So far the first team has played a total of 5 pre-season friendlies this month. The first was against Miyazaki Sangyo Keiei University on Feb 7th, at the Miyazaki training camp. The game was a total of three 30 minute periods which saw the F.Marinos win with an overall scoreline of 5-1 (2-0/1-1/2-0). The scorers were Oguro and Hyodo in the first period, Hyodo again in the second period, followed by a goal each from Ono and Saito Manabu.

The next training game was played 3 days later at the same venue against J2′s Tokushima Vortis. This time, the game was a little longer in length with a fourth 30 minute period being introduced but despite the extended playing time afforded to the squad, nobody could break the deadlock and the game ended at 0-0.

Next up was another J2 team, Avispa Fukuoka. This game was the next day (Feb 11th) at exactly the same venue and was the first training match to be played in the traditional format of two 45 minute halves. Despite a scoreless first half, the F.marinos conceded the only goal of the contest in the 81st minute to end it at 1-0 to Avispa.

The fourth training match, which was to be the final game played during the first team’s training camp in Miyazaki, was against our dear friends, Matsumoto Yamaga. This game was spread out over three 45 minute periods and despite a first period scoreline of 1-1, courtesy of a goal from Saito Manabu, the F.Marinos conceded again in the second period to eventually end the game at 2-1 to Yamaga.

The 5th and final training match was played just 2 days ago at Marinos Town against Y.S.C.C. This was a four period game each lasting 30 minutes which saw the F.Marinos emerge with a comfortable 5-1 victory. The goals came from Oguro in the 2nd period, Taniguchi and Matsumoto Rei in the 3rd period, and Kano and Kanai in the final period.

Player News:

Not a huge amount of player news thus far this month, (which is probably a good thing) but what surely came as a setback was the news of Shohei Ogura suffering from what appears to have been a collapsed lung. Though his recovery depends largely on how his body adapts to his course of treatment, doctors have tentatively stated that a full recovery could be within 3-4 weeks. Hang in there Shohei!
In other news, young F.Marinos Midfielder, Kota Mizunuma, has been released on a one-year loan to newly promoted Sagan Tosu. He is expected to remain with the club until Jan 31st 2013. Concerning his new one year loan Kota stated that he “was really moved by everybody’s support during his performances in last years Emperors Cup (with Tochigi S.C) and is looking forward to once again being able to play in J1 for a year.” Good luck Kota! Just don’t score any past us mate!!

National team call-ups have also taken place this month with both Manabu Saito and Yusuke Higa being called up to the U-23 national side ahead of the final Olympic qualifier game vs Malaysia on the 22nd of this month. Here’s hoping they both get some action! Also, Yuzo Kurihara will once again appear in the Samurai Blue, as he was selected by Zaccharoni for Japan’s Kirin Cup game against Iceland on the 24th. Hopefully Yuzo can make a good impression and even bag a goal with one of his rocket shots from outside the box!

Finally, it may be worth mentioning that former F.Marinos legend, Yasuhiro Hato, who officially retired from the game at the end of last season, has just been appointed to role of “Yokohama F.Marinos Ambassador”. After 17 years of football, Yasuhiro will be dedicating his time to promoting the team and spreading the good word of football to all those weirdo’s that think baseball is better. Or something like that. Either way, we wish him all the very best!

…And that’s about it! We’re hoping to finish updating the pages as well as a possible design change over the coming week so until then, VAMOS!!

It is with a very sad heart that we at Tricolore Pride had to bid farewell to our good friend and fellow Tricolore brother, Mr. Tomohide last weekend.

As many of you know, Mr. Tomohide is the guy responsible for providing us with so many wonderful photographs throughout the course of last season’s campaign and I’m sure you’ll agree that the news of his decision to move back to his native island of Tsushima off the coast of Nagasaki is very sad news for all the F.Marinos fans around the world that enjoyed seeing his photography each week.
Despite his return home being a permanent one, his passion and love of the club knows no bounds as he has actually renewed his season ticket for this year even though he’ll realistically only be able to make it to a handful of games!! Talk about dedication to the cause!!

