Keeper and Injury updates for J1League (Patreon)

Less than 2 weeks to go before the season starts!

We had the pretty surprising news that YFMs main goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka is set to join Vancouver in the MLS. Takaoka wants a new challenge and was hoping to move to a European team & though a suitable offer never came on that front he has decided the MLS will be good for his career as he pushes to break into the  national setup

This has caught YFM by surprise esp so close to the start of the season. The main question on everyone's minds is who is going to replace Takaoka.

The realistic scenarios and outcomes are:

1) YFM use one of their existing keepers with Obi being favourite followed by Tagawa.

2) YFM loan or buy another keeper with J1 league experience. Names rumoured so far include:

Park Il-gyu of Sagan Tosu who has played for YFM before and is now a Japanese citizen so wont take up any foreign player spots

Shun Takagi - is currently the keeper at Oita in J2. He has experience in J1 and is known for his ball distribution. The source of this rumour was from a relatively unreliable twitter account.

Zion Suzuki - apparently a loan offer from YFM was declined by Urawa for Zion. Some fans on the message board still think its possible. For me, its highly unlikely Urawa would send a player on loan to a rival  

Its hard to know which, if any of these rumours have merit.  What is known is YFM have excellent resources and have funds to buy someone if suitable. For Sorare, im personally waiting it out for a trusted source or announcement from the club. If I see anything convincing, I will post it here and on Discord :)

Talking of YFM, they play in the Super Cup against Kofu this Saturday. I expect to see their strongest available lineup which will also gives us some insight into the condition of players in general

Please note that It is viewable on J league International YouTube channel for free!

Other Keeper Updates

Hayakawa has been starting in the main Kashima Antlers teams during preseason training matchs. Im more confident about him being the main starting keeper though will look to the below friendly on Sunday for further confirmation

For Kobe the situation remains complex.

They played in a friendly on Saturday where Maekawa kept a clean sheet in a 2-0 win.

We know that Kobe have been actively looking for an additional keeper. Attempts to sign one have fallen through a few times, however, according to a few sources Phelipe Megiolaro is close to signing.

Even if he does sign, its not known how long it will take for him to get match fit and secondly if he would be considered the starting keeper.  Although he has represented Brazilian youth teams and was even called up to the full squad in 2018, he has not played a full professional game for over a season. 

I am still not fully confident with Maekawa as he has a history of making big mistakes/being dropped. So I am personally monitoring the situation as I also want to see how Kobe start the season after last years poor performances.

Kawasaki Frontale have been at training camp in Okinawa. They had a training match with Sagan Tosu where they won 11-3! 

Yamada scored a hat trick to cap off his impressive training camp. Alot is expected from the rookie striker though he may well have to be patient this season and make appearances from the bench/cup games.

Oniki (manager) seems very focussed and determined this year to get back the title. Has has been experimenting a lot with formations including switching players into different positions (eg Yamane played LB for some of the training games). Ominami has impressed with his passing and speed and new keeper Kamifukumoto is well known for his distribution and keeper sweeper skills.

Although Oniki has been experimenting, he is also known to use his trusted players and slowly bring in change so I still expect JSR to be starting keeper in the league. I expect the League cup to be the place where rotation happens and players like Yamada and Kamifukumoto amongst others to play. As always, I will be monitoring the situation and giving the best info possible! :)

Injury and Suspensions

I have also updated the injury list including info on Samper, Sakai and Koizumi amongst others.

It can be found here 

In terms of Suspensions, I have removed the two players who had red cards from the last game of last season. It seems that the rules state that these do not carry over if only 1 game bans. The Disciplinary Committee dont seem to have met at the end of last season so there is still a small chance there still will be ban. I will update here if anything change.

J1 2023 League Licence

We haven't had any update from Sorare yet on this. I was hoping to get one as I had post planned on breakout youth players who dont have cards yet!

In any case, I will do a post this week on players to watch for this season who have cards as there are still quite a few :)

I will also be updating the spreadsheets on squad depths if any transfers news or intel from friendlies comes out.

Let me know if you have anything you want to see or have any questions on Discord!