayata Yamamoto and Seiichiro Kubo filled out the attack and contributed with a number of important goals. Also, since I didn’t do a mid-season review, I should mention Takumi Tsukui who looked very dangerous in the first half of the season. I was worried when Tsukui was then plucked by Omiya Ardija, and to a lesser extent when Shimon Teranuma was taken by Verdy, in the summer but Mito weathered those departures quite well.

Defensively, Mito were set up in a tight 4-4-2 and as mentioned previously put a lot of work in winning the ball back. Holding it all together from the midfield was Koshi Osaki who also scored the occasional banger from outside the box as well.

The entire Back 4 was fairly set in stone for the season with Travis Takahashi and Kenta Itakura as the Center Back partnership flanked by Sho Omori and Takahiro Iida. A special mention should also go to Konosuke Nishikawa who had a very good season in goal after arriving from Oita Trinita.

Travis Takahashi had a big year as he stepped up to J2 following a debut season in the JFL (4th tier) for Tiamo Hirakata in 2024. He is a big guy, very physical and wins a lot of aerials. Takahashi is comfortable enough on the ball but not much of a progressive passer although Mito’s build-up style has a big influence on this aspect.

Both Full Backs were very active in getting down the flanks to support the attack with Takahiro Iida getting 5 assists and Sho Omori getting 4. An interesting aspect of Mito was that they didn’t cross much, in fact they crossed into the box the 3rd least per game in J2 this season which may seem odd given the number of assists both Full Backs have. The thing about Mito’s attack was a lot of combination play in the final 3rd to unlock Arata Watanabe or Shunsuke Saito to score. Mito scored considerably more than the league median from “short pass” situations which means sequences of passes shorter than 30m (leaving out set pieces, crosses, and through balls).

Their stats told a story of a decent but not amazing team but I do feel like the aggregate summaries don’t really do a good job of presenting this team. Aside from their goals conceded they were mid-table in most metrics. If you had more detailed data it might be a fun project to look a lot deeper into them.

For most of their existence Mito HollyHock was seen as a mid-lower table side that kept surviving by taking up a niche as a player development club. They would invite loans from J1 clubs or take in players from university and give them a lot of playing time. Mito have even managed to form a partnership with Hannover 96 and Hayate Matsuda has already proven to be a success story in Germany. Mito have spent the past 25 years in J2 and had never finished above 7th. In the past three years their record has been 13th, 17th, and 15th place!

Manager Naoki Mori has a long history at the club having played for Mito for a few seasons before retiring and becoming a coach in 2006. He jumped into manage as an interim early in the 2024 season and really transformed the club. Despite some bumps along the way Mito were able to continue grinding through and win games to keep a hold of their top spot. It’s an incredible achievement!

In an interesting turn of events, Naoki Mori stepped… up into a Director of Football role and Daisuke Kimori will be the manager from 2026 onward. Kimori was another coach that had been at Mito for a very long time and before his brief unsuccessful journey as Albirex Niigata’s manager was most likely supposed to take up the reins at Mito eventually. I imagine there will be vultures flying around Shunsuke Saito among others so all of Mito’s staff across the clubhouse will be working overtime to make sure their first ever J1 season is a successful one.

V-Varen Nagasaki (2nd, 70 Points)

• 19 Wins // 13 Draws // 6 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Nagasaki // Peace Stadium

• Manager: Takahiro Shimotaira (to June) // Takuya Takagi

• 63 Goals (1st); 44 Conceded (9th)

• 55.75 non-penalty xG (2nd); 39.88 non-penalty xGA (6th)

• Top goal scorer: Matheus Jesus (16 goals plus 3 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Masaaki Goto

Takahiro Shimotaira’s team were expected to be runaway league leaders considering their squad and the momentum they showed at the tail end of the 2024 season, despite the heartbreak in the play-offs. V-Varen Nagasaki indeed started the season pretty well with four wins and two draws but slowly the wheels came off as Shimotaira’s formula became stale and a poor seven game win-less streak followed. A 0-3 loss to Mito HollyHock and 3-3 draw to Omiya Ardija in June was the last straw that led to Shimotaira leaving the team. Veteran manager Takuya Takagi was parachuted in and had immediate impact as they went the next 15 games without losing a single game and rocketing Nagasaki back into not just play-off but J2 title contention! Nagasaki lost just once in the entire second half of the season which was an awkward 0-1 defeat to Jubilo Iwata of all teams on Matchday 35… They secured 2nd place and automatic promotion with a spirited away draw against Tokushima Vortis to avoid the play-offs. Mission accomplished!

The most conspicuous aspect of Nagasaki has been their tremendous firepower. The Kyushu side took the most shots, the most shots-on-target, and… you guessed it, scored the most goals although from the 2nd most non-penalty xG!

Aside from the numbers, the player that has become the symbol of this Nagasaki side is Matheus Jesus. The big Brazilian was the focal point of any offensive as he took the most shots on not just just his own team but in the entirety of J2! To highlight how central Matheus Jesus was, he was on the end of shots that garnered 16.47 xG which was nearly double of the next best player on the team. After an incredible 2024 season where he scored 18 and assisted 7, in 2025 the Brazilian scored 19 (albeit 3 were penalties) and a further 5 assists. Of course, it’s not just Matheus Jesus’ goal scoring but his ability to progress the ball forward on the dribble and through his passing meant he was the dynamo that pushed Nagasaki forward on every attack. It’s going to be real exciting to see if he can pull off what he’s doing against J1 level defense next year.

With a brand new stadium and significant momentum from their very wealthy backers, V-Varen Nagasaki have been pulling out all the stops to get promoted back to J1 in recent years. As a result the team have invested significantly in lots of quality players. Their game plan has been to really make this quality count by keeping the ball for themselves for the majority of the game and overwhelming the opposition.

In this regard, their midfield is absolutely stacked with the pairing of Hotaru Yamaguchi and Diego Pituca that wouldn’t look out of place in an upper-half J1 team. Both veterans brought a whole lot of experience and nous to Nagasaki’s ability to control games, pass their way out of opponent pressure, and those moments of absolute quality to impact the game.

Before Pituca’s arrival, Taisei Abe was one of the few regular youngsters in the side but his good performances led to Luzern picking him up for the Swiss League. I really like Abe as he’s got great technique on his Left foot. A real deep-lying passer that kept the ball moving in the first two thirds of the pitch.

Another young player to look out for is Tenmu Matsumoto, who joined from a university team in January. He lost his starting place after Takagi’s arrival but still made an impact as a substitute. Matsumoto was a very mobile attacking midfielder who combined well with teammates around him when Nagasaki pushed into the final 3rd due to his ability to find open spaces. I’m hoping to see more of him next year to assess him further.

My favorite young player on this team for the past few years has been Tsubasa Kasayanagi. He is a fantastic dribbler that frustratingly had limited game time this year, and at Wing Back that that! Even though his main problem continues to be his final output, Kasayanagi still managed 3 goals and 7 assists, one fewer assist than last season despite more than a 50% drop in minutes played. Somebody break him out of jail (a.k.a. the bench)!

Note: Some of his stats below are inflated as he is on the “Full Back” radar template.

While we’re on the subject of Wing Backs, I’ll also give a lot of props to both Shunya Yoneda and Asahi Masuyama. I feel like Yoneda has been a very underrated Left Back and I find it incredible that he’s never played in J1… well except for a brief time during his debut season in 2018 when Nagasaki were previously in the top flight. Both he and Masuyama contributed a lot with their crossing ability. With all these It should come as no surprise then that Nagasaki scored a third of their goals from crosses!

For all the talk of their attack, you might think Nagasaki were weak at the back but that actually wasn’t the case. Sure, they weren’t Tokushima Vortis by any means but they were relatively decent in defense, although it was helped by the fact that Nagasaki simply kept the ball a lot. The opposition can’t score if they don’t have the ball after all! A big part of Nagasaki’s defensive ability, aside from the hard work done by midfielders such as Hotaru Yamaguchi was Hayato Teruyama. Teruyama really stepped up this year after Hayato Tanaka returned to parent club Kashiwa Reysol. He was very good in the air and was useful in the build-up next to veteran presences in the Back 3 like Eduardo and Ikki Arai.

For all the praise about their quality veteran players, it does need to be said that all of these guys are on very high wages and V-Varen Nagasaki have been in “win now” mode for the past 2~3 seasons. As such, they are going to need to freshen up their squad quite soon when you look at the squad age curve across their entire squad and start playing some of their younger players more. There are a number of foreign guys like Marcos Guilherme, Edigar Junio, and Juanma that although have helped the team significantly at various points (including this season), the club will need to take a long hard look at who to keep and who to ultimately let go. While the veterans could dunk on worse J2 players quite easily, it’s going to be much harder against stronger J1 opposition and more sprightly legs so some tweaks in their recruitment strategy will be needed.

JEF United Chiba (3rd, 69 Points)

• 20 Wins // 9 Draws // 9 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Chiba // Fukuda Denshi Arena

• Manager: Yoshiyuki Kobayashi

• 56 Goals (5th); 34 Conceded (tied 2nd)

• 50.29 non-penalty xG (5th); 44.54 non-penalty xGA (11th)

• Top goal scorer: Carlinhos (9 goals plus 1 penalty) & Daichi Ishikawa (8 goals plus 2 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Jose Aurelio Suarez

“Will JEF get promoted... THIS TIME?” is the question everybody asks at the start of every J2 season since their last J1 relegation in 2009. In 2025, manager Yoshiyuki Kobayashi and the team answered the call, JEF United will be back in J1 for the first time in 17 years! This season started again with a whole lot of promise. JEF United won 10 out of the first 11 games of the season to rocket up into 1st place by some distance! However a wretched run of mid-season form resulting in just a single win in the next 11 games leading into July gave JEF fans that sinking feeling again. The team recovered to stay in play-off contention but didn’t quite recapture consistent form until going undefeated in the last six games of the season, including a super important last-second victory against Mito HollyHock on Matchday 33. JEF destroyed FC Imabari 5-0 on the last matchday to head into the play-offs as the 3rd placed team. Their home-field advantage as the 3rd placed team was a major force in their promotion push.

First up in the semi-finals was a resurgent Red Bull Omiya Ardija team who raced to a 3-0 lead in the 48th minute. However, in a 16 minute window from the 71st minute, JEF United came roaring back in one of the best J.League games in recent memory! Then in the final, JEF held their nerve despite lots of pressure from Tokushima Vortis to clinch promotion in front of an absolutely packed Fukuda Denshi Arena!

JEF United’s defensive numbers paint a curious picture. Their total non-penalty xGA was 11th in the league, yet they only managed to concede the 4th least amount of goals! I think a lot of this was down to the great saves by goalkeeper Jose Aurelio Suarez who transferred from Tokushima Vortis in the winter.

Of course, a fairly consistent Back 4 of Masaru Hidaka, Daisuke Suzuki, Koji Toriumi, and Issei Takahashi did a good job too. JEF allowed the 4th most shots on their goal but the actual average quality of these shots were quite low! This provides some evidence that the defense were doing a good job forcing teams into making bad shots. The quality of JEF’s defending was also seen by the fact that they kept focus throughout the game and were especially good at not conceding in the 2nd half of games.

In terms of defenders, I think Issei Takahashi stood out not just for his defending but his on-the-ball qualities too. He played in all but one game and played the most minutes out of anybody in the team, including the goalkeepers. In attack he was a constant outlet on the Right and his passing and crossing was a source of danger despite only finishing the season with 2 assists.

Despite his 34 years of age, Taishi Taguchi played the most minutes after Takahashi. Since his arrival in Chiba five years ago, the veteran has become a real leader for the team and had an impact from set-pieces with 5 assists. I’ve been a Naoki Tsubaki fan for a while and he was finally able to find a consistent run as a regular in the starting XI without injuries this year. His speed and dribbling down the Left to send crosses into the box was a major aspect of JEF’s attack. Tsubaki contributed with 4 goals and 5 assists. Unfortunately on the other wing, Kazuki Tanaka suffered a season-ending injury back in July. I really liked him in the 2024 season so I hope he comes back to full fitness soon.

If you noticed a common theme throughout this section so far, you wouldn’t be surprised to know that JEF scored nearly 50% of their goals from crosses and set-pieces combined!

Despite winning promotion back to J1 with Shimizu S-Pulse in 2024, Carlinhos curiously came to JEF United. The move was an inspired one as the Brazilian made a big impact with 10 goals and 1 assist. Daichi Ishikawa matched his previous season’s record with Roasso Kumamoto with another 10 goals and 3 assist for JEF United. His presence up top meant the team didn’t miss Kaito Mori suffering a long term injury upon arrival.

A theme throughout JEF United’s promotion story this season has been their good recruitment strategy such as being able to adequately replace Hiiro Komori and moving fast to plug Tanaka’s absence with Zain Issaka, overall I’m quite impressed. For those aware of my usual complaints about J.League teams’ transfer strategies, you’ll know that this is high praise! It wasn’t just headline stealing transfers like Carlinhos or Jose Aurelio Suarez but other moves like the return of Koji Toriumi and filling out the squad with decent players like Takashi Kawano and Takayuki Mae were also very important. It does worry me that Takehito Suzuki, the GM, is moving to Yokohama F. Marinos though.

JEF United are finally back to where they belong after a long absence. While celebrations are in order, there still needs to be a lot of work done over the next six months so that they aren’t thrown straight back down into J2 in 2026/2027. JEF will have time over the 100 Year Vision League to test the waters against the strong Kanto area teams to identify what exactly needs improvement to stay in J1 for the long haul.

Tokushima Vortis (4th, 65 Points)

• 18 Wins // 11 Draws // 9 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Tokushima // Pocari Sweat Stadium

• Manager: Kosaku Masuda

• 45 Goals (12th); 24 Conceded (1st)

• 41.83 non-penalty xG (12th); 33.56 non-penalty xGA (1st)

• Top goal scorer: Lucas Barcellos (13 goals plus 1 penalty)

• Goalkeeper: Hayate Tanaka

Tokushima Vortis made a name for themselves this season as being extremely difficult to beat, let alone score a goal against. Just a paltry 24 (twenty-four!!) goals conceded this season which is quite incredible. They only lost by more than a single goal once this season, a 0-2 defeat against Fujieda MYFC while also keeping the opponent from scoring in 19 games, that’s half of all their league games!

The Back 3 of Hayato Aoki, Kohei Yamakoshi, and Nao Yamada proved solid throughout but to me the stand out performer was Hayate Tanaka in goal. Even though it’s easy to say that he was protected extremely well by his teammates in front of him, Tanaka still pulled off quite a lot of very good saves throughout the season. The goalkeeper was also involved in the build-up too with accurate short and long range passing, Tanaka was a fantastic successor to Jose Aurelio Suarez who left for JEF United in pre-season.

Overall, Vortis had the league best non-penalty xGA, xGA per Shot and only let the opposition take 413 shots (tied 4th least in the league), it’s all extremely impressive!

Of course, this came at the cost of attacking output despite Vortis being an unusual team that liked to keep the ball a lot on top of being very defensive. It was mostly about keeping the ball in their own half of the pitch though with Shunto Kodama especially adept at pulling the strings from the base of midfield.

Any and all attacking impetus came from Lucas Barcelos as he finished the season with 14 goals and 5 assists. The Brazilian was the clear focal point of the attack with his dangerous runs forward in transition. Barcelos was a bit of a “shoot on sight” type of striker (his poor xG per shot represents this quite well) but given how little output Vortis were getting elsewhere I think it was somewhat justified. He was ably supported by veteran Daiki Watari (5 goals and 5 assists) and super-sub Anderson (3 goals and 6 assists).

Perhaps not the most exciting football if you’re a neutral but this has been an incredible turnaround by Kosaku Masuda who took over from Tatsuma Yoshida in the early part of the 2024 season when Vortis were in the relegation zone. If Vortis can keep their star defense intact and get Barcelos a bit more support in attack, they could surely have a run at an automatic promotion spot in 2026/2027.

… A day before I released this newsletter, Masuda left Vortis by mutual consent. Unbelievable! The papers are saying there was some office politics going on. What a massive waste by Vortis but a big opportunity for another J.League club to sign Masuda!

Júbilo Iwata (5th, 64 Points)

• 19 Wins // 7 Draws // 12 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Iwata // Yamaha Stadium

• Manager: John Hutchinson (to September) // Takayoshi Amma

• 59 Goals (3rd); 51 Conceded (15th)

• 41.82 non-penalty xG (12th); 52.6 non-penalty xGA (19th)

• Top goal scorer: Matheus Peixoto (8 goals plus 2 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Eiji Kawashima

After relegation from J1, Jubilo Iwata were looking to go straight back up and hired John Hutchinson for the job. The Aussie had managed Marinos on an interim basis during the 2024 season and the Jubilo higher-ups were apparently convinced about his skills. In 2025, the results were fine but the performances were really deteriorating as the season went on. A 3-4 loss to Omiya Ardija in late September was the last straw and Hutchinson was let go. Takayoshi Amma took over and he was able to keep Jubilo in contention with the play-off spots. Once again, much like with Hutchinson, I was never quite convinced with Jubilo’s attacking threat which I felt was really propped up by good finishing more than anything while their defending continued to be poor as it had all season. Somehow on the last matchday of the season, Jubilo won against Sagan Tosu to leapfrog Omiya Ardija and Vegalta Sendai to finish in 5th place for the play-offs!

Of course, the play-offs ended with a drab 0-0 draw against 4th place Tokushima Vortis (the higher placed team only needs to avoid defeat) but Iwata were just two games away from somehow getting promoted. So close, yet so far.

For all their possession which was the highest in the league per match at 56.3%, they seemed to discover new ways to lose the ball in their own half in each game I watched of them. Still, given the amount of possession they had, Jubilo were able to use it to push into the final 3rd quite often, the most per game in the league in fact.

An oddity was how Jubilo only took the 12th most number of shots in the league, yet they had the 5th most shots-on-target which resulted in the 3rd most goals scored… Jubilo not only managed to over-perform on xG but they had a habit of scoring late goals as well!

Matheus Peixoto was the team’s top goal scorer with 10, although he only scored twice in the 2nd half of the season. The Brazilian was also a big source of Jubilo’s xG over-performance as those 10 goals came from 6.99 xG. It does make sense when you consider the usual way Peixoto scores goals are from difficult headed chances from aerial crosses.

The man supplying these crosses, on a Jubilo team that crossed the ball into the box the most in the league, was none other than human-artillery hybrid Jordy Croux. The Belgian left mid-season for Yokohama F. Marinos but still wound up with the 3rd most crosses in J2 at the end of the season! After Croux’s departure the likes of Ken Masui and Ko Matsubara kept the tradition alive up. It should be a no-brainer then that 30% of Jubilo’s goals came from crosses.

After spending a few years on the bench at Nagoya Grampus, Ken Masui had his break-out year on loan for Jubilo Iwata with 6 goals and 3 assists. He was given a lot of freedom by Hutchinson on the Left to dribble and take people on. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to him and whether he fits into Mischa Petrovic’s plans at Grampus next season as he was forced into an awkward Wing Back role under Hasegawa.

Koshiro Sumi was a player I had a heavy interest in and is the reason why I took some time watching a number of Jubilo games this season. I thought he was quite mobile and good at finding positions between-the-lines to receive. Sumi loves to receive on half-turn & speeds up play from middle 3rd to drive into final 3rd and/or box. He is very fast, direct, and aggressive in these situations. While some of this may be tactical instructions, he does stay up high near the striker rather than drop deep and can make runs behind for lofted/through-balls. It’s from these situations or simply from carrying the ball into the box himself in transitions that Sumi is able to get off a good amount of shots. On the defensive side of things, the 23 year old is not much of a ball winner but dutiful in defensive tasks in the First Line of Press with a good work-rate. In high/mid-block situations he’s very good at cutting pass lanes. My primary concern about Sumi is his rather small size in terms of receiving under pressure from behind vs. bigger/quick opponents who won’t give him space to turn forward. Another curious thing is that he faded out of games often and frequently subbed off in the 55~70 minute mark instead of finishing games.

Another bright young attacker that made some cameo appearances was the teenager Tokumo Kawai. He made lots of late game cameos and managed 2 goals in limited game time. One to keep track of in the future.

Now the big issue for Jubilo all season was their terrible defending! Their pressing was poor and easily created holes between-the-lines that were easily exploited by the opposition. So the defenders were in part exposed by the tactics but quite a few were also just not very good 1v1 defenders in the first place. Ko Matsubara for all his attacking prowess continued to do his best impression of a training cone all season long, it’s very easy to dribble past him. Iwata’s goalkeeper situation is also worrying as both Eiji Kawashima and Ryuki Miura are completely past it. The team really needs to start getting younger goalkeepers in the squad.

So Jubilo Iwata somehow managed to stumble into the play-offs despite being fairly mediocre but ultimately did not gain promotion. It does seem like a bit of a waste of a year considering their squad strength relative to J2. Takayoshi Amma was only hried on an interim basis and if rumors are to be believed it’s likely that he will step back into his youth coaching role and that Ryo Shigaki (the ex-Renofa Yamaguchi manager who joined the Jubilo coaching staff during the season) will become the manager from 2026 onward.

RB Omiya Ardija (6th, 63 Points)

• 18 Wins // 9 Draws // 11 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Omiya // Nack5 Stadium

• Manager: Tetsu Nagasawa (to September) // Yuki Miyazawa

• 60 Goals (2nd); 39 Conceded (5th)

• 57.38 non-penalty xG (1st); 40.07 non-penalty xGA (7th)

• Top goal scorer: Caprini (11 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Takashi Kasahara

It was clear from how they walked to the J3 title last season and the arrival of Red Bull in late 2024 that Omiya Ardija were not going to be the typical promoted side this season. They started off the season quite well and were in the driving seat during the first half of the season. However, a wretched run of a seven game win-less streak between June to July dropped Omiya out of title contention. The arrival of new Director of Football Stuart Webber came with it radical changes, although a three game losing streak in September made it easier to justify letting Tetsu Nagasawa go.

In came Yuki Miyazawa who had coached in various positions across the Red Bull organization for quite some years, who rocketed Omiya back into play-off and possibly even automatic promotion contention as they went undefeated in his first 6 games in charge. Unfortunately, they let automatic promotion slip away and ended the regular season poorly with a 1-2 loss to promotion rivals Tokushima Vortis and a 2-3 loss to relegation fighting Renofa Yamaguchi to finish in the last promotion 6th place spot. The play-offs started off at a tough away game to JEF United and they raced to a big lead against the run of play. However, JEF United came back with a vengeance spurred on by a raucous home crowd to flip the score and win 4-3, thus ending Omiya’s promotion hopes.

Omiya’s style changed significantly between managers. Under Nagasawa it was a Back 3 / Back 5 with heavy emphasis on man-marking through tweaking the positioning of the Wing Backs depending on the opposition’s shape and they defended deeper than they do now. Given the composition of the Back 3 on a particular day it meant Izumi was both a Wing Back and a Winger. Under Miyazawa, in true “Red Bull” style the defending was a lot more aggressive and pro-active. Omiya also switched to a 4-4-2 diamond to apply a more ball-oriented pressure on the opponent, a shape that is quite a rare these days. It’s been a while so it’s a bit hazy but I do recall Julian Nagelsmann playing a midfield diamond with RB Leipzig so perhaps Miyazawa was influenced by that.

Whether in the Back 3 or Back 4, the leader in defense was Rion Ichihara. He has been making a big name for himself over the past year due to his performances for the Japan U-20 national team with his defensive displays, leadership, and the added bonus of being able to coolly slot home penalties. Ichihara is extremely good in the air and has a very proactive “personality” in defense. Despite his good vertical passing, he wasn’t nearly as involved in ball progression in pure volumes terms probably because responsibility in the build-up was spread out between a lot of players.

I can’t imagine a player of his caliber staying in J2 for another year especially after his sterling performances for the U-20 Japan National Team. Europe beckons and if the rumors start heating up, I’m quite willing to write another feature on him. I wrote the first one last year when I was still starting out with these player reports so I do want another crack at it, a Part Two if you will!

A player not many will recognize in this team that I quite liked was Kaishin Sekiguchi at Right Back. He is a threat from out wide with his dribbling and direct running.

Omiya’s attacks have been slanted toward the left over the past two seasons and that is in huge part due to the presence of Toya Izumi on the Left side as either a Wing Back or later as a midfielder. The ex-Vissel Kobe man dropped down the divisions to get game time and has slowly worked his way back up the footballing pyramid, showing lots of growth and resilience.

