Marked for Takehiro Ueda
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Oct 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Takehiro Ueda
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nagoya Grampus lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Sho Inagaki in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nagoya Grampus this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Nagoya Grampus know it.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ryuji Izumi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Something was said to Marcus Vinicius and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Taichi Kikuchi, and the manager let it.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
When it matters, Yuya Asano plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market11 Oct 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Teruki Hara’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Looking ahead11 Oct 2027
Ventforet Kofu next, and one man in the Nagoya Grampus dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Oct 2027
Takehiro Ueda damages knee ligaments — 26 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 26 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match29 Sep 2027
Kashima Antlers ended it 0‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
The terraces4 Oct 2027
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Match2 Oct 2027
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Nagoya Grampus are no longer polite ones.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Sho Inagaki and Nagoya Grampus agree another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
42 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Yudai Kimura in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nagoya Grampus this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of Sho Inagaki
“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.
Boardroom4 Oct 2027
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Sep 2027
Takehiro Ueda damages knee ligaments — 34 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 34 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Yudai Kimura 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.
Match25 Sep 2027
Whatever happens, Nagoya Grampus do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Ryuji Izumi 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.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Gaku Shibasaki
“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.
Match25 Sep 2027
Level with 93 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Nagoya Grampus had all but put away. Kashima Antlers will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Loan watch27 Sep 2027
“I watch every Nagoya Grampus game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Central Coast Mariners runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Nagoya Grampus told Yuya Yamagishi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
Yota Sato has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Nagoya Grampus will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Sep 2027
Takehiro Ueda damages knee ligaments — 42 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 42 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Sho Inagaki 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Nagoya Grampus training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yota Sato 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.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad20 Sep 2027
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A performance of 8.16 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Marcus Vinicius was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Match18 Sep 2027
Late, late show earns Nagoya Grampus a point
Minute 93, against Avispa Fukuoka, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Match18 Sep 2027
It needed Marcus Vinicius to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Avispa Fukuoka, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
The plan did not have a place for Sho Inagaki
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The dugout
Shuhei Tokumoto has become a man the manager trusts
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Nagoya Grampus may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
No thanks: Leandro Godoy rejects the move
Nagoya Grampus had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at CSKA Sofia, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Match20 Feb 2027
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Sho Inagaki in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nagoya Grampus this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
5 academy graduates step up at Nagoya Grampus
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Nagoya Grampus training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryuji Izumi 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.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
Nagoya Grampus asked and CSKA Sofia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market22 Feb 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hotaru Osako is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market22 Feb 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Takehiro Ueda has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.