Reysol at home

June 16th and a new era started at the Nack 5 as Zdenko Verdenik took over the managerial reins of Omiya Ardija from Jun Suzuki. His first test as Ardija coach would be to welcome the defending champions to our stadium, which would prove no easy task. The Slovenian coach must have hoped he could start by plugging a leaky defence, which had already let in 22 goals before the start of this game. Even though Verdenik afterwards might be able to find some praise for a spirited fightback, in truth the Squirrels were again outclassed by the opposition and Reysol won in commanding style to push themselves back into the top half of the league.

Squirrels fans arrived at Nack 5 hoping for the perennial boost teams tend to get when under a new coach. This duly arrived in the 9th minute with a strike from Brazilian exile Carlinhos, who has been one of the few bright sparks in a dim season for Ardija. Despite this positive opening, Ardija could not build on it and in the space of 15 first half minutes Reysol completely turned the match around and opened up what would become an unassailable lead. The equalizer through Leandro Domingues was an absolute stunner, and is no doubt a contender for goal of the season. Leandro demonstrated his masterful touch and finishing from the edge of Ardija's penalty box. Reysol followed this up with goals from Wagner and Kudo and the Squirrels trudged off at half time with their heads bowed and with Verdenik's hopes of an opening win looking very forlorn. The second half started in the worst possible way for Omiya with a 46th minute 4th goal for Reysol and a second goal for Kudo. Reysol now were flying and fans must have feared for our defence, but the players put in a shift to keep Reysol out and set up some scoring chances of our own, one of which Cho took on the 58th minute. Ardija would go on to miss chances that looked easier to score and after the referee blew the whistle to confirm Reysol's 4-2 win, Carlinhos, arguably our best player this season, could be seen deep in conversation with his fellow Brazilian, Rafael. One can quite imagine that Carlinhos is wondering where he has ended up, playing in front of a defence that has three times this season let in 4 goals and with a strike force firing blanks. I can only hope that he will remain to help Ardija in their fight to stay in J1.

As Squirrels fans made their way out of Nack 5 their minds would have turned to two results on this day which could prove key. Gamba Osaka continued their poor form with a 2-1 loss at home to our neighbors Urawa Reds. Yet again Osaka let a late goal in to throw away a point. Their dismal run of form might help Ardija to stay in the J1. However our other main rival for a relegation place, Albirex Nigata, managed a major surprise with a home 1-0 win over high flying S Pulse. Inevitably, Shimizu had most of the possession in this match but failed to score, whilst Albirex scored with their first chance to put them only 3 points behind Ardija. It is distressing to have to rely on other results to stay out of the relegation zone and I am sure that Mr Verdenik will be looking to urge the players on to putting our fate in our own hands by getting some morale boosting wins. Next up for Omiya is a very tricky away game at Sanfrecce Hiroshima and a meeting with our former player Naoki Ishihara, who is playing so well for 2nd placed Hiroshima. Another tough game for Verdenik as he looks to quickly get some points on the board.

New man in - new hope?

Zdravo, Zdenko Verdenik!

Zdenko Verdenik was announced on Monday as the new coach of Omiya Ardija. 63 year old Verdenik comes from Slovenia and his most recent position in football was as the sports director of the Slovenian National Football Association. Verdenik comes to Omiya with quite a bit of previous in the J League. Indeed he has been manager of 3 Japanese teams - JEF United Chiba, Nagoya Grampus Eight and Vegalta Sendai. His last involvement with a Japanese team was at current J1 leaders Sendai, back in 2003-2004 when unfortunately the team was relegated from J1 down to J2. It seems that he was the first and only prospective candidate on club President, Shigeru Suzuki's list.

There are some important points to make here. Firstly I know next to nothing about Slovenian football so I find it very hard to judge the work Verdenik has done in his own country. Indeed I have very little data on his managerial record there. Secondly as I come from England, where technical or sports directors are relatively new ideas, and generally treated by fans with suspicion, I cannot judge his most recent position with a deal of fairness. Thirdly, I admit openly that I had never heard of him before his name came up last week as being in the running for the Ardija hot seat. In fact I am wondering whether other Ardija fans knew of him before this appointment and what was their opinion of him. Feel free to let me know. I am looking forward to finding out much more about Verdenik in the next few weeks, especially the general style of football he likes to use, his use of tactics and how he gets to know the team and make use of our squad.