As such, we won’t be able to provide as many photographic segments this year but hope to deliver what we can whenever we can.

In leaving, lets celebrate our time in the stands with Mr.Tomohide by watching this great video montage of last season which he made using his own work!

THANK YOU and GOOD LUCK TOMO!!

So, what do the new strips look like? take a look for yourselves!

The new first team squad roster has now been updated to mirror our new squad additions:

1 – Enomoto
2 – Amano
4 – Kurihara
6 – Ogura
7 – Hyodo
8 – Nakamachi (MF from Avispa)
9 – Oguro
10 – Ono
11 – Saito (FW back from loan at Ehime FC)
13 – Kobayashi
14 – Kano
16 – Higa (DF from Ryutsu Economics University)
17 – Matsumoto Rei
18 – Marquinhos (FW from Athletico Mineiro but previously Vegalta)
19 – Moriya
21 – Iikura
22 – Nakazawa
23 – Matsumoto Sho
24 – Kanai
25 – Nakamura
26 – Aoyama
27 – Tomisawa (DF from Verdy)
28 – Kumagai (MF from F.Marinos Youth)
29 – Taniguchi
30 – Rokutan (GK from Avispa)
31 – Suzuki (GK from F.Marinos Youth)

So there you have it! New Kit, new players, new coach, and all new sponsors! Here’s hoping we can turn our fortunes around this year then!

I know we sloped off a bit towards the end but thanks for all the support and encouragement and we look forward to seeing you all in the stands again this season! VAMOS!

HAPPY 2012!!

Brendan, Blake, and Nick.

Merry Christmas indeed!

Actually, Christmas came one day early for the Tricolore faithful as we managed to secure a place in the semi-finals of the 91st Emperors Cup thanks to a fine save from our number one custodian, Hiroki Iikura!
After a scoreless 90 mins of natural time followed by a goalless 30 mins of extra-time, the dreaded Penalty shoot-out beckoned for our boys as we faced a dangerous Nagoya Grampus side in their backyard at the Mizuho Athletic Stadium. Well, they were without Kennedy and Tulio which probably helped us a lot but when it came it to PKs we were definitely the underdogs as we were shooting against former NT keeper, Seigo Narazaki whilst Nagoya were taking potshots at Iikura, a young keeper with no experience in penalty shoot-outs in a competitive game.

Yesterday, however, it would seem that Naoki Matsuda himself was looking down upon us from the heavens as he gave us the bit of luck we needed to ensure that Iikura read Nagoya’s 4th shot perfectly by leaping down low to his right to palm the ball wide of the post and give us a precious chance for glory.
Up next was Takashi Kanai who stood up to take the all important 4th shot on goal with what must have been the weight of the world on his shoulders as he nervously put the ball the ball down on the penalty spot. Taking a deep breath, Kanai gracefully jogged up to the ball and drilled it low into the inside left post before coming away with a beaming smile of satisfaction and relief plastered on his face.
The pressure was now on Nagoya as they sent in Ecuadorean striker, Danilson to draw level but the pressure proved to be too much as he hooked the ball wide of the post to secure Yokohama’s spot in the Semi-finals versus Kyoto Sanga of J2!

Here’s the match highlights:

..and here’s the Penalty shoot-out in full!

Next up, Kyoto Sanga at Tokyo Olympic Stadium on the 29th!! See you all there! VAMOS!!!

F.Marinos Starting line-up:
Iikura, Kobayashi, Kurihara, Nakazawa, Kanai, Ogura, Moriya, Hyodo, Nakamura, Ono, and Watanabe.

Substitions:
Moriya → Matsumoto Rei (62), Watanabe → Matsumoto Sho (93)

Goals (Penalties): Nakamura, Kurihara, Kobayashi, and Kanai.

Of course, it’s nigh-on impossible for either of us to speculate the reasons as to why the gradual drop of form has come about as we’ve just been doing the same as everyone else with each passing week; checking the scores in the evening. In fact, we’ve got just as many questions as the next guy. Questions like “Why is Ono warming the bench so much?” and “Why is Taniguchi now starting up front almost every game?” Naturally, there is probably some very good reasons behind all of these of ponderings but whatever they are, they’re not immediately obvious to those of us that are stuck at work.

