It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kimito Nono 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Leo Ceara
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Naomichi Ueda 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
Koki Anzai 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.
A mark of 7.92, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Kashima Antlers are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Koki Anzai 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.
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
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.
Nagoya Grampus will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Kashima Antlers were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Defensive actions: 23, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Kimito Nono 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Nagoya Grampus spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
In brief
Player ratingsAleksandar Cavric was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kimito Nono 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.
Aleksandar Cavric 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Yusuke Matsuo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.22. 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
20 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.
A 1‑0 win over Vissel Kobe, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Koki Anzai 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kim Tae Hyeon, and the manager let it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Kashima Antlers are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksandar Cavric 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 3‑1 win over Vegalta Sendai, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.60 — 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.
The fee is $1.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Kashiwa Reysol drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Naomichi Ueda 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yuta Higuchi 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 ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Monaco arrived with $14.5M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yusuke Matsuo has just signed for Kashima Antlers, and for once the answer mattered.
He is going to Monaco, the club has $14.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 27 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Naomichi Ueda 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yuta Higuchi 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Kashima Antlers heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksandar Cavric 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.
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.