In midfield, the usual pairing was Masato Kojima and Arthur Silva. It surprised me when Omiya got relegated back in 2023 that they managed to keep a hold of Kojima. The midfielder has been a huge part of Omiya’s ability to keep the ball with his smart positioning and passing acumen across different ranges. On the defensive side of things, Arthur Silva brought a lot of aggression and tough tackling to support Kojima and other teammates.

The goals in the squad were spread out over many different attacking pieces in the Front 3. Oriola Sunday has slowly grown to become an important part of the attack since he joined in mid-2024 and finished with 6 goals and 2 assists. I saw some promise in Kazushi Fujii in J3 last season but he was relegated to be more of a super-sub and from that role he still managed to score 5 and assist twice. Otherwise it was a fairly veteran presence in attack with Yuta Toyokawa contributing with 7 goals and Kenyu Sugimoto surprising a lot of people with 6 goals and 5 assists. The star in attack was top goal scorer Caprini with 11 goals and 7 assists. I think it helps the Brazilian that he’s now on a much more attacking team than his previous employers, Yokohama FC.

Omiya were very good at stringing together passing combos to create chances. Indeed, they actually scored 16 goals from these situations which was considerable higher than the league median! They had a penchant for late goals too and simply scored a majority of their goals while also being exceptionally tight in defense in the 2nd Half. On either side of the ball, Omiya’s underlying numbers were quite good.

This season progressed with the backdrop of all of the changes that the Red Bull organization made and will continue to make as the new owners of Omiya Ardija. As for the team, they had their ups-and-downs but largely kept pace with the play-offs spot but it was a disappointing finish in the end. I was impressed with how quickly Miyazawa was able to get results while changing the team’s tactics significantly but the last few games of the season including the play-offs showed some problems that need to be worked on. Still, the 100 Year Vision League means they have more time to set the groundwork for their revolution and make a clear push for promotion in 2026/2027. The squad has a lot rotating pieces as it is still in the middle of transitioning into a more leaner and younger “Red Bull” style squad. Changes are coming thick-and-fast, can everybody in and out of the club keep up?

Vegalta Sendai (7th, 62 Points)

• 16 Wins // 14 Draws // 8 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Sendai // Yurtec Stadium

• Manager: Yoshiro Moriyama

• 47 Goals (9th); 36 Conceded (4th)

• 47.56 non-penalty xG (6th); 35.39 non-penalty xGA (2nd)

• Top goal scorer: Yuta Goke (9 goals plus 1 penalty)

• Goalkeeper: Akihiro Hayashi

Heartbreak. Disaster. At the final hurdle. Again for Vegalta Sendai. It was Year 2 of Moriyama’s revolution at Vegalta Sendai. After a couple of years of poor performances in J2 after their relegation back in 2021, Sendai changed course to shed a bunch of old players and start afresh. Last year they made it to the play-off final but lost to Fagiano Okayama and this time they lost their last game of the season and were leapfrogged by Jubilo Iwata for a play-off spot!

The foundation that Yoshiro Moriyama has built his Sendai team on is their solid defense. This year especially, they were quite excellent having conceded the 2nd least non-penalty xGA and conceding only the 4th least goals in actuality. In particular they were very attentive to set-piece defending compared to other teams as they only conceded four, considerably lower than the league median.

The main Center Back pairing for the season was Shion Inoue and Masahiro Sugata who both provided a mix of decent passing and defensive brawn. From Right Back, Takumi Mase got 6 assists. He honestly looked quite good when he was younger in 2021 & 2022 but injuries in more recent seasons have kept him away from the spot-light and fortunately for Sendai fans, away from the clutches of potential J1 suitors. On the Left side was Rikuto Ishio who was very good ball-progressor through his clever passing. He’s decent in the air especially at 1.81m and just duels in general which makes him even more interesting. With Sendai continuing to flounder in J2, I can see a J1 team trying to buy him as good Left Backs are always in need.

Of course it wasn’t just the individual defenders or the unit itself but a lot of defensive work was done throughout the team. In the midfield double pivot, Hiromu Kamada and one of Renji Matsui or Hidetoshi Takeda have formed a fairly solid pairing. Matsui and Takeda have more specialized skillsets as can be seen in the radars below.

I do think Hiromu Kamada is the most promising out of the midfielders considering his very broad skill-set across the build-up, defense, and attack. Kamada is already 24 though so he should be trying to get a J1 move soon as he can very easily play at that level if he wishes to do so.

It was a fantastic season for Yuta Goke, the ex-Vissel Kobe man who came back home to his childhood club in 2023. He was always very much a “glue” guy that was good at knitting things together but always found it difficult to show his true worth given his mixed skill-set across a variety of positions. Oddly, this season he has shown an extremely valuable ability to pop up with end product at opportune times contributing to a career high 10 goals and 4 assists.

In attack, aside from Yuta Goke, a key player was Ryunosuke Sagara. Although he does have a bad habit of blasting a lot of not-great-quality shots, the fact is that he is one of the few players on the side that can drive forward with the ball and enter the box through his dribbling. If he can start creating for others a little bit more and try to take better quality shots then you’ve got a pretty good player here. Sagara finished the season with 4 goals and 2 assists.

Kokoro Kobayashi was lifted up from recently promoted J3 club Kochi United and scored some important goals despite his limited game time. Perhaps next season he’ll be able to show more of his stuff as he gets acclimatized after a quick ascension from JFL > J3 > J2 in the past year. Koh Miyazaki, I usually say half-jokingly is the Japanese Andy Carroll with his long flowing hair and aerial abilities. He does a bunch of the physical grunt work, a bit of chance creation, and takes an OK amount of shots as well. All-in-all Miyazaki contributed with 8 goals and 2 assists. A perfectly cromulent kind of striker at this level. On the other hand, it’s been a disappointing time for Tsubasa Umeki who looked good at Renofa Yamaguchi and seemed like a “fit” for Sendai’s play style but hasn’t ever cemented a starting spot in the team. A special mention should also go to Shunta Araki, who plays a hardworking role both up top and out wide. His tireless running to create space for himself or others lets his teammates receive in good spaces.

Sendai play some decent football and have the ability to change things up between more combination plays down the wing or just lumping it long or to the strikers making runs behind. A big issue is that they haven’t quite been able to squeeze enough goals out of this squad despite their above-average attacking metrics. Sendai’s overall xG wasn’t bad but unlike other teams they weren’t able to add any finishing/striking quality and luck on top of that. Over a long season that made a big difference. This was why they finished with 14 draws despite only losing 8 times which is tied for the least with league winners Mito!

The key indicator for the success/failure of Sendai’s 2025 season hung on whether they got promoted or not and unfortunately, they didn’t even make the play-offs. It is clear though that Moriyama has built a fairly good team and it was confirmed that he’ll be staying on next season. After coming agonizingly close to J1 promotion in the past two seasons, perhaps third time is the charm in 2026/2027?

Sagan Tosu (8th, 58 Points)

• 16 Wins // 10 Draws // 12 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Tosu // Ekimae Real Estate Stadium

• Manager: Akio Kogiku

• 46 Goals (11th); 43 Conceded (6th)

• 40.86 non-penalty xG (14th); 41.86 non-penalty xGA (9th)

• Top goal scorer: Hiroto Yamada (5 goals plus 1 penalty) & Jun Nishikawa (4 goals plus 2 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Ryota Izumori

Sagan Tosu had finished bottom of J1 in 2024 and needed a hard restart. Akio Kogiku (formerly of Cerezo Osaka) took charge of this process and despite a very rough start where Tosu didn’t win the first 4 games of the season, he managed to get them back into play-off contention eventually. However, giving up a 2-0 lead with a man advantage vs. Sendai was the real killer to their hopes and they did not win any of the last five games of the season as a result.

With relegation, there was a heavy amount of turn-over but some key players like Kenta Nishizawa stayed while quite a few ex-Cerezo players like Kimoto, Yamada, Nishikawa joined or re-joined due in no doubt to the influence of Akio Kogiku’s appointment as manager. Jun Nishikawa showed some of the promise he had shown at Cerezo as a youth player. He’s perhaps not quite the superstar that was promised a number of years ago but is a decent enough player at the J2 level.

A feature of Akio Kogiku’s Tosu team was their intricate build-up with the Back 3 and goalkeeper Ryota Izumori heavily involved. A new face to the defense following the departures of J1 regulars Kim Taehyeon and Seiji Kimura was Taisei Inoue, a graduate from Juntendo University. Inoue showed good composure passing and carrying under pressure in the build-up phase for a player in his debut season as a professional footballer.

A key outlet following the build-up phase was the width and crossing provided by their Wing Backs. In particular Haruki Arai was a big but problematically one of their few weapons in attack aside from some creative passing from Nishizawa or Nishikawa. Overall, Tosu scored a bunch from set-pieces and crossing. Another thing to note was that Tosu were also extremely good at defending set-pieces having only conceded 4, significantly below the league median.

Up top there were two teenagers that really caught my eye, Daichi Suzuki and Shion Shinkawa. I especially like Shinkawa who really impressed me with his 1st touch, how he is able to settle the ball and then immediately get shots off. He usually came on in the 2nd Half and provided an outlet on the counter as he would burst forward with the ball. He’s also a lot tougher than his size suggests when he is dribbling or holding off defenders. While there are still lots of aspects Shinkawa needs to work on, the fact that he’s got a fast trigger and is able to get a lot of shots off despite being a teenager at this level represents his promise.

With extremely middling stats in both attack and defense, the underlying numbers showed a team that would be smack-dab in the middle of the table. Despite their possession and decent enough ability to get into the final 3rd (6th most in the league), Tosu noticeably struggled to create chances or score goals. Tosu only entered the box the 13th most times per match to take the 14th most shots, 13th most shots-on-target, all leading to the 10th most goals!

Overall, this squad has quite a lot of decent players across the spectrum of the age range. Akio Kogiku has instilled his playing style on the team after a rough start and there’s a solid base to build on toward achieving promotion for the 2026-2027 season either automatically or through the play-offs.

Iwaki FC (9th, 56 Points)

• 15 Wins // 11 Draws // 12 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Iwaki // Hawaiians Stadium Iwaki

• Manager: Yuzo Tamura

• 55 Goals (6th); 44 Conceded (7th)

• 50.59 non-penalty xG (4th); 39.1 non-penalty xGA (3rd)

• Top goal scorer: Kaina Tanimura (8 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Masato Sasaki

Manager Yuzo Tamura has had an interesting career with Iwaki FC. He was the manager who originally brought the club up from the Fukushima Prefectural Football League (the 7th tier!) all the way to J3 but then stepped into a Sporting Director role in 2022. Then when things were going poorly under his sucessor, Tamura came back into the managerial hotseat to help them survive their first ever J2 season!

Now in 2025 he continues to work miracles and develop a bunch of young players with a set-piece and cross heavy play style (highest amount of corners and throw-ins per match in both categories) that has them punching well above their weight. Iwaki are extremely dangerous from set-pieces, having created the most xG within 15 seconds of any set piece situation and also scoring 22 goals from these situations, well above double the league median! They don’t just score from corner kicks and free kicks but through long throw-ins into the box. Ben Griffis has a great thread on how impactful Iwaki FC are from throw-ins on Twitter.

A big part of this long throw-in frenzy is Sena Igarashi whose abilities cause chaos in the box on a consistent basis! He’s a fairly prolific crosser with his feet as well from the Right Wing Back position.

A few other set-piece protagonists include Yuto Yamashita who also has over 150 open-play crosses as well as Naoki Kase.

In midfield, Nelson Ishiwatari got a lot of playing time after being sent on loan by Cerezo Osaka. He is very physical for his age and quite mobile, serving as a box-to-box midfielder quite well. Due to his aerial ability and strength he is also quite useful in either box, both attacking or defending crosses and set pieces. Although there may be some team tactical effects, I’m not that impressed with his passing or what he does on the ball in general. I can see him being integrated into Cerezo Osaka next season but it’ll be critical to watch if his physicality can match the higher intensities at the J1 level against stronger and more experienced opponents.

Another player I liked was Kazuki Dohana. He was a decent player for Fukushima United last season and he’s been able to make the step-up to the J2 level to a degree.

Due to their emphasis on trying to win set pieces, there’s not a whole lot of passing acumen in the team, Iwaki FC are absolutely not intricate and have the 2nd fewest passes per game in J2. Despite entering the final 3rd the 13th most times and entering the opponent box the 15th most in the league, Iwaki FC managed to get the 4th most shots, 8th most shots on target, all for the 6th most goals off of the 4th most non-penalty xG! A big problem though was that Naoki Kumata somehow managed to turn 9.48 xG into just... 3 goals.

Overall, I imagine their attack looks great because they get a lot of decent-to-good quality shots from rebounds and loose balls from the copious amounts of set pieces and long throw-ins they chuck into the box at every given opportunity. Perhaps some of the xG under-performance (by Kumata and others) came from the fact that these chaotic rebounds/loose balls aren’t quite as “clear cut” as they appear to be on paper due to lots of bodies in the way, weird bounces, etc. This is something to keep in mind but I can’t dive further without more detailed data unfortunately!

Even with all this, Iwaki couldn’t quite make themselves consistent contenders for a play-off spot. They started the season in horrendous fashion as they did not win until the 10th game of the season! Iwaki recovered extremely well from that and only lost twice in their last 10 games of the season but it wasn’t enough. They did have a part to play in the play-off picture on the final matchday when they spoilt Vegalta Sendai’s chance with a 1-0 away victory though.

Another defining feature of Iwaki FC has been their extremely young squad, they have consistently been the youngest on average in J2 over the past few years. Notice how Yuto Yamashita is the only player above 29 years old and only one of two who are above 28! Quite a few of these are loanees from J1 clubs looking to give minutes to their youngsters so it’s always interesting to see the incomings every transfer window.

Montedio Yamagata (10th, 53 Points)

• 15 Wins // 8 Draws // 15 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Yamagata // ND Soft Stadium

• Manager: Susumu Watanabe (to June) // Akinobu Yokouchi

• 58 Goals (4th); 54 Conceded (16th)

• 45.46 non-penalty xG (8th); 50.18 non-penalty xGA (17th)

• Top goal scorer: Akira Disaro (11 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Tom Heward-Belle

Montedio Yamagata have been investing a lot to get promoted from J2 for a number of years now so all-in-all it was another poor season by their standards... although there was light at the end of the tunnel after a good finish to 2025. The Susumu Watanabe era finally came to an end after having won just five games at the halfway point of the season, simply not good enough. A four game losing streak capped by a painful 3-4 derby defeat to regional rivals Vegalta Sendai was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In his place, ex-Jubilo and ex-Japan youth national team coach Akinobu Yokouchi was parachuted in to help. The results (but not necessiarly the performances which I’ll get to later) improved but Yamagata were well and truly far away from a meaningful challenge for the play-off spots.

A big factor in Yamagata staying in mid-table was Akira Disaro, who continues to be a beast in J2. However, along with another player I’ll get to later the team were very reliant on his finishing over-performance this season as Disaro’s 11 goals came from just 5.66 xG. The other player was Kashima Antlers legend Shoma Doi who really came alive in the 2nd half of the season. His 8 goals, 6 of which came after Yokouchi’s arrival, spurred Yamagata to a late revival!

Ryoma Kida continued to be a very good J2 level player with 4 goals and 6 assists this season but at age 28, time is running out for him to get promoted (with his team or just by himself) to the J1 top flight level. The same applied to Leo Takae who is a fantastic passer at this level, he managed to join Yokohama FC in the summer… only to barely play and then promptly get relegated back to J2. An underrated hero of the season was super sub Junya Takahashi who managed to score 7 goals despite only starting in 5 of his 34 appearances, all of which totalled up to just 994 minutes of play!

On the other hand, Yamagata’s defense was one of the worst in the league. They conceded the 4th most goals and the 3rd most xGA. In particular, Yamagata were especially vulnerable to crosses and set pieces! They conceded significantly more than the league median from both situations. For all of their good possession work building up from the back, we again see the trade-off at this level where those same defenders aren’t quite the best at actual defending.

One defender that did stand out to me was Kazuma Okamoto on the Right. He’s not the kind of rampaging physical overlapping Full Back we normally see. Okamoto contributes a lot in the build-up phase as he is very technical and has decent ball progression from deeper areas. Another value add is his ability to combine with others in the final 3rd.

We can split how Yamagata have done between their two managers almost evenly. The one caveat being that one game was taken up by an interim. So looking at the data:

Susumu Watanabe (19 games):

• xG: 23, xGA: 26.1, goals: 24, goals against: 27

Akinobu Yokouchi (18 games):

• xG: 22.4, xGA: 24.1, goals: 33, goals against: 25

Given the above, what’s clear is that while the underlying performances didn’t change too much from either manager, Yokouchi’s tenure looks a lot better as Yamagata managed to finish their chances extremely clinically! A lot of this xG over-performance seemingly came from Shoma Doi who scored 6 of his 8 goals in the 2nd half of the season, all from just 3.5 xG. At the very least, Yokouchi’s half-season in charge will give fans some hope. However, the club need to keep an even keel and still push for improvements in various aspects if they hope to get themselves back into the promotion race for the 2026-2027 season.

Yamagata have a brand new shiny football-specific stadium coming online in the next five years. They’ve been making a lot of good moves off the pitch to increase revenues and make a push for J1 promotion. However, they kept falling at the final hurdle under successive managers since the 2019 season. With the attractive kind of football they play, a lot of their players have been taken away by bigger teams as well. All of this led to a disappointing league finish this season, the painful price of not achieving promotion quickly enough. However, Yamagata’s huge resurgence in the 2nd half of the season under Yokouchi gives the northerners considerable hope.

FC Imabari (11th, 53 Points)

• 13 Wins // 14 Draws // 11 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Imabari // ASICS Satoyama Stadium

• Manager: Keiji Kuraishi

• 46 Goals (10th); 46 Conceded (11th)

• 55.66 non-penalty xG (3rd); 39.3 non-penalty xGA (4th)

• Top goal scorer: Marcus Vinicius (16 goals plus 1 penalty)

• Goalkeeper: Kotaro Tachikawa

A pretty good season for FC Imabari. After promotion from J3 and diving into their first ever J2 season in 2025, many had them struggling in the bottom half but Imabari were in surprise contention for a play-off spot for a large portion of the season! I was very surprised when they separated from Toshihiro Hattori, the manager who got them promoted, for Keiji Kuraishi but it’s honestly turned out quite well them in the end.

What stood out in their numbers was the incredible discrepancy between their expected numbers and their actual goals. Imabari were quite good in attack, creating lots of chances and consistently too throughout the season but there were periods of games where they just couldn’t score! They were 1st or 2nd in number of shots taken (depending on which data provider you use) but only 4th in shots on target… all of which lead to only being 9th in total goals scored.

The one player that was absolutely not having trouble scoring on this team was Marcus Vinicius who scored 17 goals from 16.1 xG, nearly three times more than the next best goalscorer on the team! Vinicius has been a talisman for Imabari over the past few years so it’s a bit scary now that there are a lot of J1 teams after his signature in the off-season. Alongside his shooting, Vinicius was very important to Imabari’s playstyle. Not only was he the catalyst in Imabari’s counterattacks charging through defenders with his powerful strides but he could also be a target man in possession to keep the ball and relieve pressure until help arrived.

The Brazilian striker was ably supported by a young talent I’m particularly excited about, Yumeki Yokoyama. Yokoyama is an interesting profile, a fearless and agile dribbler that can operate in both wide and more central areas. I do feel like a lot of teams would try to pin him out wide but I’m very adamant that that won’t get the best out of him. Yokoyama excelled in a sort of second-striker role, buzzing around Vinicius to collect loose/2nd balls and combine with the Brazilian on counterattacks. In more sustained possession sequences, Yokoyama would drift wide and take on defenders 1v1 to create chances or take shots himself. I rate him quite highly even though his end-product and decision-making still needs work. He had 6 goals from 4.8 xG and 5 assists. I wonder what will happen to him in the off-season as I’m quite sure he’s good enough to challenge himself in J1 at this point and from there if he can handle the uptick in physicality, Europe shouldn’t be too far off either.

Another young star is Rei Umeki, who has been a regular at the youth national team level. He’s your typical energetic and technical Full/Wing Back that loves to push forward and put crosses into the box. I certainly do have concerns about his defending especially in duels. If he goes to Europe he’ll probably have to play Wing Back so the prospective team can maximize his attacking impact.

Continuing the theme of Wing Backs, another that impressed me was Takatora Kondo down the Left Wing and Kenshin Yuba who played on either side. Both were big threats running or dribbling down the wing. As you might imagine, with all these Wing Backs, FC Imabari created a majority of their goals from crossing situations.

In midfield I was hoping to see a bit more of the teenager Shuta Sasa. Despite appearing in 27 matches he only started 4 and his playing time only totalled a little over 700 minutes. Yuki Kajiura made waves on loan (from FC Tokyo) at Zweigen Kanazawa over the past two seasons and it was hoped that he could be an asset in J2 but unfortunately he suffered a major injury. Even still, he showed his class once he returned and managed to make an impact in 14 games. The absolute rock in midfield was Vinicius Diniz who aside from his tough defending was his 4 goals. It was a surprise to me that he was let go after the season ended.

In defense Rio Omori continues to be quite competent at the J2 level as the FC Tokyo player has spent the past two seasons on loan with Iwaki FC and FC Imabari. Omori was an important part of Imabari’s build-up, being able to carry forward confidently and then being able to punch passes forward from the Back 3. Given FC Tokyo’s aging back-line it might make sense to integrate him into the squad during the 100 Year Vision League but one big concern is his poor duel record in the air and on the ground despite his 186cm stature. Some of this could be explained by how aggressive his assigned role was as part of the Back 3 but it does bear thinking about especially when you consider his disciplinary record too.

Despite some good performances throughout the season, the results didn’t quite follow and Imabari fell away from play-off contention by October. Still, by their standards, finishing in 11th place was a somewhat successful season given this was their first J2 attempt.

If they can keep the pipeline of nurturing young talents and being extremely smart about their Brazilian recruitment like they have done with Vinicius, Diniz, etc. then I do think Imabari can keep punching above their weight to get closer to a play-off spot in the coming seasons.

Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo (12th, 53 Points)

• 16 Wins // 5 Draws // 17 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Sapporo // Sapporo Dome

• Manager: Daiki Iwamasa (to August) // Shingo Shibata

• 50 Goals (8th); 63 Conceded (19th)

• 43.79 non-penalty xG (9th); 45.65 non-penalty xGA (12th)

• Top goal scorer: Tomoki Takamine (10 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Shun Takagi // Takanori Sugeno // Kojiro Nakano

Daiki Iwamasa was a terrible choice. If you’ve followed my season reviews for the past few years, you’d know what I thought about Iwamasa’s time as Kashima Antler’s manager... Of course, it wasn’t just Iwamasa’s fault but from the top-down and all over, Sapporo have been completely inept these past few years. The fact that Sapporo are down in J2 and didn’t have the power to go immediately back up can be traced all the way back to the fact that they kept Mischa around too long and the squad was weirdly configured as a result. It was to the extent that it was never going to take a single transfer window or two to fix properly especially not to whatever kind of football Iwamasa would’ve wanted.

Sapporo would be in the relegation zone if it wasn’t for Tomoki Takamine’s magical goal scoring spree. He somehow somehow ended up as their top goal scorer too. His 10 goals have come from just 3 xG! I just don’t know how Sapporo keep getting away with this kind of stuff (well, except for last year I mean). Like some kind of superhero, Takamine parachuted back in from a brief vacation in Belgium to fire his home-town club to safety!

In other aspects of the attack, Amadou Bakayoko finally came good in the end after a long time where it was uncertain he’d ever do anything. The Sierra Leonan striker finished the season with 7 goals and 1 assist. Unfortunately, Sapporo’s other foreign help continued to disappoint as the Ghanaian pair Kinglord Safo and Francis Cann did not make a single league appearance while Jordi Sanchez barely played. Mario Sergio did manage 4 goals in extremely limited minutes but I don’t think that is still commensurate to the amount the team must be paying for his services... These players are in a long line of Sapporo’s awful recruitment in the past few seasons.

I quite liked Park Min-gyu when he came in to help Sapporo in J1 last year but he barely got playing time under Iwamasa for some reason. The Korean slowly earned his place back under Shibata though. Supachok continues to be a decent player but he is rather injury prone. In terms of the Japanese players, Ryota Aoki and Haruto Shirai chipped in with their fair share of goal contributions but you’d hope talented youngsters like Kosuke Hara aren’t left rotting on the bench again.

