J.League 2023 Season Preview #5: Nagoya Grampus & Kashiwa Reysol

Can both teams improve upon their weaknesses to make a renewed charge for the ACL places?

Feb 09, 2023

Welcome to the fifth season preview newsletter for the 2023 J.League season!

We’re starting from the J2 runner’s up (Yokohama FC) and then finishing off with last season’s J1 champions (Yokohama F. Marinos). I’ll be covering a lot of topics for each team from transfers, tactics, my personal questions for the teams, and of course league finish predictions (subject to change as I continue writing more previews). Please don’t take my league predictions too seriously as although I do take a lot of time thinking about it, my performance last year should tell you how wildly unpredictable the J.League can be…

Let’s get started!

Nagoya Grampus

Last Season (2022: 8th Place)

Kenta Hasegawa’s first season in charge of Nagoya Grampus was quite a struggle despite finishing in 8th. An awful start to the season saw Grampus teetering close to relegation until an overhaul in strategy to move to a back 3 paid dividends as Grampus rose up the table with lots of wobbles along the way.

J.League 2022 Season Review: Nagoya Grampus

Transfers

Winter transfers newsletter: Nagoya Grampus

Rumors of Kasper Junker finally became official last month but otherwise nothing further incomings to report since the winter transfers newsletter. There’s been a few departures on the other hand. Yuki Soma left the team for a dream move to Europe. Although I’m not nearly as high on him as a lot of other people in regards to how well he’d do in Europe, he was still a very very good J1 level player (quick threat on the dribble, very accurate crossing and set-pieces). Yoichiro Kakitani returned to Tokushima Vortis where he spent some good years on loan in the beginning of his career.

I didn’t touch on this in the winter transfers newsletters but I was a bit surprised Nagoya let Keiya Sento go. While it was quite clear he wasn’t at his best and gradually lost his place in the team, especially once Takuya Shigehiro came in to perform a similar role, he’s still a quality player. Of course, with Riku Yamada and Ryuji Izumi’s signing as well as Yonemoto (from loan) and Nagasawa (from injury) returning, the midfield became pretty crowded so I suppose someone had to go.

Squad Composition

Official squad announcement (January 8th)

Mitch Langerak is in goal, nothing more needs to be said so let’s move on to the other positions. How the Back 3 looks on opening day will depend on how well Maruyama has recovered from his (minor?) knee surgery back in November. With Yuki Nogami coming in and Maruyama’s injury issues in the past few seasons I can see Nagoya’s back line looking more like in (2) below. They’ve got 5~6 players for those Center Back positions so even if Haruya Fujii is plucked away by some European club I think they’ll be OK there especially if Ei Gyotoku can step up, not optimal but OK.

Pre-season reports have talked about Ryuji Izumi playing yet another new position by becoming an option at Wing Back. He's played there before, or at least at Left Back for both Kashima and Nagoya in the past so sure I guess that makes some sense. However, clearly that’s not the primary reason that they brought him back so that means he won’t be an option in a more optimal midfield spot. This also makes sense considering how mediocre every other option there is… as I had Thales and Takuya Uchida getting press-ganged to play there in my winter transfers newsletter. I imagine there will be times where Yuki Nogami will play Right Wing Back (like he did a few times to not-so-great effect at Sanfrecce) and Ryoya Morishita will shift over to the Left due to injuries/rotation.

The center of midfield is pretty crowded and is where a lot of Nagoya’s quality comes from, even leaving out Ryuji Izumi from this conversation for now. Takuji Yonemoto has returned after a decent season on loan at Shonan and some pre-season reports have him potentially starting as the single pivot. Otherwise, Kazuki Nagasawa will be returning from a long-term injury while Sho Inagaki and Riku Yamada are probably Nagoya’s best central midfield players at the present. Most of these players can all play in a double-pivot or as the box-to-box midfield #8s.

Slightly further forward are the 2 supporting attackers behind the striker. Ryuji Izumi would ideally play here and not as a wing-back while others like Takuya Shigehiro and Noriyoshi Sakai have already gotten used to playing here last season. Kensuke Nagai can also drop slightly down as well along with star man Mateus. Up top is clearly Kasper Junker and whether he’ll have a partner will be up to how manager Kenta Hasegawa wants to shape the midfield behind them based on how they want to defend or press, etc. If Shigehiro or Izumi are playing as the attacking midfielders, then you should easily see how the 3-4-2-1 and 3-5-2 formations I’ve set up in (1) and (2) are pretty interchangeable.

Playstyle

Grampus went into the 2022 season set on continuing with a 4-2-3-1 as during Massimo Ficcadentti’s time at the helm but Kenta Hasegawa attempted to update it with a lot more pressing from up high (among other things). However, Grampus weren’t effective at winning the ball as a unit while their build-up problems with a back 4 and double pivot midfield forced their most valuable attacking players, Soma and Mateus, to constantly have to track back to defend or ask for the ball. Seeing these problems, Hasegawa switched it up to a 3-5-2 around a 1/4 of the way through the season (around early/late May I think?).

