Brazilian Striker João Alves de Assis Silva left the club without saying goodbye to fans and never came back before season started. Considering losing former Brazil national team striker, the 3rd place was good enough to make NAGOYA supporters satisfied with the season. Actually I was surprised a little bit as a NAGOYA supporter.
It’s not too much to say that their most successful contract in club’s history helped the team. New players Hiroyuki ABE and Sho INAGAKI performed very well. They really understand what they should do on the pitch, so they fitted the team right after they joined the training. Actually it was much better than I expected. In addition, Mu KANAZAKI joined and played for NAGOYA from last July. I’m not satisfied with his number of goals considering his scoring ability but it was good enough to compensate CF role.
And GK Mitchell James Langerak, both CB Yuichi MARUYAMA and CB Shinichiro NAKATANI, their combination was improved significantly and also the most dedicated player WB Yutaka YOSHIDA saved the goal. As MIYAHARA got injured, young player Shunpei NARUSE got a chance and performed very well. He showed high skills and potential to play for a national team. Thanks to those defesive players, goals conceded was fewest in the league last season.
Honestly, who could predict his amazing performance? He made João Felipe Schmidt Urbano sit on the bench and improved the team performance on both attacking and defending situation. He rarely lose the ball and never misses the chance to score the goal. What’s more, he has a good defending skills, especially running distance is amazing. He made me think that he was everywhere he needed.
He always keep the correct position, never gave the opponent players vital space. That really helped GK and CB. I really wished I would have seen INAGAKI and João Felipe Schmidt Urbano worked together because I’m sure we could have seen more attractive football. Though it never came true.
Though INAGAKI must be the first choice this season again, even Iron Man can’t play for all games of both ACL and J.League. Massimo Ficcadenti should find another player to make him rest before INAGAKI feel exhausted in the season.
NAGOYA doesn’t have any players who can save the goal like Mitchell James Langerak, he is the only one who should play for both ACL and J.League. Last year we saw his big saves made NAGOYA win the games. This season NAGOYA needs his amazing GK skills again to finish as a champion.
Successful contracts with new players – Genius KAKITANI joined NAGOYA –
While KANAZAKI got injured and away from the training, NAGOYA signed Yoichiro KAKITANI. Everyone admits he is genius. He left Cerezo OSAKA which he started as a professional player. He still loves Cerezo OSAKA, but he swore that he came to NAGOYA with determination. His fantastic skills always attract supporters. His position is CF but he can play for other attacking positions. You can be looking forward to seeing which position he plays as.
And Kazuki NAGASAWA, Manabu SAITO joined the team. Their levels are difinately the same to national team levels.
In addition, one of the happiest news for NAGOYA fans, Sunto KODAMA signed with the club. He has already played for NAGOYA but he was a Uni student so he didn’t join the club training and didn’t have a lot of opportunities to play the game. He already showed us amazing dribble which attracts spectators in last couple of the games.
There are concerns on team management
Lack of numbers of Defensive Midfielder and Center-back players last season
It was also a good news that a promising young player, Tatsuya MORISHITA signed with the club. YOSHIDA, MIYAHARA, NARUSE, MORISHITA, all of them have high quality, so it’s not easy to chose two of them.
Last season Three defensive players (CB MARUYAMA, CB NAKATANI,DM INAGAKI) played for all games and DM YONEMOTO played for most of games. It means their performance were very good but it also means Massimo Ficcadenti didn’t trust other players. However, many clubs tried many new and young players because they didn’t need to be worried about relegation. It’s not easy to understand that Massimo Ficcadenti didn’t try new players. Even CB FUJI who is a young promising player from NAGOYA youth club played the games for only 90mins..( His first game: 3-0 won played for 90mins, the next game:3-0 won played for last 1min).Considering they have more games because of ACL, it seems to be impossible for those players to play for all games. That’s big homework to Massimo Ficcadenti. He can’t skip it this homework anymore.
But Massimo Ficcadenti has new options because NAGOYA signed Yasuki KIMOTO who played for Cerezo OSAKA as a starting player. He can play both CB and DM.
And also NAGASAWA can play on all midfielder position, so he is also one of the option. Whether there are many options or not, it depends on how Massimo Ficcadenti organize the team.
ACL CHALLENGE2021
The last time NAGOYA challenged ACL was in 2012, many players who belonged to the Club in 2012 already left the club but there are some players who experienced ACL as other club players. Langerak, MARUYAMA, NAKATANI, ABE, KANASAKI and so on. And also other players experienced international games as a national team player.
So I can say that players know how to play the international games. The concern is stamina. I already mentioned that Massimo Ficcadenti kept choosing the same players last season. And also he didn’t use substitutions in games. If he does the same things, it’s impossible for players to show their perform 100%. Because one of the reasons they finished 3rd place is persistent defence based on running hard. Hopefully Massimo Ficcadenti understands it, but there is a big question considering last season.
What’s more, there are many concerns to score the goals. Mateus dos Santos Castro, Gabriel Augusto Xavier and Naoki MAEDA, their skills worked on in attacking area but they probably need more strikers. Especially, NAGOYA has only 2 players as a target man (Mu KANAZAKI, Ryogo YAMAZAKI). I hope he doesn’t forget he has young high potential players ISHIDA, SOMA, KODAMA. I’m sure that it’s not too difficult to find new attacking plans until world class strikers sign with NAGOYA because Massimo Ficcadenti has many good attacking players already.
Many beloved players left the club but new experienced players joined the club, so NAGOYA supporters are still excited about a new team and they can’t wait for the opening match.
