Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #625: Look-ahead to Japan with Ryo Nakagawara

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Ryo Nakagawara, the author of Shogun Soccer, a detailed newsletter focused on the J-league and Japanese national team, joins Belz to talk about a likely lineup for Tuesday's game, where the goals and the holes are, the state of the Japanese men's national team, it's long-tenured coach, fan culture in Japan and lots more.Shogun Soccer: https://www.shogunsoccer.com/ Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scuff Podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Our guest today is Rio Nakagawara, who covers Japanese football in serious detail on his newsletter, Shogun Soccer. He's a data scientist. He's going to help us preview next week's friendly with Japan. Rio, welcome to scuffed. Yeah, it's nice to talk to you, Adam. I'm really honored to be on scuffed. Thanks, man.

So Japan beat South Korea about a month ago in the final of the East Asia. Asian Cup. And I noticed there's not a lot of sort of the big names in that game. Can you give us a sense of what that competition is where it fits into the grand scheme of things? Right. So it's basically like a sub-confederation Cup within Asia, right? So it's just all of the East Asian teams. So like Japan, China, South Korea, you know, Hong Kong. And then you also have like Guam and Mongolia and North Korea, among other teams, right? So in the past, it was pretty serious because, you know, especially for Japan and Korea, both teams had all their best players playing in this competition. And it was a pretty serious thing.

But of course, in recent decades, especially in the past decade or so, it's really kind of dropped in importance. The tournament usually falls on like a non-F FIFA calendar match day. And on top of that, a lot of the best players from Korea and Japan all play in Europe now since the tournament falls outside the FIFA match day calendar, you can't really forcefully call them up anymore. It's basically become like a B, C team tournament for both teams where it's like a kind of like a proving ground or testing ground for the domestic league players for both the J League and the K League.

Also, like, not that great because China is supposed to be like, you know, who should really be one of the better teams in Asia just have not really progressed over the past 20 years at all. So they even come last when, like, North Korea or Hong Kong are involved, which just kind of shows how China have fallen a lot over the past few decades. For Japan national team, it really is a way for domestic up-and-coming players to show themselves on the national team state. get practice time in front of the Japanese coaching staff. And also, you know, making appearances in this tournament is still like an actual national team appearance. It all counts, right? So that also helps with, you know, getting transfers to Europe because, you know, that counts

for points in certain, like, you know, immigration point systems that certain European leagues and countries have, right? In the past few additions, some J-League players who have played very, you know, really well in this tournament have then gone on to, you know, actually joined the full team for major tournaments like the Asian Cup or the World Cup. A few players that have played last month have also shown up again for the friend of these against USA and Mexico. So yeah.

Well, so maybe there's some overlap between that list and my next question, which I'm going to go a little bit out of order here. U.S. fans are going to know like Minamino and Kubo and Mitoma, but anybody that that isn't as well known that we should be worried about come Saturday. Probably the most interesting one that a lot of people ask me about is Henry Mojizuki. He's, I think his dad's Nigerian, his mom's Japanese. But he's like a very different profile from like a typical Japanese player. He's very tall.

He's big. He's physical, right? And he plays as a wingback or as a centerback on a very physical team in the J-League. So he kind of brings like, yeah, like he's a very different profile from your typical kind of Japanese kind of stereotype, I guess, people have when they imagine a Japanese soccer player. So, yeah, he might be interesting to watch. There's quite a few other younger guys that didn't make this squad that were in the East Asian Cup squad. So guys like maybe name two you think have a decent. and chance of breaking through before the World Cup.

So I guess one of them is Yunos Gaysato. He's an 18-year-old that really broke through this season, playing on loan for a promoted team. He's mostly an attacker, and a lot of European scouts would know him because he's played a lot for the U-Japanese national team sides. He's broken through as a wingback, interestingly enough, which kind of really fits into Moriatsu style play for the Japan national team with the past year or so. So like he's been called up a few times now.

They weren't called up and they're already in Europe. But the two I would say is Kayske Goto, plays for Anderlecht, but went on loan a few weeks ago to St. Trudon and also Kento Shio guy who plays for Naimigan in the Aere de Vizier. we can talk about just a bit later, but the striker position is still a bit in flux right now. So these two guys are both 20 years old and making their big break in, you know, decent European-level teams.

You know, they both have a really good chance to stake a claim as one of the strikers if they play well over this coming season. So, yeah. Yeah, you mentioned the coach, Moriatsu. He's been the coach for seven years now. um started at i guess right after the 2018 world cup that's pretty unusual to have a coach that long

how is that going are people happy with him uh are you happy with him yeah it's been a very long seven seven years and you know both the good and a bad way right um at yeah so like there's been lots of peaks and lots of you know uh bad times as well um so i know like the the the Definitely the highs were, you know, the 2002 World Cup, but then the lows were, you know, last year at the Asian Cup, which is a complete disaster, right? And also, funny enough, in the lead-up to the 2020 World Cup was also pretty much a disaster because, you know, there was a time where it looked really likely that we might even miss out altogether. But Moriasse made some quick tactical changes that saved his job and the national team from, you know, complete failure, right? This is a question that can last like an entire podcast full of like material. But yeah, like it's been really up and down because, you know, there's always been a debate about whether Japanese players are playing at the top levels throughout Europe now.