According to Japanese daily newspaper, "Mainichi Shimbun" Verdenik said, "I'm very happy to be going back to Japan and working in J1 again. Taking this job is a huge challenge and a responsibility for me. What this team needs is organization so we can perform well on a consistent basis." So we can see that Verdenik has already got a grasp on some of our problems.

Fans have to view his appointment as positive. Certainly it feels good that he knows Japanese football and lifestyle already, so he should be able to move into both the country and the job reasonably smoothly. However the counterbalance is that his last job here was 8 years ago and Japanese football has developed a lot since those days. Hopefully he has been keeping an eye on the game in Japan from afar and maybe things have actually not changed so much that he will fit in pretty easily. His wikipedia profile mentions a role as a University lecturer. I hope that suggests he is a motivator, as our boys certainly need a pick-up, and a quick one at that. If, instead it suggests a quiet donnish type, then I might start to really worry for our plight.

The manager will need to get to know his squad very quickly, and it will be no easy task. Ardija supporters will be wondering if Verdenik will consider some of the players who were generally overlooked by his predecessor. Jun Kanakubo is one player who would fit that profile, and is a player who might very well have something to offer the team.

I heard Cesare Pollenghi, an eloquent and perceptive speaker on football in Japan, and Asia managing editor of Goal.com, on a recent podcast twice or three times mention the words Omiya Ardija alongside the phrase never goes down. Well I understand why he says that, and indeed Jun Suzuki, our outgoing coach, deserves some respect for his role in sustaining that image. But this season we are in real trouble. Teams around us have picked up and improved lots in recent weeks, while we have deteriorated. I'm thinking of early strugglers such as Kawasaki Frontale, Kashima Antlers and Yokohama F Marinos. It's time for Ardija to do the same. There's only Gamba left now and they are only six points below us with plenty of games left. We cannot rely on them to keep losing, we have to improve our game.

According to Mainichi Shimbun, Verdenik will over see his first Ardija training session on June 11th in time for his first J1 game in charge at home to Kashiwa Reysol 5 days later.

I am sure all Ardija supporters are excited to see if he can make a positive impact. Squirrel fans will get behind the new coach and make him feel welcome at the Nack 5 and in Omiya. Over to you, Mr Verdenik.

Farewell Jun Suzuki

So after a disappointing run of results, culminating in a 4-0 drubbing away to Jubilo Iwata, the decision was finally taken by the club's management and Jun Suzuki was fired as head coach of Omiya Ardija. At the same time his assistant Tomoyuki Ishii has also left the club.

Suzuki came to Ardija in 2010 after a 3 year spell at Albirex Nigata with the hope that he was a rising young Japanese coach who would bring a fresh impetus into the team that had spent the previous 5 years consolidating its position in the top tier of Japanese football. Omiya believed he would be the man to carry the Squirrels forward from their regular season ending position of 12th -15th place. Sadly things didn't quite work out the way both Suzuki, the club and the fans would have liked. Today Omiya Ardija still finds itself in that same pigeon-hole. Stable in J1 perhaps but that's as far as the excitement goes.

While I'm sure that Jun is a very nice man, that doesn't win prizes in football just faint praise from journalists happy to speak to the guy. Not that Japanese managers or players are noted for their interesting quotes. To me Suzuki comes across as a quiet, bookish type and I don't see him motivating the players in the changing room or from the side of the pitch in difficult situations. I still believe that on the training ground he could be a good coach. Perhaps he will get the chance to take over a position at a middling J2 side and push them forward. I wish him and Ishii well.

As a fan of Ardija though, I am not sorry to see Suzuki go. Recently the team's performances have been poor and Suzuki has failed to offer any other solutions than his standard team and standard tactic of beating teams on the counter-attack. Watching Ardija has become like watching the same formulaic sitcom episode over and over again with just a few bright sparks from time to time to keep the fans coming through the gates of the Nack5.