Even with the supposed style change under Daiki Iwamasa and then Shingo Shibata, Sapporo’s notoriously porous defense was still extant. Rearing it’s ugly head time and time again. They conceded the 2nd most goals although their non-penalty xGA was a slightly more respectable 12th in the league. Going back-to-back seasons with one of the league’s worst defensive records despite stepping down into J2 is rather embarrassing. I am rather curious as to what exactly it is about their defending that allows teams to consistently score more goals than their xGA presents but you’d need more detailed data (and rewatching all of Sapporo’s goals conceded) for that.

Aside from Takamine’s heroics, Tomoki Kondo was Sapporo’s best player with his crossing and dribbling as has been the case for the past few years. This is also why you might not want to stay with your relegated team thinking that it’ll be easy to go straight back up with them and show the team/fans your loyalty... Kondo definitely had J1 offers in the off-season and he probably should’ve taken it as he’s now wasted a year down in J2 when he really didn’t need to at the age of 24.

While I’ve been quite harsh on Sapporo over the past several seasons, there’s some decent talent here across a variety of age ranges. However, it’s clear that squad needs further refinement if Sapporo want to get competitive again. Kenta Kawai was officially announced as the new manager last week. He made much more sense as the immediate successor to Mischa Petrovic but I guess they couldn’t get the deal done back then for whatever reason. Kawai is a very interesting coach with his possession game but had the same issues like Mischa in that the defense was rather porous due their playing style (see my criticisms in previous J1 reviews on Sagan Tosu). I’m looking forward to see what Kawai has reflected on in the past year and a half away from a managerial job to update his playing philosophy.

Ventforet Kofu (13th, 44 Points)

• 11 Wins // 11 Draws // 16 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Kofu // JIT Recycle Ink Stadium

• Manager: Shinji Otsuka

• 37 Goals (16th); 45 Conceded (10th)

• 37.36 non-penalty xG (18th); 47.75 non-penalty xGA (14th)

• Top goal scorer: Yoshiki Torikai (9 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Kohei Kawata

It’s been a pretty disappointing few years for Ventforet Kofu as all the momentum from their Emperor’s Cup triumph and subsequent ACL journey has been well and truly lost! After saving the club from relegation in the 2024 season, Kofu opted for safe and rather boring continuity under Shinji Otsuka. As you might imagine it was a very mediocre team all around… Look at how they are in the bottom-left “red” zone in each of these graphs…

I’ve wanted to watch Kofu this season to keep an eye on Takumi Tsuchiya (another Center Back J2 loanee sent out by Kashiwa Reysol) but given how dreary they were I’ve been putting it on the back-burner all year… Now the season is over, oops! Looking at the data, Reysol have themselves another “modern” defender who is good with the ball at his feet with somewhat OK-ish defending ability in a Back 3.

Yoshiki Torikai is one of the few remaining players of those triumphs a few years ago but considering the state of the club I could see him leaving this winter as well. He was the leader and perhaps the only spark in an otherwise dead attack with his dribbling. Another positive was the young 21 year old striker Yamato Naito seems to have some promise with 5 goals and 1 assist in limited game time. While his underlying stats and overall play outside of shooting wasn’t great, it does need reminding that Kofu struggled a fair bit in general. He might be worth monitoring further to see if he improves.

Kofu were another “Set-piece FC” team, nearly 40% of their goals have come from these situations. This makes sense considering all of Kofu’s other attacking metrics which were all in the gutter. 18th in final 3rd entries, dead last in penalty box entries, 17th in shots taken, 19th in shots on target, yet somehow “only” 16th in goals scored.

Ventforet Kofu are safe again but surely they have to actually build something and push themselves back up the table from 2026 onwards. The 100 Year Vision League gives you some time to experiment so here’s hoping for a bit more pizazz instead of the same turgid stuff every week.

Blaublitz Akita (14th, 43 Points)

• 11 Wins // 10 Draws // 17 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Akita // JIT Recycle Ink Stadium

• Manager: Ken Yoshida

• 43 Goals (13th); 59 Conceded (18th)

• 38.15 non-penalty xG (17th); 47.07 non-penalty xGA (13th)

• Top goal scorer: Ren Komatsu (10 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Genki Yamada

Well, Blaublitz Akita just about kept themselves up again. It wasn’t pretty as always but a decent second half of the season, especially by their usual standards, had them somewhat comfortably away from the relegation zone since matchday 22. This is despite only winning twice in the last 10 games of the season! What Akita did do well was grind out a lot of 0:0 draws despite very poor underlying metrics in this timeframe compared to the beginning of the season when they were losing quite a lot.

A problem Akita had was a bad habit of conceding goals in the last 10 minutes of games, especially when Akita seemed to have run out of gas to reply in the same time period.

The decent 2nd half of the season, at least results-wise, was a surprise considering the loss of top goal scorer (10 goals) Ren Komatsu to Vissel Kobe in the summer. Thankfully, Yukihito Kajiya managed to take up some of the aerial and physical aspects required for Akita’s playstyle and ended the season with 4 goals and 4 assists.

Throughout the season, Akita were saved by their set-piece prowess as they scored nearly half (46.5%) of their 43 goals from these situations. A big part of this was the delivery from Daiki Sato, who with the departure of Komatsu, became their talismanic player from the Left Wing. Sato had his career best season with 5 goals and 6 assists.

I’m not sure how much more juice Ken Yoshida can squeeze out of the scraps he’s given. Even if Akita had higher ambitions, they don’t have a large financial backer and are stuck in a fairly remote part of the country. Akita are unfortunately another northern club that will get hit hard by the season change. Unless they get extremely smart and can provide some kind of incentive for players to come, luring young college/academy players with game-time in the mold of Mito HollyHock or Roasso Kumamoto it’s going to be very hard for Akita to survive the coming years. Winter is coming!

Fujieda MYFC (15th, 39 Points)

• 9 Wins // 12 Draws // 17 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Fujieda // Fujieda Soccer Stadium

• Manager: Daisuke Sudo

• 41 Goals (15th); 50 Conceded (14th)

• 41.03 non-penalty xG (13th); 50.74 non-penalty xGA (18th)

• Top goal scorer: Ren Asakura (9 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Kai Chide Kitamura

Another season passed and Fujieda MYFC managed to survive as Daisuke Sudo continued to work his magic! The third professional team from Shizuoka have punched above their weight since arriving in the second tier in 2023. The results weren’t always great but Sudo stuck to his guns by having his team keep the ball a lot (especially in their own half) and also sharp pressing and counterattacks with the Front 3.

The star player here was obviously Ren Asakura with 9 goals from 5.5 xG and 3 assists. Although he had a really good finishing streak in front of goal, he simply also was a huge (perhaps only?) part of their attack in terms of being in the right position to receive the ball and then dribbling/carrying the ball to the final 3rd. I think he’s quite talented and a J1 team should come calling for him this winter.

Ken Yamura came back mid-season after disappointing on his return to parent club Albirex Niigata in J1 and helped out a bit with 3 goals and an assist. However, the rest of the team was rather goal-shy. A big culprit was Shunnosuke Matsuki who somehow managed zero goals despite getting on the end of chances worth 3.9 xG.

The Wing Backs did their part both defensively and offensively as both Chie Kawakami (2 goals and 3 assists) and Kazuyoshi Shimabuku (1 goal and 4 assists) bombed up and down their respective sides effectively.

The middle of the park were held down by two players I’ve written about but in the J3 season reviews in the past. Kosei Okazawa followed up a good season at FC Ryukyu down in J3 with another loan from parent club Cerezo Osaka in J2 this year. It remains to be seen if he’ll ever be deemd good enough for the purple-half of Osaka in J1 but perhaps he’ll have a Motohiko Nakajima-esque career. He’s shown he’s a decent enough player at the J2 level at least, does a lot of work with and without the ball. Hiroto Sese caught my eye with Gainare Tottori in J3 a few years ago and now he’s been a steady presence for Fujieda MYFC. Perhaps not quite grown as much as I thought he would though when it comes to the on-ball stuff although that may be more tactical than anything.

As discussed a good source of chances came from crosses by their Wing Backs but also Fujieda were quite handy on set-pieces with over 30% of their goals coming from these situations.

In goal, Kai Chide Kitamura has developed into a pretty decent goalkeeper at this level despite his 180cm stature probably limiting his potential at higher levels. He’s looked far more stable than in previous years when I was a bit skeptical of him. Kitamura is quite comfortable with his feet and is important to Fujieda’s build-up play.

An issue with this team was that they had a truly awful defense. For all of their skills on the ball, players like So Nakagawa and Ryosuke Hisadomi struggled to prevent danger. Of course, they were perhaps exposed far too often by their teammates as well. This is sort of the trade-off you’re forced to have at this level where the good ball-playing defenders aren’t usually very secure defensively.

There were lots of rumors about Daisuke Sudo being linked to quite a few other clubs which only reinforced his clout across the J.League. After the season ended it was confirmed that Sudo will be moving over to Yokohama FC. Even before thinking about any transfers, it would be a huge task for Fujieda to then find a similarly minded coach who can keep this club afloat in J2… Then big shockwaves reverbated across the J.League world as it was announced that Tomoaki Makino would step up to become Fujieda MYFC’s new manager. After spending the past few years since his retirement to get his coaching badges and manage amateur club Shinagawa CC, this will be the first step into the professional hotseat for the former Japan international.

Oita Trinita (16th, 38 Points)

• 8 Wins // 14 Draws // 16 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Oita // Crasus Dome Oita

• Manager: Tomohiro Katanosaka (to August) // Minoru Takenaka

• 27 Goals (20th); 44 Conceded (8th)

• 33.73 non-penalty xG (20th); 39.5 non-penalty xGA (5th)

• Top goal scorer: Kotari Arima (5 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Taro Hamada

I was very worried about Tomohiro Katanosaka coming back to Oita Trinita as legends returning usually don’t work out. Sure, they just about survived relegation after Katanosaka was let go in August but... where does this leave them?

Oita scored 27 goals, no that’s not the amount of goals halfway through the season, it’s the total for the entirety of the 2025 season! They scored the least amount of goals in the league, seven less than newly promoted Kataller Toyama and eight less than Ehime who finished last. It’s not like they were creating lots of chances but finishing poorly as they also had the league worst xG as well! As you might imagine, Oita had the least shots, least shots on target, the least final 3rd entries, and 2nd worst penalty box entries… Across various five-game windows during the season Oita’s attacking metrics popped above one goal or xG for only a short period of time in the first half of the season!

Kotaro Arima was the best of a bad bunch managing to accumulate 6.6 xG that he perhaps could’ve done a bit better with than his 5 goal haul. Gleyson was rather disappointing considering just how much havoc he wrecked with Fagiano Okayama to help them get promoted to J1 last season. Of course, given the complete lack of service for him it was understandable.

Their attack in open-play was truly dire which was highlighted by the fact that of Oita’s 27 goals, 12 or a whopping 44.4% came from set-pieces!

On the other hand, their defending was somewhat decent coming in 5th in xGA and 9th in goals conceded. There’s a solid base that Katanosaka built that was about grinding opponent teams to a halt but Oita didn’t do much else aside from that, especially with the ball considering they had the 3rd least ball possession in the league.

Taiki Amagasa was frequently the guy starting off attacks with a good first pass. Manato Yoshida, on loan from Yokohama F. Marinos, put in the hard yards as well bombing forward from Wing Back while remaining attentive in the defensive 3rd as well. He’s also decent in the air despite his short (173cm) stature.

Since their relegation in the 2021 season, Oita have really struggled and slid down the J2 table, doing just about enough to survive in the past 2 seasons. I’ve been pretty critical of them in past J2 reviews with good reason. The team are in for a proper reckoning if they don’t actually start to fix their issues soon... One positive news is that Shuhei Yomoda, who has been the mastermind of Yokohama FC’s multiple promotions (and also subsequent J1 relegations…), will take the reins in 2026 and perhaps get them back to a more upward trajectory.

Kataller Toyama (17th, 37 Points)

• 9 Wins // 10 Draws // 19 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Toyama // Toyama Athletic Stadium

• Manager: Michiharu Otagiri (to May) // Ryo Adachi

• 34 Goals (19th); 49 Conceded (13th)

• 39.37 non-penalty xG (16th); 50.14 non-penalty xGA (16th)

• Top goal scorer: Shosei Usui (5 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Tomoki Tagawa

Kataller Toyama were plucky underdogs heading into their maiden J2 season and interestingly they started off the season quite well with three wins in their first 5 games. However, a scary run of poor form where they did not win their next 15 games sunk them into the relegation battle and the sacking of manager Michiharu Otagiri in May. They struggled and fought hard under new manager Ryo Adachi but things were looking bleak. Toyama were eight whole points away from safety at the end of matchday 34 after a 0-1 loss against relegation rivals Renofa Yamaguchi. Miraculously though, they didn’t lose the rest of their games, drawing Ehime, beating Sagan Tosu, beating Kofu with a last minute goal and then…

In the final five minutes of their last game of the season against Blaublitz Akita, Toyama scored two to leapfrog Roasso Kumamoto on goal difference to remain in J2 for another season! Incredible! The safety-clinching goal was scored in the 93rd minute by 18 year old rookie, Ayumu Kameda for his first ever professional goal!

With the euphoria subsiding now, looking back at the season it was rather poor all around. Toyama were 16th in both expected goals metrics and had real difficulties creating any meaningful chances on average. Their attacking metrics only shot up in the last few games of the season when they were desperately throwing the kitchen sink against a number of teams in the bottom half. On top of that they lost their top goal scorer Shosei Usui (5 goals in 2.6 xG) mid-season to Avispa Fukuoka while the rest of the team struggled to replicate his finishing ability.

If you were to force me to choose somebody aside from Usui then, at least by the data, Sho Fuseya from Left Back looked decent enough.

Toyama showed remarkable resilience but the quality issues underlying the results are still apparent. This result gives Toyama some much needed respite and an opportunity to regroup over the 100 Year Vision League. Toyama fans will hope they won’t have to repeat such a heart-pounding experience in 2026/2027.

Roasso Kumamoto (18th, 37 Points)

• 9 Wins // 10 Draws // 19 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Kumamoto // Egao Kenko Stadium

• Manager: Takeshi Oki

• 41 Goals (15th); 57 Conceded (17th)

• 40.07 non-penalty xG (15th); 49.44 non-penalty xGA (15th)

• Top goal scorer: Ryo Shiohama (9 goals plus 1 penalty)

• Goalkeeper: Yuya Sato // Shibuki Sato (no relation)

A catastrophic final matchday. Things were made worse by the fact that Kumamoto thought they had done enough by securing a draw against Ventforet Kofu. They were keeping the ball in the corner and celebrated at full time… only for news of Toyama’s miraculous come-back deep in extra time flipping the table and sending Kumamoto down to J3. Truth be told, they should’ve secured safety outright long before that but Kumamoto did not win a single one of their last nine games of the season, including losing to fellow relegation strugglers Renofa Yamaguchi, Oita Trinita, and only taking a point from bottom side (with nothing to play for) Ehime FC in the penultimate game of the season. Their underlying metrics (xG, xGA) really tanked in the last stretch of the season…

Under Takeshi Oki they have a fairly unique playstyle in a 3-3-1-3 with the midfield looking like a diamond. Kumamoto have been very focused on intricate passing moves as the midfield diamond and attackers all rotate around while the Back 3 are very adventurous in joining the attack as well. While Oki brought them much success punching above their weight there’s been a bit of a stubborness that has led to stagnation. This was coupled with the fact that there was difficulty attracting talent as it was difficult for new players to adjust to their unique play style and also their lack of funds relative to the rest of the league.

Ryo Shiohama stole the show, leading the team with 10 goals and also 3 assists. The winger integrated extremely well following a fantastic J3 season with Fukushima United and it’s likely he won’t be dropping back down to J3 again especially considering he’s 25 years old already.

Masato Handai was a university graduate and did not look out of place at the J2 level. While he may not have the physical attributes to wow any potential European suitors, he has good technique and intelligence for receiving the ball in the right places in the way he plays as a very mobile playmaker from a striker position. He finished the season with a team leading 6 assists along with 3 goals.

Keito Kumashiro, on the other hand, was more of an outright #9 Striker type. Kumashiro has been making waves since last season where as an 16 year old he scored 5 goals (even if 3 were penalties). The youngster followed it up this year with a further 8 goals and 2 assists despite battling a major injury sustained in late 2024. He is very likely to get a move to Europe in the upcoming winter transfer window rather than go to a J1 club in my opinion.

Another that caught my eye was Koya Fujii. He’s an interesting attacking midfielder who can perform lots of different tasks along the front-line. He finished 2025 with 5 goals and 2 assists. Shuhei Kamimura is “Mr. Kumamoto” having been born and bred in the prefecture since his U-12 youth days. Despite relegation I can’t imagine him leaving his hometown club especially as he’s 30 years old now and perhaps aiming to be a “One Club Man”. Another very technical player with lovely passes from deep, stitching things together.

In the past I’ve highlighted Ayumu Toyoda in these J2 reviews but unfortunately it wasn’t a great season for him. He’s still only 25 though and perhaps a change in scenery might do him good. A few others like Wataru Iwashita and the North Korean defender Ri Thae Ha might be of interest too.

Kumamoto had poor metrics all around that wouldn’t be a surprise for any relegation candidate. Due to their funky possession style they were able to enter the final 3rd the 5th most on average in the league but getting further was an issue. They were 10th in penalty box entries, 10th in shots taken, 10th in shots on target… all of which led to just 14th in goals scored.

This is a terribly sad end to Kumamoto’s fairy tale under Takeshi Oki which included an J3 2021 champions, J1 promotion play-offs in 2022, Emperor’s Cup semifinal appearance in 2023 but 2025 ends with Kumamoto relegated. It’s difficult to guess what kind of squad Kumamoto will have next season as I think there will be quite a few departures. Despite the bad record, the club is filled with some very technical players that would be of interest to other J2 and perhaps a few J1 clubs. To end on a slightly positive note, the club did announce that Tomohiro Katanosaka is taking charge of the club next season. Given his success in taking up Oita Trinita from J3 to J1 along with a somewhat similar footballing philosophy this appointment does make sense and provides some hope for the future.

Renofa Yamaguchi FC (19th, 36 Points)

• 7 Wins // 15 Draws // 16 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Yamaguchi // Ishin Me-Life STadium

• Manager: Ryo Shigaki (to June) // Genki Nakayama

• 36 Goals (17th); 47 Conceded (12th)

• 45.73 non-penalty xG (7th); 42.31 non-penalty xGA (10th)

• Top goal scorer: Ota Yamamoto (10 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Nick Marsman

Renofa Yamaguchi’s squad was ransacked after a pretty good first year under the guidance of Ryo Shigaki. A lot of things went wrong as simply put, the recruitment to replace the departed players just wasn’t good enough. Yamaguchi had just three wins until Ryo Shigaki was finally let go after a woeful 0-2 defeat to fellow strugglers Ehime FC.

Renofa kept themselves in reach of Roasso Kumamoto and Oita Trinita above them as both continued to flounder and were with a chance through to the last matchday of the season. They managed to win against play-off contenders Omiya Ardija but results elsewhere meant Yamaguchi were relegated. What helped was that they kept most games extremely close, even when they lost it was by never more than two goals. There were lots of 1-2 or 0-1 scorelines where Renofa will kick themselves over not being able to grab an equalizer...

The biggest issue was that they simply could not score goals. With a defense that was around mid-table, Yamaguchi should’ve been fine but it was their finishing that cost them as despite having the 7th best xG in the league, they scored the 4th least amount of goals!

Ota Yamamoto, on loan from Kashiwa Reysol, did manage to score 10 goals from 7.4 xG. In general his ball-carrying and dribbling to push his team forward was as much value as his goal scoring. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to him as Reysol seem fairly stacked in the attacking midfield department. Perhaps a J1 loan instead?

Local hero Kota Kawano, who has spent his entire career with Renofa Yamaguchi dating back to their U-12 team came back from a long injury lay-off in the summer. At 22 years old and quite a decent player, I’m not sure what’s going to happen to him. Although he’s far too good for J3 at this stage in his career, he may also feel obligated to help his boyhood club back up to J2.

After a number of years yo-yo-ing between J3 and J2 , it seemed like the Ryo Shigaki era would bring new heights but now it’s back to the drawing board for the higher-ups at Renofa Yamaguchi once again...

Ehime FC (20th, 22 Points)

• 3 Wins // 13 Draws // 22 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Matsuyama // Ningineer Stadium

• Manager: Kiyotaka Ishimaru (to May) // Shinya Aono

• 35 Goals (18th); 71 Conceded (20th)

• 33.79 non-penalty xG (19th); 53.44 non-penalty xGA (20th)

• Top goal scorer: Ryo Sato (5 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Shugo Tsuji

It’s been a theme over the past few seasons that Ehime FC’s terrible defense was a major issue. Yet, they simply never resolved it and this time around Ehime were rightfully relegated. Just three wins all seasons says it all really, it’s less than half of that of the next worse team in the table! The only time they spent outside the relegation zone during the entire season was on Matchday 1 (when they only lost by one goal to… newly promoted Kataller Toyama) and Matchday 3 when they somehow drew 1-1 vs. eventual league winners Mito HollyHock!

If you remember my 2024 J2 season review, I wrote the same thing that their underlying numbers have always been awful but this time it’s finally sunk them. They were absolutely rock bottom in terms of both goals conceded and xGA.

Players like Yuta Fukazawa and Shunsuke Tanimoto were doing their best though. Fukazawa stood out for his defensive activity (no doubt helped by how long Ehime spent defending of course…). While in-posssession Tanimoto was good at progressing the ball forward with his passing and carrying.

Their attack wasn’t much better considering they scored Ehime scored the 3rd least goals from the 2nd worst non-penalty xG. Things were dire all around. Perhaps the one bright light was Hidemasa Koda with 2 goals and 4 assists but he was only on loan from Nagoya Grampus.

It’s very hard to find any positives about them aside from the fact that Ehime have been very adamant about keeping a fairly young squad (aside from Tokushige), even if more than a few of their actual best players are just loans from J1 clubs. At the very least, they can bounce back in J3 without being weighed down by too many expensive multi-year contracts. This is on top of the fact that they don’t have too many foreign players and those that did barely played significant minutes so it’s much easier to justify letting them go.

Data Visualizations

Squad Age Profiles

I changed the calculation of a squad’s median age up a bit by simply taking into account only players that have played 50% of more of total possible league minutes. This is so when looking at the ‘average’ age of a team, we’re doing a better job of considering players who are regulars in the team. I am not sure how other people might do it but from playing around with the raw data it looks OK, most teams have around 9~12 players that meet this threshold so I do think I’m capturing the right selection of players in any given team.

Anyway, here’s the list of the U-23 players in the league with the most minutes played so far this season (filtered for those that have played more than 50% of total possible league minutes). You might want to keep an eye on these guys in the short-to-medium term. One of the simplest ways to judge a player’s quality is minutes played. It doesn’t matter how much talent you have or how much potential if, in the end, you don’t actually see minutes on the pitch to show it off!

• Click here for the gallery of the viz for every team!

Scoring Situations

Ideally, I would have data that concerns all shots or xG accumulated from different match situations as that would mean a much larger sample of data to power any insights (as goals are only the end result and may not give us information about a team’s actual performance).

• Click here for the gallery of the viz for every team!

Team Shot Quantity & Team Shot Quality

In the previous few sections we got to know a lot about the goals that J.League teams scored. However, in a sport like soccer/football goals are hard to come by, they might not really accurately represent a team’s actual ability or performance (even if ultimately, it’s the end result that matters). To take things one step further I was able to gather data from Sporteria on shot quantity to dive a bit more into team performances. I’ve reversed the order of some of the stats in these next few plots so that in all cases the top right is best and bottom left is the worst teams when looking at their respective stats.

So, what exactly is expected goals (xG)? Expected goals is a statistic where a model assigns a probability (between 0 and 1) that a shot taken will result in a goal based on a variety of variables and is used for evaluating the quality of chances and predicting players’ and teams’ future performances. A xG model only looks at the variables up to the point that the player touches the ball for a shot. Post-shot xG models covers the information about where in the frame of the goal the shot went (“post” as in all the information after the player touches the ball for the shot) but I won’t cover that here.

