Sometimes in life, Robaato Rasamu mused, you can achieve too much, too quickly. Rasamu was in a pensive mood as he reflected on his Albirex Niigata side’s huge overachievement in the 2027 J1 League campaign. Indeed, their 3rd place finish led by a bunch of exciting young Japanese players had sparked interest from big teams across Saudi Arabia and Japan.
However, the flip side to that was that Niigata had qualified for the AFC Champions League, which meant Rasamu and, as far as he could tell, the club would get their first taste of continental football. And, considering this save is all about winning the leading competition on every continent, that was a pretty big deal – but it doesn’t start until well into the second half of the league campaign.
Rasamu’s concerns became reality as star player Yuta Maeda moved to Al-Fateh for a national record fee of £6.5m, usurping the £4.5m Celtic paid Kobe for Kyogo Furuhashi. They also lost captain Yuito Suzuki, who had 12 months on his contract, to Al-Arabi for £1.8m and made £1.5m on Harumi Minamino, Yuki Yamamoto, Lee Jin-Ho and Jarl-Emil Nesland. But they managed to retain the likes of striker Takashi Wakabayashi and midfielder Takashi Yamamoto.
Rasamu wasted no time in spending that cash and more. He broke Niigata’s transfer record to replace Maeda with Hideto Fukuyama for £3.6m from Hiroshima and the new man became the best player at the club and Rasamu’s first player to make the NxGn list at number 46. He was joined by backup striker Joao Costa for £67k from Braga, midfielder Riku Tsujimura for £3m from FC-Tokyo, midfielder Ryo Nakamura and centre-back Atsushi Ashino for a combined £6.5m from Kashiwa, full-backs Taiga Kanai for £1.9m from Tokushima and Junpei Sakaguchi for £2.2m from Kyoto and midfielder Yukio Nakayama on loan from Urawa. In total, they brought in £9m and spent about £15m.
With that transfer activity done, Rasamu felt the team remained best suited to his 4-2-3-1 with a few tweaks here and there. New boy Costa is the oldest player at the club aged 22 and the squad has an average age of 19.78. But they had 13 players with 5-star potential and four more with 4.5-star potential (for context, 4 stars is considered a leading J1 League player).
Wakabayashi Hits The Ground Running
The bookies fancy Niigata to finish 10th with title odds of 33/1 in their second J1 League Campaign. Kashima are favourites at 11/5 followed by Kobe (5/1), champions Urawa (11/2), Gamba Osaka (11/1) and Sapporo (14/1). No Niigata players make the dream 11 but Fukuyama is 6th favourite to be the top player in J1 at 13/1 and 2nd-favourite to be top young player at 9/1.
Niigata began their second season in J1 with five players injured or suspended as they welcomed newly promoted Chiba. But their fans were very much left asking “Maeda who?” They started superbly as Wakabayashi won and converted a penalty and Fukuyama cut in from the right and finished deliciously for his debut goal. But he wasn’t done there as he ran through the entire Chiba defence to score a superb second and secure a 3-1 victory that Rasamu was very pleased with.
More goals flowed as Wakabayashi bagged back-to-back hat tricks in a 3-3 at FC-Tokyo and a 3-0 win over another promoted side Kanazawa then a brace in a 4-0 thumping of Kashiwa. And the striker made it 10 in five as he scored in a 3-2 win at home to Nagano. A big game followed as they welcomed Urawa, who’d started their title defence poorly. The first half was a non-event but Niigata struck first as Mitsuaki Hara’s delicious through-ball sent Wakabayashi in to slide home coolly then Hara’s wonderful lofted pass put him in to double his tally. Urawa got one back but the excellent Hara killed the game off and sent Niigata top of J1 League with a delicious 25-yard strike.
Wakabayashi’s stunning start continued as he scored twice in a 4-1 thumping of bottom-side Hiroshima. He equalled last season’s club-record goal tally of 19 by scoring in a 3-1 win over Cerezo Osaka and surpassed it in style with a stunning hat-trick to defeat Kashima 3-2.
Busy Schedule Catches Up With Young Niigata
But the games caught up with Niigata and they finally lost their unbeaten start in their 15th game and a really poor match at Shimizu. That teed up two away days at Gamba Osaka, who remained unbeaten after 16 matches, then 3rd-place Sapporo within three days of each other.
At Gamba, Niigata were equally toothless, having just two shots and falling to a deserved 2-0 defeat with goalkeeper Mitsutero Naruo the only half-decent performer. Part of the problem was burnout, so Rasumu made nine changes for the trip to Sapporo. That had the desired result as Moriya teed up homegrown midfielder Ryo Murakami for his first goal of the season before Sapporo levelled. But a few changes turned the game as Wakabayashi scored and Kazumasa Moriya killed the game off from a corner routine.
The first 11 returned and struggled at home to Kyoto but winger Naoki Hattori edged a 1-0 win. They finally got themselves going at struggling Shonan as Yamamoto scored inside 30 seconds and Hattori, Wakabayashi and Hara sealed a 4-1 success. Hara was really beginning to step up, as he scored one and created the other two in a 3-2 victory over FC Tokyo then created the opener and scored the second as Wakabayashi bagged a hat-trick in a 4-0 win at Kanazawa. That latest goal haul saw Wakabayashi become Niigata’s all-time record league goalscorer, as his 63 in 82 surpassed Edmilson’s 62 in 116.
Despite only failing to win five times this season, Niigata found themselves in 2nd place in J1. That was because Gamba still hadn’t lost after 24 matches and led the way by three points. Niigata were 18 clear of reigning champions Urawa, so it looked like the top two had a thrilling title battle in store.
Off the pitch, Rasamu boosted his career prospects by completing his Continental A Licence and immediately starting work on his Continental Pro Licence. So in 12 months’ time, and six years into this adventure, he should have the highest coaching badge available.
Could Rasamu’s troops fight for the J1 League title up against Gamba? And would the start of their first continental campaign in September – around two months before the league concludes – affect their chances? Join us on Monday to find out!
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