Yoichi Naganuma 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 Omiya Ardija this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ota Yamamoto 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.
31 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
376% of the income goes out in wages at Omiya Ardija
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.
Yoichi Naganuma 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 Omiya Ardija this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Yoichi Naganuma 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.
Marked 8.99 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Omiya Ardija this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Ota Yamamoto 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.
Gabriel 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 crowd waited for a goal that never came. Albirex Niigata defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Romario Hernández trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
9 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.
Ota Yamamoto 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Kawasaki Frontale? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kenyu Sugimoto trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
8 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Omiya Ardija this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Yoichi Naganuma 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Omiya Ardija, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Ventforet Kofu? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Yuta Toyokawa 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Thomas Glover: 4 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
The offer from Sanfrecce Hiroshima for Thomas Glover 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.
Yoichi Naganuma 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.
Yoichi Naganuma 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.
Gabriel 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.
He is 20, and nobody at Omiya Ardija signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ryuya Nishio signs something — a contract at Omiya Ardija or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.