For some quick primers on xG check the links below:

• Expected Goals in Context (StatsPerform)

• What is xG? (TifoFootball)

• Football Stats Explainer: xG - Grace On Football

The following two sections use xG data from Football-Lab. I’m not privy to all of what goes into their model but the explanation page on their website (in Japanese) tells us about some of the information they used:

• Distance from goal?

• Angle from goal line?

• Aerial duel?

• Body part used?

• Number of touches? (one touch, more than two touches, set plays, etc.)

• Play situation? (Corner kick, direct/indirect free kick, open play, etc.)

So, the usual variables that you might recognize from other xG models are being considered. Combining shot quantity and shot quality numbers gives you a much better idea about a team’s performance on either side of the ball.

xG Difference

xG Difference is pretty much the same thing as Goal Difference except that we use xG and xGA rather than goals and goals against. This lets us see very quickly which teams generally outperformed their opponents in terms of quality of chances created to quality of chances conceded based on a xG model. This time around I also included the team’s results inside the bubble points. So it’s easier to see whether a team that had a positive xGD in a specific match couldn’t manage to win the game or vice-versa. You ideally want to be below the diagonal line and winning (W) these games as well.

• Click here for the gallery of the viz for every team!

Five Match Rolling Averages

Goals vs. Goals Against

• Click here for the gallery of the viz for every team!

xG vs. xGA

• Click here for the gallery of the viz for every team!

xG vs. Goals

• Click here for the gallery of the viz for every team!

xGA vs. Goals Against

• Click here for the gallery of the viz for every team!

Summary

I’ll be honest, I enjoyed watching J2 far more than I did J1 this season. Yes, I sound like a hipster but it’s true! It’s clear a lot of other people did too as the J2 league hit their highest ever attendance record this season. An average of 8,888 fans per match across 380 games!

With promotion and relegation going down to the last few minutes of the final matchday on top of an absolutely rocking play-offs the 2025 season was one to remember. Mito HollyHock, V-Varen Nagasaki, and JEF United clinch a berth in next year’s 100 Year Vision League and the 2026/2027 season as J1 teams!

There’s still quite a few matches from this season that I want to watch so I may update sections on certain players or perhaps I might even write up a Shogun Soccer Scouting piece on them. There’s tons of talent even down in the Japanese 2nd Divsion, don’t sleep on J2!

Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays!

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Also, the J2 Season Review is also out!

This is a long read! I really recommend you read it one or two sections at a time. These reviews have a bit more casual, fun tone compared to my scouting reports.

This review consists of:

• The league table

• A section on every J1 team: Summary overview, tactics, data, players, etc.

• A section on the different types of data viz: Explanations and link to the viz for every team

Some notes, warnings, disclaimers, etc.:

• All the data stuff is done with R.

• All the tactical stuff is created using Tacticalista.

• To keep up to date with all of what’s happening in J1, I made a giant Twitter thread of lots of cool informed people to follow on Twitter for English language/international J.League content. You can find it here!

• All of the shots and xG related stuff you see in the viz are non-penalty stats. Exceptions are stuff like the time interval and scoring situations plots. When I mentioned these stats in writing I usually mean non-penalty at the team level. At the player level it depends as some of my sources don’t go down to stripping out penalty xG.

• Data sources: Transfermarkt, Sporteria, Football-Lab, FBref, Footy-Stats

• Once again, this has taken up a gargantuan amount of time for me to watch/read/code/compile/organize so the best thing you can do for me is share it out to the world, especially if you work in the football industry!

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Let’s get started!

League Table

A reminder that this season, only 1st and 2nd are guaranteed Asian Champions League Elite spots so the honor goes to Kashima Antlers and Kashiwa Reysol. The winner of the 100 Year Vision League next season gets the remaining Asian Champions League Elite spot for the 2026/2027 season. Due to the fact that Machida Zelvia won the Emperor’s Cup, they go into the Asian Champions League 2 next season. There are some other permutations if a Japanese team wins either continental competition so beware of that in the near future.

Kashima Antlers (1st, 76 Points)

• 23 Wins // 7 Draws // 8 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Kashima // Kashima Soccer Stadium

• Manager: Tohru Oniki

• 58 Goals (4th); 31 Conceded (2nd)

• 42.24 non-penalty xG (13th); 44.29 non-penalty xGA (12th)

• Top goal scorer: Leo Ceara (20 goals plus 1 penalty)

• Goalkeeper: Tomoki Hayakawa

• Mid-Season Review: Kashima Antlers

Kashima Antlers are your 2025 J.League Champions! It’s been a long time coming for the traditional powerhouse club as this is their first title since 2016. There were a few periods where they dipped, three straight losses between matchday 8 to 10 and a worrying four game patch where they didn’t win but at the end of the day, you can’t deny the fact that they did not lose a SINGLE game after a July 5th loss in Matchday 23 to Kawasaki Frontale!

Things looked bleak for Kashima Antlers after they lost starting Center Back Ikuma Sekigawa, starting Left Back Koki Anzai, and important squad attacker Shu Morooka all to season-ending injuries but they managed to persevere. Their replacements within the squad and new signings all worked out near-perfectly, it was a real team effort from everybody involved on-and-off the pitch!

At the business end of the season, Kashima only conceded four in their last 10 games and did not allow more than a single goal conceded in a game since that crazy 3-2 win over Reysol back in the July! Getting the double over Reysol proved to be decisive as the teams only finished one point apart. All throughout the season, Kashima showed considerable grit, tenacity, and outfighting opponents rather than completely overwhelming them.

The biggest reason for their wins this season was their uncanny ability to score crucial goals at crucial times through brute force, wonder goals, and set pieces even when they struggled to break opponents down all game. After a while it became a self-reinforcing belief, an expectation that even with the struggles, that Kashima would score and somehow keep turning losses into draws and draws into wins throughout the season. For those that have been watching J.League over many decades, this might remind you of the same mysterious quality that dominant Kashima Antlers teams of previous eras had.

The two players that were essential to this was Leo Ceara and Yuma Suzuki. We’ve all seen over the years how much of a leader and character Yuma Suzuki is for his team, even begrudgingly as opponent fans. Along with his usual play-making role dropping and/or drifting to the left side he finished off as the team’s 2nd highest goal scorer with 10 goals from 8.68 xG.

After a fantastic two years at Cerezo Osaka, Leo Ceara moved to Kashima Antlers to much fanfare. The Brazilian managed not just to become the top goal scorer for both Kashima and the league in general but also set a career high goals tally if you remove penalties (last year he scored 16 non-penalty goals versus 20 this season). Ceara’s total of 21 goals came from 11.59 xG representing a both keen finishing streak in front of goal and the ability to consistently get on the end of good chances.

Funnily enough, the next best goal scorer was Kei Chinen but I’ll talk about him in the midfielder section. Yuta Matsumura returned to Kashima this season after a half-year on loan at Tokyo Verdy in 2024. While not quite a regular starter, he actually played in all 38 games of the season as Oniki prized him as a 2nd Half substitute to change the game up. His pace played an important role as he was tasked with making lots of runs behind against tired legs. Matsumura also ended up with 3 goals and 6 assists, quite a few being crucial to the title race including the assist for the last second equalizer vs. Kyoto, scoring the only goal vs. Verdy in the penultimate day, and of course, getting the assist vs. Marinos on the final matchday. In a similar vein, Aleksandar Cavric played a supporting role and made a difference with 3 goals and 4 assists.

All of the above was important considering that when you look at Kashima’s attacking data in the aggregate, it paints a rather curious picture:

• 14th in final 3rd entries, 11th in penalty box entries, and 12th in shots

• … and yet 5th in shots on target and 5th in goals scored!

In defense, I found it very odd how easy it was for opponents to punch passes into gaps in Kashima’s midfield. However, all that ball progression and conceding ground didn’t really matter when Kashima’s Back 4 were so good at defending their box by delaying and containing threats for support to arrive, as well as putting their bodies on the line for blocks and tackles. Even when opponents managed to get through all that, Tomoya Hayakawa was on his best ever form in goal to make the saves.

What was an interesting tactical bit we saw from Kashima this season was how they would shift to more of a Back 3 in the build-up phase as one of the midfielders usually dropped in and one of the Full Backs would really push forward. This platform either allowed the midfielder to dictate or it would give a little more space for Naomichi Ueda to hit long balls and long diagonals into the final 3rd to bypass the opponent’s block altogether. In terms of outfield players, I think Naomichi Ueda was as important as Leo Ceara or Yuma Suzuki. With 5 assists the defender was only behind Yuta Matsumura for most assists on the team!

With Ikuma Sekigawa’s season ending injury before the summer, it was up to Kim Taehyeon to step up to partner Ueda and he did quite a good job. So much so that he even earned his debut for the full Korean National Team. Otherwise there was not a whole lot of playing time for Keisuke Tsukui or any other Center Back as Antlers did not need to rotate much there.

Ryuta Koike made a big move from Marinos in the off-season and became a key player, interestingly he played a lot as a wide midfielder especially after Shu Morooka’s injury instead of his usual Full Back position. On the Left, Ryoya Ogawa, another returnee from Europe, made the Left Back spot his own after the summer and adding a lot of experience. Kimito Nouno did not have as crazy a season as he did in 2024 when he scored 9 goals. It made sense considering those goals came off of just 4.2 xG. In 2025, Nouno was reduced to just 1 goal off of 1.36 xG which was way more in line with expectations. I maintain the opinion I had in last year’s review that people were vastly overrating him because of those goals. To be clear, I do think Nouno has good attributes especially his intense physicality to make good runs forward to crash the final 3rd/box is exactly why he was in place to score those goals in the first place. Still, his defending isn’t much to write about and he’s not much of a passer from deep nor a particularly creative one either.

In midfield, Yu Funabashi came to the fore this season as passer (and set pieces), taking up the passer role from the veteran Gaku Shibasaki who looked like age was finally catching up to him. I quite like Funabashi as he supports build-up play quite well. He can also push forward and punch line-breaking passes to progress the ball. He didn’t win as many minutes as you’d imagine as by the season’s end, Oniki had a preference for more aggressive guys who could win 2nd/loose balls compared to the more technical abilities that Funabashi provided. Kento Misao was a jack-of-all-trades, dovetailing nicely with whoever happened to be next to him in the double pivot while Kei Chinen continued his odd cosplay as a central midfielder. I’m not the biggest fan of him there but he fills the role of being super physical and winning the ball!

A curious part of this season was how Tohru Oniki decided to adapt more to “Kashima’s Way“ rather than forcibly imposing the style that he cultivated to great success at Kawasaki Frontale. What I really liked about his management was how aggressive he was about using substitutions, many times even at Half Time, which I think is a good thing and something more managers should be doing. While Oniki kept a core of Hayakawa, Ueda, Koike, Ceara, and Yuma Suzuki there were a lot of rotations in most other positions, especially in center midfield. Although perhaps not what people want to read from a tactics & data piece but so much about Kashima’s season was also about fighting spirit and the “intangibles” of football.

It will be interesting to see in the subsequent seasons how much Oniki tries to pull Kashima towards the football he enchanted many at Frontale or whether he will continue molding his style with what he has available at Kashima. It is unlikely that Kashima can repeat the same results with the same underlying performances that they showed throughout this season, there is a lot that needs to be improved. However, this season’s results has given Tohru Oniki enough of a cachet to continue improving the team tactically and also convince Kashima’s higher-ups to spend in the transfer market to realize his vision: multiple league titles and a Asian Champions League title that was out-of-reach for even his monstrous Kawasaki Frontale sides.

Kashiwa Reysol (2nd, 75 Points)

• 21 Wins // 12 Draws // 5 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Kashiwa // Sankyo Frontier Kashiwa Stadium, “Hitachidai”

• Manager: Ricardo Rodriguez

• 60 Goals (tied 3rd); 34 Conceded (4th)

• 46.72 xG (6th); 40.28 xGA (6th)

• Top goal scorer: Mao Hosoya (10 goals plus 1 penalty)

• Goalkeeper: Ryosuke Kojima

• Mid-Season Review: Kashiwa Reysol

Kashiwa Reysol have been in a rut over the past few seasons, mired in relegation trouble and looking rather directionless. In came a breath of fresh air, the start of Ricardo Rodriguez’s Reysol Revolution! The Spanish manager who previously transformed Tokushima Vortis and Urawa Reds was able to work his magic with Kashiwa too. An overhaul of their playing style to something clear, distinct, and effective in such a short period of time. Overall, Reysol never fell below 5th in the table for the entire season! This was remarkable considering their recent prior seasons where they were quite bad... nearly relegated as a matter of fact.

Koki Kumasaka was the eye-catching player of the first half of the season, his performances earned him his first ever call-up. However, disaster struck as he suffered an ACL injury in training… Kumasaka was an interesting profile because at 185cm he is quite tall for a Japanese Center Midfielder. With his size he could snap into tackles and win duels but also had a lot of technique in terms of his turning ability in tight spaces and good range of passing. Kumasaka was exactly the kind of midfielder that suited Rodriguez’s new-look Reysol team with his ability to support his teammates in possession and receive in the right places.

In a blink of an eye Reysol had a ready-made replacement. Nobuteru Nakagawa surprisingly left off where Kumasaka began and continued to orchestrate play from the middle of the park. Nakagawa has a similar passing profile to Kumasaka although he is much smaller and doesn’t quite have his overwhelming physical traits. On the other hand is far more involved in the final 3rd and contributed with 3 goals and 4 assists.

Due to the deserved accolades given out to the two above, Yuto Yamada was often overlooked but he was quite good as well. Unfortunately he also suffered a major injury in the closing months of the season…

Taiyo Koga led the back-line and was the only field player to play every single minute of the league campaign. It wasn’t just his good defending but also his ability to pass the ball equally with both left and right foot that made him a leader for Kashiwa in possession as well. However, vital mistakes in crucial games, especially the one against Kashima Antlers in the summer will surely haunt him. There was a whole rotating cast of other Center Backs around him as the season progressed, including many who were converted due to the demands of the “Wide Center Back” role in the Back 3.

Wataru Harada, having played in similar positions at Sagan Tosu, took like a fish to water under Ricardo Rodriguez’s playstyle. Operating equally as a Wide Center Back in the half-space but also pushing forward like a Full Back, he was quite integral to supporting the wing backs in attacking sequences. Others such as Seiya Baba, Daiki Sugioka, and even the veteran Hiromu Mitsumaru slotted in at various times to mixed effect. Hayato Tanaka looked promising at V-Varen Nagasaki in J2 last year, I had high hopes as I thought he’d be the kind of ball-playing CB that Rodriguez would like. Tanaka had a decent enough start but has completely disappeared from the squad altogether in the 2nd half of the season as Rodriguez seemed to prefer a different profile in the Wide Center Back role.

The only other player to play every single minute of the league campaign was the goalkeeper Ryosuke Kojima. Well-known for his frequent involvement in the build-up phase, he was exactly the type of goalkeeper that Rodriguez would’ve requested. Kojima’s involvement, the Back 3 shifting to a Back 4, there was a whole lot of variety in Reysol’s build-up patterns that made it difficult for the opposition to press them. Further forward, there were also lots of rotations across positions to create space and keep the ball to bamboozle opposition blocks and discombobulate man-marking schemes.

Out-of-possession, Reysol’s defensive numbers were pretty good and it was fantastic in the run-in as they only conceded once in the final six games. Overall Reysol posted the 5th best in shots against and 6th in non-penalty xGA, however were 14th in xGA per shot. Reysol were vulnerable in the usual ways when playing a 3-4-2-1 formation in long balls behind the space vacated by the Wing Backs and subsequently dragging the Back 3 away from the center to defend against crosses.

Tojiro Kubo’s excellent performances earned him a call-up to the EAFF Japan squad in July. His dribbling skills and creativity provided a whole lot of danger down the Right Wing. A medium-term injury at the end of the summer meant he missed a huge chunk of the final games though. On the opposite flank, I thought Tomoya Koyamatsu was great with 3 goals and 10 assists. He’s been a solid contributor across a number of teams for many years but he needed to be platformed in the correct way as a winger/wing-back for maximum impact. Koyamatsu’s output this year compared to the past two seasons under extremely poor management represents this day-and-night difference very well. If Kubo leaves for Europe than Yusei Yamanouchi might be the guy to replace him, he made a smattering of appearances near the end of the season. Still very raw but shows some promise with his good physical traits that gives him the ability to bomb up and down the wing.

Yoshio Koizumi was reunited with his ex-Urawa Reds manager and performed at his best again. He was a leader in the sense that he clearly knew what was required by Rodriguez and set the standards very high for his teammates to follow. On the other hand, Takuya Shimamura and Yota Komi were quite disappointing after the unofficial “swap” deal with Albirex Niigata.

The striker position was an interesting case this season. Mao Hosoya became the top goal scorer with 11 goals, yet he only started 13 out of 36 games! His strength and hard-running made him an ideal super-sub against tiring defenses and he answered with some vital goals throughout 2025. To me, Hosoya has always had the physical capabilities to succeed in Europe but I do think the best time for him to leave was in the 2023 season when he banged in a career high 13 goals but from various reports he seems to prefer to stay in Japan. It was Yuki Kakita that started most games up top and he provided the brawn and sacrificed himself so others could run or pass into the spaces he opened up. Despite not getting a whole lot of shots due to his activity outside the box, the big man still managed to contribute with 6 goals and 5 assists.

Their attacking metrics overall seemed quite good on the surface. Reysol ranked 1st in terms of both final 3rd entries and penalty box entries showing how effective their possession game was in advancing into danger areas. As you might imagine, a lot of their goals came from intricate passing sequences and cut-backs/crosses following a half-space run into the box.

However, a lot of their goals came in spurts. There were quite a few games where they simply couldn’t break opponents down and add that final touch to finish off chances. This is what led to the fact that Reysol drew 12 games this season, a league record tied with Kawasaki Frontale, Avispa Fukuoka, and Albirex Niigata. In particular, four league draws in a row especially against fellow title contenders Kobe and Sanfrecce in September really cut down their title hopes during the month of September. Those eight points dropped along with the painful 2-3 loss vs. Kashima Antlers back in late July was ultimately the difference!

Much like Skibbe’s first season in charge at Sanfrecce a few years ago, Ricardo Rodriguez was a huge catalyst in moving a stagnant Kashiwa Reysol toward a new direction in quick time. They fell just a point short and a big factor was that Reysol weren’t able to record a win against any of the other teams in the top 5 (all of Antlers, Kobe, Sanga, and Sanfrecce!), especially being defeated twice by Antlers. Crucially they could not convert (or conceded) in tight games which meant that they drew a lot of games they could/should have won instead. For how good of a season it was, football is a cruel sport and they also lost in the final of League Cup too.

There was lots of heartbreak but in turn there should be a lot of optimism for Reysol going forward. Reysol’s front office did a good job shaping the squad to Rodriguez’s stylistic preferences quite quickly but there’s still more work to be done in identifying more players especially with the Asian Champions League to worry about next autumn.

Kyoto Sanga (3rd, 68 Points)

• 19 Wins // 11 Draws // 8 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Kyoto // Sanga Stadium

• Manager: Cho Kwi-jae

• 62 Goals (2nd); 40 Conceded (8th)

• 42.96 xG (11th); 45.86 xGA (14th)

• Top goal scorer: Rafael Elias (15 goals plus 3 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Gakuji Ota

• Mid-Season Review: Kyoto Sanga

It was a historic season for Kyoto Sanga but perhaps it could’ve been even more of a success? The purple team from Kyoto actually started the season quite poorly having only won once in their first 5 games but from then on they never dipped below 7th and were in the top 4 for the majority of the season.

Unfortunately, the wheels started to come off in September as injuries piled up and a long string of draws in the fall, including allowing a last millisecond equalizer to title rivals Kashima Antlers, then a devastating loss to Yokohama F. Marinos the next matchday spelt the end for Kyoto’s fairy-tale run.

A lot of Kyoto’s form over the past two-ish seasons has been riding on the coattails of consistently elite finishing from Rafael Elias or Taichi Hara. The Brazilian finished the season with a fantastic 18 goals from 11.3 xG and struck fear into every single J.League team. Funnily enough Hara scored only 5 goals from 8.7 xG this season but in his stead both Masaya Okugawa with 7 goals from 3.7 xG and Marco Tulio with 6 goals from 2.5 xG have taken up the “clinical/lucky finishing” mantle. Okugawa had a funny habit of popping up at random moments to score despite not visibly doing much aside from his monstrous amount of pressing.

Kyoto as a team don’t take a whole lot of shots, they were 14th in the league for shots taken while also arriving in the final 3rd the 16th most and entering the box the 15th most per game. However, they were ridiculously efficient when they did get chances as they have the 3rd highest shots on target per game which led to having the 2nd most goals scored... again this is all from having the 7th lowest shots per game in the league as well as only a mid-table rank xG!

However, at various points of the season the attacking unit was left running on fumes due to various injuries and the goal scoring sputtered to a halt in the last 10 games of the season. Funnily enough, Shun Nagasawa of all players did his part, chipping in with 3 goals from 2.95 xG and 3 assists across crucial matches like the winner vs. Cerezo Osaka in late September and the assist to open the score vs. Kashima Antlers in late October. This just about kept them in the title race until October.

It’s honestly incredible that Kyoto were able to make it this far considering their transfer misses with Murilo, Gustavo Barreto, Patrick William, Joao Pedro all flattering to deceive... At least Marco Tulio was somewhat effective with 6 goals and 3 assists but considering how much they paid for him and his wages, I think you’d be hoping for a lot more?

In the middle of the park, Shimpei Fukuoka did a decent enough job as the single pivot supporting play on either side of the ball while Taiki Hirato was a big threat on set-pieces and ended the season with 6 assists. Of course, the real star of the show was Sota Kawasaki who started off his Kyoto career as more of a #6 and slowly turned into more of a box-to-box player. He’s not the best passer but super energetic and supports play in every 3rd of the pitch. As per for a Kyoto player, very physical and likes to get stuck in. Unfortunately Kyoto let him, their captain, leave on a LOAN DEAL (yep, you heard that right) in the middle of a title race to Mainz 05 in the summer!

Kyoto’s defense wasn’t great but for the most part it was a settled line-up compared to many other teams. Yuta Miyamoto and Yoshinori Suzuki back-line continued being somewhat OK enough to keep them in the title race even as injuries in attack mounted ahead of them. I mean, neither Api Tawiah nor Shogo Asada made much of a case to win a starting spot. I think Miyamoto provided a lot of passing from deep but it’s clear how he is a converted Full Back playing in the center given how poor his aerial ability is.

Shinnosuke Fukuda continues to be a pocket-rocket down the Right, lots of rumors about a move to Charlton Athletic that fell through in the summer, I imagine they and other teams will be back for him this winter. Hidehiro Sugai had a very good season that harkens back to the promise he first showed at Ventforet Kofu a few years ago.

Overall though, the defensive numbers were never good and they had to have Gakuji Ota have an unbelievable season between the sticks (only topped by Tomoya Hayakawa for Antlers).

Just three wins in the last 10 games of the season including managing to snag a draw from the jaws of defeat at Shonan to then only snatch a draw from the jaws of victory a week later in the decisive game vs. Kashima Antlers, put a damper on what was otherwise an enormously successful season.

The key question now is: do they have the ambition to spend some money in the short term?

It’ll be really interesting to see how Kyoto evolve as a club from this unforeseeable experience and their movements in the upcoming winter transfer window. Unless they credibly improve their defending outside of their energy-intensive pressing, I have considerable skepticism that they can keep this momentum going through the 100 Year Vision League and into the 2026-2027 season...

Sanfrecce Hiroshima (4th, 68 Points)

• 20 Wins // 8 Draws // 10 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Hiroshima // Edion Peace Wing Stadium

• Manager: Michael Skibbe

• 46 Goals (10th); 28 Conceded (1st)

• 53.92 xG (1st); 34.29 xGA (2nd)

• Top goal scorer: Sota Nakamura (6 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Keisuke Osako

• Mid-Season Review: Sanfrecce Hiroshima

Michael Skibbe and Sanfrecce Hiroshima celebrated yet another League Cup victory (this time a set-piece fueled 3-0 win over Kashiwa Reysol) but they fell flat in all other competitions. The ACL2 campaign was a disaster as Sanfrecce accidentally fielded the ineligible Valere Germain which got their first leg vs. Lion City Sailors turned into a 0-3 defeat, their Emperor’s Cup run ended in a semi-final defeat vs. Vissel Kobe, and the same issues plaguing this team over the past few years reared their ugly heads again to another disappointing league finish. As has been the case for the entirety of Skibbe’s tenure, Sanfrecce drew too many games or lost out as opponents were just more clinical than them.

