Football Season Guide

Last season was one to forget for Urawa Red Diamonds. They followed up a campaign finishing fourth by finishing 13th(!). Relegation was never truly on the agenda for them but they were closer to that than they were to finishing fourth, and considerably so too. They never seemed to strike the right balance between attacking and defending. There were only two real points of concern for the club in general pre-season. They had a vacancy at left-back after Ayumu Ohata was poached by OH Leuven, which is expected to be filled by Ogiwara, whose loan at Dinamo Zagreb expired. The other was the striker position, vacated by Linssen whose contract expired. Thiago Santana demonstrated last season that he was capable of filling that void though, and he should be able to do just that. Urawa Reds wanted a big signing though; somebody who could make a big difference in tight games. They elected to bring in Savio, the star of Kashiwa Reysol last season, and winger Kaneko from Kortrijk, both of which should prove to be very good additions. With those two, Thiago, and Watanabe in attack, they should be able to score enough goals to finish further up the table this season. They even have Nakajima in reserve; a real match-winner on his day. It could be argued that not much needed changing in defence for them but they weren't taking any chances, bringing in Danilo Boza from Juventude to further strengthen their options, most likely displacing Inoue in the process. They look even better equipped to compete for silverware this season. They may not have done enough to win the J-League; time will tell. However, they've made significant improvements on last season, and should really be aiming for a top four finish because of it. Due to the number of match-winners now in a very settled squad, they should start strongly and finish well.