This is a bit more like it. Fagiano Okayama used their press launch to promote absolutely everything, including shirt sponsors Okayama Gas and their official suit supplier. And that Mizuno kit has already caused eyebrows to be raised among Okayama fans and J-League watchers alike. J2's bottom team in 2009 struggled to cope with the long season and this year they have a stripped down squad that offers a little bit more experience - such as midfielder Kim Tae Hyon from Vissel Kobe via Mito Hollyhock - while still featuring a couple of kids straight from the All-Japan High School Tournament and Hiroshima Minami HS.



Goalkeeper Away, Goalkeeper Home, Away, Home



NKOTB

This was the moment that most of us have been waiting for since the 2009 J-League season ended. Yup, that's right, for also on Saturday Omiya Ardija did their press launch and as expected they made a sensationally good job of it. New kit, check. The Squirrels have stuck with Under Armour and although early indications are that the new design is less popular with fans than was last year's, well, at least it's cheaper (the away shirt ain't happenin' for me, mind). New slogan, check. Well, kind of. A bit of a recycle job, which translates roughly as Sing Orange Heart: Stronger, Higher, Deeper.

New player introductions, check. Omiya have kept on coach Jang Wae Ryong after yet another fight to avoid relegation and, as already mentioned in this thread, have missed out on their main transfer targets over the winter. Even so, Yuki Fukaya - yet another player to depart Oita Trinita - should form a strong defensive core with Croatian Mato Neretljak and another new arrival, goalkeeper Takashi Kitano from Albirex Niigata. And just in the last couple of days, Ardija have also signed Japanese-born North Korean international midfielder Ahn Young Hak from K-League side Suwon Samsung Bluewings.



Goalkeeper Away, Home, Away, Goalkeeper Home, training



I'll be testing you later on this

It's painful to have to refer to it again, but Roasso Kumamoto will be keeping the same design as last year for their home shirt - that appalling sailor suit thing from Puma. Gah, horrible. Anyway, as well as delivering that piece of bad news, the Kyushu Reds also had all their new signings at the press launch on Saturday, plus incoming coach Takuya Takagi. A striker with Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Verdy Kawasaki in the early days of the J-League, Takagi was sacked as coach at Verdy in the autumn but is widely regarded as having done a decent job there under very tough circumstances.

Kumamoto can therefore consider that they've done well to get him - but things in the transfer market have been less successful, as the club seek to build a squad good enough to move away from J2's lower reaches in what will be their third season in the J-League. Goalkeeper Yuta Minami is the pick of Roasso's signings, having picked up bags of experience at Kashiwa Reysol before falling out of favour in the last couple of years. They'll need goals from Shota Matsuhashi, who was in and out of the team at Oita Trinita but has just spent two season firmly on the substitutes' bench at Vissel Kobe.



Home, Away, some training kits or other

The casual observer would be forgiven for thinking that the most significant piece of business up at Consadole Sapporo this winter has been the signing of 42-year-old J-League legend Masashi "Gon" Nakayama from Jubilo Iwata, but in fact it's been a busy close season all round for the Hokkaido Owls. Coach Naohiro Ishizaki remains in charge after an inconsistent 2009, their Sunday press launch providing introductions not only to Nakayama, but also to the four players who may actually prove more productive when it comes to mounting a serious promotion challenge during the season ahead.

Experienced defender Ryuji Fujiyama comes from FC Tokyo along with 25-year-old striker Yusuke Kondo, who has scored some goals with Vissel Kobe. Yoshihiro Uchimura had an extremely successful season in front of goal last year, netting eighteen times in the unlikely surroundings of Ehime FC, while Consa also signed versatile former North Korean international Ri Han Jae from Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Daigo Nishi and Danilson are the most notable departures from the 2009 team and although media attention was inevitably all on Nakayama at the launch, well, there are more reasons than just Gon to keep an eye on the Hokkaido Owls.



"Gon" Nakayama and four other people

Ladies and gentleman, I do believe we have a winner. It might be early in the proceedings but on Sunday J2 outfit Ventforet Kofu put forward a candidate for Most Spine-Chillingly Awful Slogan that would be tough to beat in any year, never mind just 2010. ICHIGAN - Try Again ticks the multi-lingual box so popular with J-League clubs, but impressively manages also to mangle Japanese via its combination of the words ichiban - first, best, most - and ganbare, meaning something like "go for it", or "do your best". Kofu have even topped the whole thing off with a really boring piece of graphic design. Great job all round.

