Football Season Guide

A good campaign (finished 7th) last season proved to be a downfall of sorts with manager Peter Cklamovski being poached by the Malaysian national team. Their new manager is Rikizo Matsuhashi, who joins from Albirex Niigata. A little bit of a strange acquisition, given that he only just kept his former employers in the J-League last season. Their squad is in good shape. They only lost a couple of regulars pre-season, and both of them were in attack, namely striker Diego Oliveira and attacking midfielder Ryotaro Araki. Both will be missed in their own way as they contributed significantly toward chance creation and chance conversion. However, they made some good signings to replace Araki and Oliveira, bringing in Everton Galdino and Marcelo Ryan. The latter was part of relegated Sagan Tosu but scored fourteen goals for them last season so there are high hopes he'll emulate Diego Oliveira. It may be slow in attack to begin with but their attack should flourish with time. Sato Yoshimitsu could yet be an interesting signing too. In general though, they should be able to start the season well. Most of their mainstays stuck around last season so they have a solid foundation on which to build. As long as their new manager doesn't try to change too many things, then FC Tokyo should be something of a force to be reckoned with, at least at the start. They remain vulnerable in defence though. Again, assuming their new manager keeps them playing attacking football, they're going to be open in defence. That, fused with a lack of quality in defence in general, should lead to plenty of high-scoring games. They're capable of doing well this season because of their attackers but their defensive vulnerability may hold them back from finishing higher than last season.