J league versus premiership versus A league

I'm not reading all the banter is this thread, but Park is a marketing tool. End of.

Just send a tape to NZ football or something, because how are NZ coaches going to see him play in a game situation or training as a professional. There not just going to travel all the way too Japan and find out he could be minging. But if he's made it that far he deserves a fair shout. But if he had talent at a early age surely NZ football would have kept tabs on him? Maybe he has fallen off the radar.

No one has ever said they are going to dominate the world simply because of there geographical location.The statement has only been made that they are competitive but all you Englishmen start breathing hard, eyes bulging with your shot guns out proclaiming "How dare someone compare another league with the mighty English". I guess you just knocked the nail on the head when you said the Japanese league is dominated by Japanese. The same thing can not be said of your "World league" ,can it".

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I hope this does not happen. I love watching teams like Man U, Liverpool e.t.c..

ARRRRR ARRRRR AAARRR I'M NOT BACKING DOWN!
I Still say bottom 10 equivalent to Japan.

I love how people are saying Park is just a marketing tool, would you really play a marketing tool in a game which could of realistically put the title beyond doubt.

I think that if there were two players of Parks ability available and one was Asian and one not, a club will lean towards the asian player for marketing reasons.  That doesn't change that he seems to be there on merit.

What I do have a challenge with is the long bow being drawn that because he played in the J-League therefore the J-League is Premier League quality.  As someone else posted, a number of ex-NSL players have played competitively in the Premier League but that doesn't necessarily mean an NSL side would ever have beaten a Premier League side in a one off, let alone over a full season.

The J-League must be a quality league if you take into consideration that most of their National players are picked from this League and Japan were ranked 30 in the last completed FIFA ranking. The�fact that they aren't getting to play with and against a lot of the best players in the world suggests�they must have a fairly robust competition and pretty good players to be ranked in the top 50 countries.


Excellent point Ronald , and a point that James Dean/Feverish and Oska should have no argument with as there is no disputing this.
But judging by some of there anti asian remarks, I'm sure they will find something!

Oh well, just as well you know best.  I must have been imagining things when I watched Brett Emerton playing for Sydney Olympic against the Kingz... and before that people must have imagined the likes of Mark Bosnich, Mark Schwarzer and Mark Viduka all doing the same thing...  still, as I say, you know best.

The only way any japanese players would get to play in the EPL is that they have at least played two full years in their national team which is ranked high in the FIFA ranking before they even get a look in for their UK work permits. So how many Japanese players are able to consistency selected and play in their national team for two years? Only so much players can have the opportunity to play in the EPL out of the thousands of Japanese professional players presently. It sort of defeats the reason that japanese players stay to play in J1 because it is a high standard, but rather supports that fact the not many can have the opportunity to play in the EPL. Which then support the fact the players in the EPL outside the EU has to be of a exceptional standard and played enough international games for their country over two years before they get a look at, let alone getting a starting line up in EPL team full of stars of decent standard. The reason for the high work permit criteria is that the Home Office believes that it is the best way to assess players whether they have the ability to be at least as good as the home grown players if not better as well as to protect the home grown players in the lower league or EPL.

As for people giving the English Championship League a hard time, you do realise that it is the richest second national league in the world as well as being ranked as among the top 6th-8th richest league in the world even among the first national leagues? Which is why that there are plenty of non-english players in that championship and that many football observers do consider that it is equivalent, if not greater, of many first national league of many countries such as A-League, MLS and J-League.

Also when EPL team do travel to Asia, they don't always bring their Key players for a game plus any player needing medical attention for the coming EPL season and the fact that they are playing in their off season or is a pre-season warm-up game. This does lower their standard significantly to compare to an in-season team with some key players on the song. The difference is bigger that you think.

Anyway, if you look at the current bottom teams in the EPL(starting from the bottom): West Brom, Middlesbrough, Newcastle Utd, Blackburn, Stroke City, Portsmouth, Sunderland, Hull City, Bolton, Tottenham and Man City. Only Urawa and Gamba of the J1 will achieve better than 50% wins against most of them. Even then, I would still consider that they be struggling in the bottom 10 of the EPL themselves during a season. I think that they are the equivalent of West Brom, Stroke City, Portsmouth, Hull City and Bolton level of playing caliber and that is being very generous because those clubs have very technicality good players with a couple of outstanding players but lack some depth in reality to the other EPL teams. Which is what all J1 teams also have as well. Plus any bottom half EPL teams have coaching/management issues that needs addressing simply because the coaching/management level in the EPL is more demanding and of a higher standard than most and hence more cutthroat. Such is the symptoms of an very rich league. Any league is competitive, but you are talking about the richest, the ruthless and cutthroat league in the world to compare J1. J1 is a technically sound (and robust) league competition but most of the bottom 10 EPL clubs in the current season can easily be in the top 8 contenders in the EPL in the next season with a few changes. EPL is very rough and tough physically mixed with superb technical brilliance from any of the EPL teams. The mindset is very competitive and cutthroat even within a team. A J1 team will struggle with the mindset and the tough stuff if they play against any bottom ten EPL teams and that is half the battle to be honest.

