J League - Japan

Avispa acquire midfielder Danilson

UKUOKA – Avispa Fukuoka have signed Colombian midfielder Danilson Cordoba, the J. League first-division club announced Friday.

The 29-year-old, who plays under the name Danilson, joined Consadole Sapporo in the second-tier J2 in 2009 and moved to Nagoya Grampus a year later, initially on loan. He helped the side win its first league title in 2010, when he was named to the league’s Best Eleven.

The left-footed midfielder lost his starting job during last year’s first stage, ended last season without a goal and was not offered a contract. He will join Avispa, who won the post-season playoffs to return to J1 for the first time since 2011.

Japan Under-23 hero Asano beginning to blossom

Takuma Asano was named the Best Young Player of the 2015 J. League season. It may not be long before he becomes the best player in the league, period.

To a hero’s welcome of 500 fans at Haneda international airport, Asano and his Japan teammates came home shortly before midnight Sunday from Doha, where Asano helped his side to the Asian Under-23 Championship with a pair of goals in the final against South Korea the evening before.

Asano came off the bench midway through the second half with Japan down 2-0, cutting into South Korea’s lead with his first goal. After Shinya Yajima equalized, Asano capped his brace in the dying minutes to win it for Makoto Teguramori’s men, who will head to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics as Asian champions.

“We got better with each game,” said Asano, who will get a much-needed week off before rejoining Sanfrecce Hiroshima for a preseason training camp.

“The going got tough for us but we somehow found a way to win. That led to confidence and helped us grow as a group. Me personally, I struggled to score during the tournament but in the final, I was so determined to win the game for us.

“I was putting too much pressure on myself but watching the other guys get the job done motivated me. I felt like I had to follow their lead. Not one player on the team was about to give up and I wanted to make an impact the moment I got in the game.”

One would expect someone who grew up with five brothers and a sister would be clamoring for attention, but Asano, already capped three times for the senior national side, is as humble as they come.

Last season in his third year out of high school, Asano came on strong down the stretch, helping Hiroshima capture its third J. League championship in four years and to an impressive third place at the Club World Cup, nearly stunning South American champion River Plate in the process.

More often than not, the accolades might go straight to the head of a 21-year-old J. League player, but not Asano.

“I have to do a much better of job finishing,” he said. “My teammates set me up a number of times yet I didn’t take the chances I had. I had the two goals in the final, but I wasted so many opportunities. It’s something I can’t ignore and I have to make the effort to work on my game.

“There’s not one player on this team whose place is secure. We all have to fight for a spot and I’m no exception. At the very least, I want to score 10 goals for my club this season.”

Asano is nicknamed “the Jaguar” by his peers and fans for his feline-like pace and his speed is such that, barring injury or an unforeseen incident, he will almost certainly be one of the 18 Teguramori will take with him to Rio in August.

Teguramori has yet to decide if he will call up the three overage players allowed on every team at the Olympics. But even if he does, it should not affect Asano’s standing, as the muscular striker remains the most influential game-changer in Japan at the moment.

“I know there will come a time when I’ll have to make some difficult decisions,” Teguramori said. “The boys know I can only pick 18, and the competition for places will be tough.

“At this point, I haven’t given it any thought one way or the other. I’ll see how we develop in the buildup and then make my decision.”

Once the Olympics, where Japan will try to medal in men’s soccer for the first time since 1968, are out of the way, Asano should become a regular call-up for Vahid Halilhodzic, whose final World Cup qualifying campaign starts in September.

Asano is not hiding the fact that he wants to crack Halilhodzic’s 23 for Russia and at his current rate of development, he won’t have to worry.

“We all think about it,” he said. “Certainly, I want to start getting picked on a regular basis sooner rather than later. Even as I try to take the step to the next level, I hope I can keep playing the way I have been up to this point.”

Japan rallies past South Korea for Asian U-23 crown

DOHA – Substitute Takuma Asano struck twice in the second half as Japan came back from two goals down to beat archrival South Korea 3-2 to win the Asian Under-23 Championship on Saturday.

It looked gloomy for Japan after Kwon Chang-hoon opened the scoring in the 20th minute for South Korea before Jin Seong-uk doubled the lead two minutes into the second half.

But Asano, who took the pitch on the hour for Ryota Oshima, closed the gap in the 67th minute with his first of the evening from a through pass by Shinya Yajima.

A minute later, Yajima restored parity by nodding in a cross from left-back Ryosuke Yamanaka, turning the tide for Makoto Teguramori’s Japan.

With nine minutes to go, Asano put the young Blue Samurai up for good by finishing off a counterattack keyed by Shoya Nakajima, who was named the tournament MVP after his two-goal heroics in Japan’s quarterfinal victory over Iran.

“I hadn’t been able to come up with a goal until now so it feels incredible to have scored when it all mattered and help the team to a win,” said Asano, who was the J. League’s Best Young Player last season for Sanfrecce Hiroshima.

Japan, South Korea and Iraq, which beat tournament host Qatar in the third-place match a day earlier, qualified out of Asia for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The 16-team men’s soccer competition starts Aug. 4, ahead of the opening ceremony. Japan hopes to win a medal for the first time since 1968. The Japanese lost to South Korea in the bronze-medal match at the previous Olympics in London.

“It turned out to be a pretty thrilling game,” Teguramori said. “But maybe we were destined to win.

“After South Korea scored twice, that woke us up. My initial plan was for us to win 2-0 so once they went up by two, let’s just say it threw us off a bit.

“This tournament really was about payback for us against some teams. It wore on us that we hadn’t been able to win as much as we wanted to up until now. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy but we found a way.”

Japan was aiming to avenge a quarterfinal defeat to South Korea at the 2014 Asian Games but didn’t have it easy with injured forward Musashi Suzuki out and Takumi Minamino being called back to Austria by his club Red Bull Salzburg.

Falling into a two-goal ditch didn’t help matters, but the introduction of Asano changed the complexion of the game as Teguramori’s men went on to produce three goals in a space of 14 second-half minutes.

On their way to the summit, Japan seemed to have a new hero with each game, a point Nakajima tried to make on behalf of the team, which does not have a standout player head and shoulders above the rest.

“I’m really glad my teammates got the job done,” said FC Tokyo man Nakajima. “It was a tough game until we scored. We were hoping to make the most of Takuma’s pace and we managed to do that in the end.

“The MVP award belongs to everyone, not just me. I want to thank my teammates, the manager and anyone else associated with the team.”