But Japanese coaches haven't really kept up in terms of, you know, whether they, are good enough to if they're good enough to refer a j league but they're not necessarily good enough at the higher levels across europe like you don't really see like there's just no japanese coaches or just asian coaches in general um you know uh taking command in europe right so like that's always been a big debate over the past few years as more and more japanese players have moved to europe at higher levels so it's like oh like the does the do these uh japanese coaches have like enough like the tactical acumen and like kind of like the uh kind of charisma i should say to you know lead these japanese players who are playing uh for like really top top coaches across europe right

so like that's another thing that's been are there whispers are there whispers that they can't that minamino comes back and he's like man look at this look at this guy um well like one of the big talking points about the Asian Cup disaster last year was about how when we lost to Iran in the quarterfinals that there were accusations that

from the players actually that the more yes and the coaches weren't giving the players enough tactical instructions during the game and that's part like that's partly one of the reasons why you know they crashed out so early in the quarterfinal stage, right?

So, like, there's been a lot of debate, certainly in terms of that. So it's been interesting to kind of see Moriatsu respond, how Mori Yasser responded to that over the past year throughout the World Cup qualifiers, right? He's really changed a lot in terms of his formation and how he talks to the players and the media

over the past year since that disaster. at the Asian Cup. So, yeah. Question from a listener. Matt in Los Angeles asks, as you head toward the World Cup 10 months from now, how much is Moriasu prioritizing the group, like the 11 or the 23 that is likely to be at the World Cup next summer?

Or is he still experimenting a lot right now with the roster or even a medium amount? It's interesting because, like, as we talked about, like, over the past seven years, he's been the coach. So like there's been lots of different periods, right? You know, where there has been long periods of friendlies where he's experimented a lot. And then there's been more serious qualifiers or tournaments where he's been very kind of set in a certain group of players, as you said. So over the World Cup qualifiers of the past year, there's been a very core group of players and a very part. particular tactical setup in our 352 or 343, however, you want to look at it, right?

And most of the kind of rotation has mostly been through just because of injuries, rather than any kind of like wholesale changes, right? And the only big changes he made were in the June qualifiers, and that's only because, you know, we qualified for the World Cup in March. and so he wanted to give a lot of the players an early summer a quick break so he didn't call up the A team at all for the June qualifiers

so that was an experimental squad but yeah this this time for September against the U.S. and Mexico we're back to you know as strong as the strongest team as possible again we're really limited by injuries

especially at centerback and I'm imagining that now that we're in friendlies that he is definitely going to change a lot of the players I mean change the 11 yeah yeah within the squad that he's called up within the core squad that he's caught up

especially in this window with the tight you know and with the limited amount of time between the Mexico and the USA game he has said in the press conferences that he's going to have to swap out a lot of players between the Mexico and USA games. But it's kind of difficult to kind of guess, you know, which game he's going to play his

best players in or if it's going to be a mix of players in both. So, like, I'm not really quite sure of that. But, yeah, there's definitely going to be terminal within the squad. He has a very high threshold in terms of, like, the particular level of team and the league that you have to play in as a player in Europe, aside from a few, you know, exceptions, right? There's always going to be exceptions, especially, like, in positions like goalkeeper, that you have to play in to be part of the, to be considered as part of the team.

Really, it's like you have to play in Europe to be considered for the team. Well, like a certain level in Europe. So, like, the top five leagues is definitely. considered with a few exceptions in certain positions. So, yeah. Carl and Rochester, New York asks, who is the biggest personality on the team and how does that show up on the field?

So like... Who's got the Riz, baby? Who's got the Riz? So I think Taka Fusakubo is definitely a character. Like, he's very young, but, you know, he's a player that, you know, moved to Spain when he was a tiny kid and he grew up in a very different environment compared to most Japanese players ever, right?

So he has that kind of, you know, like you talked about Riz and that kind of attitude that's very different from your typical Japanese player. And he definitely is kind of a leader among the younger players, but just also as a group, because it's not just about his ability, but also about his personality. He's very right, enthusiastic and a bit of a jokester, right? So he kind of leads the team in that sort of sense And yeah like even like he was even given the captaincy For the June for in the June window Because he was like you know again he is considered one of the leaders of squad despite his young age right Otherwise you have guys like Yuto Nagatomo

You know he's 38 He's played in multiple World Cups already Fagin love He's been caught up a lot over the past two years or so, but he usually doesn't make the actual match day squad. Because we usually call up around 26, 27 players, but the FIFA regulations and whatnot means you can only register 23 from the match day squad. So Utah Nagatomo has usually been left out entirely of the match day squad.