So once again. Every year under Skibbe. Every six months when I write about Sanfrecce Hiroshima these past few years the big topic has been about finishing & xG.

Here is an excerpt from last year…

The problem with them is that while Sanfrecce rack up the shots and the xG on paper, it’s more of a result of the absolute volume of shots they are willing to take rather than consistently making medium-to-high quality shots.

> from the J1 2024 Mid-Season Review

… and another…

Sure, they have the highest xG but when you consider that all these years, the plan has been to take hundreds of shots… but poor quality ones mainly created via crosses (most per game in the league), it’s no surprise that their xG per Shot is fairly low and their finishing from those chances have also been low. To put it simply, it’s quite telling that they are 3rd in shots taken… yet 14th in shots on target and 13th in goals scored!

> from the J1 2025 Mid-Season Review

Whether it’s simply a personnel issue and/or a tactical issue I feel like I’m repeating myself every six months when it comes to Sanfrecce’s review section, it really drives me crazy. When I mean tactical issue I feel like they are playing in a particular way that ends up in creating certain type of chances that are hard to score. With Skibbe leaving this season I imagine something will change, at least I hope for everybody’s sanity.

Valere Germain was another transfer dud at the striker position. Much like with Sotiriou, Ben Khalifa, etc. Sanfrecce have had a poor record with foreign striker signings over the past few years. Still, the headline grabber for this season was, of course, Ryo Germain’s horrible-no-good-very-bad finishing season! 4 goals from over 10 xG. 3 of his 4 goals were penalties. So in reality that’s 1 non-penalty goal from close to 8 non-penalty xG! Using FotMob’s data, Germain generated 0.28 non-penalty xG per 90 but turned that into only 0.17 xG On Target per 90. Despite taking 2.47 shots per 90, he only got 0.60 per 90 on target!

Looking at the very few positives… then yes, Germain contributed a decent amount in build-up play, hold-up play, sacrificed himself a lot in physical battles and making runs for others. He had 3 assists. No matter how you slice it though, Ryo Germain’s 2025 J1 season will live on in infamy. Kosuke Kinoshita ended up with 6 goals and 2 assists since coming over from Kashiwa Reysol in the summer. I still don’t think he’s a great player but he was more like the best out of a misfiring bad bunch and in only a half-season too.

So Sanfrecce ended the season taking the most shots (again, obviously), getting into the final 3rd the 4th most times in the league, entering the opponent box the 3rd most times… but only taking the 7th most shots-on-target leading to just 8th in total goal scored… In the below graph, see how the dark green line is hanging out down low underneath the light green line for most of the season? It’s a clear demonstration of their main issue this season.

In the unit just behind the striker, Sanfrecce saw a new talent blossom straight out of the university system. Sota Nakamura was a revelation after joining from Meiji University this year. Extremely fast, sharp, and technical. He does pop up with various “wow” moments but if I’m going to be honest I do have some doubts about how he’d scale up to a European league level, even at a non-top 5 league which might be scrutinized if I take a closer look during the off-season. Nakamura is definitely the best university graduate “rookie” in J1 this season though. Despite missing a chunk of the season through injury and being forced to play at Wing Back at various times, he still ended up being Sanfrecce’s top goal scorer with 6 goals (although from just 3.76 xG) to add to his 6 assists.

It was a frustrating season for Naoki Maeda. He’s got lovely movement making runs behind or on the dribble but he just doesn’t have any end-product with just 2 goals off of 4.3 xG. Unfortunately, Tolgay Arslan suffered a huge injury in the spring. The German was also one of the few players that was actually clinical from low quality chances (as seen last season) so Sanfrecce lost that “edge” too. Marcos Jr. was also injured for most of the season and I think his time is done, he just can’t make an impact on the game like he used to which is a huge shame since he was enormously fun to watch at Marinos. Indeed, it was announced in late November that the Brazilian and Sanfrecce are going separate ways.

It’s been very clear for several years now that Sanfrecce have one of the league’s best defenses. 2025 was no different even as Tsukasa Shiotani and Sho Sasaki look to be on their last legs. Hayato Araki and Keisuke Osako’s gargantuan efforts led to both receiving Japan National Team call-ups and not just the domestic-based EAFF Cup either but the full squad. Players like Osamu Iyoha and Hiroya Matsumoto had been waiting for a long time in the wings to take over from Shiotani and Sasaki, it never quite happened and both players left. However, the arrival of Kim Ju-Sung in the summer really signaled the fact that the time to phase out at least one of the two veterans was coming soon. The Korean defender took a bit of time to settle in and only ended up playing in eight league games.

At Wing Back, it was the usual suspects again with Shuto Nakano, Shunki Higashi, and Naoto Arai sharing responsibilities with Sota Nakamura occasionally filling in. Long time readers will know I’ve been a big fan of Shuto Nakano, especially after a fantastic 2024 season and yet he’s never been considered for the national team (not even the EAFF Cup!). While he’s not as refined on the ball as the more coveted Japanese defenders out there, Nakano brings a whole lot of physicality to the role bombing down the wings while also being able to play as a Center Back due to his aerial dominance and duel strength. An added bonus is he can take long throw-ins too. Shuto Nakano is certainly an interesting profile but at age 25 the window of opportunity is closing.

On the left flank has been Shunki Higashi. He is the more technical counterpart to Nakano and is the team’s primary set-piece taker. However, compared to last season’s 8 assists Higashi had zero but did score 3 goals instead. Higashi may have been a victim of his teammate’s profligacy here…

The midfield was fairly settled throughout the season with veteran Hayao Kawabe being paired up with Satoshi Tanaka for the majority of 2025. The newcomer here was Yotaro Nakajima, who had made a number of cameo appearances in the 2024 season. The 19 year old possess a startling knack for controlling the tempo of the game with his passing and great spatial awareness. Unfortunately, what should’ve been his break-out season was marred by injury issues and missing league games due to national team duty. I’m hoping Nakajima can spend the off-season recovering and gearing up for a big 2026 season.

Satoshi Tanaka is another old favorite of mine. Despite his initial foray into Europe with Kortrijk not succeeding, he put his head down and improved to a point where Sanfrecce brought him into the fold ahead of the 2025 season. Tanaka exhibited his usual tenacity in duels and keen awareness in interceptions but also an ability to get forward and threaten himself in the final 3rd. He really is such an all-rounder now that can perform box-to-box roles with his energetic displays and not limited to sitting deep and destroying. European teams really should be looking to give him a second chance soon.

With Tolgay Arslan’s devastating injury, Shion Inoue deemed to not be intense/aggressive enough for Sanfrecce’s style of play, and the fact that Taishi Matsumoto left for Urawa, Sanfrecce Hiroshima were stretched thin here at various points in the season as everybody except for Hayao Kawabe spent some time in the doctor’s room. As such Tsukasa Shiotani had to be pulled out from the Back 3 to play in his original position as a midfielder for medium-sized chunks of the season.

Sanfrecce’s pressing was sharp, intense as usual but big problems arose when the midfielders stepped up but couldn’t prevent the forward pass, either because they were too late or not in sync with the Front 3. This meant that it could be fairly easy to break past Sanfrecce’s lines as the space between the forwards/midfielders and Back 3 would be stretched open which defeated the whole point of being so gung-ho and aggressive in the first place. In a high-mid block, when the opponent shifted the ball out wide, the midfielders also shifted over very aggressively to trap players against the sideline but it also meant the defense were very exposed if the opponent managed to escape that pressure.

Over the years opponent teams have learned to cleverly pin the Back 3 deep and open up the gap between Sanfrecce’s midfield and defense lines to exploit these spaces. Of course, a lot of these dangerous attacks from the opponent were extinguished by the aforementioned strength of the Back 3 and Osako in goal but it’s not something that should be taken lightly.

By the numbers, Sanfrecce Hiroshima should’ve won the league at a canter. However, football doesn’t quite work that way! It was another year of “so close, yet so far” as despite a thumping League Cup win vs. Kashiwa Reysol, Sanfrecce fell short in the league (slumping to a 4th place finish), lost in the semi-finals of the Emperor’s Cup, and embarrassingly lost in the ACL2 due to an administrative error.

It was announced in late November that Michael Skibbe will indeed leave the club. The German leaves a strong legacy but also a lot of “What Ifs” considering the amount of firepower his teams across the past four seasons were able to generate but just couldn’t convert into actual fungible goals. Still, it’s evident that Skibbe had a huge impact on the club as he completely transformed the play-style and elevated Sanfrecce Hiroshima back into consecutive years of title contention after a number of seasons in mid-table. Sanfrecce have returned to accept high standards now and any prospective manager has available a very good squad along with an energized fan base in a fantastic new stadium.

Vissel Kobe (5th, 64 Points)

• 18 Wins // 10 Draws // 10 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Kobe // Noevir Stadium

• Manager: Takayuki Yoshida

• 46 Goals (tied 8th); 33 Conceded (3rd)

• 46.96 xG (4th); 33.16 xGA (1st)

• Top goal scorer: Taisei Miyashiro (11 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Daiya Maekawa

• Mid-Season Review: Vissel Kobe

The two-time defending champions had a slow start to the season which was highlighted by a disappointing Asian Champions League Round of 16 exit to Gwangju FC in March having led 2-0 in the first leg (I will note that Shandong Taishan’s withdrawal penalized Kobe the most out of any ACL team when they should’ve finished 2nd in the league stage instead of 5th). Kobe also lost the pre-season Super Cup to Sanfrecce Hiroshima and then didn’t win until the fifth league game of the season. From there though, Kobe was back firing on all cylinders pushing themselves into title contention in a tight table for most of the season in the true gritty fashion that we’ve come accustomed to in the past few years. Things fell apart in October after a loss against Urawa Reds dropped them down from 2nd and Kobe didn’t recover from that with three straight draws eliminating them from the title race altogether. To top it all off, Kobe reached the final of the Emperor’s Cup for a fight against Machida Zelvia only to hand the upstart team their first ever trophy.

Kobe’s successes in the past few years have been built on former Japan internationals, Yuya Osako and Yoshinori Muto. While the former came back to appear and contribute with 8 goals and 3 assists, the latter struggled to get back into the groove of things with injury troubles and finished with a paltry 1 goal and 1 assist, a far cry from the MVP-winning 13 goals and 7 assists in the 2024 season.

In the veteran duo’s various absences, it was Daiju Sasaki, Taisei Miyashiro, and Erik that powered Kobe’s attack for a good chunk of the season. Taisei Miyashiro led the team with 11 goals and 4 assists, taking up minutes in the Front 3 but also in the #8/#10 position that Kobe employ in their shifting 4-3-3-ish shape. He’s an interesting player that can play multiple roles, working hard on-and-off the ball, being decent in the air and somewhat creative as well. Ren Komatsu came in during the summer to back-up and eventually replace Osako due to his similar profile as a fairly physical, aerial threat. However, he barely played in the league, less than an hour in fact!

Yosuke Ideguchi took up most of the minutes being very active in the midfield engine next to Ogihara. Takahiro Ogihara continued to defy his age of 34 years with indefatigable performances, appearing and starting in the second most games among outfield players. The ex-Marinos man’s distribution from deep as well as his intelligence in covering for Kobe’s pressing attackers made him the foundation of Kobe’s play both in and out of possession. Meanwhile Haruya Ide who had been a pretty solid squad player was surprisingly absent for most of the season.

As seen in various scenes highlighted above, Kobe are known for their high intensity off-and-on the ball. In possession they are very direct with lots of line-breaking runs and overlaps down the wings. A majority of their goals have come from open-play crosses and subsequent set-pieces that they win off those situations.

In defense, Kobe press high, keep the block high and compact between-the-lines and immediately counter-press when they lose the ball. They can shift more into a 4-2-3-1 without the ball compared to their 4-3-3 in-possession. While their back-line is aging, their best player is still in his prime as Matheus Thuler continues to be a dominant J1 Center Back. Alongside the Brazilian has usually been Tetsushi Yamakawa. On the flanks Gotoku Sakai remains a very good Full Back on either side at this level despite increased competition in recent years from Nanasei Iino, Katsuya Nagato, and Yuya Kuwasaki.

In goal, Daiya Maekawa is... fine at the J1 level? That’s it though. He makes lots of good saves but I’ve always been extremely skeptical about his decision-making coming out for crosses or sweeping behind the defense line.

Kobe rotated a lot this year given their participation in many domestic and international competitions. This was an experienced squad that have won a bunch of trophies under Takayuki Yoshida in the past few years and yet... they (finally) fell short in a surprising fashion this season. Losing to relegation battlers Yokohama FC in the summer, then going win-less from October onward... including giving up a 2-0 lead vs. Albirex Niigata to a dire 2-2 draw punctured any ballooning hopes of a title repeat before even November! Kobe finished the season in poor form with no league wins since late September…

I’ve been saying this for the past few seasons now but Osako, Sakai, Muto, Ogihara aren’t getting any younger. Credit to Kobe though that they have actually been preparing for this eventuality by bringing in a number of slightly-younger guys to fill out the squad. I had written most of this section thinking manager Takayuki Yoshida would stay but he announced he was leaving the club at the last home game of the season! In a way it does make sense that Kobe want to look in a different direction as despite the unprecedented successes, this season laid bare some of the limitations of the team reliant on a few stars in attack.

I think a lot of Kobe’s transfer movements will depend on whether Taisei Miyashiro stays or goes to Europe and then turn to how to freshen up the aging defensive unit surrounding Matheus Thuler. Kobe are still one of the top dogs in J1 but things are shifting dramatically around them. I imagine with a new manager and purported new direction, Kobe are going to change considerably over the 100 Year Vision League as they prepare for the 2026-2027 season.

Machida Zelvia (6th, 60 Points)

• 17 Wins // 9 Draws // 12 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Machida // Machida GION Stadium

• Manager: Go Kuroda

• 52 Goals (7th); 38 Conceded (tied 5th)

• 46.04 xG (7th); 34.43 xGA (3rd)

• Top goal scorer: Yuki Soma (8 goals plus 1 penalty)

• Goalkeeper: Kosei Tani

• Mid-Season Review: Machida Zelvia

A second season in J1 for Machida Zelvia under Go Kuroda and while the club were competitive across a increased number of fronts, it’s difficult to call it a true success given the mixed record across all competitions. Machida’s league form oscillated wildly between very good runs of form and some truly dire runs. An eight game winning streak from late June to August rocketed Machida back into title contention after a slow start but a solitary win in their last 11 matches of the season spelt the end for Machida’s title and ACL hopes in the autumn... On the other hand, Machida fought their way to a Emperor’s Cup victory, their first piece of major silverware in their entire history!

Some aspects of their notoriously miserly defending fell apart as they had some uncharacteristically heavy defeats like a 0-3 loss vs. Marinos and a crazy 3-5 loss away at Kawasaki Frontale but looking at things on the aggregate level things were still very good. However, the real story was their continuing attacking woes as I do feel like Machida struggle if one of their attackers don’t have a really good finishing day (or Yuta Nakayama blasting shots in from 30 meters out somehow...). Indeed, as the season came to a close, it became pretty obvious that their entire attack was Yuki Soma. That was it, just him. One guy. 2025 ended with a career high 9 goals and 9 assists for the winger as he also earned 5 caps for the Japan National Team.

Well, to be a bit more charitable to the other attackers, Takuma Nishimura did a pretty good job with 7 goals and 4 assists but I do feel he’s more of a guy that adds the finishing touches rather than really driving the team like Soma did this season. Na Sah-Ho has provided value as more of a super-sub this season as well. Up front Oh Se-hun, Shota Fujio, and Mitchell Duke all brought the physicality and fit Machida’s need for a strong presence for long balls and crosses but there’s not a whole lot of goals between them (2, 2, and 3 goals respectively). Machida’s attacking substitutions consist of rotating these guys and it was all one and the same much-ness.

Otherwise, Kotaro Hayashi made a copious amount of crosses and long throws while Henry Mochizuki continued to be an useful tool for ball progression. Mochizuki is an unique profile to come out of Japanese football. I have various concerns about his individual 1v1 defending and general inexperience handling defensive situations. However, his physical aspects can’t be denied and it’s a big reason why Moriyasu has been happy to give him minutes for the national team. Mochizuki’s strengths are as a “wide target man” for long balls and diagonal passes around the middle 3rd of the pitch, from where he then uses his powerful strides to push into the final 3rd. Unfortunately his end-product isn’t particularly noteworthy when he gets into dangerous areas and his ball carrying ability doesn’t extend to taking opponents on the dribble to enter the box. Already (surprisingly) 24 years old, I’m not sure how much upside he has, especially if he has to play against opponents who can easily match his physicality and then are also vastly more experienced on top of that.

Kuroda is going to really have to re-jig how the attack works because Machida have shown themselves to be vulnerable enough that simply relying on set-pieces isn’t enough for narrow 1-0 victories. I expect some considerable expenditures for some attackers in the winter window, especially with the ACL knockouts looming in February.

Looking at their attacking metrics:

• 7th in xG, 7th in goals

• 11th in shots taken, 13th in shots on target, 2nd in xG per shot

• 10th in final 3rd entries, 14th in penalty box entries

Their goals came in spurts and bursts like trying to get the last of the ketchup out of a bottle. The winning run in the summer came off a long stretch of games where they managed to score more than 2 or more goals for all but one game in a eight game winning streak. That was followed by a period where they were kept goalless for four games and another four with only a single goal scored in the remaining 11 games of the season. As we’ve become accustomed to over 30% of their goals came from set-piece situations and a further 23% were from open-play crosses.

The key player in defense was Gen Shoji. All of his experience marshaled another strong season from the Machida defense line in general. Shoji in particular though, excelled not just in his defensive duties but also for his long range passing which was a major means of switching play and providing ball progression via Henry Mochizuki as the outlet. Daihachi Okamura joined last winter to add even more height and brawn and he looked the part until an injury curtailed a good debut season. In terms of injuries, Ryuho Kikuchi suffered yet another knee injury that will keep him out for the foreseeable future. With all these injuries around him, Ibrahim Dresevic was a reliable and fairly consistent member of the back line along with Yuta Nakayama who also stepped into midfield a few times. Machida continued to really do well in terms of suppressing the total number of shots conceded as they kept themselves in the top 3 for this metric two seasons in a row.

Hiroyuki Mae has turned into a midfield regular and their best ball-winner in the middle of the park as Hokuto Shimoda slowly continues to age out. Keiya Sento barely played to the point that Yuta Nakayama played in midfield a lot more compared to previous years. Curiously despite all the fanfare of his signing Neta Lavi barely got game-time but perhaps he’s still getting used to the very different tactics employed at Machida compared to his former team.

Overall, a first ever major trophy and steady but unspectacular progress in Machida’s maiden Asian Champions League campaign so far so even with the middling league form it was a good season. It’ll be interesting to see how Machida’s Asian Champions League campaign continues in February as they will be the only Japanese representatives with managerial continuity heading into the knock-outs…

Urawa Reds (7th, 59 points)

• 16 Wins // 11 Draws // 11 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Urawa // Saitama Stadium

• Manager: Maciej Skorża

• 45 Goals (11th); 39 Conceded (7th)

• 44.92 xG (8th); 50.8 xGA (19th)

• Top goal scorer: Ryoma Watanabe (7 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Shusaku Nishikawa

• Mid-Season Review: Urawa Reds

Despite an appearance at the inaugural Club World Cup, it was another truly disappointing season for Urawa Reds. There was supposed to be a coherent multi-year plan building up to the big tournament but it all finished in a whimper as the Reds crashed out in the group stages despite their vociferous fan support in the American stands going viral. In terms of actual J1 league play, the less said the better. Despite multiple years under Maceij Skorza across two stints, this Urawa Reds team lacks a consistent play-style and identity. The Reds once again finished in a disappointing mid-table position, far away from even an Asian Champions League spot.

The biggest question for me over this season has been... what exactly is Urawa’s play-style? Skorza has been gifted with lots of talented individual pieces but over two separate tenures spread out over nearly three seasons the Pole hasn’t managed to figure out the actual tactical plans to platform them in the best way... which is his main job. A lot of Urawa’s goals and victories seem to come from individual brilliance that has papered over the cracks of a lack of coherent strategy at the managerial level and also at an organizational level. It shouldn’t be surprising then that over the past few years Urawa have usually run out of steam and finished seasons on a down note.

In the build-up phase, players don’t seem to see eye-to-eye with each other at all even though some of them have been playing together for quite some time now! Veteran goalkeeper Shusaku Nishikawa has always looked a bit awkward in these situations despite the fact that his long-range passing is superb. It’s no wonder why Urawa had been in for somebody like Ryosuke Kojima a few years ago but I’m surprised they didn’t continue pursuing him nor try to get someone similar instead. I suppose they’re just going to refresh the goalkeeping unit with Ryusei Sato coming from Tsukuba University next season instead of buying someone outright especially as I don’t think Niekawa, Matsuyama, etc. are quite good enough.

I’ve never really been convinced by Marius Hoibraten but Danilo Boza has been a positive for Urawa’s back-line in my opinion. At the very least both have been very fit this season and have kept the competition sat on the bench which led to Rikito Inoue leaving for Cerezo Osaka. With Hoibraten leaving I imagine Kenta Nemoto will be given a lot of time to adapt but numbers-wise Urawa will need to grab another veteran Center Back, especially if they don’t think Yudai Fujiwara, Kota Kudo (coming back from loan), among others are considered good enough by management.

To me, an issue aside from the tactics is at Full Back. Over the past few seasons, Urawa have gone from having solid-to-very-good players like Hiroki Sakai, Takahiro Akimoto, and Ayumu Ohata… to Yoichi Naganuma, Hirokazu Ishihara, and shoe-horning Takahiro Sekine there. The only half-decent player is Takuya Ogiwara. The first two came from bottom-half clubs and haven’t impressed while the latter has never convinced me in any position, let alone at Full Back (I just don’t understand Skorza’s obsession with him playing there...). I think reinforcing the Full Back position is going to be of huge importance in the winter transfer window.

What surprised me the most looking at the data was that if you look at non-penalty xGA and xGA per Shot, Urawa are pretty much the worst in the league in both metrics! Yet, they have somehow only conceded 39 goals from 50.8 xGA which shows you the amount of quality saves that Nishikawa has been pulling off and the fact that Urawa have been let off by poor opponent finishing. They also conceded the 3rd most shots.

The base of midfield is fine-ish. I’ve been a huge fan of Samuel Gustafson but he keeps being linked back to his homeland for a variety of reasons. Kaito Yasui is a cromulent J1 level midfielder. He’s a bit of a jack-of-all-trades in my opinion and is very good at supporting his teammates in possession. The other options were Kai Shibato who was injured for a large chunk of the season and Taishi Matsumoto who is probably better as depth in the #10 position so all in all center midfield is yet another position that Urawa will need to invest in especially if Gustafson leaves.

Matheus Savio, take the game “by the scruff of the neck” and drags team forward but... I do feel Urawa are too reliant on that, it’s not enough to just give the ball to him and hope for the best. The Brazilian puts in enormous effort in attack and defense, usually showing up as the player that has covered the most distance in any given Urawa match. And yet you ideally want him to be using that energy efficiently, targeting it within a tactical structure rather than just wasting it fighting fires or bursting forward without support. Nevertheless he finished the season with 4 goals (from 4.5 xG) and 8 assists, pretty good despite the circumstances! Alongside the mercurial Brazilian, Ryoma Watanabe finished as the team’s leading goal scorer with 7 goals... but he only scored once in the 2nd half of the season. Once again, he put in a lot of effort across a number of different positions and was one of the most important members of the team.

I do wonder how Urawa will organize their attacking options as they have a lot of them. They’ve managed to move on Naoki Maeda and Genki Haraguchi but if we assume Ryoma Watanabe, Savio, and Takuro Kaneko are the main starters (depending on whether or not Matsuo is playing Striker), then you still have Shoya Nakajima, Tomoaki Okubo, Takahiro Sekine, and Jumpei Hayakawa on the books (I won’t count Hiroki Abe for obvious reasons). I do think they might need to let go of around two of these players, especially when you consider Taishi Matsumoto and Kaito Yasui can step into the attacking midfield spots as well.

