It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Nagoya Grampus can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
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.
Teruki Hara 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.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Nagoya Grampus will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Yuya Asano is on it.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Shuhei Tokumoto is on it.
Sho Inagaki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad16 Nov 2026
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.
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.
Sho Inagaki and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
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.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Nagoya Grampus, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Hiroki Inoue after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Chances created: 9. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
In brief
The dugoutShuhei Tokumoto has become a man the manager trusts
Player ratingsRyuji Izumi beats them one at a time
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Yota Sato
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nagoya Grampus have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Teruki Hara 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Nagoya Grampus has been clear about where Alex Kouto Horio Pisano stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sho Inagaki’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Nagoya Grampus needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nagoya Grampus, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Nagoya Grampus have no good answer.
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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Gaku Shibasaki commits to Nagoya Grampus for another 1 years.
Squad5 Oct 2026
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nagoya Grampus can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Hiroki Inoue kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
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.
Marked 6.92 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Sho Inagaki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Hiroki Inoue after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Kashima Antlers in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Successful dribbles: 11. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ryosuke Yamanaka is on it.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
At 37 he has made the position his own, and the man he took it from has to find something to say about it. Nagoya Grampus have a decision that made itself.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Haruya Fujii trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
It needed Mateus Castro to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Urawa Reds, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Hiroki Inoue chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kensuke Nagai’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Nagoya Grampus needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Kashima Antlers go through and Nagoya Grampus go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.18 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
$22.0K was the most the club would pay and Kashiwa Reysol were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The offer from Tondela for Mateus Castro was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
$940.0K on the table at Sanfrecce Hiroshima. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $246.8K — a club that wants Tsuyoshi Ogashiwa enough to be asked twice.
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.
Nagoya Grampus asked and Penarol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gaku Ueda has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Shoya Suzuki 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sho Furuhashi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
SquadWords at Nagoya Grampus training over how hard people work
The offer from FC Tokyo for Yuya Yamagishi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
123 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Nagoya Grampus can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olimpia have kept their man, and Nagoya Grampus go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
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 name of Alex Kouto Horio Pisano has come up in conversations Nagoya Grampus were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Yohei Takeda