But he's been very important as like a locker room leader, locker room presence, right? I mean, he's a guy of a quasi-coach. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, like, you know, he has vast experience playing in Europe, French and Milan and a few other teams, right? And, you know, now he's back in Japan, but, like, he's actually still playing at 38 years old. And, yeah, he's still a very big locker room presence, a big character, a leader in the team. So, yeah, those are the two big main guys, I think.

That's really helpful. Wolfman in Arkansas. asks, generally speaking, the U.S. fan base will not consider this Cup of success, this World Cup, a success, unless the team gets past the round of 16, which now takes two knockout wins. What would you say the Japanese fan base would consider a successful World Cup? I think realistically it's getting to the quarterfinals, right? I think we have enough talent across the squad to get out of the group stages as one of the top two teams. right and of course you know you like even it's a bit easier now in some sense because you know like finishing third can also get you past the group stages in this upcoming tournament so it's a bit different but yeah from there it's about you know winning our first ever knockout game because the one big kind of cloud

hanging over Japanese national team over the past few decades is you know we've kind of hit the wall in terms of the round of 16, right? Our first time was back in all the way back in 2002, where we were beaten by a pretty good turkey team that eventually finished third. And then we had a couple of other close, close games, right? That I'm sure a lot of people listening will know about, you know, the Croatia game, last time out the Belgian game, so on and so forth. But yeah, like, it's a bit difficult because,

because like the goalposts has kind of moved right because now just like around the 32 kind of stuck in there as well which i'm which i'm guessing is going to be tricky for a lot of teams yeah exactly like i don't yeah i think um a lot of casual fans would underestimate the round of 32 but i think it's going to be a banana peel for even really good teams yeah um yeah because getting four in the world cup now like it if you like it feels like it feels like it feels like oh it's only one game but yeah sure it's an extra game along with all the other games and all the fatigue and all the kind of the build-up of you know um i know injuries and um just yeah like like like the fatigue across all that so like i think it's not going to be as simple as you might expect

especially with you know like you can get like a really strong team that happened to play bad that comes in the third place and you might be playing you know you might finish the group as you might finish the group as group leaders but then play France who play really badly you finish dirt or something something crazy like that right

that scenario is going to happen for sure for somebody yeah yeah yeah so but going back to Japan like I think a lot of people are very optimistic about the Japanese national team especially both in Japanese

and kind of like international media both like you know, like journalists and like kind of just social media chatter, right? But I personally am a bit caught more cautious and not nearly as optimistic about the level of the team as a lot of people. Like that's mostly because like while it's, you know, it's fairly obvious, right? Just kind of like looking through the Wikipedia page, looking through our squad, that, you know, we have lots of decent to very good players across. a wide range of leagues in Europe. But the thing that really worries me is that we don't have any, like, elite players, right?

That regularly play for league title chasing or, you know, that kind of champions league contender level teams, right? Right. So, you know, like the closest we have is like Hiroki Ito, but he's mostly been injured throughout his stint at Byron Munich since last year. what Taru Endo has mostly been a squad player and a very minimal one at best at that you know Minamino has been a regular

on a pretty good Monaco team but you know League one is kind of kind of weird with you know PSG being so dominant and of course Monica are also aren't like ever going to be Champions League contender favorites at any given point right and otherwise like like in terms of raw a build

the closest we have in terms of elite players is, you know, Karu, Kauru, Mitoma, and Takefusakubo, which I'm sure, like, everyone would know. But, you know, for various reasons, they haven't quite been able to make that step up to the biggest and best teams in their careers yet, which to me is kind of disappointing because I thought really that this summer, this past window, you know, that finished, that closed up yesterday was really the time, was like the perfect time for both. for them to make that step up. So, yeah.

And otherwise, like, compared to a lot of other, you know, strong teams, I think Japan really has big holes in certain parts of the squad. Where are the holes? So one big one that has unfortunately cropped up over the past season or two is, centerbacks, right? So over the past two seasons, four out of the five best centerbacks, and this is just my opinion, and going in order there, it's Tomiyasu, Koki-Mashita, Kou It, Kho Ito, and Kota Takai, four out of five of those guys have been injured a lot. Tomiyasu has been injured for past two seasons. He's not coming back until November.

Koki Machida, who I considered to be the second best, who just got his big move to Germany for a while. This summer, done his ACL, the second week of the season two weeks ago. He's a huge blow. Koita Kruo moved to Iax, and he's been like the big mainstay of the centerback position over the past several years because Tomiyasu has been missing right, but he's also had his injury troubles. Like he missed a few games a few weeks ago,

and he only came back this weekend, this past weekend. Hiroquito, we just talked about. Kota Takai, who's probably the, you know, the next Big Hope, the one guy with the biggest potential, compared to, like, let's say, he's like the biggest potential since Tomiasu, in terms of centerbacks, in my mind. He went to Spurs over the summer right, but he also got injured and he's still, he's back in training, thankfully, because I thought it was going to be a bigger layoff.