Thiago Santana’s Urawa Reds stay fizzled out this season as his play-style never quite gelled with what Skorza wanted out of his strikers and during the worst periods of the season, Santana was also getting into arguments with fans. The striker position has been a huge problem for Urawa over the past few years. Out of the various attempts, Toshiki Takahashi finally moved on permanently to S-Pulse, Motoki Nagakura has been fitting in very well on-loan at FC Tokyo, while Rio Nitta is probably not good enough and may benefit from another loan to Shonan in J2 next season or an outright sale. However, Hiiro Komori & Isaac Kiese-Thelin might finally be the light at the end of the tunnel. Komori in particular, despite some injury woes, have shown that cunning fox-in-the-box movement that made him so dangerous for JEF United and finished the season with 4 goals in very limited playing time. With all the turmoil up top, it’s been Yusuke Matsuo’s job to lead the line for most of the season. He even earned some plaudits at the Club World Cup for his energetic displays. I do like him but he’s not quite the 20-goal-a-season striker that Urawa need and should return to playing out wide if Komori & Kiese-Thelin can consistently perform next season.

Two wins and even worse, just two goals in the final 10 games of the season… well this sentence was ruined by the fact that Urawa somehow managed to scored 4 in their last match of the season! Anyway, the point is that this period really put things into perspective for Urawa Reds, they are miles off where they want to be. There are so many questions to be had:

• What is medium-long term plan for the next few years?

• What football do they want to play and can they clarify that for their fans and across their organization?

• Can their recruitment team acquire players for that vision?

• Can they bring along a manager that can understand that vision and handle the pressures of managing the big expectations that Urawa has?

It’s not just the plan itself but the process with which they go forward that will be key. It will be interesting to see how Urawa handle an increasingly competitive J.League as traditionally strong teams around them reset and refresh, while other teams start pushing up from the lower divisions as well such as neighborhood rivals Red Bull Omiya Ardija. Urawa already announced in mid-November that Thiago Santana and Marius Hoibraten were being released at the end of the season and 18 year old Luka Didulica will be joining the club in January, so there’s already some movements on the player front. A day before this newsletter was sent, Urawa announced that Maciej Skorza will be staying on next year. The 100 Year Vision League should period give Urawa some time to really look inward and think about the next few years...

Are they willing to accept they need time to rebuild, will their pride allow it?

Kawasaki Frontale (8th, 57 Points)

• 15 Wins // 12 Draws // 11 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Kawasaki // Todoroki Athletics Stadium

• Manager: Shigetoshi Hasebe

• 67 Goals (1st); 57 Conceded (tied 17th)

• 50.88 xG (3rd); 41.82 xGA (8th)

• Top goal scorer: Tatsuya Ito (13 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Louis Yamaguchi

• Mid-Season Review: Kawasaki Frontale

With Tohru Oniki leaving after eight years and unprecedented success at the helm, Kawasaki Frontale entered a new era under the appointed successor, Shigetoshi Hasebe. The season started off well with Frontale only losing twice in their first 15 games of the season (albeit this included seven draws...) along with a heroic Asian Champions League campaign that saw them lose in the final to Al-Ahli. I thought things looked quite good in the 1st Half of the season, then it all just fell apart! In the mid-season review I wrote about how I thought they were a bit unlucky with their finishing while opponents were very clinical.

However, from the 2nd half of the season their defense just got progressively worse especially after Kota Takai left for Spurs and Yuichi Maruyama got a long term injury. Bonkers scorelines like a 4-3 win vs. Nagoya Grampus, 2-5 loss vs. Avispa Fukuoka (an early red card by replacement defender Uremovic helped with that, of course), two separate 5-3 wins vs. Shimizu S-Pulse and Machida Zelvia, and finally a 4-4 draw with Kashiwa Reysol represented a very chaotic Kawasaki Frontale team.

Let’s be honest, the 2nd half of the season was basically saved by Tatsuya Ito going “Super Saiyan Mode” to keep Frontale in mid-table despite the rapidly declining consistency and performance levels across the board. He scored 13 goals but 11 of them came from July onward. Ito had two separate spells where he scored in four consecutive game stretches! Of course, it wasn’t just his shooting but his dribbling was a threat all season long.

Marcinho continued to provide pace and trickery out wide, although his 6 goals and 3 assists left a bit to be desired compared to his past seasons. It does look like Akihiro Ienaga is finally on his last legs at the age of 39 as his appearances dramatically declined from the previous year. It’s been quite an incredible run for the veteran considering his best seasons and trophies have come after his 30th birthday! The very definition of “aging like fine wine”!

Despite Ten Miyagi’s 4 goals, he did not start a single one of his 19 appearances and it remains to be seen whether he, along with a few other young attackers on the fringes of the squad like Toya Myogan and Hinata Yamauchi actually have a future at Kawasaki Frontale.

Erison fired home 12 goals from 10.39 xG which was a good return. It’s clear he’s the top dog up top now with Shin Yamada misfiring and then leaving for Celtic in the summer. The Brazilian’s physicality and dogged desire to get shots off in the box is a huge positive. Yu Kobayashi is well past it now but provides some use as a back-up while Soma Kanda will be hoping for more playing time next season. Lazar Romanic was brought in after Yamada’s summer exit but hasn’t quite got going at all, the Frontale faithful will need to be a bit more patient with him I guess.

So Kawahara and Yuki Yamamoto became the clear midfield double-pivot under Hasebe this season as Kento Tachibanada fell down the pecking order, then suffered a medium term injury in the final months of the season. Yamamoto continues to be great and I was very surprised to see him not be selected for the EAFF Japan squad. I was a bit disappointed Yuto Ozeki didn’t get more minutes but hopefully his time will come next season and he did get a decent amount of playing time throughout the various youth national team tournaments he was a part of anyway.

Ozeki’s lack of minutes can be attributed to the fact that Yasuto Wakizaka remains the nailed-on starting #10 on this team as well as one of the best players in the entire league. I can’t stop gushing about how fantastic Wakizaka is. Incredible spatial awareness to face forward on the half-turn and of course wonderful passing ability to create numerous chances per game. It will always be a huge shame that many people won’t know his brilliance and his lack of major opportunities at the national team level will always remain baffling. In any case, Wakizaka looks set to emulate his idol Kengo Nakamura after receiving his #14 shirt to also retire at Frontale as a one club man.

Kota Takai leaving was well-within expectations but then losing Yuichi Maruyama to a season-ending injury really put a spanner in the works as summer signing Filip Uremovic needed time to adapt. This also had the knock-on effect of pushing Asahi Sasaki permanently back inside to Center Back, which then left the Full Back depth pretty bare. Sota Miura played quite well, bombing forward whenever he was on the pitch but those recurring injuries do make me worried for him.

It’s pretty clear that Shuto Tanabe is simply not good enough at the J1 level and Full Back will need some reinforcements in the winter... I do think Asahi Sasaki was probably the MVP of this team due to his efforts all across the defense. It’s hard to fault him too much for Frontale’s defensive frailities when things were in a flux around and in front of him for the 2nd half of the season.

In terms of the data, it’s a bit difficult to delve further without more detailed data available to me. However, what does stand out from the aggregated data is that the fact that opponents finished their chances to score far more goals than the actual xGA value conceded by Frontale (something I discussed in the mid-season review) continued in the 2nd half of the season. I was a bit surprised by the fact that Frontale only conceded 41.82 xGA which put them 8th in the league compared to their goals conceded total which was down in 17th place. Frontale were particularly vulnerable from chances from crosses and intricate passing moves which make sense considering how porous their pressing and block were. It also didn’t help that Louis Yamaguchi was quite mediocre throughout the season…

I don’t think there are any other teams in the world (outside of the J.League that is) that would continue to keep not just one, not just two, but all three of Shintaro Kurumaya, Jesiel, Ryota Oshima given their injury records for as long as Kawasaki Frontale have. However, Kurumaya announced his retirement in mid-November while Jesiel announced that he was leaving as well. Frontale have been operating without counting on them too much for several years now but more recent reinforcements like Uremovic and Romanic clearly still need time to adapt to J1 football.

In the 2nd half of 2025, it did seem like Frontale shifted to becoming far more attacking and sacrificing a lot of cohesion as a result of injuries and an evolving squad. This is still a team with a lot of quality in every position (except perhaps goalkeeper) so I do think the league position is disappointing.

As a result, I expect quite a bit of transfer turnover during the winter. Frontale will definitely need another Full Back (or two if Sota Miura/Asahi Sasaki leaves), a Winger (as Segawa left, Ienaga is finally showing his age, and I don’t think Myogan nor Miyagi are going to be good enough), one more ready-made Center Back (while also trying to develop Kaito Tsuchiya and Ryota Kamihashi). In addition, I expect Shigetoshi Hasebe to re-emphasize his defensive tactical instructions during pre-season as there are lots of issues that aren’t just personnel related in my opinion.

Gamba Osaka (9th, 57 Points)

• 17 Wins // 6 Draws // 15 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Osaka // Panasonic Stadium

• Manager: Dani Poyatos (Spain)

• 53 Goals (7th); 55 Conceded (16th)

• 44.5 xG (4th); 41.08 xGA (11th)

• Top goal scorer: Takashi Usami (6 goals plus 2 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Jun Ichimori

• Mid-Season Review: Gamba Osaka

After a very good 2024 season, Dani Poyatos seemed to have finally figured out how to get Gamba clicking so the results in 2025 were a complete disaster. Some of this was out of his hands as a big blow was losing Dawhan in pre-season to a Chinese club. Subsequent reinforcements weren’t forthcoming which led to Gamba’s middling start to the season where they won only four out of their first 10 games. Just as things started to stabilize, they lost Neta Lavi to Machida Zelvia in the summer. Although ironically that precipitated their best run of the season when they won five straight games through late August to the end of September. Overall though, Gamba mostly bounced around upper-and-lower mid-table without really threatening the title chasers nor having any fears of relegation which made for a pretty drab season.

Of course, it wasn’t just transfers that derailed Gamba’s season but injuries to various players had an impact as well. Star winger Welton was injured for large portions of the season along with marquee signing Kanji Okunuki. Ryotaro Meshino disappeared for most of the season. Juan Alano who has been a decent depth piece also suffered from injuries. Ryoya Yamashita ended up being the only true winger that was able to stay fit for most of the season and he was tied with Hummet as the 2nd highest goal scorer, chipping in with 7 goals and 1 assist. He’s always been absolutely rapid but added a lot more end product this season.

Genta Miura was extremely slow to get back to full fitness after a major injury and then was left out in favor of Shota Fukuoka anyway who has really stood up during the former’s absence. Daichi Hayashi has barely been seen since his arrival last year... Even still Dani Poyatos was hesitant to use young players like Gaku Nawata and the recalled Harumi Minamino as they spent a lot of the season on the bench.

In terms of Gamba’s tactics, it’s been a development throughout Poyatos’ tenure of a tidy mid-block out-of-possession along with a shifting Back 4 to Back 3 in-possession. To facilitate this Tokuma Suzuki or Neta Lavi would drop deep and push the Center Backs wider. Out wide Riku Handa would invert while Keisuke Kurokawa pushed forward on the Left. Ryo Hatsuse’s return to Gamba in the summer allowed a bit of respite for Kurokawa who had been running the gauntlet given the lack of alternatives at Left Back.

Riku Handa in particular had a very good season and his ability to sustain possession and create space for the attackers in dangerous areas in the middle and final 3rd allowed Gamba to progress smoothly across areas of the pitch. Indeed, according to Football-Lab Gamba Osaka entered the final 3rd the 3rd most times per match in the league and entered the penalty box the 5th highest amount of times.

Overall, Gamba’s attack was pretty decent, by the stats:

• Able to dominate possession (4th highest average ball possession per game)

• Create a good number of chances per game (3rd most shots taken, 5th most xG).

Up front Deniz Hummet slowly picked up form and finished off with a decent 7 goals and 3 assists. The veteran Issam Jebali also chipped in with 5 goals and 5 assists off his usual physical back-to-goal play-making. It was also nice to see Takashi Usami continue to have his renaissance at 33 years old. The Gamba legend led the team with 8 goals and 2 assists.

Makoto Mitsuta was the emergency signing in midfield in late February but he was forced to play in the double pivot for a majority of the season due to injuries or players leaving. It was always an awkward fit when Usami continued to be in such good form in his preferred #10 position and it also couldn’t be helped that Rin Mito just isn’t very good (he’s probably fine as a bench/rotation player but not as a starter for a team trying to be in the top 3). To rectify this, Shuto Abe was a genuinely good purchase in the summer to fill an absolute need in central midfield. However, the double pivot always felt a bit awkward with two #8 or #10 types playing alongside each other.

The center midfield issues tied into how bad Gamba’s defending was throughout the season. While as individuals, Shinnosuke Nakatani, Riku Handa, and even Shota Fukuoka (in the absence of Genta Miura) were fine, as a unit they were exposed a lot by the lack of midfield shielding in front of them. Their defensive metrics were fairly mediocre all round (xGA, shots conceded, etc.) but most importantly Gamba shipped the 6th most goals in the league in 2025.

This iteration of Gamba Osaka was fairly OK but not quite as great as hoped given the pre-season excitement and their performances were dragged down by their defending. At least Gamba fans can be a bit satisfied by finishing just above their rivals Cerezo. It was a very up-and-down season due to so many ins-and-outs related to both injuries or transfers, many of which was out of Poyatos’ control but that’s the way the dice roll sometimes! It was announced in late November that Dani Poyatos would leave the club after the season.

It’s been three full seasons but there hasn’t been huge progress that was expected to get Gamba back into title contention even with some promising signs at various points so I can understand the decision. At the very least, Poyatos’s reign at Gamba stabilized a free-falling club that had been mired in the relegation zone. The Spaniard, after a rough first season, put them back in mid-table for consistent seasons for the first time since the pre-COVID days and implemented a new tactical plan that didn’t just rely on hoping Patric & Usami did something magical up front. Whoever comes in to the managerial hotseat next will step into a fairly solid foundation along with a cadre of young players relishing a chance for some first team action.

Cerezo Osaka (10th, 52 Points)

• 14 Wins // 10 Draws // 14 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Osaka // Yodoko Sakura Stadium

• Manager: Arthur Papas

• 60 Goals (tied 3rd); 57 Conceded (17th)

• 47.91 xG (3rd); 46.95 xGA (18th)

• Top goal scorer: Rafael Ratão (17 goals plus 1 penalty)

• Goalkeeper: Koki Fukui

• Mid-Season Review: Cerezo Osaka

The Arthur Papas Revolution was a mixed one but overall positive in terms of the foundations that the new Aussie manager was able to build. In pre-season, losing Leo Ceara to Kashima Antlers was a huge blow especially considering how lopsidedly reliant they were on the Brazilian striker for absolutely anything remotely to do with goals. However, Cerezo made some good re-investments into the squad (although some took a while to gel than others) and Papas was able to instill his playing style on the team. Throughout the season Cerezo Osaka genuinely showed good stuff in possession and lots of fire power in attack. However, due to their playing style and lack of good defensive personnel, things were very busy at their own end of the field as well. I was skeptical considering how poorly they started the season despite a bombastic opening day derby win vs. Gamba Osaka as they did not win their next six games. Cerezo had their best run through May and June before slowing down again through October. The purple-half of Osaka finished the season with three straight losses, three straight wins, then two defeats. Ultimately, this divergence between attack-defense and inconsistency throughout the season had Cerezo Osako finishing in mid-table.

Ratão got over his early season finishing slump to become a dependable J1 level striker. He had massive boots to fill from the departed Leo Ceara but did a very good job in the end. With 18 goals from 12.6 xG, he’s running fairly hot in terms of his finishing but is still getting on the end of good chances and taking plenty of shots as well. The Brazilian is very much your penalty box striker with all of his goals coming inside the area.

Lucas Fernandes’ season ending injury in late September put end to a fantastic run of form of 7 goals and 15 assists (the latter league-leading). An absolute all-timer of a season from a Right Winger. On the opposite side Thiago Andrade wasn’t a super-star but solid enough, contributed with 4 goals and 4 assists. I was hoping to see more of Shion Homma but he only had 2 starts and lots of appearances off the bench, his career since leaving Niigata has been quite disappointing but at 25 he still has time to get back to his best.

Overall, Cerezo have...

• 3rd most goal scored

• Most shots taken, Most shots on target

• 2nd most final 3rd entries

• 3rd most box entries

Their attack was genuinely fantastic and the goals were spread fairly well between both set-pieces and open-play. Cerezo loved funneling the build-up to their dangerous wingers and then pull their Full Backs inside and forward to add depth to their attacks.

Sota Kitano was the talk of the team in the first half of the season. His intensity on-and-off the ball along with his lovely technique made him a target for Europe and he left for Red Bull Salzburg early in the summer transfer window. I wrote in-depth about him back in May so I’ll leave it here:

Another player who made waves this season was Motohiko Nakajima who played about five different positions in attack and midfield. Nakajima spent the past several years being a key player for Vegalta Sendai down in J2 and finally got the chance to play for his boyhood club as a regular fixture in the starting XI.

Masaya Shibayama slowly won appearances as the season came to a close and he answered the call with 4 goals and 2 assists. He’s had it rough trying get game time since his arrival from Omiya Ardija a few years ago but perhaps this season will be the catalyst after filling in the gap left by Sota Kitano.

Shunta Tanaka really embraced his role as the deep-lying midfielder in Cerezo’s possession system. His ball progression through his passing was a crucial and he is also the only midfielder who can do some defending too. He had a mid-season injury scare that I thought would derail Cerezo’s season but he came back astonishingly quickly (compared to the actual reports about his injury...). Despite his age, Shinji Kagawa continued to show his class, providing a lot of value with his passing and for the past few seasons he’s been occupying an extremely deep role orchestrating things from the double pivot.

When it comes to Cerezo, there wasn’t a more clear case of “Jekyll & Hyde” than when looking at their fantastic attack… along with their contrasting horrible defending. It was a running theme over the past few years under the previous manager Akio Kogiku as well.

Okuda, Nishio, Hatanaka, Inoue, Nico Takahashi, Shindo were all similar flavors of mediocre-to-just-OK defensively and to me that’s what is holding them back from being true contenders at the top end of the table. Although at the very least Shinnosuke Hatanaka provides a lot on the ball which is what Cerezo need to make their playstyle work. Ayumu Ohata was one of many Japanese players who returned home after a limp six month attempt in Europe. He showed he was a good player at Urawa so I’d like to imagine he gets back to his best next year. Dion Cools came over in the summer to shore up the Full Back department and he’s been OK enough. With how their Full Backs are inverting in-possession Cerezo can be vulnerable down the wings if they lose the ball poorly as the Center Backs are left with a lot of space to cover.

It shouldn’t be a wonder then that Cerezo have the 3rd worst xGA, and been subjected to the most shots against in the league.

Koki Fukui became a starter at the J1 level for the first time in his career as Kim Jin-Hyeon has been showing his age. Fukui was… fine. You could upgrade him but I think there are other bigger priorities that need to be handled first. Funnily enough, in what seems to be a theme across many J.League teams, despite Cerezo’s prowess at scoring set-pieces and crosses, they themselves are particularly vulnerable to them as well... 26.3% from set-pieces and 22.8% from open-play crosses. I find it incredible they managed to keep a positive goal difference despite shipping a whopping 57 goals but that just shows you how insane their attack was.

Overall, Cerezo finished in mid-table, and crashed out fairly early in both domestic cups. Success in the near future hinges on:

• Whether they can buy Ratao out-right, which is looking very difficult due to his ownership status and majestic form inviting a lot of competition from richer teams like Kobe and Machida (according to rumors).

• What condition Lucas Fernandes comes back in from his major injury.

• Whether they can fix their leaky defense without compromising on the on-ball qualities they require from the back-line personnel.

Nonetheless, I think there’s cause for plenty of optimism over in the purple-half of Osaka. There’s plenty of time for Papas to work on the flaws of his system during the 100 Year Vision League and get the team firing on all cylinders for a proper title charge in 2026-2027.

FC Tokyo (11th, 50 Points)

• 13 Wins // 11 Draws // 14 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Tokyo // Ajinomoto Stadium

• Manager: Rikizo Matsuhashi

• 41 Goals (14th); 48 Conceded (13th)

• 43.29 xG (10th); 42.37 xGA (9th)

• Top goal scorer: Marcelo Ryan (6 goals plus 2 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Taishi Nozawa // Kim Seung-Gyu

• Mid-Season Review: FC Tokyo

Another dreadful season from FC Tokyo. It started off OK with 2 wins in the first 3 games but then the team didn’t win a single game until late April, eight whole league games later. The patchy form continued and FC Tokyo were truly dragged into the relegation fight by the beginning of summer. Three consecutive wins against Verdy, Frontale, Avispa in September saved the season but it took major transfer window activity over the summer to put a bandage over the issues seen in the first half of the season.

Sei Muroya returning to the club was a big positive especially with regular Right Back Kosuke Shirai sidelined for most of the 2nd half of the season. Muroya had to fight a few of his own injury issues but his experience was very important especially defending 1v1 against opponent wingers. Alex Scholz was probably the best out of the summer signings as his passing and carrying from the back brought a lot more nous to an often confused defensive unit on the ball.

Taishi Nozawa’s occasional foolhardy tendencies on the ball was often covered up by some fantastic saves. There were a lot of rough edges to his game but clearly some promise and he left for Royal Antwerp in the summer. With Go Hatano not exactly a consistent figure between the sticks, even with his useful locker room presence, FC Tokyo brought Kim Seung-Gyu back to the J.League after the Korean recovered from a major ACL injury. Compared to the at times erratic Nozawa, Kim S-G brought some stability to the build-up even if it came at the expense of some of the more eye-catching abilities of the former.

Seiji Kimura barely played but somehow managed to move to Europe with a summer move to Westerlo. Henrique Trevisan with his superb aerial ability would’ve been nice to have in a team extremely allergic to defending crosses but his poor on-ball abilities and consistent injuries hampered making regular appearances for the team once again. In general, from front to back there were issues with the press or individual errors that marred FC Tokyo’s performances in games, not to mention the build-up issues which meant the team was shooting itself with the foot even during the team’s own ball possessions.

Kanta Doi is one of the next generation of FC Tokyo defenders but his performances this season made it evident that he still needs more time before blasting off to Europe like his other teammates. Despite his height and aerial win % numbers, Doi’s poor positioning and simply not being available to get into these duels in the first place made me think that his duel % might be a bit inflated. I do think there is a lot of promise especially when it comes to his passing and carrying abilities from the back. In the mould of a “modern” defender, his technical abilities also allow him to shift into different roles in the build-up phase in a Back 3 or Back 4. Along with his large stature (186cm) Doi is a good candidate to be another Japanese export if he can improve on his weaknesses further.

While I praised some of the individual defenders, a huge problem despite all the experience in the back-line, was that no one could seemingly take some leadership and arrange a proper box defense. This consistent horrendous crossing/set piece defending derailed any improvements in possession or other aspects in the 2nd half of the season. Tokyo conceded 25% of their total goals conceded from crosses and a further 27% came from opponent set-pieces!

Kento Hashimoto came back to FC Tokyo which was nice to see. He built a good partnership with Takahiro Koh in the double pivot although they weren’t helped too much by the tactics employed. Koh nevertheless had his best season in an FC Tokyo shirt, as alongside his usual passing from deep he also popped up with 2 goals and 4 assists. Kei Koizumi was his usual industrious self, good for rotating in whenever there was a need.

The zombified corpose of Keigo Higashi continued to haunt FC Tokyo. Slow, a terrible first touch that kills possession play, and a tendency for horrific tackles to get himself booked. He just won’t retire nor will be the club release him for some reason and instead try to play Kyota Tokiwa more (or another of the other midfielders sent out on loan to J2). Maki Kitahara looked interesting in his brief cameos, he made his debut at just 15 years old! Of course, given his age it made sense that the club didn’t push him to play too many minutes. Hopefully we’ll see more of him, gradually, in the next few years.

Keita Endo was fine in limited bursts as predictably he was sidelined with injury a lot this season but still scored 4 goals. Teruhito Nakagawa is really showing his age now despite appearing in 32 games, he only started 18 of them, and barely contributed with just 2 goals. At age 33, I think it’s time to part ways. Leon Nozawa is extremely mediocre, he has some utility in making runs behind but doesn’t do a whole lot on the ball once he receives it. A lot of attacks late in games die when he receives the ball in the final 3rd to the frustration of many fans. I’m not a big fan of Soma Anzai either but at least he’s not playing Left Back anymore.

