Robaato Rasamu found himself in the midst of a 16-month second season in Japan, relying on an extremely inexperienced squad. After enduring a painful J2/J3 Special Tournament, the rookie Japanese manager was slowly starting to get improved performances out of his young Thespa Gunma side.
The strikeforce of Shota Tanaka and 17-year-old academy product Takahiro Kato earned a 2-0 win at Sagamihara that moved them 11 points clear of relegation trouble. And they backed that up with 17-year-old left winger Tatsuro Takohashi scoring the only goal in the North Kanto Derby at home to Tochigi SC. Defeat followed at early leaders Ryukyu, but an exciting moment saw academy starlet Masaya Nishi bag a brilliant hat trick in a 3-0 win at home to FC Osaka.
A few defeats followed but, at the halfway mark of J3 League, Ganma sat in a comfortable 10th position. A six-game winless streak was halted by Takohashi and Nishi’s late penalty downing Kitakyushu and exciting 16-year-old midfielder Ryotaro Kodama scored his first senior goal in a 3-2 win at home to Hachinohe. Nishi scored two more in a 3-1 win over bottom side Morioka United, but perhaps the most pleasing performance so far was a dominant 2-0 win at Tochigi as the team perfectly executed Rasamu’s solid but clinical gameplan.
Gunma pushed leaders Yamagata all the way, only conceding in the 91st minute to lose 1-0, which offered more threads of hope for the future. A decent run of form led Gunma to the edges of the playoffs, but the loss of right back Rikiru Nakano – who’s the only effective right back, and forced a new youth academy product to be called up in his place – dented those hopes. However, they ended positively as Nishi inspired an impressive 3-1 win at 3rd-place Gifu before Tanaka earned a 1-1 at 2nd-place ReinBerg on the final day.
That helped Gunma finish in a solid 9th place on 58 points after 15 wins, 13 draws and 10 defeats, scoring 48 and conceding 42. The exciting Nishi was the 14th-top scorer in the league with 14 in 37, only 5 behind the leading scorers, and had the 8th most shots (98) and the 2nd most shots on target (50). And, interestingly, he made the most fouls in the league (72). Tomoyuki Koyama made the 2nd most saves per 90 minutes (5.00) and had the 2nd best save percentage (83%) while keeping the 4th most clean sheets (14).
Gunma’s Homegrown Players Update
A long old season in Japan ended with 17-year-old Nishi making a club-high 60 appearances and leading the goalscoring chart with 19. Tanaka also impressed with 18 goals and 12 assists, along with winger Tatsuhiro Takahashi (14 goals and 10 assists), left back Muku Arai (11 assists), winger Taiyo Shimokawa (3 goals and 9 assists) and midfielder Hiro Hirota (6 assists).
A key part of this series will be tracking our young players’ development in charts, which will include seasonal performance data and comparisons. To do that, I’m trialling a new attribute ID system, which works by counting up the total score across players’ technical, mental and physical attributes. And, to clarify, the players included in these charts are only those considered homegrown, which requires them to join the club aged 19 or younger.
As you can see in the chart below (click to enlarge), the likes of Nishi and Kodama have improved massively this season. Nishi has improved by 12 technically, 14 mentally and 9 physically, while Kodama has improved by 9 technically, 17 mentally and 13 physically.
We’ll also look at how some of the selected players have performed in the B and Under 18 teams, which you can check out below.
Another youth intake delivered a decent batch of players led by holding midfielder Takeshi Kano. They also had four 4-star players, winger Minoru Moriwaki, goalkeeper Takaya Suzuki, midfielder Takuya Muraki and right back Hideto Miyata, and nine players with up to 3-star potential.
Rasamu was expecting plenty more change in the off-season, but he was desperate to keep hold of his young stars like Kodama and Nishi, who were already beginning to attract attention from bigger clubs. But one thing was probably certain – they would have to play far fewer matches!
Could Gunma build on Rasamu’s solid first season and push for a playoff place next season? Join us on Wednesday to find out!
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