But yeah, he's back. But yeah, like, still, it's really worrying that, you know, we moved to a back three, but like all the centerbacks have been injured a lot. I know if all these guys were fit, then I am a lot more confident about Japan national teams. prospects, right? Because, you know, you look at Tamia Sumashita Ito, Hiroki Ito, like, these are, these guys are playing at, you know, really good European level clubs, so like, I'm not too worried, but as you've seen from some of the defenders that we've had to call up for September, like, you know, we're really kind of having to dip into, you know, the J-League guys who, you know, they're decent in their own right, you know, when we're considering

playing against top teams you know it gives you a lot of worries right and then the next big position that worries me is goalkeeper and before all the centerback injuries it was always been goalkeeper that would that's been the biggest worry right so we have zion's Suzuki but then there's like this gigantic chasm in ability and like just we're all talent in terms of goalkeepers right across the squad and you know goalkeeper has been a big big issue for a Japan national team since you know for decades right since you know such a Japan national team really tried to modernize and get involved in, you know, in soccer in general. So, like, none of the J-League guys that we've caught up over the past couple of years have

feel as they don't really inspire me without a lot of confidence, much like the J-D defenders that I just talked about, like, they're decent players, but, like, you know, not necessarily good enough for the type of opposition we want to face in the World Cup, right? interestingly there's two other guys that actually play in Europe right now that we then call up Leo Kokebo

and Taishi Nozawa they're both in Belgium right now but for whatever reason Moriatsu still hasn't considered them good enough to be picked yet

but of course this is something that can change over the next 12 months as we get closer to the World Cup especially no Zawab, who only just moved to Belgium this summer, right? So, yeah, so those are like the two main positions that, yeah, that really give me worries. And overall, you know, what I've explained gives me a bit more of a pessimistic view compared to a lot of other people who don't. Who probably just kind of like scroll through, you know, the Wikipedia page and just kind of look at the clubs and the players and, you know, kind of make their own assumption.

but yeah. Okay, okay. But I mean, if Suzuki stays healthy, he's solid, and then as long as everybody, like, it's the Kai and Ito who are hurt right now, who would start? Yeah, yeah. Right? I would say so, yeah.

So, like, I know, Tomiyasu, it's just a big question mark of how he, how he looks after he gets back in November. you know, he's without, he's, he's not even with a club right now, right? Because Arsenal and Tomyasu agreed to mutually agree to separate. So he's actually without club and he's just focusing on getting back fit. So like there's just a huge question mark there. And for me, like I'm just, you know, like I'm not trying to get my hopes up, right? I'm just like, okay, we're just going to consider Tomias to not be able to come to the World Cup and we're just, no, going to have focus on everyone else. If he's able to come back, cool, but, you know, no, you know,

no expectation there. So really it's about, you know, Mashita, which, who's, you know, who's going to be out until like April or May, so he's probably not going to make it, even, even less so than Tomiyasa now, which is really unfortunate. So, yeah, so our best three centerbacks are Itakura, Ito, and Takai, and two of those guys are currently injured. So, like, yeah, it's a bit dicey, but both Ito and Takai are back in training for the respect to close. So hopefully if they can get significant minutes over the coming season, then I think we'll be okay. But, you know, it's still very worrying, yeah, in terms of depth.

We're kind of taking a stab here, but there's a guy named Tom Beyer was a guest on this podcast a few weeks ago. Do you know that name? Yeah, yeah. We actually, yeah, we actually talked a bit before. Not too much. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So he both know of each other. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I mean, to me, what he says about teaching little kids to play when they're really little is, I mean, makes all the sense in the world. And it's, is it your sense that this is something that's been sort of widely adopted in Japan? Yeah.

Yeah. Like his TV program appearances have, you know, been a big influence in Japan. Like absolutely. like he's he's a really well-known figure in japanese football yeah because like he was on like you know regular like regular tv for multiple multiple years um and he's come a lot of the uh players he's coached are actually on the japanese national team right now right um so yeah for sure okay so he's suggested that there's a real kind of rising tide lifts all boats situation going on in japan where specifically the players who are in the J League are not, the level of the J.

League is not really that far behind the ones who get signed by teams in Europe. And he would contrast this with the United States where like Christian Pulisik is just like miles ahead of your average, you know, 25 year old attacking midwinger who was born in the United States. So does that, you do understand that contrast? as I'm laying it out. And does it, do you agree with that? It's like the, is the level of the J League high enough where this jump for like a

Cube, oh, I guess Cubo, maybe he's not the best example because he left so young, but where the jump to Europe is not quite as much of a jump as it is from, say, Chicago, Illinois to London, you know? Yeah, I think so, yeah, because, like, you know, if you look at the transfers between the J-League in Europe over the past several seasons. Like, it's really interesting to see, like, players that, players around the level that I considered to be kind of, like, you know, okay to decent, even those players are getting picked up by, you know,

championship of Belgian teams, right? So over the past several years, like, it's not just, like, the top, top, only the top-top J-League players are getting take away into Europe. It's also, like, the kind of the guy. just a tier below that or even a tier below below that that are going to Europe and like this is I think also just more about the level of scouting and the depth of scouting that gets thrown the J-League's way over the past several seasons right

and like and one of the big problems that the not just the J-League but the Japanese football kind of ecosystem is facing now is that a lot of players are skipping the J-League entirely and going straight to Europe. So J-League Academy players, for example, Kato Kousugi, he was playing for an under-18 team for a J-League side, and then he gets picked up by a Swedish team. I can't pronounce the team's name because it's in Swedish.