Will J1 be as competitive as EPL bottom team? Personally I think not in the near future anyway. Until all of the J1 teams have the mindset and gain a physically tough and rough competitive streak week to week in the season, it's not worth comparing. Only some of the J1 teams have it, but they get let down because the other J1 team they play against will not have the competitive rough edge and so lowers their mindset and abilities naturally. Everyone know you lift your game up against better teams, well that not happening week to week for the top J1 teams. If J1 wants to be competitive it has to be tough and rough boarding on intimidation as well as being technical because it has a mental edge. Of those bottom 10 EPL teams, plenty of the top EPL teams knows that playing them is not easy at all because of the rough mental competitive edge of intimidation that makes up for the slightly lesser technical abilities. Have a few key players out with injuries, even the top 4 knows that they can bitten hard by any of the bottom EPL teams. It is more cutthroat than you think. Depth and larger squads is really to the top EPL team advantage outside their european trips. Any EPL team have a trickly balance to maintain and their balance is at a thinner and higher standard than other league expect for Series A and maybe La Ligue, although it changes between those three league. The german and french league are also close to their competitiveness coming in as 4th and 5th leagues in the world.

The gap between EPL and J1 is huge and A-league is catching up to J1. And looking at Adelaide's performance, A-league maybe the 4th or 5th strongest in Asia already.

Just skimmed through all that, but some stats that I could gather suggests that the J League is wealthier than the Championship. No surprise there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte_Football_Money_League#The_ten_leagues_with_the_highest_revenues
Though figures are for 2005/2006 and I would think that J League revenue is increasing far quicker than Championship.

And another thing, you do find that clubs bring very competitive teams on pre season trips as was highlighted in the discussion about Everton possibly touring here. Man Utd toured Africa playing teams containing Rooney, Tevez, Vidic, Evans, Scholes etc. Only thing you can say is that it is pre season and they will not be in full swing yet.

You are right about the physicality of the EPL and that would hinder the J League, but if games were reffed as they are in Japan or even Europe (http://goal.com/en-us/news/85/england/2009/03/24/1173703/premier-league-referees-could-force-cristiano-ronaldo-to-real-mad) it would even the contest further.

I do think that the J League is not up to EPL standard, but I think the J League is developing nicely and importing some exciting attacking talents mainly from Brazil.

The gap between EPL and J1 is huge and A-league is catching up to J1.

Two weeks ago a J league club cained Central Coast Mariners five nil at there home ground in a one team game! Catching up? Rubbish

Talking nonsense there - J-League clubs don't suffer from a small salary cap like all A-League clubs do.

Identifying individual games is a pretty weak argument

I don't want to get too deep into this arguement as you are all comparing apples with Oranges, but lets be honest CCM is not Australia's first or second best team now is it. 

I recon on a good day the Phoenix could potentially steal a result against Japans top two or three clubs. 

Just look at how well Adelaide did!!

This weeks results :
Nagoya Grampus 1 Newcastle Jets nil.
Kawasaki Frontale 2 Central Coast 1.

Yes not a lot of evidence there to back up your original claims that Japanes teams would compete with lower level premiership sides is there?

Hmmm. Last game I recall was 5 -3 to Manchester United in World Club Champs back in December. Oh, sorry you said bottom of the premiership. Do you have any recent games you could fill us all in on?

Gee, case closed I guess.  You got me

Really hard to say whether the J1 sides are better or worse than the bottom epl sides because they dont play them competitively, and that is the only yardstick, the rest is pure conjecture.

My hunch is epl would win consistently but aint got nothing to back that up

But we can definitely say the J1 sides are well ahead of the A League, the results are there. The difference in skill levels was very evident when they played Adelaide in the finals.

The A League is improving but has a long way to go, and in fact may never catch up, depends on the salary situation and attracting better players

I would like to see this Fitzgerald lad playing somewhere in a league, and cant see him getting ahead of others for NZ if he doesnt play. Look at Chris Wood, played in the epl and is in consideration.

I did read an article about the Aussie Jason Davidson giving a talk about life at the Seiritsu International School, it sounded like a bloody ordeal, strong punishments for doing things wrong. He mentioned a Kiwi player being there also  for 3 years, I am guessing it was Fitzgerald. Also understand Dylan Windust is there now