Kota Tawaratsumida continues to flatter to deceive. I remain resolute in not bothering to write up anything deeper on him until he actually shows signs of improving his end-product. It’s been three seasons at this point but he still hasn’t pieced it together, although of course the state of the team around him hasn’t helped much either. Still, Tawaratsumida’s “promise/potential” given his fantastic dribbling technique has a lot of people hoping and he even earned a national team call-up in a rotated squad back in June.

While emphasis will be placed on how the summer signings saved the season, it’s also important to look at how these players were platformed to succeed. Along with Alex Scholz and Kim Seung-Gyu providing a more solid base to pass out the back, it was a balancing act between a more intricate build-up and being more direct through fast breaks that proved to be the ticket out of the relegation fight. Further forward a big part of this was Motoki Nagakura’s fantastic movement. His ability to drop and find spaces improved Tokyo’s build-up by a hundred fold as the Urawa Reds loanee provided a platform for fast breaks.

Kein Sato had shooting woes early in the season but his driving runs, pace, and overall energy was been good all season long. Fortunately for FC Tokyo, he even found goal scoring form in the last few months of the season and finished off with a very good 7 goals and 5 assists. Marcelo Ryan showed inconsistent shooting even with his team leading 8 goals but he was a scary sight for any J.League defender when he was able to run full sprint at them.

Did you all notice what the consistent theme across all the positions I discussed? Everybody got injured, which meant that there was a constant cast of players rotating in-and-out of the line-up. No amount of momentum nor chemistry could be built like this and in this regard I do feel some sympathy for manager Rikizo Matsuhashi. There were only a handful of players who made it to 20 starts this season and only one above 30. In defense it was a big problem that only Kanta Doi, who barely played in the 2nd half of the season, got to 20 league starts along with Masato Morishige (ironically as the 2nd oldest defender on the team). Players like Kashif and Ogashiwa are unlikely to ever be fit for a full season again. Marcelo Ryan for all his goals was injured a lot and had to keep coming on/off the bench instead of playing the full 90, same with Nagakura.

For a visual representation of Tokyo’s plight, look at how out of the entire squad (even taking into account rotation, etc.), only Takahiro Koh, Kein Sato, and Kota Tawaratsumida played over 60% of total league minutes!

It might surprise people that FC Tokyo only lost once in the last 10 league games (that terrible game vs. Marinos in late September) but … did that really matter? Safety was almost all but assured after the three consecutive 1-0s leading up to that Marinos defeat anyway so the last 1/5th of the season was on auto-pilot mode aside from the Emperor’s Cup. For all the excitement and expectation that semi-final ended in a miserable 0-2 defeat in an half-empty National Stadium. FC Tokyo were a mere stepping stone toward Machida Zelvia’s first ever title and you can imagine they are in a far better position to continue winning more trophies in the near future than FC Tokyo. I’m just not sure what FC Tokyo’s overall strategy is going forward.

Over the past few years since MIXI took over the club and with the current GM in charge, we’ve seen some genuinely terrible recruitment, especially signing injury-prone players or those that don’t really fit into what various successive managers need. At the very least FC Tokyo did try to go with a younger team at the start of this sason, especially with a back-line consisting of Kanta Doi, Soma Anzai, Teppei Oka, and Taishi Nozawa but manager Rikizo Matsuhashi couldn’t figure out a safe way to make it work. I see a lot of praise for the summer recruitment but it wouldn’t have been necessary if the club had done a good job not just in pre-season but in prior transfer windows as well. As a result the club have their hands tied to a bunch of extremely old guys who saved the current season but don’t really push the club forward in the medium-term. The extremely aging back-line is a brittle band-aid that threatens to fall off very soon (especially given some are closer to age 40 than 30…) and the club will be back to square one again within a year or two.

I get that having a revolving door of managers isn’t going to help but I really don’t think Rikizo Matsuhashi is The Guy going forward either. His player selections were wonky and then he often made things worse with his terrible substitution patterns… Even still, there’s so many other issues at this club like the recruitment or the medical department. Specifically, it is curious to see that the only thing that the club absolutely does not want to change are the people like the GM Mitsuhiro Obara and other leaders at the very top.

Avispa Fukuoka (12th, 48 Points)

• 12 Wins // 12 Draws // 14 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Fukuoka // Best Denki Stadium

• Manager: Kim Myung-hwi

• 34 Goals (17th); 38 Conceded (5th)

• 43.31 xG (9th); 36.29 xGA (4th)

• Top goal scorer: Tomoya Miki (3 Goals plus 3 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Masaaki Murakami

• Mid-Season Review: Avispa Fukuoka

Before the season there was a lot of fanfare about bringing in Kim Myung-hwi & transforming Avispa Fukuoka from the Shigetoshi Hasebe era. The result was, sure, a somewhat more possession-style but ultimately leading to not a whole lot of end product. When you look at Avispa’s final record of 12 wins - 12 draws - 14 losses it really gives off the “mid-table mediocrity” vibes.

There was a lot of grumbling from fans especially during two periods, once in spring when they went winless in 9 games and in the summer where Avispa only won once in 11 games. However, the team managed to calm the fans down as they finished the season extremely strongly, not conceding in the last 6 games of the season until a late late late penalty in their last league game against Nagoya Grampus! There were various tactical tweaks that I’ll discuss but even still, Avispa definitely need to make more personnel changes to realize the vision. Perhaps more patience is needed.

The defense was quite good overall and that’s how they survived this season. By the numbers:

• 6th best shots against (behind teams like Sanfrecce, Kobe)

• 3rd best xGA per shot (only behind Machida Zelvia and Vissel Kobe)

• 4th best xGA (again behind the usual solid defenses like Sanfrecce, Kobe, Machida)

Avispa carried over a lot of the defensive discipline that they had under Shigetoshi Hasebe in their 5-2-3 block, although a clear change was that they were set up a bit higher as a high~mid block under Kim Myung-hwi rather than the mid~low block of previous seasons.

In the goalkeeping department, as is tradition at Avispa Fukuoka it seems, even with a new manager at the helm there was a lot of musical chairs involving the goalkeepers. However it does look like Yuma Obata is going to be the main man given his younger age and ability with the ball at his feet. It’s a sign of the changing times in football that Obata moves up far out of his box and lines up with the Center Backs to involve himself in build-up play. In the Back 3, it was the veteran Masaya Tashiro as the leading guy while I was a bit surprised to see Takumi Kamijima lose his place near the end of the season. An issue surrounding the defense was that there were a lot of injuries. Jurato Ikeda spent most of the season out as did Itsuki Oda and Tatsuki Nara (though the latter came back in the 2nd half of the season).

A lot of Full Backs were playing in the Back 3 which has been a trend in football in recent years as the shape changes in-possession. Whether it was Obata pushing up from goal or one of the midfielders like Tomoya Miki dropping in, the Back 3 would shift into a Back 4 with the Center Backs on the outside turning into more conventional Full Backs.

Tomoya Ando came into prominence this season as he operated on the Left of the Back 3 and turned into a Left Back often. It was quite surprising just how far he’d push up down the wing to contribute in attacking phases. His influence was so much that Avispa’s possession was extremely tilted toward the left in most games. His performances caught the eye of Hajime Moriyasu, especially considering Japan play a Back 3 in similar ways and Ando was rightfully awarded with a call-up and debut for the national team. If you remove penalties, Ando actually finished as the team’s top goal scorer with 4 goals!

On the flip side, Avispa did absolutely nothing in attack once they got into the final 3rd. Well, they take a fair number of shots but the average quality is very poor, on top of bad finishing to boot. Highlighting this is the fact that Avispa have taken the 6th most shots but xG per shot is the 3rd worst in the league.

Shintaro Nago did OK, while he had nowhere near the goals/assists like at Kashima last season, given the player quality downgrade at Avispa in comparison its understandable. Kazuya Konno for all his dribbling, ending up with only 3 goals was extremely disappointing and his crossing volume was way down compared to previous seasons. Daiki Matsuoka did a lot of sweeping up in front of the defense... but that’s all he does now. It’s quite disappointing when he was much more of a passer/tempo-controller when he was at Sagan Tosu...

The star of the show (for me) was Tomoya Miki who surprisingly came down south to Fukuoka from Tokyo Verdy. He was the leading goal scorer with 6 goals, although half were penalties which again emphasizes Avispa’s goal scoring issues. Miki was a hugely important part of Avispa’s possession game with his passing and positional sense, frequently dropping into the back-line and freeing up the Center Backs to push forward.

The striker position at Avispa seemed cursed this season, everybody was allergic to scoring goals. Shahab Zahedi somehow managed to score a whopping 0 (zero) goals from 3.57 xG! The ol’ Brazilian battering ram striker Wellington go only 2 goals from 3.57 xG. The veteran was released at the end of the season. Shosei Usui missed his chances as well but managed 3 goals after arriving in the summer, maybe he blows up next season once he’s more accustomed to playing at the J1 level (like Sho Fukuda did for Shonan), who knows! It’s no wonder then that Avispa Fukuoka have only 34 goals from 43.31 xG. There’s certainly cause for complaint about the strikers not being able to finish but you also look at the extremely low xG values and realize that the strikers were simply not being served a whole lot of good chances in the first place!

Unfortunately, given the lack of goals it was perhaps not the exciting football revolution that fans (or neutrals...) were hoping for... but as outlined above there were interesting developments if you were looking very closely. Japanese media and fans love to conveniently forget stuff like this but Kim Myung-Hwi’s appointment was/is still very controversial given his past power-harassment charges. Even with all this in the background, I do think a lot of groundwork was built up over the course of the 2025 season. The transfer market moves during the winter will be important as reinforcements are clearly needed especially up top. Avispa will need to do a lot of convincing to keep their star players like Miki and Ando around as well.

Fagiano Okayama (13th, 45 Points)

• 12 Wins // 9 Draws // 17 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Okayama // City Light Stadium

• Manager: Takashi Kiyama

• 34 Goals (18th); 43 Conceded (10th)

• 39.16 xG (15th); 48.03 xGA (17th)

• Top goal scorer: Ryunosuke Sato (6 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Svend Brodersen

• Mid-Season Review: Fagiano Okayama

Mission Accomplished! Fagiano Okayama grinded and struggled and just about finished safe from relegation. For most of the season they were fairly comfortable in mid-table and I feel like “on paper” safety was assured quite early. However, they hit their worst form in the autumn as their last league win came in late August! Ultimately, Okayama had banked enough points early on to survive.

The underlying numbers beneath their decent results really weren’t good at any point... in many cases they were actually quite bad in both attack and defense. Along with the actual results cratering in line with their performances in the 2nd half of the season, a lot of work still needs to be done over the 100 Year Vision League so that they don’t get sucked into the relegation fight when the new 2026-2027 season rolls around.

I was surprised that Kota Kudo was picked up after only a J3 loan at Giravanz Kitakyushu last year but he made the step up from J3 to J1 to a decent level. I’m not sure whether it’s good enough for Urawa to integrate him so perhaps another J1 loan will be on the cards. Okayama will hope they can acquire him again. The veteran Daichi Tagami proved he could handle the rigors of J1 football with occasional assured displays and the much maligned Yugo Tatsuta looked somewhat better in a different set-up as well.

Overall though, the defensive unit was actually quite mediocre.

• 15th in shots conceded

• 16th in xGA

• 17th in xGA per shot

I do feel like Okayama looked much better in terms of results compared to their actual poor defensive performances because Svend Brodersen was able to keep the ball out of the net a lot of the time. The German is now one of the most recognizable goalkeepers in the league with his good reflexes, bald head, and post-match dance moves (as of early December he is linked with a move to Kawasaki Frontale).

Shifting over to the attack, Ataru Esaka was the creative hub of the entire team in the final 3rd with his excellent passing and dribbling whether it was in the very few times Okayama had sustained possession or in the more frequent transition/counter-attacking situations. Aging like fine wine. Ibuki Fujita did quite well but did miss the last few months of the season due to injury. I talked about him a lot in the mid-season review so I’ll skip him here.

Ryunosuke Sato finished as Okayama’s top goal scorer. His 6 goals did only come from 2.34 xG though which is a yellow flag of sorts but he contributed in many other ways outside of his finishing skills. Playing at Wing Back instead of his traditional attacking role (although he rotated there in the 2nd Half of a number of games), Sato put in a big shift week-in, week-out running up-and-down the wing to support the defense and attack. Technically sound but also willing to exert a lot of physical effort, he is exactly the kind of player European teams are looking for. Depending on movement in the winter transfer market, I’ve made preparations to write something deeper on him. (Dec. 27, 2025: full report on Ryunosuke Sato below!)

In the forward positions, Okayama relied on the physicality and mobility of Lucao, Takaya Kimura, and Hiroto Iwabuchi who popped up with a few goals each. Along side open-play crosses, Okayama also relied on set-pieces, mainly taken by Ryo Tabei and Yuta Kamiya, and combined together these situations provided over half of their goal total. Overall though, for all their graft and the occasional moments of brilliance from Sato or Esaka, the attacking metrics were pretty bleak as shown in Football-Lab’s data:

• 17th in goals scored

• 16th in shots taken

• 16th in shots on target

• 19th in final 3rd entries

• 16th in penalty box entries

Fagiano Okayama were “pretty much” (even if not mathematically) safe by the summer. It was an incredible effort in the first half of the season even if, as the metrics show, that they rode their luck quite a bit. However, I do think that their form in the last four months of the season was quite alarming. So where do Okayama go from here?

A big off-the-pitch storyline throughout the season was how jam-packed the City Light Stadium was for home games and it was made quite apparent that calls for a new proper football-specific stadium are appropriate. The big question is whether Okayama can keep the good vibes and momentum going to continue surviving at the J1 level and not suffer from “2nd season syndrome” as many other promoted teams have in the past. Okayama have time as their ally as the 100 Year Vision League gives them a half-season to truly prepare for what should be another grueling top flight season in 2026/2027.

Now that they have secured safety, Okayama have a lot of thinking to do as it’s still obvious that upgrades in a number of positions are needed. They will need to spend money wisely or make smart loans like they did with Kudo and Sato. Quite a few of their best players with lots of minutes are also quite old so Okayama will also need to freshen up in this regard as well.

Shimizu S-Pulse (14th, 44 Points)

• 11 Wins // 11 Draws // 16 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Shimizu // IAI Stadium Nihondaira

• Manager: Tadahiro Akiba

• 41 Goals (14th); 51 Conceded (14th)

• 41.5 xG (14th); 51.09 xGA (20th)

• Top goal scorer: Koya Kitagawa (4 goals plus 6 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Yuya Oki // Togo Umeda

• Mid-Season Review: Shimizu S-Pulse

S-Pulse’s return to J1 was... OK. Overall, what mattered was that they didn’t get relegated but it wasn’t super convincing at times. The team never quite strung together decent winning form for even a month as they alternated between wins-draws-losses throughout the season. I don’t think they were a bad team, there were plenty of that in the table below them that are far more deserving of that label, so S-Pulse were right around “mediocre”. Nothing more, nothing less.

Like I discussed in the mid-season review, S-Pulse weren’t entirely reliant on Takashi Inui anymore but still needed him for that little extra bit of magic in open-play. Through the season it was Kai Matsuzaki who started to take on more responsibility. I quite like Matsuzaki who, after a disappointing step up to J1 with Urawa Reds a few years ago, dropped back down to J2 with S-Pulse and really improved himself to prove his doubters wrong. Matsuzaki’s good dribbling and carrying ability is enhanced by the fact that he has some actual end product too with his creative passing. He could do with being more of a shooting threat though. Motoki Nishihara did get the odd cameo appearances but I would like to see him involved more regularly in the 100 Year Vision League next year. S-Pulse still need to figure out ways to give Matsuzaki and Inui help in attack though, especially with how dire the striker situation is outside of Toshiki Takahashi.

Koya Kitagawa appeared to have a decent record with 10 goals this season... then you realize that 6 (six!) are actually penalties and that perception changes quite a bit. It’s been a big failure of their recruitment team to buy even a half-decent striker in the past few years, aside from Thiago Santana. Alfredo Stephens, Ahmed Ahmedov, Douglas Tanque, and Aziz Yakubu were absolute flops. Also S-Pulse keep recalling Kanta Chiba from loan... then not playing him... Poor guy. Toshiki Takahashi was decent though and a very smart out-right buy (surprisingly not a loan) during the summer. I’ve highlighted his smart striker runs throughout the season, they’re hard to draw on the tactics diagrams so go watch some Youtube clips. S-Pulse should be building their attack around him and Kai Matsuzaki in the short-medium term.

Zento Uno & Bueno are a genuinely decent midfield partnership at this level both on-and-off the ball. I do think that the way S-Pulse unsuccessfully press does make things very difficult for the midfield to screen the defense though. Uno brings a whole lot of intensity that was sorely missed when he was injured.

Yudai Shimamoto had a number of cameo appearances and looked OK. Defensively shaky but good on the ball. I was hoping to see a bit more from Masaki Yumiba who I thought was decent at Oita Trinita in the past few seasons.

The defense was a real problem throughout the season and in the last few months were saved by Togo Umeda taking over from Yuya Oki to go on a ridiculous saving spree to save S-Pulse’s blushes. S-Pulse had the worst non-penalty xGA in the league, the 2nd most shots conceded, and 3rd worst xGA per shot!

Sodai Hasukawa and Jelani Sumiyoshi were fine enough at the J2 level as individual defenders but I wasn’t convinced of their quality at the J1 level. Of course, with the defensive strategies employed, I do feel they were needlessly exposed a lot of the time which made them look far worse, especially when veteran Yuji Takahashi went down with a long term injury in the summer. Kim Min-Tae’s arrival in the summer was a sign that the club thought along similar lines.

Sen Takagi was equal parts defensively decent and good on the ball. Also quite good in the air considering his smaller stature. However, injuries curtailed what could’ve been a more successful season for him. I’m tentatively interested to see what he can do next year. I’ve been a big fan of Reon Yamahara over the past few years and I feel like he maybe could’ve gone further in his career if he left S-Pulse when they got relegated back in 2022. Anyway, he was a huge part of their chance creation process with his excellent crossing skills in open-play and set-pieces.

It should be no surprise that in general, S-Pulse scored a majority of goals from set-piece situations (whether taken by Yamahara or others). It should also be noted just how many penalties S-Pulse had this season, 9 of which only 6 were scored by Kitagawa… if they had scored all 9 then that would’ve been nearly a 1/4th of entire goal haul which is pretty significant.

At the end of the season, the team’s performance was adequate considering the main goal was J1 survival. Mission accomplished and all that, etc. However, if S-Pulse want to get back near the top of the table then they still have a lot of work to do. At the very least they will have some time to figure out what kind of team they want to be during the 100 Year Vision League period. Tadahiro Akiba was confirmed to be leaving and Kobe manager Takayuki Yoshida is the front runner according to rumors… (Note: Yoshida was officially confirmed for next season)

Yokohama F. Marinos (15th, 43 Points)

• 12 Wins // 7 Draws // 19 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Yokohama // Nissan Stadium

• Manager: Steve Holland (to late April) // Patrick Kisnorbo (to June) // Hideo Oshima

• 46 Goals (10th); 47 Conceded (12th)

• 36.74 xG (17th); 44.95 xGA (13th)

• Top goal scorer: Asahi Uenaka (8 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Park Il-Gyu

• Mid-Season Review: Yokohama F. Marinos

2025 was a truly terrible time that will marinate in Marinos minds for many months. Of course, it’s been a chain of events across the past few seasons that led to this point. It all started at the beginning of the 2024 season when Harry Kewell was awful, flamed out by mid-season and John Hutchinson finished as the interim. Then in 2025 Steve Holland was announced with much fanfare only to be dumped in April for Patrick Kisnorbo... only to then be replaced by Hideo Oshima in June! Five managers in two seasons, it was Udinese/Watford levels of managerial merry-go-rounds. There was a lot on the line this season as Marinos have the prestige of being one of the two remaining teams to have never been relegated from J1. In the end, they went on a winning run from late September to overtake Shonan Bellmare, Albirex Niigata, and Yokohama FC to finish above the relegation zone and safety. However, it was a very tight affair considering they had only won a single game in the first 16 games!

Marinos have not looked themselves for some time now. Various managers have tried to evolve or outright change the playing style that made Marinos a powerhouse during the Ange Postecoglou and Kevin Muscat days to middling success. Sporting Director Tsutomu Nishino and the managers this season did the rather ambitious and controversial action of transferring away the famed Brazilian Front 3 of Elber, Anderson Lopes, and Yan Mateus that had been their lifeline but... it seemingly worked? On a logical level, there was some sense in it as both Elber and Lopes were on the wrong side of their 30s with the potential to physically decline quite quick in the near future. Yan Mateus was in his prime but that also meant Marinos could get the most money out of him to rebuild their squad.

A huge strategic shift occured on top of the transfer activity, a fairly simple new plan:

• Play with more directness/verticality, crosses, and set-pieces!

Pairing up Jordy Croux (ex-Jubilo Iwata, Avispa Fukuoka, Cerezo Osaka) with Kaina Tanimura (Iwaki FC) was a masterstroke. Croux has always been a bit of a one trick pony, he would cut in to his left foot and cross or shoot. In tandem, Marinos also brought along Tanimura, who had been a striker in an Iwaki FC team infamous for their extraordinary volume of crosses and set-pieces. As you can guess, Tanimura became the prime target for Croux’s supply of crosses with his excellent movement in the box. It was very un-Marinos of them to score 12 from set-pieces as well.

Of course, there were also injury issues that plagued the team with Taiki Watanabe, Takuya Kida, Jeison Quinones, Daiya Tohno (a specially big miss considering his early season form), Ryo Miyaichi, among others all suffering from medium-to-long term injuries at various points of the season.

In attack Asahi Uenaka was decent. I’m not nearly as high on him as others who think he can go to Europe but he played his part in staving off relegation. Despite his 8 goals from 4.64 xG I still don’t think he’s a consistent goal threat. His 4 assists also came from just 1.68 xA, denoting how his teammates’ finishing did a large share of the work there.

After the short-lived disaster of William Popp last season, the veteran Park Il-Gyu returned in goal alongside Hiroki Iikura but this means that they have a very old goalkeeping unit. I’m really hoping they’ll be willing to give Ryoya Kimura an actual go during the 100 Year Vision League (Marinos eventually gave him a debut in the last home game of the season).

Jeisson Quiñones was genuinely decent. Even during the Steve Holland times, he looked the part defensively. He was a huge miss through most of the season until he came back in the last few months. The Colombian’s return from injury along with the return of Ryotaro Tsunoda from Europe helped stabilize things in defense and this pairing is what Marinos should build around going forward. Kanta Sekitomi showed up for a handful of games in the final months of the season. He still needs a lot of work but there does seem to be some promise in him. Marinos clearly see his potential as although he was originally supposed to join in 2027, his arrival was expedited to 2026!

In the past few seasons Marinos have slowly shifted to more of a 4-4-2 shape from the 4-3-3 we all saw during Ange’s pomp. Successive managers have also changed to more of mid-block that’s somewhat more solid (especially improved once Oshima came in) but not without its own issues.

After calamitous season, Tsutomu Nishino (of Urawa Reds fame or should it be infamy now?) left the club after just a single year in charge. There were rumors, which were later confirmed as I was writing this section, about Hideo Oshima remaining in charge for next season which fills me with some trepidation. I’m always very wary of the ol’ “keep the guy that helped you escape relegation” trick because the aims and methods of “doing everything to prevent relegation” are very different from actually developing a winning team to push back up the table.

In the case of Marinos in particular, I do feel that their end of season winning run had some easy results go their way vs. teams that would normally have given them more trouble! To be clear, I think Hideo Oshima did an OK enough job under very difficult circumstances but I think they only want to kept him because of their still-precarious financial situation which means searching for a legitimate new manager is going to be difficult, both money-wise and the fact that they now have no sporting director.

Comparing between Steve Holland and Patrick Kisnorbo vs. Hideo Oshima on the other splits the season up almost evenly (before vs. after Matchday 20). Looking at the data:

Holland & Kisnorbo (to matchday 20):

• xG: 17.2, xGA: 27.4, goals: 17, goals against: 29

Oshima (matchday 20 ~ 38):

• xG: 19.6, xGA: 17.5, goals: 25, goals against: 14

So what is clear is that Oshima’s tenure managed to rein in the quality of opponent chances while also getting a bit more clinical/lucky with scoring themselves. The goals make sense given the emphasis on crosses after the summer, as chances from crosses are usually low xG but they got guys like Croux and Tanimura who were specialists in these situations.