It's really hard. It's impossible. But yeah, and he's been, and he's an 18-year-old, I think he's 19 now, and he's been playing really well, like immediately a jump from J.A. League Academy level to, you know, not the top top European league, but like a decent standard. And he's been playing, like, conference league, conference league level football with the Swedish team as well. And he's been gaining a lot of interest from, you know, various clubs, especially the past window. as well, right? And then there's

a lot of other university level players who play in the college system in Japan that are also going straight from there to Europe. So one of the players I talked that earlier, one of the strikers that I mentioned, the 20-year-old Kento Shio guy. So he was playing for a university

side and he was contracted to join a J-League team either next year or the year after the next year. But, you know, the Dutch club, Nymegan, they really swooped and then zumped Marinosk entirely. And they just took him immediately to the Aere da VCA level last year, right?

And so he's been playing, you know, a few. He was a squad player mostly over the past season. but, you know, he's almost going to be a regular this season, I imagine. And that's kind of also why, you know, I picked him as one of the players likely to maybe earn a spot for the World Cup squad if he, you know, plays really well. So, yeah. Is the university he played for, was that in Tokyo? I think which one was he?

Let me just check. It doesn't. I guess it doesn't matter. I was just going to make a joke about how, like, he has to go from maybe the culinary capital of the world, Japan, to Naimegan. I wonder how he feels about the fun. Yeah, yeah. So, like, it's interesting to see, like, you know, like even players at the university

level are getting, you know, scouted by European clubs. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Denson in Kentucky asks, this is a hobby horse for a lot of American fans, so just bear with me. How much do you think the success of Japanese soccer in, I don't know, the last 20s? five years stems from promotion and relegation beginning in 1999. Yeah, I know how passionate the discussion about promotion and relegation is in, you know,

American soccer circles online. I've seen it. So, yeah, yeah. Hard to miss. Yeah, definitely. To me, like I don't, I feel like this question is. making the wrong assumptions in the first place, I don't think it's necessarily about the existence of promotion, relegation being the factor in whether, you know, a league succeeds. Like,

I feel like in terms of Japanese football, it was more about the J-A league teams, really building strong ties with the community, and then slowly building up the fan base over the past few decades. And then that's really led to, you know, a lot of support and a lot of the growth in the league in general and also, you know, the development of the academy system and how that's produced so many good players for, you know, the Japan national team and beyond. And like, yeah, I don't really think promotion relegation has too much to do with that, especially in the case of Japanese football, like, because there's never a question of, you know, having promotion relegation or not, right?

Because it was always, it was like, because it was. It was always going to happen. Yeah, like, it was always just going to happen eventually anyways. Because, like, it's, like, Japan was always going to follow the European model promotion relegation when we decided to go fully professional league from an amateur league. And, like, even the amateur league that existed before the J-League was also promotional regained, I think. right um so so yeah like i don't yeah like i think the question is going from like a very um it's it's

you know it's based on a on the wrong assumptions i think yeah yeah so yeah that's my response to that okay do people in japan love soccer like is it uh are they passionate about it the way they are i mean is it more comparable to say the the united states feeling about soccer or I don't know say Germany or something where you know because I guess maybe the better question

asked how's baseball doing in Japan um yeah this is a very um this highly contested um you know debate right um because you know

baseball definitely has always been king in Japan but I think soccer has definitely been making big headway across the country as the J-League has slowly matured and developed over the past few decades. And like if you watch any J-League game and look at the fan base and the fan support, like it's, I know it's really passionate stuff. And I know I saw a different question from another person about the, you know, the Urala Red support and how passionate ferocious they were at the Club World Cup, right?

Urala Reds are definitely like one of the most kind of passionate fanbeases in Japan. But just across the J-League in general, if you go to any match, you'll definitely see like a big amount of support and lots of chanting and cheering throughout the entire 90 minutes. So like it's definitely growing. I'm not sure what the exact stats are compared to baseball, right? I definitely feel like it is slowly catching up in a sense. And to me, one of the big kind of limitations of soccer in Japan

has been about stadiums, right? So a lot of teams still playing these giant athletic stadiums that despite the attempts of, you know, various ultra groups and supporters, you know, it's hard to build an atmosphere in these kind of large... With a track, with a track around the field. Yeah, the track around it. Exactly, right. But slowly, over the past decade, there's been a huge movement to create soccer-specific

