Pentagon Pursuit | Part 4 | First Winter Rebuild

Fledgling manager Robaato Rasamu had made a lively start to life in his first role at Kamatamare Sanuki, averaging four goals per match in his first 20 career games. But he was also a manager keen to make progress, as proven by bagging his first coaching badge, the National C Licence, in January 2024.

Just as Rasamu was preparing for his first winter transfer window (Japan’s off-season is in the winter), an Chairperson Yusuke Nakamura announced plans to build a new stadium. The move will see the club return to its home city of Takamatsu and Nakamura is in the process of identifying sites and investors.

Rasamu faced a huge task in his first off-season as 21 players departed, leaving him with just eight of last season’s first team. He then saw his best defender Kei Munechika leave for £40k, which smashed the previous record sale of £2.3k. But he wasted no time in utilising his minimal recruitment capabilities.

J3 League clubs are only allowed four foreign players in a matchday squad, so Rasamu had to be careful. But he strengthened in key areas with Ivory Coast holding midfielder Hamed Traoré, who’d been playing in Sri Lanka, and two South Koreans in winger Go Jun-Young and midfielder Kang-Min Choi. Joining them were midfielders Takumi Wakaya from Kitakyushu and Yutaka Soneda and Kyoji Kutsuna from rivals Ehime FC. Rasamu also turned to the loan market to bring in full-backs Yuta Ueda and Atsushi Inagaki – who he later realised was a victim of FM’s 4ft 11 bug – from J1 sides Kyoto and Urawa and Harumi Minamino from fellow J3 side Miyazaki.

With that mini-rebuilding job done, Rasamu was leaning towards a 4-2-4 approach with two holding midfielders.

Into Rasamu’s First Full Season

The Japanese bookies were big fans of the work Rasamu had done, predicting a 10th-place finish for Sanuki with title odds of 20/1. Matsumoto Yamaga are 11/10 favourites followed by FC Gifu (6/4), Iwate (9/5), Kagoshima (3/1) and relegated Yamaguchi (5/1). The Japanese system changes going into the second season, with J1 moving from 18 to 20 teams and J2 and J3 adopting playoffs behind two automatic promotion places.

Sanuki began the campaign with a tricky trip to Yamaguchi and looked to have nicked a dreadful math through debutant Kutsuna, only for centre-back Takumi Narasaka to score an injury-time own goal. But they were much better in the first home game of the season against FC Osaka, starting with Go putting in a wonderful cross for striker Kaima Akahoshi to send a looping header into the top corner. They took control from there and eventually got their reward with goals by midfielder Nao Eguchi and Kutsuna.

An equally impressive performance saw them defeat relegated Iwaki 3-1 led by Kutsuna scoring again before a really unlucky 2-1 defeat at Gifu. But Rasamu picked up his first away win of the campaign thanks to a superb club-record four-goal haul by striker Himan “He-Man” Morimoto. Other than that, the away form was a little shaky but they were strong at home, including Akahoshi bagging a brace in a 4-1 win over Nagano and Go getting his first goal for the club in a 2-0 win over rivals Ehime FC.

Reaching Heady Heights

After 10 games, Sanuki found themselves sitting pretty in 5th with the top of the table increasingly tight. Rasamu’s side earned a point at 4th-place Fukushima before putting ni their best performance yet at home to leaders Matsumoto Yamage. The visitors scored early on but winger Yuto Mori soon levelled before an inspired second half saw Akahoshi’s header, Eguchi’s wonderful free-kick and Doi’s first career goal send Sanuki top of the league for the first time in Rasamu’s reign.

Sanuki maintained that position with a 3-1 win over struggling Kagoshima. A disappointing 2-1 loss followed at Nara before Kutsuna and Morimoto, who ended a 10-hour goal drought, earned a 2-1 win over 8th-place Kitakyushu. That saw them really hit top gear as a Kutsuna double led a 4-1 thumping of 18th-place Iwate, bottom side Maruyasu were dispatched 4-0 away and Morimoto broke his own record with an amazing club-record five-goal haul – from a total of about 12 yards – to defeat Toyama 6-3.

Five successive wins and one defeat in three months left Rasamu’s side sitting top of J3 League. Sunaki have 41 points, one clear of Matsumoto but six clear of 3rd-place Numazu. The strikeforce of He-Man and Akahoshi are second and third top scorers in the league with 29 goals between them. Morimoto’s 16, of which nine came in two matches, is two short of Matsumoto’s Watanabe and winger Kutsuna is fifth-top scorer with nine. While Go leads the league with 11 assists followed by Eguchi with eight.

Sanuki’s strong start to the campaign didn’t go unnoticed as the board agreed to Rasamu’s request to go on a coaching course, and he began work on gaining his National B License.