After such a promising start to the season I think we all truly believed that a top 3 finish and ACL qualification were in the bag but after the sudden loss of Naoki, followed by an untimely injury to the heart of our midfield, Shunsuke, we soon found ourselves dropping points in games that we both were dominating or creating the higher number of chances in.

Today’s game against Kashima Antlers is the final game of the season, and due to a sudden stroke of luck, I will actually be able to attend the game after 2 long months of missing seeing our boys in action. As such, I will hopefully be able to shed more light on whats been happening on the pitch after seeing the team play first hand again.

Whatever happens today though, let’s just hope we can finish with a win! Come on boys!!

VAMOS!!!

Saturday’s game against Sendai was always going to be a tough game when you look at the quality of Vegalta’s squad not to mention the remarkable level of resilience that they’ve showed from the very start of the season and throughout the whole earthquake disaster. They are a team that quite rightly deserve to be in the upper echelons of the league table and this was exactly the message they wanted to get across to all the supporters that made the trip to Nissan Stadium on a sunny Saturday afternoon…

The F.Marinos got off to a great start by immediately applying pressure on the Sendai defence the moment the whistle was blown with both Ono and Watanabe looking deadly in front of the goal. Surprisingly however, it was actually Yuzo Kobayashi that drew first blood in the 3rd minute when finding himself free, he dashed into the centre of the box to smash in a cross from Taniguchi on the right wing. The keeper never saw him coming and neither did we as the cross was clearly intended for Watanabe who was just edging free of his marker inside the box.

It was a no-nonsense start to what we hoped would be the first of many more to come but, just a mere 7 minutes later, Sendai were quick to discover our weak link and they were going to make us pay dearly for it. On the 10 minute mark, Makoto Kakuda found himself not only totally unmarked but also in a prime position to slam the ball home as he calmly received a nice easy back-pass just outside the area before drilling the ball past Iikura into the lower left side of the goal. Ouch.

To make matters worse, Sendai decided that being level was obviously not good enough and so with a nicely timed run from former NT striker, Atsushi Yanagisawa, and a even better timed run down the wing and a cross from Korean midfielder, Yong Gi Ryan, Sendai took the lead as Yanagisawa beat Nakazawa in the air to connect with the cross and head the ball into the far right side netting just 2 minutes after the equalizer.

Basically, the problem for Yokohama was that we simply couldn’t control the flow of play in midfield. The loss of Shunsuke has been big enough but we’ve ploughed on admirably without him. It’s actually the additional loss of Shohei Ogura in front of the backline that really cost us on Saturday. Ogura is a real workhorse and watching us play on Saturday without him served as a stark remainder as to how instrumental to our midfield he really is. Theoretically, Sendai’s equalizer probably never would have come about the way it did if he was on the pitch as there’s no way he would have let Kakuda mill around unmarked in that position. In short, Vegalta did their homework before making the trip to Yokohama and it clearly paid off in spades.

Not long after the second-half restart, Sendai pushed the game out of our reach in the 55th minute when a blundered attempt at clearing the ball away from goal courtesy of Kurihara, actually resulted in a lovely pass to the incoming Sendai strikers meaning it was only going to be a matter of seconds before they bury the ball in the back of the net for a third time. Sure enough, a nod to the feet of Shingo Akamine was all it took to send the away end into raptures as they knew that all 3 points were in the palms of their hands.

Being 2 goals down meant we just had to focus on the daunting task of drawing level which seemed to be the catalyst for some rather confusing substitution decisions on our part. Firstly taking off Kazuma Watanabe for Oguro in the 57th minute was a little premature in my opinion because we all know that Oguro plays best when he only has 10 mins to waste. Secondly, though I welcome the introduction of the criminally neglected Kenta Kano any day of the week, putting him on and taking Ono OFF simply baffled me. Ono is a constant threat on goal and EXACTLY the sort of player you need up front when you’re a goal or two down! Bringing on Kim Kunhoan for Kobayashi was a smart move but unfortunately it didn’t change much because he had to play alongside a heavily marked Oguro, not to mention against a now deep-sitting Sendai defence that had no intention of budging a inch in our favour whatsoever.