stadium across the country. So in recent times, San Frashe, Hiroshima have created their own big, big. soccer-specific stadium within, you know, walking distance of the main train station, right? And across all the big tourist attractions as well. So, like, their, you know, average attendance jumped up by 10,000. So, like, they had, like, around 15,000 average before in the old stadium, old athletics ground stadium that was located far outside the city center. And now over the past two, two seasons in the new big stadium in the Ceditary Center. Now they have 25,000. It's like a big jump, right? So like there's still a huge runway for increased support and increased number of fans

and attendance, right, across Japan and none more so than in Tokyo. Like it's crazy that Tokyo still does not have a soccer specific stadium like zero, zero at all. And one of the most populous you know, cities in the entire world, right? Like, it's ridiculous. And it's why, like, you know, for a lot of big games, we play at the Saetama Stadium, um, which is a bit north and quite far outside of,

um, central Tokyo, um, instead for, like, the national teams games and stuff. But yeah, but, like, even then, there's been a lot more movement to get, you know, soccer specific stadiums in, in Japan and in Tokyo. and across other major and medium-sized cities across the country, and that's only going to make attendance as skyrocket more as we go along.

So, like, in the past couple of seasons, the J-League averages around 20,000 across teams of all different sizes in J-1, right? And that's been studied growing over the past decade, and hopefully with more stadiums coming online that will grow and grow. I think, you know, just to quickly go back to the pro-REL thing, in Denson's defense, it's hard for some American fans to imagine that intensity of fandom across the league that you just described. You know, like it's not just Urawah Reds, which that was a great question from Still Not Fast from Seattle. It's not just them. It's a lot of different clubs in J-League.

And I guess the American fan sees like, you know, L-AFC in MLS has a great support. supporter section. There are other examples, but a lot of MLS games, because it feels like there's no stakes, are just kind of, I mean, they're kind of snoozers, you know? And even if the soccer is really good, there's just nothing, there's no stakes. So I wonder if, if you think maybe Pro Rel helps contribute to that, the intensity of those environments, because the fans know that they got a win or they're going to get sent down. or, you know, whatever.

Yeah, I definitely, yeah, I can definitely agree to that point now that you mention it, right? So, like, my J-League team is really bad. So we're in the relegation fight. And after this, you know, international break, we go straight into a derby match against a different Tokyo team. So that's going to be super intense because both teams are unfortunately pretty bad and in the relegation fight. So, yeah, it means a lot to both fans, right? Yeah, because, yeah, two Tokyo teams that should be a lot better considering, you know, the base in Tokyo with a lot of money and a lot of fans supposedly are in the relegation fight.

And it means a lot more now that, you know, we're playing against each other in this big game that can decide, you know, relegation. And, you know, in this season, especially, relegation is. super important because after the World Cup, the J-League is moving to the fall spring system to align with the European leagues. And that means after this season ends in December, there's going to be like this weird, like half-season fun little tournament that it's going to exist from February until right before the World Cup. But like because of that, if you get relegated this season in December, then you're not going to be able to get promoted again

for an entire year and a half. And that's like going to be a big hit on finances. So it's super important for teams to not get relegated this season. So like that kind of really amps up, I guess, the intensity of the relegation fight. Because like, you know, as I mentioned, two Tokyo teams are in the relegation fight and then another big team

Marinos who have never been relegated ever are also in the relegation zone so yeah it's yeah so like in that sense I definitely do agree that yeah that really does bring out the passion and fans and that might be something that could be a good thing for them else to consider because I know like the

USL right they have promotion obligation now with like the USL championship and legal not yet they're gonna

they're announced that they're going to have it in 2020 27 so like yeah that might be a good limitless test for you know how you know

how that might develop going forward so yeah I'm I'm quite interested in that because like I've seen like I don't watch the matches by like a follow

a lot of American soccer and journalists and stuff and like the USL scene looks really cool right it's like yeah it could be it could be I think I think we're all kind of hopeful about that um it's interesting you mentioned marinos because that's like the best I know I've kept you longer than I said I would so I just got one more question but I just got to say about marinos um I picked up a baseball cap of theirs in a second hand shop in St. Louis like seven years ago or eight years ago and I swear it's the best it's probably my favorite article of clothing in my entire life. It's so, it was such a cool hat. I just wore it so

much that it wore out, you know? I had to, I haven't thrown it away, but I can't really wear it because it's all shredded. But man, what a cool hat that was. Yeah, yeah. The J. League does a really good job in terms of like, kind of some of the merchandise, especially with like the mascots and like the team names and logos, I think. Because if you, you know, look, if you look through a list of J. League teams names. They're really weird and different. Yeah. Karima antlers.