This solved one thing with Mateus being kept up high and attracting attention of defenders but other problems still existed throughout the midfield as the box-to-box midfielders could get pulled wide and leave Leo Silva or Ryota Nagaki (as the single pivot) with too much space to defend.

From the 2022 Mid-Season Review in June, a few months after Nagoya switched to a Back 3.

The build-up got better with the wider Center Backs and the Wing Backs would carry the ball up the pitch from deep. All the defenders being comfortable on the ball helped as they engaged in combination play with the midfielders. Sho Inagaki and Shinnosuke Nakatani worked quite well together in this regard.

Yuki Nogami should help in this regard as he regularly got involved both high up the pitch to support the attack on the Right (whether as a Center Back or Wing Back) and deeper in the build-up for Sanfrecce Hiroshima last season.

Even still, final 3rd creativity was mostly left to lots of inefficient crossing or Mateus’ individual skills. But who would actually be inside the box to finish off chances, especially when Mateus had to drift out wide to create chances in the first place? Last year Nagoya had to ask an awful lot of their midfielders as well as the Wing Back on the far side to make runs into the box on top of all of their existing defensive duties.

It’ll be up to Kasper Junker now to solve Nagoya’s goal scoring issues. The Dane is also useful for long counterattacks as he loves to make runs behind the defense and is a very calm in 1v1 situations against the opposition goalkeeper.

Haruya Fujii turned out to be a revelation in defense last season. Even with some minor mistakes, he still had veterans in the form of Shinnosuke Nakatani and Yoichi Maruyama available next to him as cover so he was able to improve leaps-and-bounds throughout the season. Extremely good in the air, mobility to cover a large area, and fairly comfortable with the ball at his feet, it might not be long before a national team debut?

Courtesy of Ben Griffis’ “Soccer Prospect Research & Radar Creation” app

Storylines & Prediction

Main Questions

Who will support Mateus in creating chances and scoring goals? Will Kasper Junker (if he can remain fit) thrive with a steady supply from the Brazilian? Can Kensuke Nagai chip in with a few more goals again?
Who fills in at Left Wing Back now that Yuki Soma is gone? From pre-season training, reporters have remarked on Takuya Uchida and Thales being played there but to me they don't seem to be great direct replacements for what Soma offered on the left... Ryuji Izumi has emerged as an option and Morishita can play on either side as well.

Predicted League Finish

~~Top 3: 1st~3rd~~
~~Upper mid-table: (4th) t.b.a., (5th) t.b.a., (6th) t.b.a., (7th) Urawa Reds~~
Mid-table: (8th) Vissel Kobe, (9th) Nagoya Grampus, (10th) Kashiwa Reysol, (11th) Sagan Tosu
~~Lower mid-table: (12th) Gamba Osaka, (13th) Albirex Niigata, (14th) Shonan Bellmare, (15th) Consadole Sapporo~~
~~Relegation Strugglers: (16th) Avispa Fukuoka, (17th) Kyoto Sanga, (18th) Yokohama F.C.~~

When this team is in good form, their defense is neigh on impenetrable with Inagaki running around tackling people, then the strong back 3, and even if you’ve gotten past all those you’re left dealing with Mitch Langerak in goal. However, I’m just very skeptical of Kenta Hasegawa’s abilities to turn this into a top 3 side. Despite things improving with a Back 3 there were still many doubts on how they defend higher up the pitch and their chance-creation is still extremely reliant on Mateus magic. Also, while this isn’t only on Hasegawa himself but shoe-horning your key midfield upgrade to play wing back instead doesn’t seem like good squad building. On the other hand, this team still has quite a bit of talent and things could click into place (both Mateus and Junker getting double digits in goals) for Nagoya to really push for a top 4-ish place. I have them as 9th but anywhere in the mid-table band of 8th~11th makes the most sense to me.

Kashiwa Reysol

Last Season (2022: 7th Place)

In Nelsinho’s 4th season at the helm (10th if you include his previous stint from the 2009~2014 seasons), Reysol were able to defy all pre-season predictions (including my own!) and finish in the top half. They were legitimately a good team in the 1st Half of the season. But unfortunately, after this electric start, their attacking output really dropped as Mao Hosoya only scored twice in the 2nd half of the season while Matheus Savio wasn’t able to create as much.

J.League 2022 Season Review: Kashiwa Reysol

Transfers

Winter transfers newsletter: Kashiwa Reysol

Keiya Sento will be raring to go after a step-up to a “bigger” club (Nagoya) didn’t go as planned. Jay-Roy Grot has arrived very late in the transfer window. I imagine he’s going to play up top next to Mao Hosoya (and he might be insurance in case Mao Hosoya leaves for Europe during the summer, maybe?).

