Kosuke Yamazaki

Central Defender - Jubilo Iwata
3 Jan 2027
Sunday
Process

Marked for Kosuke Yamazaki

14 Edition

The Jubilo Iwata Chronicle

2 Nov 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

Ryo Watanabe damages knee ligaments — 31 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.

Match

Whatever happens, Jubilo Iwata do not lose

7 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.

Squad

Tempers go at Jubilo Iwata

Jan Van Den Bergh 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.

Player ratings

A masterclass from Kein Sato

Marked 8.08 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.

Player ratings

Motoki Ohara was unplayable

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.

The dugout

Ayumi Niekawa dropped after a run of poor form

The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.

The dugout

Ricardo Graca gets it from the manager

“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.

Match

Jubilo Iwata share the spoils with FC Tokyo

A 1‑1 draw with FC Tokyo leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.

Squad

Jubilo Iwata take the armband off Takuma Ominami

It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.

In brief

Back issues
10 Edition

The Jubilo Iwata Chronicle

5 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

A knee injury of the worst kind for Ryo Watanabe

65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Jubilo Iwata lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Squad

A one-man rearguard from Koto Abe

There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.

Squad

Yuri Lara wants to go home

“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 Jubilo Iwata know it.

Squad

Takashi Inui 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 Jubilo Iwata this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Player ratings

Kosuke Yamazaki shuts the door

Defensive actions: 18, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.

Boardroom

Wages swallow 114% of the Jubilo Iwata income

Every club 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 it has been tried.

The dugout

Kein Sato is still paying for one afternoon at Jubilo Iwata

Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.

The dugout

Shion Inoue gets it from the manager

“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.

Player ratings

Nothing got past Jan Van Den Bergh

15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.

In brief