Yeah. Yeah. So, like, the lot of times, they just kind of smashed together a bunch of foreign words to sound cool. And, like, that's all that matters. Like, you got teams like, Blau Blitz, Akita, which is, like, you know, like, you know, blue blitz, no. And then you got, like, let's see, like, Tejavaharo Miyazaki, which is just, like,

random Spanish wars matched together because it's, sounds cool. Like, so, like, all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, there's a club. You said there's a couple called San Frasier. Yeah, Sanfretche. So, like, that's, like, it's supposed to be three arrows. So, like, San is, uh, three in Japanese. And Freche is like, like, it's partially somewhat Italian for like arrows and stuff. Yeah, something like that. But yeah, yeah, like that's, yeah, like, that's, yeah, so, like, you have lots of these weird different names. I don't know. I think it's cool. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, let, well, so the last, well, so the last, well, so the last

question, I guess, is it might take a little while, but can you just give us a projected lineup for the, for the Japan, U.S. Japan game, and I know you don't know who's going to, which game the manager is going to prioritize between the Mexico and the U.S. games, but just like, what's a, what's a, that's a reasonably potential lineup, and then where the goals likely would come from for Japan and where the, where the goals for the U.S. would come in that Japanese defense. right right um so um and i mean cubo it's gonna be a three four two one right uh three four three four three whatever you want to call it yeah so i think yeah like like i said depends on the mexico

game well let's just assume that we're going to play our best team against the USA just you know just so we have like that that makes me feel good yeah yeah um so yeah so like let's say Zion Suzuki goal, obviously. And then it will be Tsiyoshi Watanabe, right center back, Ko Itokura, center, center back. And then Ayumu Seko at left center back, right?

And then the wing backs would be, it's either going to be Junia Ito or Ritsu-Dowan. And then left wingback is going to be Kaoru Mitoma. And then the double pivot, Watar Endo is definitely going to start

especially since he's the captain. And then the guy next to him, it really depends on fitness because in terms of center midfielder's we had to call a bunch of guys late because we were like checking on their fitness over the past weekend. But let's just say Daiichi Kamada

in terms of like the best player available next to Endo because Al Tanaka and Hidema, some work to her, the usual starters next to Endo are injured for this window so they're not here. So the next best, let's just say, Kamada in the double pivot with Endo. Camada sometimes plays more advanced, right?

Yeah, yeah. And he's interesting because, you know, tactically, like he, even when he plays a bit further forward as one of the two guys behind the striker, he drops down a lot and rotates. Because one of the center midfielters like Endo and Morta, they drop into the back line and then form a turn the back three into back four. And then there's lots of rotations going around to like, you know, get the ball, to progress a ball forward and come out as a really intelligent on when he needs to, you know, drop into those midfield spaces from a further forward position.

So, yeah, like, it would be interesting to see how he behaves, you know, in the buildup phase against the United States in the press. because I'm not sure how the U.S. press these days. I'm not sure either. I don't know that anybody's sure. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. So Kamada and Endo.

And then the two best players in attack behind the strike would be, you know, obviously Kubo and then Minamino. And Doan could also play there as well if he's not the wingback. And then up top, yeah, we caught up a lot of strikers for whatever. reason but yeah the best guy would definitely be i s a waya wayda uh who plays for fyanoord he's he started the season really well he's already scored four four goals and three three matches i think so far this uh season so like um yeah i guess after it's going to be a danger guy in terms of who's going to get the goals it might be him but um the one thing i wouldn't note about the

japan national team is you know if you look through like the wikipedia page you'll notice that there's not a huge lot of big goal scores in the team and the goals are really spread out across a lot of different players right so you know ue does our best striker but he only has 14 goals and then our our best goals our top goal score in the entire squad is actually Minamino with 24 goals right so like there's actually not a whole lot of goals across It's really spread out between a lot of different players, which, you know, it's a nice thing, but also a bad thing, right? It's a bit of both. So, yeah, yeah.

Minamino scored a big goal over the weekend. I'm sure you saw that. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. It's like he has a habit of scoring those kind of goals, I think. So he also might be one to watch out for in terms of, yeah, like scoring against the U.S. And going the other way, like, I. personally i'm not like a huge fan of ayumuseko at all um he's a guy who moved to the swiss league uh quite young age

but like he played there for quite a few seasons but like he never got he never like really guarded interest at all right and then he moved on a free transfer to ligun right so it's like like and i like it's weird because like he's kind of like fallen up words in the sense um but yeah like he's made a few mistakes um over to asian asian world qualifiers in the past year i'm just not a big fan um and he's only been playing because you know we've talked a lot earlier about you know ito um tomias and mashat all these guys especially guys that who can play left centerback are all injured so he's been playing a lot more than i want So, like, he might be a place where the U.S. could hurt us potentially. And, yeah, yeah.

Okay, yeah. I mean, however bad you feel like your centerback position might be, it can't be that much worse than the U.S., you know, and we don't even have injuries as an excuse. We just don't have any good centerbacks. Or we have won, Chris Richards at Crystal Palace. Yeah, like, I went on. When the U.S. squad was announced, I was looking through, I was really surprised at some of the players that were called up.