Moving on to their player introductions, it's important to remember that Ventforet were the losing nags in last season's four-horse race to gain promotion to J1 and they've been extremely busy in the transfer market. After a major clear-out, an increased number of goals would seem to be the radical approach planned for the year ahead and as such - among a large number of new signings - the Blue and Reds have brought in from Sport Recife the prolific Paulinho, who scored a goal ever other game over four seasons for Kyoto Sanga, and lanky Dutch-Japanese forward Mike Havenaar from Yokohama F Marinos.



Kofu's whole team of new players



Oh my dear Lord, what?

Sagan Tosu, a small J2 side from Kyushu, held a fan event at their home stadium on Sunday as well as the press launch at which a large number of new players were introduced. There have been major changes at Tosu over the winter, what with their coach having run off to Yokohama FC taking the whole of the defence with him, and Ikuo Matsumoto returns to the hot seat after a couple of years as General Manager. Central defender Kosuke Kitani from Vegalta Sendai is a key signing, along with Jubilo Iwata reserve striker Hiroki Bandai and Yohei Toyoda, a forward from Kyoto Sanga.



That's the coach in a, er, four-legged race at the fan event. Honestly



Sagan Tosu's new slogan graphic

Holy moly if Consadole Sapporo didn't carry on where they'd left off with a fan event of their own on Sunday, drawing in a load of supporters tempted at the thought that they might be able to take part in an egg-and-spoon race with Gon Nakayama. Well, okay, perhaps not - this wasn't Sagan Tosu, after all - but they did get a chance to see Consadole's major winter investm... er, signing wearing the team's home shirt for the season ahead. And a rather smart Kappa effort it is too, with a neat echo of the red and black stripes on the otherwise white away shirts. Probably my favourite so far, if truth be told.



Consa's fan event at the Sapporo Dome



Home, Away, Goalkeeper, training kit

For Tokushima Vortis it was a big old day on Sunday, as the first-team squad popped in to a local Shinto shrine early in the morning for a pre-season good luck ceremony. Then it was on to the press launch - the new slogan, Keep Going Forward, actually seem pretty appropriate considering the huge strides taken by the J2 minnows last year - and a snapshot of the new players in the new home shirt. Retaining their Pocari Sweat shirt sponsorship, Vortis' shirt is usually rather a plain blue but this season Mizuno have seen fit to introduce red detailing and it all looks rather over-complicated to me now. Not so keen.

If the fashion department has lost its way a little, there is room for cautious optimism as regards the development of Tokushima's squad under coach Naohiko Nunobe. 2009 was their best-ever season by a mile and Nunobe has brought in several reasonable-looking loan deals, including strikers Ryuichi Hirashige from Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Tomohiro Tsuda from Nagoya Grampus. More good news is that they've managed to hold on to mercurial Cerezo Osaka youngster Yoichiro Kakitani, while incoming Yusuke Shimada has had a great deal of success as a playmaker for Thespa Kusatsu and Saga Tosu.



The Vortis pray for victory



Gwan, laaads



It's the coach's moustache. I just can't stand it

Preparing for their first-ever season in J2 are JEF United, who despite Oita Trinita's catastrophic fourteen-game losing streak actually ended up bottom of last year's J1 table. JEF's press launch concentrated less on player introductions - lucky, as there are more than a dozen of them and a good number are of questionable quality, although they have managed to attract midfielder Yuto Sato back from Kyoto Sanga - and more on their slogan, which translates as something like Run Ahead. A new kit for 2010 sees them change black shorts for an all-yellow home design by Kappa.



JEF slogan graphic



Away, Home, Goalkeeper

The press launch on Sunday at Yokohama F Marinos was a pretty harsh reminder that the Nissan-backed Sailors are in dire financial straits at the moment. They introduced to the media and fans a grand total of only four signings, one of whom - Argentinian striker Pablo Bastianini - was just a few seasons ago playing for Yeovil Town. The team will be hoping for a lot from Masato Fujita, a promising young defender from Tokyo Verdy, stepping into the shoes of Kawasaki Frontale-bound Takanobu Komiyama. Meanwhile Nike's new kit is one of those Manchester United affairs with a chevron. Underwhelming? I reckon so.



Four new guys, one new kit

The financial troubles at Tokyo Verdy were well documented in the Japan 2009 thread and for a period back then it looked as though they might not even be around by this time. But Monday saw the Green Machine invite Shinto priests to their training ground for a pre-season good luck ceremony and also do the press launch thing, with a new kit and a small bunch of (cheap) new players. Mainly they've scoured other J2 teams for squad members, the highest-profile newcomer being combative midfielder Naoya Saeki from JEF United. They're managing to hold on to top scorer Masashi Oguro for the time being, though.