The under-use and then sale of Naoki Ishihara mystifies many to this day, and it's a bitter pill for us to see him getting on so well at Sanfrecce. I don't believe Suzuki was getting the best out of Ueda and Higashi in the midfield either, where we should be far more creative and controlling possession more than we do. As for the strike power, well I've already mentioned Ishihara's sale and after that there's not much more to say. This season Rafael has looked more like a midfielder than a striker. When Hasegawa has been used, the team has not been sent out to make the most of his height and power, and after that there is seemingly nothing in the squad because they have been ignored by Suzuki. He seems to have been pushing Cho further forward in the belief that he would both score and provide goals. To be fair, Cho has done this and has put a lot of effort in on the pitch. However it must be said he is a midfielder not a striker. The lack of strength upfront has been woeful and the coach must take the blame for that. As for the defence, it has been leaking goals almost everywhere, 4 goals away to Sendai and Jubilo being particular low points. A team that so rarely packs a punch up front must rely on a tight defence, but the Ardija defenders give so much space to the opposing team's forwards to play in, the inevitable soon happens. Even when we weren't getting hammered, too many points would be dropped due to late equalizers.

The club has made this decision at the right time during a short recess in the J League season whilst the national team is playing World Cup qualifiers. There are still 21 games in the league to go which will give the new coach a fair chance of helping Ardija to retain it's J1 status, which sadly must now be the main aim. A run in the Emperor's Cup would be a welcome distraction and boost to the fans too, as our Nabisco Cup chances disappeared long ago.

Finally Suzuki was rumoured to be one of the best paid coaches in J1 so I have no idea what that will mean for the finances of the club in terms of both attracting a new coach and presumably paying Suzuki off.

As the reign of Jun Suzuki comes to an end, let us say goodbye and farewell and leave him to have the final say, "I couldn't respond to expectations and it really is a great shame that I am leaving the team."

Jubilo away

A crowd of just under eleven thousand fans, the vast majority of them Jubilo Iwata supporters, turned up to the Yamaha stadium to watch what eventually would become the last match for Jun Suzuki in charge of Omiya Ardija. The final nail in the coffin for Suzuki would be a hapless defensive performance as Jubilo swept to a rather easy 4-nil home victory.

The inevitable started as early as the tenth minute as Yamada opened the scoring for Iwata. The attacking trio of Yamada, Maeda and Matsuura were too much for Ardija's defence, and they were fighting it out amongst themselves to get the ball in the net. Maeda managed it twice and it was a surprise they didn't manage anymore.

Suzuki brought back Hasegawa to the starting line up. Hasegawa had been a late second half substitute in the previous week's home defeat to Kawasaki Frontale. Ardija therefore began the match with the 1m 90cm Rafael and the 1m 87cm Yu Hasegawa up front, but if you watched the game you would never have believe it were true.


Time and again Ardija failed to exploit their height advantage. Corners were taken poorly and crosses from open play were rare indeed and almost entirely driven in low. It baffles me why we pick such forwards and then fail to provide them with the service they require. Added to that, Hasegawa and Rafael drift so much during the game, that firstly you might wonder that they are forwards, and secondly, if at anytime one of them managed to get their head on the ball, the other striker was nowhere near to take advantage of the all too rare situation.

There's nothing much more to be said about this game. It went away from us almost immediately as it started and we never really looked like getting into it as a serious contender for the points that were on offer. Jubilo dominated and deserved their 3 points. They are a team on form, their forwards play well together and they look difficult to beat. Certainly on their recent form, they don't have much to fear from the teams in the bottom places in the league. Their last three comprehensive victories have come against Ardija, Nigata and Antlers. Can they mount a serious charge on the title? Presumably it will be determined by their results against the better performing teams in the upper half of the league table. They are now well placed to do so and will look for Hiroshima and Sendai to slip up while they try to maintain their current fine scoring form to take them to the J1 summit.

 For Jun Suzuki's men, they trudged off the pitch on Saturday with their tails very much between their legs, and their heads firmly down. As the break for a series of Japan national team games started, fans were left to wonder if Jun Suzuki and his men could turn around their recent poor run of results. Many would look at Ardija's next 3 league games and be very worried that things would only get worse. Next up sees the Squirrels welcome defending champs, Kashiwa Reysol to Omiya, followed by a long away trip to play 2nd placed Sanfrecce Hiroshima and then back to the Nack5 only to have to pit our wits against 4th placed Shimizu S Pulse. Our defence will be sorely tested during those three games. Jun Suzuki, as we were to learn in the days following this defeat, would not be given the chance to sort the situation out.