Most, if not all, of their transfers were made pretty early in the season so it was all covered in the winter transfers newsletter.

Squad Composition

Official squad announcement (January 14th)

3-5-2

In goal will be the young Masato Sasaki, hopefully he’ll continue to improve and become better than his predecessor, Kim S.G. I have Tomoki Takamine playing in midfield as the default but the conversation around the Center Back depth changes considerably if he’s played as a Left Center Back instead. The acquisitions of Diego and Katayama in particular have me convinced that Nelsinho will shift between a Back 3 and a Back 4 from game-to-game if not within-games as well. Alongside the fact that the manager probably sees guys like Iwashita, Kato, Tsuchiya, and Kawaguchi all as potential depth at the wide Center Back positions, numbers-wise it’s probably fine even if I’m worried about the quality drop-off. Anyway, I imagine the regulars at Center Back will be Yugo Tatsuta, Taiyo Koga, and Diego.

The midfield could shape up as either a inverted pyramid (single pivot plus two box-to-box) or a flat double pivot. I see Tomoki Takamine as an upgrade on Shiihashi but I have some doubts about the new signing playing as a single pivot so in (2) I have him next to Shiihashi for added security in front of the defense. The one of the box-to-box midfielders will obviously be Matheus Savio but the other could be any one of Keiya Sento, Tomoya Koyamatsu, Kota Yamada, or Sachiro Toshima.

With Jay-Roy Grot’s signing, it’s now far more likely that Kashiwa will regularly start matches with two strikers up top as in (1) rather than the 3-4-2-1 shape in (2). However they shape up, Mao Hosoya is still Reysol’s #1 striker.

3-4-2-1

Playstyle

Reysol were at their best when playing direct and quick through Matheus Savio's dribbling and Mao Hosoya's runs and hold-up play.

On the other hand, attempts to play-it-out-the-back were usually rather less successful…

This also caused Reysol to be pinned back into their defensive 3rd with only desperate long balls to an out-numbered Hosoya as their avenue out.

With the profiles of the players Reysol have brought in the off-season (Diego, Tatsuta, Katayama, Sento, etc.), it's clear that they want to be heading more in the direction of carefully building up from the back in 2023 so that they can take charge of games more easily and not have to exhaust Hosoya and Savio every game.

On the defensive, they would try to press up high but weren’t very good at it either. The midfield 3 would be pulled out wide or very high which left spaces behind for opponents to exploit while the front 2 had to run large distances to chase opponents from side-to-side.

When defending in numbers, they were actually good… at least in open-play with their shots conceded quality and quantity within the top 5 of the league (see the 2022 season review for details), but conversely they conceded a lot from set-pieces with 34% of their total goals conceded coming from these situations.

Storylines & Prediction

Main Questions

Can Reysol improve their build-up from the back without sacrificing their defensive solidity?
Can Masato Sasaki continue to improve? Will this open avenues for him to get selected for the national team?
Despite Mao Hosoya’s all-around game outside of goal-scoring, as a striker it was still disappointing that he wasn’t able to reach double figures. With more support and hopefully some tactical tweaks to allow him to preserve more of his energy for attacking, can he aim for top goalscorer this season?
After a horrid injury and a rather tame comeback in 2021, Mateus Savio exploded in 2022… even if he petered out a bit in the 2nd half of the season. Can the Brazilian re-kindle his great form in 2023?
There has been a lot of turn-over, especially in defense. Will all the new signings gel quickly enough?

Predicted League Finish

~~Top 3: 1st~3rd~~
~~Upper mid-table: (4th) t.b.a., (5th) t.b.a., (6th) t.b.a., (7th) Urawa Reds~~
Mid-table: (8th) Vissel Kobe, (9th) Nagoya Grampus, (10th) Kashiwa Reysol, (11th) Sagan Tosu
~~Lower mid-table: (12th) Gamba Osaka, (13th) Albirex Niigata, (14th) Shonan Bellmare, (15th) Consadole Sapporo~~
~~Relegation Strugglers: (16th) Avispa Fukuoka, (17th) Kyoto Sanga, (18th) Yokohama F.C.~~

As mentioned above, there’s been lots of squad turn-over. While the incomings look good on paper… there’s still a hefty amount of uncertainty in my opinion. I’ve thought a lot about swapping Reysol and Nagoya back-and-forth throughout this past month. For now I have Reysol finishing in mid-table at 10th. Uhhh… that’s still an improvement on last year when I had Reysol as relegation candidates, right?

Links

That’s it for now!

For other J.League season preview content I’ll point y’all over to…

Next time I will be going over FC Tokyo and Cerezo Osaka in Season Preview #6.

Thanks for reading!

Shogun Soccer

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