It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Tokyo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Takahiro Ko falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Kota Tawaratsumida was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at FC Tokyo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Takahiro Ko is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kai Eltchetabu Bright is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Tokyo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at FC Tokyo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kento Hashimoto is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Souffian El Karouani is living that version at FC Tokyo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Souffian El Karouani was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at FC Tokyo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Ceballos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and FC Tokyo will not try tonight.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
36 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
1‑1 against Sanfrecce Hiroshima, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.09 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Yokohama F. Marinos moved on, Teppei Oka reports back to FC Tokyo, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Kota Tawaratsumida was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.