Shota Fukuoka 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Kanji Okunuki 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gamba Osaka has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Gamba Osaka training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Riku Handa 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.
Nobody at Gamba Osaka 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.
Nobody at Gamba Osaka is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Gamba Osaka are no longer polite ones.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Riku Handa 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gamba Osaka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ryoya Yamashita has come out of that comparison in the side, and Gamba Osaka have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The deal that would have taken Ryo Hatsuse to Sanfrecce Hiroshima has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Gamba Osaka with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Shota Fukuoka 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Riku Handa 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gamba Osaka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Harumi Minamino has come up in conversations Gamba Osaka were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
A 1‑0 win over Shonan Bellmare, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Gamba Osaka training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kanji Okunuki 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.