It was with great disappointment that the ref put the whistle to his lips to bring the game to an end and leaving us wondering how to remedy our rather suspect looking midfield. Let’s see how we play on Wednesday shall we..?

Here’s the highlights:

Starting Lineups
Yokohama F.Marinos: Iikura, Kobayashi, Aoyama, Nakazawa, Kurihara, Taniguchi, Kanai, Aria, Hyodo, Ono, and Watanabe.
Vegalta Sendai: Hayashi, Sugai, Byung Kuk, Kamata, Park Ju Sung, Tomita, Kakuda, Matsushita, Yong Gi Ryan, Yanagisawa, and Akamine.

F.Marinos Substitutions: Watanabe → Oguro (57), Ono → Kano (68) Kobayashi → Kunhoan (76)

Goals: Kobayashi (3), Kakuda (10), Yanagisawa (12), Akamine (55)

Anyways, you don’t want to hear about our personal woes as you all come here for football updates regarding our beloved Tricolore and, in our absence, we’ve pulled a mostly positive batch of results out of the bag…

First up, after our disappointing draw away at Shimizu S-Pulse, our boys traveled away again but this time to Kyushu to face off against a struggling Avispa Fukuoka team. When we played them at home earlier in the season, they gave us a real fright by taking a 2 goal lead by half-time leaving us with the tall order of having to fight back for a point. This we did admirably thanks to a last minute brace from Yuji Ono to seal a triumphant 3-2 comeback.
However, a lot has happened since then as Avispa have fallen deep into the relegation mire and it’s no secret that they have some big confidence issues. Despite their current form however, we knew this wouldn’t be an easy game as Avispa proved in the opening minutes with a VERY close shot that beat the keeper but was denied by the woodwork. It was in the 11th minute that the only goal of the game materialized thanks to a rather well taken corner from Kano, a nice head back into the center of the box from Aoyama, and a slightly opportunistic but very welcome poke into the back of the net courtesy of Aria. Avispa 0 F.Marinos 1.
Here’s the game highlights:

Next up, we played host a mere three days later to our neighbours, Kawasaki Frontale, in the first round of the knockout stage of the Nabisco Cup at Mitsuzawa Nippatsu Stadium. Anybody following the league this year will know that Frontale have been having a mare of a season with their leaky defence and rubbish looking kit. Naturally, as their neighbours, it was our duty to pile on the woes and that we did by spanking them 4-0 and pretty much ensuring that they will get knocked out of the cup next week in the second leg in front of their frustrated supporters at home! Hehe..
Anyways, actions speak louder than words so enough from me – watch the highlights instead!

Lastly, was the biggest of all three contests as we played against a very in-form Gamba Osaka last weekend to contest the top of the table. As to be expected from a game involving 1st and 2nd placed teams, the game was rough and though there were moments of brilliance to be seen, there were certainly more than a few moments of hesitant play and overall pedestrian motions up and down the pitch. It was in front of a very loud support that the home team took the lead in the 20th minute thanks to nice chipping back-pass from Aria to Hyodo who was lurking just outside the area before the picking the up the ball and smashing it just beneath the crossbar and into the back of the net for an excellent goal to give us an early lead. Unfortunately, our lead wasn’t to be cherished for the full 90 minutes as Gamba came and showed us why they are sitting pretty at the top with a painful equalizer in the 57th minute from Gamba’s Brazilian striker, Rafinha, as he nodded in a textbook header from a corner. Though it was a disappointing way to concede, I think overall that a 1-1 draw was probably fair result considering the chances we both missed and conceded. Oh well, we’ll get ‘em next season!

Here’s the highlights:

…And that just about leaves us with a few hours on the clock before we face-off against Vegalta Sendai at Nissan Stadium! Here’s hoping we get the win! Until then…VAMOS!!!