Aside from questions about the managerial hotseat, Marinos have already done a lot of work to completely revamp the squad over the past transfer window so there’s considerable room for improvement that may still come as all these players get used to playing with each other more, especially without the pressure of relegation hanging over them during the 100 Year Vision League. Perhaps we’ll see a true resurgence of Yokohama F. Marinos in 2026/2027?

Nagoya Grampus (16th, 43 Points)

• 11 Wins // 10 Draws // 17 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Nagoya / Toyota // Toyota Stadium

• Manager: Kenta Hasegawa

• 44 Goals (12th); 56 Conceded (16th)

• 42.63 xG (12th); 42.53 xGA (10th)

• Top goal scorer: Sho Inagaki (5 goals plus 6 penalties)

• Goalkeeper: Alexandre Pisano // Daniel Schmidt // Yohei Takeda

• Mid-Season Review: Nagoya Grampus

After multiple years of mediocrity (and admittedly one League Cup triumph), Kenta Hasegawa’s infamous reign over Nagoya Grampus has finally ended. My particular expectations for Nagoya Grampus and therefore my harshness in these season reviews over the past few years stems from the fact that this team can/should do much better given Grampus’ financial outlay in terms of transfer fees and wages spent as well as the strong foundation of a passionate fanbase.

Things were looking wonky even before the season as Kasper Junker and Daniel Schmidt both got injured. The team seemed all out of sorts from the get-go and were deep in the relegation zone having not won a single game until the seventh game of the season. Grampus were able to recover a little bit to push themselves away when they lost only once between matchdays 15 and 23 which had people thinking the team was stabilizing. However, in another twist they dipped in form again while Marinos started to rack up wins and Nagoya somehow managed to drag themselves back down into the relegation fight. During all this the defending League Cup champions somehow fell to Kataller Toyama in the 2nd round back in April while also losing to Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the Quarter Finals of the Emperor’s Cup in the summer.

Kenta Hasegawa is usually known for being able to coach a fairly solid defense but the team looked all over the place this season. The pressing was a wash most of the time, all it would do is open up large holes in the midfield that Sho Inagaki would inevitably charge out to cover, which then only further exposed a rather lackluster Back 3 behind him!

I’ve been very skeptical of KenedyEgbus Mikuni. There’s occasions when he looks competent, very aggressive in challenges but ultimately he just isn’t very good. He was deservedly dropped after Haruya Fujii came back to Japan. Yuki Nogami was showing his age and drifed in-and-out of the team. I really don’t think Akinari Kawazura is any good and in my opinion he only gets chances because he’s left footed. Yota Sato is alright while I genuinely like Teruki Hara but he never got to show his best under Hasegawa. A small positive was upstart 18 year old Right Wing Back Soichiro Mori, it will be nice to see more of him next season.

I’m a big fan of Haruya Fujii so I was bitterly disappointed that he had to come back to the J.League. He has magically shown no signs of injury troubles now that he’s back in Japan though. This meme still applies though:

Hasegawa finally gave up his weird fixation with Takuya Uchida at Center Back, although to be completely fair some of this was squad recruitment related and not entirely on Hasegawa.

On a slightly more positive note, Alex Pisano’s sudden rise was quite nice to see. Playing regularly at the J1 level at such a young age gave him the opportunity for a U-20 World Cup starting place and national team debut at the EAFF Cup. Of course, I think he still has a long way to go as he’s made more than a few mistakes but in a league where very old goalkeepers reign, it was a nice change of scenery for me. In contrast, Daniel Schmidt’s career keeps taking a nose-dive since his failed move to Metz in 2023 that set off a whole chain reaction of events that scuppered Japan’s 2023 Asian Cup. Schmidt was brought in as a starter but numerous unjuries made this season a complete write-off.

What is even more perplexing is how this team seemingly can’t function without Sho Inagaki. In the mid-season review, I half-jokingly called him the “Japanese Frank Lampard” but where would Nagoya be without his goals and all around midfield engine? The issue is that the guy is nearly 34 and has had the workload of 2~3 players all by himself. I’m not sure how long he can keep this form up and in that sense, switching managers should allow the team to wean themselves off their huge dependence on him.

Of course, both Ryuji Izumi and Tsukasa Morishima did a good job too. The former has always been able to play a billion different positions but the latter has played a lot deeper in recent years to decent effect. I still think Morishima should be pushed up higher though. I personally would like to see Taichi Kikuchi fit-and-firing and broken out of jail (the bench). He’s genuinely a good player. Hopefully the new manager coming in recognizes this.

Mateus had a very mixed season. He ended the season as the tied 2nd highest goal scorer on the team but his 5 goals only came across three separate games. His fitness became very stop-start after July and it was announced that he got an ACL injury in October. To go on a bit of a segue, as much as it had hurt to lose Mateus in the middle of the 2023 season, it made sense in terms of his age and the significant financial compensation they received. Ideally, Grampus would’ve used that money to rebuild. But of course, they wasted that money on a bunch of transfer duds (Jose Carabali? Yves Avelete? Yuya Asano was quite disappointing as well even though the move made sense on paper) and they then brought Mateus back from the Middle East in January this year! He’s now much older, more injury prone (he had a major injury while in Saudi Arabia), and now will be close to 32 when he returns from injury. Just really fantastic transfer strategy all around from Nagoya...

Another problem is that Nagoya have had so many strikers in recent years but so few goals. Following the aforementioned Inagaki, the top goal scorers were Center Back Yota Sato (!!!), Mateus (major injury since October), and Ryuji Izumi (who has not scored since late August)! To be clear, I think both Yuya Yamagishi and Kensuke Nagai do a lot outside of just scoring goals, I get what they provide and I especially like Yamagishi honestly. However 3 goals and 2 goals respectively is extremely poor returns. Kasper Junker was always injured (again) while Yudai Kimura was bought for a decent chunk of changes but hasn’t quite got going yet either... It is/was a real big issue.

According to Football-Lab, Nagoya were:

• 17th in the league for final 3rd entries

• 17th in box entries

• 13th in shots and 12th in shots on target

• All leading to 11th in goals scored!

When you consider the entire squad there’s a decent player pool (but not great and an aging one, to be clear) but they aren’t functioning at all properly in attack and defense, this is mostly down on the manager in my opinion. Of course, the recruitment team has a lot to answer too and Nagoya have actually done just that by letting go of both the GM and the Head of Recruitment a few days after the team secured safety from relegation in November. Over the past few seasons they have consistently had the oldest squad by average age so that’s something the new executives will have to address.

Rumors have swilled around over potential managers this past month… The worst being reports that Grampus are considering Mischa Petrovic. Please don’t, please spare me from having to talk about Mischa Ball in the Year 2026 (as I’m finalizing this write-up in December, the rumors are only getting stronger…). My mental sanity aside, now Nagoya fans can breathe a sigh of relief as the team can spend the next six months during the 100 Year Vision League to try out new personnel both on and off the pitch as it gears up for a refreshed run in the 2026-2027 season.

Tokyo Verdy (17th, 43 Points)

• 11 Wins / 10 Draws / 17 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Ajinomoto Stadium

• Manager: Hiroshi Jofuku

• 23 Goals (20th); 41 Conceded (9th)

• 31.82 xG (20th); 38.85 xGA (5th)

• Top goal scorer: Itsuki Someno (5 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Matheus Vidotto

• Mid-Season Review: Tokyo Verdy

Second season syndrome hit like a 18-wheeler truck! Verdy last season looked awful but got results and at the time that was acceptable as survival was an absolute necessity. While Verdy did do enough to survive again this season, the cracks have appeared throughout the fanbase (and most neutrals) as the football on display has continued to be extremely painful to watch, some might say it’s somehow worse. Their defense has generally been pretty solid, a very physical middle-block that also pushes out to do a lot of pressing from their energetic outfield players. However, Verdy’s attack was genuinely the worst in the league. Using a five game rolling average, Verdy’s xG and goals for only jumped above one (1!) just a few times this season...

In terms of positives, Kosuke Saito & Koki Morita were an absolute joy to watch. They are extremely good at pass-and-move sequences that befuddle the opponent press and tightly packed blocks with their positioning and intelligence in finding gaps between-the-lines. Verdy are honestly quite good to watch in the first 2/3rds of the pitch due to these two and Hiroto Taniguchi making plays.

However, this brings me back to the big problem plaguing Verdy which is that they have only scored 22 goals this season. Yes, you read that right! 22! Twenty-Two! In 38 games! Itsuki Someno was the top goal scorer with 4 goals from 6.89 xG and also got 4 assists. The previous top goal scorer was the departed Yuto Tsunashima with 3... along with Hiroto Taniguchi, another Center Back. In the summer Verdy sold Yudai Kimura (just 2 goals…) to Nagoya Grampus then brought in Shimon Teranuma, who then hardly played for some reason…

This all led to a Verdy team that according to Football-Lab are:

• LAST in goals scored (as previously mentioned)

• 19th in shots taken

• 19th in shots on target

• 18th in final 3rd entries

• 18th in box entries

Do I really need to say more?

Shifting to the defense, Yuto Tsunashima continued to play well following a good 2024 season which led to a Japan national team call-up for the EAFF Cup in July. A few weeks later he moved to Royal Antwerp in the Belgian League. I did write about him in the mid-season review already so I’ll refrain from doing so again here.

While Hiroto Taniguchi has not got the kind of outright physicality like Tsunashima that would be immediately enticing for European clubs, I do think plenty of J1 clubs at the higher end of the table will be very interested in him, especially since he is only 26. His small height for a Center Back and age probably rules out a move overseas although his aerial win % isn’t actually that bad. A huge value though is his ability on the ball from the back-line. Taniguchi has equally good amount of ball progression though his passing and carrying abilities.

The goalkeeping department is a low priority for change as Matheus Vidotto is largely fine but maybe it’s time to try out Keisuke Nakamura during the 100 Year Vision League. I was a bit surprised when Verdy sold Hjiri Onaga off to V-Varen Nagasaki as he’s a decent player but he was getting older and the one thing Verdy absolutely have is a bunch of young-ish guys who can run around a lot that you can throw into the Wing Back position so I guess it was fine. Verdy have so many of this type of player like Yuta Arai (who has also played in attack a fair bit), Yuan Matsuhashi, Yosuke Uchida, etc. None of these guys are going to be superstars but considering the fact that Verdy don’t have a whole lot of money to buy good-to-great players so they can’t be too picky and they are quite young so maybe you could flip them for some profit in a year or two. Verdy do have a great academy though, unfortunately we haven’t seen Joi Yamamoto, Keisuke Nakamura, nor Gakuto Kawamura get a chance in the league yet…

I feel like Hiroshi Jofuku has burnt through a lot of the goodwill he’s bought over the past few seasons as fans have become frustrated at the football on display but on the other hand, can Verdy really do more given their finances? With continued J1 survival it’s clear that their financial situation is improving year-on-year now but how long will it take for them to get them back to their 90s pomp? Can they make smart(er) decisions in the meantime to prevent being stuck in a relegation fight every year even with limited resources? I think Jofuku has set his team up well given their good defending, build-up play, etc. A lot of the attacking/finishing quality woes are player recruitment related that are somewhat out of the manager’s hands.

In the last months of the season, two narrow 1-0 victories over relegation rivals Shonan and Albirex Niigata was what ultimately sealed Verdy’s safety but it was a very close run thing. Mission accomplished yet again so hopefully there’s time to start anew and experiment a bit more during the 100 Year Vision League. Perhaps a bit more excitement for the fans, a couple more goals (into the opponent’s net) every game to cheer about?

Yokohama FC (18th, 35 Points)

• 9 Wins // 8 Draws // 21 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Yokohama // Nippatsu Mitsuzawa Stadium

• Manager: Shuhei Yomoda

• 27 Goals (19th); 45 Conceded (11th)

• 35.65 xG (19th); 41.54 xGA (7th)

• Top goal scorer: Solomon Sakuragawa (4 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Akinori Ichikawa // Jakub Slowik

• Mid-Season Review: Yokohama FC

Yo-yo-kohama FC are relegated once again. This means we’ll see them back in J1 in 2027, right? Shifting back to the present, it was yet another awful showing from Yokohama FC on the J1 stage. Manager Shuhei Yomoda, who presided over the past few yo-yo-ings, started the season extremely poorly with a solitary win in the first 16 league games which included a seven game losing streak and eleven game winless streak! He was surprisingly only fired in late July... and replaced by Fumitake Miura, who has bounced around as a coach (and occasionally manager) across different J2 level clubs and was part of the Yomoda’s coaching staff from this season. Unfortunately, the tides didn’t change as despite winning half of the last ten games of the season, Yomoda’s tenure had left them in too deep of a hole to dig out of along with rivals Yokohama F. Marinos’ resurgence in the autumn months. Perhaps if the front office had gotten rid of Yomoda earlier, they might have had enough oomph to pip Marinos to safety but it wasn’t to be.

The underlying issue has been that Yokohama FC over the past few years have had a decent J2 squad but an outright bad-to-below-average J1 squad. They also don’t help themselves with some horrible recruitment strategies that make it harder to dig themselves out of in subsequent windows. This season probably takes the cake though because they had nearly a starting XI of first team Goalkeepers on the books! It’s even more crazy when you consider that four of them have been J1/J2-level regulars in the past few years. Of course, some consideration does need to be made over the fact that Tsubasa Shibuya was brought in as the starter, only to suffer a major injury in pre-season which started off this goalkeeper merry-go-round...

Still though, even acknowledging their poor financial position relative to the league, Yokohama FC collected far too many veteran players. The fact that a lot of the actual younger players they’ve brought in (from J2 or from university sides) have done much better across the long season should give the front office a hint at how they should be strategizing for next year though.

While there was a short period where Kaili Shimbo lost his place to Kyo Hosoi (more on him next) overall, Shimbo showed that he could do a decent enough job at this level despite the increased physicality of J1. He is very good at driving forward with the ball and crossing it, he absolutely will have suitors across J1. FC Tokyo might make sense for him.

Kyo Hosoi was a big surprise especially since he was coming into a position that didn’t really need an upgrade in Left Center Back / Left Wing Back. Putting aside my skepticism over why they didn’t do this in other positions, Hosoi performed quite admirably and made a very good case for starting next season in the 100 Year Vision League.

Akito Fukumori continued to play quarter-back for this team with his excellent medium-long range passing and set piece ability. Like I said in the mid-season review, his defensive liability in open space is ameliorated by how Yokohama FC play and the fact that he gets actual support from his teammates unlike at his previous club. He is still getting up there in age though so there’s going to be some hard decisions during “contract re-negotiations” this winter though. Nduka Boniface has his bone-headed errors but has usually been OK enough at the back. He is one of the few assets that would be worth something if they want to reinvest so it’ll be interesting to see what happens to him over the winter.

Looking across this squad, there just isn’t a whole lot of quality. Solomon Sakuragawa for all of his bullish endeavor and strength up top... ultimately he doesn’t quite have the agility nor skill to actually score many goals. Admittedly, he was still the best of a bad batch with 4 goals and 3 assists. I think there’s a market for his type of profile for him to stay in J1 but I’m just not a big fan of his.

Let’s look at the Brazilians! Joao Paulo was fairly useless. Michel Lima played 7 (single digits, seven) whole minutes in the league and was binned off in half a season. Lukian clearly doesn’t have the legs for it anymore. Adailton looked threatening but he’s really at the twilight of his career and I thought he’d gone riding off into the sunset after a good J2 season with Ventforet Kofu in 2024. I do feel coming back to the J1 level was too a bit too much for him. Yuri Lara is tough tackling and can be somewhat useful but his lack of mobility is a huge issue that makes it hard to play anything other than a low-mid block!

Overall, Yokohama managed to concede fewer goals relative to the bottom half but they mostly did this by sacrificing any sort of attack and ultimately that’s what sunk them. I’ll be honest, they have always been a difficult team to watch as a neutral. Most of their defensive metrics were in the mid-table range but their attacking metrics were in the gutter.

This team needs a big reset. There’s way too much waste on the wage books especially on expensive old Brazilian attackers that didn’t actually help them survive J1! I’m not sure how they’re going to get rid of these contracts because contrary to popular (Japanese) belief, a lot of these guys had definitely signed multi-year contracts! There are plenty of young or young-ish guys from university teams and J2 that Yokohama FC have filled up on over the past few transfer windows that they should be building around instead. Can they successfully rejig their strategy during the 100 Year Vision League to come back swinging for promotion in the 2026-2027 season? They’re going to have to as the Japanese and Brazilian veterans they have aren’t going to last until 2027 anyway but time will tell.

Shonan Bellmare (19th, 32 Points)

• 8 Wins // 8 Draws // 22 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Shonan // Lemon Gas Stadium Hiratsuka

• Manager: Satoshi Yamaguchi

• 36 Goals (15th); 63 Conceded (19th)

• 38.5 xG (16th); 47.78 xGA (15th)

• Top goal scorer: Akito Suzuki (9 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Naoto Kamifukumoto // William Popp // Kota Sanada

• Mid-Season Review: Shonan Bellmare

Remember when Shonan were leading the league? It seems eons ago but it was back in March! Shonan were undefeated in their first five league games of the season but it was all downhill from there especially after losing a huge chunk of their starters to European clubs in the summer (Junnosuke Suzuki, Sho Fukuda, Taiga Hata). What followed their 2-0 win against Verdy in May was a ninteen game (!!) winless streak, including a seven game losing streak between August and October, that was only broken by a 5-2 win over Albirex Niigata in early November. However, that came a week after their relegation had already been confirmed after a heartbreaking loss against Avispa Fukuoka conceding off a last second penalty.

Honestly, it’s very hard to blame manager Satoshi Yamaguchi a whole lot here. I’ve been pretty sympathetic to his plight considering he has to work with a box of scraps every single year and the somewhat decent and/or young players get plucked away every transfer window.

Let’s do a brief segue to highlight some of the important players that left in the summer:

Sho Fukuda was a real live-wire in the attacking line. His physical output was incredible with huge amounts of sprints and accelerations per game. He used his speed for carries and runs behind in attack while also for counterpressing in defense. This sort of physical intensity made him ideal for Europe and he went off to Denmark. I wrote a quick report on him here:

Junnosuke Suzuki exploded into prominence in the latter half of the 2024 season and continued his fine form in 2025. As a converted midfielder to the Back 3 Center Back position, he was unique due to his midfielder-like qualities on the ball but doing so from a much deeper position. He improved far quicker than what I thought possible and earned a move to FC Copenhagen in the summer but not before earning his full Japan National Team debut in June and then continuing to earn caps while playing in Denmark throughout the autumn. The report I wrote on him back in February is one of my favorite and most comprehensive pieces:

Taiga Hata’s career had been marred by continuous injuries but he’s been far more fit and ready over the past year or so. As a result he was picked up by Sint-Truiden during the summer due to his immense physical endurance that enabled him to progress the ball through his passing and carrying.

Now to point out some positives out of those players that did stay. Taiyo Hiraoka continues to be criminally underrated, unless you’ve been reading my work for the past 5 years and know how much I’ve praised him since 2022. Unfortunately he doesn’t quite have enough end-product which is a shame considering the real good quality of his off-ball running.

Akito Suzuki was doing it all, leading the press up front, taking shots, and creating. He had the whole club’s weight on his shoulders. I do quite sympathize with him as he’s a good player, clearly putting the effort in, and rallying the troops every game as the new captain. Suzuki’s numbers didn’t really pop but he still managed 9 goals and 4 assists, a career high in goal involvements despite being on a far weaker iteration of Shonan Bellmare.

In terms of the other attackers, Yutaro Oda was a dud with only a single goal to his name. Rio Nitta, who was brought in over the summer on loan from Urawa, fared slightly better with a goal and 2 assists. All these misfiring attackers aside from Akito Suzuki meant Luiz Phellype kept coming back into the line-up and managed to score 4 goals. Stuff like this is probably why J.League clubs continue to hit the “emergency random Brazilian striker” button inside the glass case at the club house every single season... Otherwise, the underrated Kosuke Onose provided 6 assists. He’s a veteran now at 32 so it’ll be interesting to see if he stays or goes.

In midfield, Kohei Okuno, covered decent amount of ground but probably does not have the mobility to cover it quickly enough especially when Shonan lose the ball poorly. The rest of their midfield is full of guys on the older side like Akimi Barada and Hiroaki Okuno, Kosuke Onose (more of an attacker anyway) or guys like Masaki Ikeda and Taiyo Hiraoka who aren’t quite good defensively either.

Ultimately though, even with the issues with the press and midfielders, the quality of defenders was… well. Simply put, most of them can’t actually defend. I was very confused about the departure of Kim Min-Tae on loan to fellow relegation battlers Shimizu S-Pulse. He was Shonan’s savior a few seasons back, so I’m really wondering what happened there? As such, Shonan were left with the calamities-in-human-form in Kazunari Ohno, Koki Tachi, etc. and things went as you’d expect... In the summer, Shonan drafted in some help in the form of Shinya Nakano and Hiroya Matsumoto who were both OK-to-fine but it was much too little, too late at that point. About the only defender that I would give props to was Yuto Suzuki, who had a heavy load on his shoulders especially when you consider that he was super important when Shonan had the ball as well.

Overall, Shonan’s defending shipped the 3rd most shots conceded, 6th worst xGA per shot, and the 6th worst non-penalty xGA. It was real bad, folks!

Naoto Kamifukumoto had been his usual god-like (with the occasional horrifying mistake) presence between the sticks for Shonan but unfortunately the wily old veteran suffered an ACL injury in June. Shonan decided to fix their goalkeeping issues by buying William Popp who had lost his place for Marinos... I couldn’t believe my eyes! Aaaand sure enough, Popp was binned off after conceding 21 goals in 7 games for Kota Sanada (the previous time he was a regular goalkeeper was in 2022 for a JFL team...) and emergency loanee Shun Yoshida. Not great!

A theme of their defending was their poor set-piece readiness, Shonan conceded 17 goals from these situations, over a quarter of their total!

Shonan gathered just 7 (seven!) whole points in the entire 2nd half of the season, or at least since I wrote the mid-season review. It captures how they were never able to get into any sort of form after that magical first month. Shonan have always relied on a somewhat youthful core alongside lots of old veterans (mostly from free transfers) due to their financial constraints. When you always look at Shonan’s squad age profile, you can clearly see a lack of players playing significant league minutes in the “peak age” category. This is something I call the “Shonan gap”. What’s going to be interesting is who of those players they are going to be able to keep as I imagine a lot of teams (both Japanese and European) will be looking at Hisatsugu Ishii, Taiyo Hiraoka, and Akito Suzuki... Rumors also point to ex-Omiya Ardija boss, Tetsu Nagasawa, taking the reins at Shonan which will definitely be interesting as I did like how he was able to rebuild Omiya from the ground up after their J3 relegation (NOTE: Nagasawa was officially appointed on the morning this newsletter was released).

Albirex Niigata (20th, 24 Points)

• 4 Wins // 12 Draws // 21 Losses

• Location // Stadium: Niigata // Denka Big Swan Stadium

• Manager: Daisuke Kimori (to June) // Toru Irie

• 36 Goals (13th); 67 Conceded (20th)

• 36.48 xG (15th); 50.39 xGA (18th)

• Top goal scorer: Motoki Hasegawa (7 goals)

• Goalkeeper: Kazuki Fujita // Daisuke Yoshimitsu // Ryuga Tashiro

• Mid-Season Review: Albirex Niigata

A horrible season for Niigata and to be honest, they were well and truly sunk by the summer in my opinion. They did not win a SINGLE game after June 15th! A six game losing streak, a draw, then another four game losing streak after a win over Marinos effectivey resigned them to relegation, although it wasn’t official until late October. It was a plethora of issues that plagued them and once it all started snowballing, nothing could really stop the momentum of their downward slide.

Niigata as usual lost plenty of players and even manager Rikizo Matsuhashi after the 2024 season but managed to keep Hayato Inamura and Hiroki Akiyama. However, incoming transfers weren’t great as Yamato Wakatsuki, Miguel Silveira, Ken Yamura, Ryuga Tashiro, Jason Geria, etc. couldn’t quite hack it at the J1 level. It was to the extent that some players like Riku Ochiai and Ken Yamura went back on loan to their former J2 team within six months...

The team also hired a completely unproven manager in Daisuke Kimori (who’s spent most of his career as a coach at Mito HollyHock) to lead on the ostentatious idea that they wanted to nurture a new kind of manager from scratch. Niigata couldn’t quite stick to their guns despite their whole song-and-dance about giving coaches a chance and fired him in June!