Training, Goalkeeper, Home, Away, training



Good luck. You're going to need it

From Tokyo Verdy to another of Japan's most troubled teams. Oita Trinita are essentially a different club now from that which finished last season, kept afloat only by J-League loans and a slashing of the budget. Almost literally all of their first-teamers from 2009 have been sold and the new arrivals introduced at Monday's press event do nothing at all to suggest that the Turtles will be able to bounce back in the short term: university students and players from the U18 squad are bolstered by the odd grizzled journeyman such as Yusuke Murayama from Omiya Ardija and believe me he is rubbish.



Restart - One Heart indeed

Last year, Mito Hollyhock ended up in the top half of J2 for the first time in their history. This year, the aim given by their slogan is that they will Rise Above that eighth place finish. A worthy aim, of course, but one that could be tough going since so many of the individual successes of 2009 have left the club to leave Hollyhock relying on a new batch of inexperienced loan signings and university students. But Delicatemoth's new favourites will at least be stylishly dressed in a chic Mitre number that compares very well with last season's rather staid effort, the stripes in both the home and away kits being a particularly fresh feature.



Home, Away, Goalkeeper Home, Goalkeeper Away



Rise above it, sir, rise above it

After all these J-League-related posts over the last few days, it's time to take a peak at the latest news on the non-league scene, most particularly because the third-tier JFL have released the first couple of weeks' fixtures for the 2010 season. Champions Sagawa Shiga FC will begin the defence of their title at home to Machida Zelvia on 14 March, while on the same day runners-up Yokogawa Musashino host promoted Zweigen Kanazawa. The other two teams up from the Regional Leagues - Matsumoto Yamaga and Tochigi UVA - go to Gainare Tottori and Sony Sendai respectively.

As things stand, Machida, Tottori and V Varen Nagasaki are the J-League Associate Member clubs competing for a top-four finish and promotion to J2, but Matsumoto are one of two more sides to have put forward their applications for consideration over the next few weeks by the appropriate J-League committee. Perhaps surprisingly, the other is not one of the pro wannabes now dotted around the JFL - Kanazawa, say, or TDK SC's new manifestation Blaublitz Akita - but SC Sagamihara, an ambitious club who have just reached the top division of the Kanagawa Prefectural League.

Meanwhile Blaublitz have officially stepped out from under the corporate wing, a newly-independent club in accordance with the criteria of J-League membership. TDK moved up from the Tohoku League to the JFL three years ago and have performed respectably, while not coming close to being one of the high-flyers of the non-league game. However, longer term, with a base in the northern city of Akita, the Blue Lightning plan to become a viable rival to the other teams in the Tohoku region, Albirex Niigata, Montedio Yamagata and Vegalta Sendai.



Go Lightning!

JFL Fixtures - Round 1

Blaublitz Akita - Arte Takasaki
Gainare Tottori - Matsumoto Yamaga
Honda FC - FC Ryukyu
MIO Biwako Kusatsu - JEF Reserves
Sagawa Printing - Ryutsu Keizai University
Sagawa Shiga FC - Machida Zelvia
Sony Sendai - Tochigi UVA
V Varen Nagasaki - Honda Lock
Yokogawa Musashino - Zweigen Kanazawa

Hot on the heels of the JFL, the J-League have confirmed details of the first couple of fixtures for the 2010 season, which is due to start on 6th March. As they have done for the last couple of years, the league are attempting to make a splash by pitching together champions Kashima Antlers with Japan's best-supported club, Urawa Reds, in the opening round - although news of this game does rather unfortunately coincide with the news that Reds are to be fined Y2m for an incident involving the harassment by Urawa supporters of a cameraman at last season's Nabisco Cup match with local rivals Omiya Ardija.

And it's Omiya who will take on the most fancied of the promoted sides, Cerezo Osaka, who have managed to hold on to star turn Shinji Kagawa after the young international finished top scorer in J2. Shonan Bellmare came up with Cerezo and have a decent chance of picking up three points at home to Montedio Yamagata, while also in J1 on the opening weekend Jubilo Iwata host J2 champions Vegalta Sendai - the last time the two teams met being the Promotion / Relegation Play-offs at the end of 2008, which Jubilo just took by a whisker.

J2 is now up to nineteen teams and it's Tokyo Verdy who get a bye for weekend numero uno - they kick off on 14th March against Roasso Kumamoto. I'm feeling obliged to mention that FC Gifu are playing Kataller Toyama and Mito Hollyhock are matching up with neighbours Tochigi SC, although most of the attention will go on the relegated sides: Kashiwa Reysol and Oita Trinita play each other and JEF United must get used to life in the second division by going to Kumamoto. Newcomers Giravanz Kitakyushu, meanwhile, are at Yokohama FC.