Kawasaki home

On May 19th 2012 9,304 fans turned up at the Nack5 to watch the Squirrels take on Kawasaki Frontale. I haven't seen anything of this game, so consequently there's not much to say except - we lost! 2 second half goals from Frontale finished us off. Kawasaki's goals took a while coming, but when they did, like the proverbial buses, 2 turned up in 5 minutes. Oshima got the first goal on the 67th minute and Kusukami bagged the second on the 72nd minute. A disappointing result for Ardija fans that left us looking down the table at results elsewhere and hoping that Nigata, Sapporo and Gamba would continue to their poor run of form and save the Squirrels' skins. It is of course quite sad that we have to rely on others' failures to keep ourselves alive in the J1 division. Fans of course are hoping for signs of progress but they seem pretty thin on the ground under the leadership of Jun Suzuki. Next up for Jun Suzuki and his battle-weary troops would be a difficult trip to Shizuoka to face Jubilo Iwata, who on the same day we lost to Frontale, hammered second from bottom Albirex Nigata 6-1 away. Worrying times for Squirrels fans.

Tosu away 1-1

Ardija travelled to Saga prefecture on the island of Kyushu to play against the surprise package of this year's J1 division, Sagan Tosu. Tosu were promoted to J1 at the end of last season for the first ever time in their history and I guess many touts had them down for a quick return to the lower level but the men of Tosu have proved themselves made of sterner stuff, and indeed their home stadium has become a relative fortress and they are as yet unbeaten at home, and on this day, although Ardija would briefly threaten that record, in the end it would go on to remain in tact thanks to a late calamity own goal from Squirrels striker Hasegawa.

 Hasegawa found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and quite unsure of what do do with the ball and sadly ended up putting it in our own net. Hasegawa is a striker who coach Suzuki usually prefers to bring on as a late substitute, when all other options to score have failed. In this match he chose to start with him, and one would have thought that Hasegawa himself might have been substituted to protect the 1-0 lead, or at least told to stay well away from our penalty box. OK I'm saying that with a large dose of hindsight, but he is the kind of player who should stick to his basic skills, and perform them much,much higher up the pitch. Frustratingly, our coach seems to be unable to get the team to play to Hasegawa's strengths - his height and his build should cause opposing defenders difficulties. However Ardija fail to supply him with decent aerial support, and this seems a waste to me.

From what I saw of the game, Tosu played very well, and in fact were using crosses, long balls forward and long throws to cause problems in our defence. Such tactics we should have been also using against them with Hasegawa on the field. Rafael had started on the bench and when he came on, he immediately got wide and started to get the crosses going in to Hasegawa.

In the 81st minute he went on to supply the crucial pass to Aoki after some neat footwork for a tall guy and Aoki calmly slotted the ball in for a 1-0 lead. The only problem for me is why is Rafael doing this? He is 1m 90cm and should be in the centre also causing the opposition defence problems, not out on the wing. So as the game headed into injury time and with Ardija looking at an unlikely away win, Fujita went for the long throw and Kitano, Omiya's keeper came for it but never got near it, and Hasegawa who was tracking back with the attacker, clumsily tapped the ball in for Tosu's equalizer. To be fair to Hasegawa, it was a great effort that he was back there helping out, but unfortunately the Squirrels don't  need that sort of help.

So just as suddenly as our goal had come and we looked like getting a positive result to move up the table, it was taken away in a flash.

Tosu are a very effective side. They do play to their strengths. It might not always be pretty, but it gets results. They have a never say die attitude, and I was impressed by their directness as the game entered injury time. I have watched many Japanese teams who are losing the game 1-0 as injury time begins and they waste time making pretty passes near the centre circle, when in my opinion time is running out for them and they should take a far more positive and speedier form of attack to try to rescue the point. Tosu can also play some nice football too. They understand the phrase "needs must."