Like, I know there's been a couple of injuries, right? Anthony Robinson's injured. It's madness. It's madness. Yeah, like I've seen the kind of chaos in the USM men's national team Twitter circles over the past week or so. So I kind of, yeah, I kind of get the sentiment. But yeah, like, I know like just quite a few guys are injured or like still kind of getting used to your new team like, you know, Gio Raina. He's still trying to get fit.

He moved to Gladbach. Anthony Robinson is injured, right? Otherwise he would definitely be. Yeah, he would be here. He's just, I guess he made two appearances off the bench. But I'm fine with him. It's okay for me for him to get back to health and get some of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like I was a bit of disappointed because I really want to see. him going up against kubo i think that would have been a really fun matchup to see really top level matchup i think because yeah i i really like anthony broaders i think he's a really good defender but yeah like i like i look like i i watched a bit of the gold cup so i definitely do know a decent amount of the ls guys like matt frieze um arfston um mclin right but even but there are some other these other MLS guys that like really surprised me that showed up like um you know like Tristan Blackman and Sean Zawatsky and like I don't know what Alhandro Zendayaas is doing like I haven't heard his name in a big long while and then all

a sudden he showed up he showed back up again so like yeah that that's that's a surprise so yeah he had a really good he had a really good spring and early summer but he has uh I don't know. We'll see. I guess the idea is that this is the last sort of experimental roster. And then from the next camp on, they're going to be focused on the group. Right.

Which was, I guess you probably picked on is why the Matt in L.A. asked that question. It's because he's like, why are we doing this? You know, and it's clear Japan is not doing the same thing as the U.S. right now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, like this, yeah, like the last one thing I will want to say is like this window is extremely important for Japan. Why? A law of emphasis on this window. Both Moriatsu and the JFA have commented a lot on this. Because, you know, we're playing in the U.S., you know, the host country.

We're playing against, and this is also the first time in two years, almost two years, since we played non-Asian opposition, right? So the last time we played non-Asian opposition was October 2023 when we won against Germany and Turkey. And since then, we've only been playing Asian opposition. So like now that, you know, workup qualifiers are over, we're really getting into playing against, you know, good teams right now. So, yeah, so like both Mexico and U.S. are, you know, maybe both teams aren't at like their best. in terms like, you know, from considering their overall history, like, they're, they still have tons of good players playing in across really, really top teams in Europe, right?

And also, like, this, it's not just about the games, but also it's, this window is about getting used to just the entire, entire environment of playing within the U.S., right? I mean, the climate, like, Tokyo is really hot and humid in the summer, right? I mean, it's the same. Yeah, but like, it's also about like, you know, the travel times between the two venues. Like, the JFA specifically chose to play in the West Coast and then, you know, a bit further east, but like, you know, across different time zones to kind of simulate what is going to happen at the World Cup next year. right so um obviously the uh kind of time the uh the amount of days between the two games isn't going to be as short as it is going to be in this window um compared to the world cup but nevertheless

you know playing games in one time zone um in one side of the country and then traveling all day across the other side of country with you know a three hour time time zone difference um like a four or five hour you know flight time travel and then getting prepared for the next game. Like, this is something that was emphasized a lot by Moriasu and the JFA kind of higher-ups in the press conference before when the squad was announced, right? So, like, it's a really important window for doing all these kind of simulations in terms of, like, match preparation, you know, getting a feel of playing.

in America, even though, like, the stadiums we're going to be playing in aren't the actual World Cup stadiums, I don't think they're... No, they're not. Yeah, but, like, nevertheless still, like, it's still, you know, playing in the stadium, in America, nevertheless. And, like, yeah, so, like, yeah, like, the JFA has been doing a lot of prep work ahead of this World Cup. So, like, both Mori Yasu and JFA.

staff have been, you know, visiting America quite a lot over the past few seasons. Like, they were there watching games at the Copeland, America two years ago and all this kind of stuff. So, like, yeah, so a lot of the preparation has been going on for quite a while now. And, yeah, so, like, this window and the players called up to this window or, you know, it's really important for them to get a feel of, you know, playing in America and then, you know, experiencing the time zone difference and the travel times and all of that while also playing finally against you know non-n Asian teams for the first time in the long time so yeah yeah yeah that makes sense well it's good to know that at least one of the two nations who are going to

play next Tuesday is going to give the game their absolute best shot um it's not the u.s because we don't we didn't call up all the players we could have but um uh i i appreciate very much your insight, your perspective. Thank you, Real. And check out his substack. I'll put the link in the show notes, Shogun Soccer. Anything else you want to plug?

I'll put your Twitter profile on there. I'm sure you love spending time on that website. Yeah. It's not being so great in the past few years, but yeah, nevertheless. Yeah, unfortunately, like J-League soccer Twitter has maintained its presence on Twitter, unfortunately, for whatever reason.

So I still kind of have to maintain a presence there. But yeah, anyways. Yeah, yeah. So it was great talking to you, Adam. And, yeah, I'm really looking forward to this match against the U.S. and also with Mexico. And, yeah, like, maybe we'll get to talk to each other again soon before the walk out. I would love that.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, thanks again to Rio. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.