Not much mistaking the underlying principles at Kitakyushu

J1 Fixtures - Round 1

FC Tokyo - Marinos
Gamba - Nagoya
Hiroshima - S-Pulse
Jubilo - Sendai
Kashima - Urawa
Kawasaki - Niigata
Kobe - Kyoto
Omiya - Cerezo
Shonan - Yamagata

J2 Fixtures - Round 1

Ehime - Okayama
Fukuoka - Kofu
Gifu - Toyama
Kashiwa - Oita
Kumamoto - JEF
Mito - Tochigi
Tokushima - Kusatsu
Tosu - Sapporo
Yokohama FC - Kitakyushu

Wow! You have been busy Furtho!!

Firstly, a nice home start for the Greens against a team we had a mixed record against last season - won 1 drew 1 lost 1. We still aren't sure of the venue with dirty rumours of a opener in Ichinomiya. And the first away game is down in Oitim territory against Trinita.

Secondly, the new kits. Out of the selection you have generously displayed, I have to say the Mito Hollyhock away number is a rather nice affair. Reminds me of Juventus.....or Grimsby Town - it is easy to get those two mixed up. I'll give you my Clothes Show run down:

1. Mito Hollyhock away - very classy
2. Consa home - nice stripes, could do without the huge kappa sign
3. Ardija home - can't really go wrong with orange
4. Fagiano home - ambitious, but not at all bad
5. Marinos - boring

Thirdly, some juicy fixtures first up. For me, the most interesting J1 fixture is the clash between two genuine pretenders to the crown: Gamba and Nagoya, and Hiroshima v S-Pulse looks a good one too.

The J-League site itself indicates that your opening game will be staged at Nagaragawa, NBNG. What is not yet decided is the kick-off time, but the venue itself is clear. In the meantime, after just saying Hi to new coach Yasuharu Kurata last week, FC Gifu themselves have had more of a proper season launch today, Wednesday. Kurata revealed a new slogan - the magnificently cautious Step By Step By Step - and the Mighty Greens' rather modest collection of new players sloped out for a photo session. The squad is at the moment looking weaker and certainly smaller than was the case last year, although there's a much shorter season to cope with.

Incidentally, while checking up on Gifu news, I noticed on the club website that midfielder Shogo Shimada last week spent a couple of days doing an internship. Typically organised by the players' professional body, these represent an opportunity for J-Leaguers to find out what the real world is like and to help them prepare for life after their playing career is finished. It's not the first time that I've seen reports about such things - two or three Squirrels players seem to do one each year and a Sanfrecce Hiroshima player recently did a few shifts at a local okonomiyaki restaurant - but looky here as to where Shimada went.



No sniggering at the back



Making strides with Yasuharu Kurata

2010 could go down as a critically important season in the development of the club game in Japan. The J-League have long said that their intention is to expand J2 to 22 teams and with the promotion from the third-tier JFL of Giravanz Kitakyushu they're now up to nineteen, with at least a good half-dozen more waiting in the wings - by which I mean, currently in the JFL and either in possession of, or actively working towards, J-League Associate Member status. It's perfectly possible that at the end of 2010 three of these teams will be promoted and J2 will be up to capacity.

So what will happen after that? Well, the short answer to such a question is that no-one knows. There is no serious public indication from the J-League as to how it plans to continue its ongoing expansion programme, involving ambitious teams now playing JFL, Regional League or even Prefectural League football. And in fact some commentators are saying that, in the light of the weak state of the Japanese economy and the consequent difficulty in attracting suitable sponsors, it would be better for the J-League at the moment to be putting on hold thoughts of increasing the number of pro clubs.



Kitakyushu's Promotion Parade

In mid-December, for instance, The Japan Times said bluntly that, "the J-League should reconsider its expansion plans... [and] strive for ways to invigorate the league without increasing the number of clubs." Making reference to the loans that the League have doled out to clubs such as FC Gifu and in particular the heroically badly-managed Oita Trinita, the paper went on to suggest that the J-League's intervention at Oita "may have been too generous... [because] it may encourage other clubs to rely on loans from the League instead of introducing belt-tightening measures."

The issues of J-League development on the one hand and economic difficulties on the other come together at Machida Zelvia, a club based in the western suburbs of Tokyo. Having at the end of 2008 sealed promotion from their Regional League to the JFL, Machida quickly achieved the Associate Membership required to take the next step up into the J-League itself. In their first JFL season they finished a respectable sixth - but while on-the-field progress is good, Zelvia's failure as yet to find major sponsorship could easily derail their plans to go to J2.



Why would Machida fans want to escape the glamour of the JFL?

This year is the target by which Machida have planned to gain promotion to J2 and they are not alone in having such ambitions. However, a problem faced by many J-League-focused clubs playing lower down the pyramid is that it is just too hard to get from the nine Regional Leagues into the single-division JFL: the Play-off tournament which at the end of last year allowed Matsumoto Yamaga and Tochigi UVA to move up - and Zweigen Kanazawa, too, round the back door - presents a bottleneck for sides who may broadly be just as well-placed as the likes of Kanazawa or Matsumoto.

And the fear is that teams such as Renofa Yamaguchi, Kamatamare Sanuki and Matsumoto's long-standing local rivals AC Nagano Parceiro will be unable to sustain their momentum - that fans, players and financial backers attracted by the dream of a local professional team will gradually lose enthusiasm and drift away if their side is effectively prevented from making progress by the format of the competition. Time, then, is as significant a factor in the J-League's expansion plans as the problem faced by the likes of Machida in getting good sponsors.



New Kamatamare coach Makoto Kitano

Some supporters have become frustrated at the continuing success of clubs like 2009 JFL champions Sagawa Shiga FC, a corporate outfit that they feel to be in the way - stopping the movement up to the J-League of teams with professional ambitions. However, this is a failure to grasp that the non-league pyramid structure was established not to serve the needs of wannabe pro clubs, but to support amateur football played within companies and local communities. And 2010 looks like being the year that the J-League may have to engage with this system.

It's not going to be an easy task, in that there is a need to balance momentum with the avoidance of over-promoting clubs who are in reality not strong or stable enough. But Ken Matsushima of the Rising Sun News website has expressed the view that the J-League in developing their ideas need to bear in mind the tale of Regional League side Grulla Morioka, whose repeated inability in recent seasons to negotiate the Play-offs and get into the JFL has, Matsushima suggests, "set back by five to ten years Morioka's hopes of having a J-League team," on account of the resulting downturn in local interest.



The unhappy chappies of Grulla Morioka

A couple of different models do seem to be being discussed unofficially, relating to the structure of the J-League - put simply, the addition of a J3 that over time may or may not be regionalised, according to how many teams are involved - and to the mechanism for getting there in the first place. This latter point is based on a more flexible application of the criteria of Associate Membership, which as things stand stipulate a range of hurdles from business infrastructure, fanbase and corporate backing to players' contracts, home stadium and youth set-up, all of which a club must negotiate if it wants to be admitted to the J-League.

The modification to this that is by all accounts being kicked around is that Associate Member clubs would no longer be required to finish in the top four in the JFL and that a team meeting all of the other criteria would be promoted to the J-League the following season. This would get round the Play-off bottleneck problem, while still guarding against a club being able to buy its way into the League off the back of one rich benefactor, because of the requirement that a team have a suitably high average home crowd as evidence of there being ample grassroots support.



SC Sagamihara, candidates for Associate Member status

But neither of these scenarios address the key issue now facing the J-League - once J2 has reached its capacity of 22, how will it then incorporate an appropriate number of viable upcoming clubs in a way that will enable them all to maintain local momentum. Will the J-League jump straight from having two divisions and forty teams to three divisions and (say) fifty member clubs? If so, how and when will it accomplish this? These are decisions that League officials need for the good of football in Japan to get right and are something that I'll be keeping a close eye on during the year ahead.

It's been a gloomy close-season for supporters of Albirex Niigata, for following the departure of coach Jun Suzuki no fewer than four key players also left, including star defender Mitsuru Chiyotanda and midfielder Toshihiro Matsushita. The guys coming in to replace them are nothing to write home about - the pick is probably that teeny Brazilian chap on the front row of the photo, Michael from, er, relegated JEF United - so it's lucky that the Swans have been able to hold on to their one top-class player, Marcio Richardes, who runs things in midfield. And that slogan should perk the fans up too, of course.



There's a toothy grin behind that big white card



So, that's all nice and clear



Not many of them are smiling, it has to be said

There was a small Kyoto Sanga press launch on Thursday, at which coach Hisashi Kato introduced most of his winter signings. Kato spent a fair wodge a year ago and then achieved practically identical results playing duller football - and having lost key defender Lee Jung Soo to Kashima Antlers, he needs results from the incoming players. Kwak Tae Hwi from Chunnam Dragons replaces Lee and Kato also has a couple of new Brazilians, but the most important newcomers could be Japanese, in the shape of midfielders Yosuke Kataoka from Omiya Ardija and Shingo Suzuki from Oita Trinita.



Hisashi Kato looking all gruff with his new players