The Club Down Under

It’s a torrid night in Osaka. Things have changed a lot for the home crowd – Gamba Osaka are back to be a winning team, even capable of dreaming of a title. After Tsuneyatsu Miyamoto left, fear was that that moment wouldn’t have come back. Instead, after Issam Jebali scores the fourth goal to round up a solid victory, there’s a good feeling within the stadium. The top isn’t that far away.

Too bad that this piece isn’t built around them, rather on the visiting squad. That 4-0 blow in Osaka means that Yokohama F. Marinos won just four of the last 17 games in all competitions. One of them came in the AFC Champions League final, in the home tie against Al-Ain, before falling heavily in the second leg and losing it all. Marinos drew against FC Gifu in the Emperor’s Cup, but made it to the next round by penalties.

The championship is indeed where the squad have let the fans down. Marinos won against Sanfrecce Hiroshima a couple of weeks ago, then at home against Kashiwa Reysol and away in Sapporo, against a struggling Consadole. That’s it.  They lost the last four in a row, against Fukuoka, Verdy, Sagan, and Gamba, scoring just two goals and conceding nine in the process.

We don’t know yet if the Harry Kewell experiment is already over, but it really feels like it. With just 26 points in 22 games in this year’s J1 League, Marinos are currently as close to the relegation zone (Kyoto Sanga are five points away) compared to the 10th place (occupied by Tokyo Verdy, shy of five points). It seems the love story between Australian coaches and Marinos is coming to an end.

The Australian connection

Marinos and Australia started sharing a common path once Ange Postecoglou took the job in January 2018. Only a few weeks separated the Australian head coach from his separation to the Australia national team. He had brought them to Russia 2018, but he felt the necessary trust and motivation wasn’t there anymore. Postecoglou embarked himself into a dangerous, but fruitful journey.

He wanted to bring a certain brand of football to the J.League. He risked a lot in the first year – remember that without an own-goal by Kentaro Oi in injury time, things could have been completely different. After overcoming that scare, Postecoglou sticked by his tactics and brought a championship back to Yokohama after a 15-years-drought. It was an historical achievement. 

Postecoglou stayed until June 2021, when he opted to begin a new adventure in Scotland with Celtic FC. Once he left, it took a bit to find the proper successor – that was identified in Kevin Muscat. His resume was paradoxically worse than Postecoglou’s, but he actually achieved more than him in Yokohama. To begin with, Marinos concluded two and a half seasons with him always in the Top 2 (2nd in 2021 and 2023, winners in 2022).

Muscat brought another championship to Yokohama, plus Marinos had the best attendance record of their history (27,716). To this, you have to add the basis built to reach the 2023-24 AFC Champions League final. Marinos were harsher to the eyes compared to Ange’s version, but they were indeed more effective. And now Muscat is doing a solid job also in China, where he signed for defending champions Shanghai Port.

A world-class player doesn’t make a manager

Following this trajectory, Marinos’ board probably thought they could keep it going. And the ties with the City Football Group led to think to a successor again tied to Big Ange. Since retiring, in fact, Harry Kewell had already coached some sides – especially in the lower English tiers – but among those adventures, probably only the one with Crawley Town could be defined as a proper success.

Sure, the stories of Peter Cklamovski, and Arthur Papas – other Australians who left a sign in Japanese football, even briefly – made you think that was going to be a slam dunk. Instead, you could already see that the squad wasn’t playing at the same level of the one seen under Muscat. And there were also other factors to consider, for example: the squad itself. 

Throughout the last Winter, Marinos lost Jun Ichimori – who subbed in pretty well for Yohei Takaoka, who left for the Vancouver Whitecaps in the MLS – and who moved back to Gamba Osaka, where he’s starting. They then lost Ryotaro Tsunoda to Cardiff City and Takuma Nishimura left for Europe a second time, this time joining Servette FC in Switzerland. All key losses, with a squad that doesn’t look younger.

Arrivals were not at the same level. William Popp is 29 and he was an important part of Machida Zelvia’s winning season in J2, but he’s not ready for this level. Kazuya Yamamura was mostly taken in as a back-up. Taiki Watanabe and Ren Kato – respectively from Albirez Niigata and Tokyo Verdy – have been good for the future, but Katsuya Nagato has made the difference in that 2022 squad.

What’s next?

After the four losses in a row and the 4-0 in Osaka, it’s probably time to acknowledge an important point: the connection between Australian coaches and Marinos must be broken. Don’t get us wrong – it’s nice to have cycles in football, but they must end at a certain point. Everything beautiful has a beginning and an end (take what’s happening right now with Consadole and Petrovic as a major example of this).

Marinos probably need a normalisation for this season and a reboot – just like Kawasaki seem to need on the other side of Kanagawa Prefecture. Marinos came 12th in 2018 and 10th in 2016, but Postecoglou was at his first year and Mombaerts was just trying to survive after losing incredibly the title in 2014. And the squad needs a reboot as well – Jun Amano (32 years old) and Nam Tae-hee (33) have played a lot of minutes in J1.

What’s to save in terms of players? If Anderson Lopes is tempted again to leave Japan – after seeing it hasn’t worked the first time, despite the number of goals – better to let him go, despite his wonderful numbers (12 goals in 21 games in J1). Some senators need to be benched. The goalkeeping position has been mismanaged: William Popp isn’t Ichimori by a big margin. 

Is there a risk of something worse just around the corner? No, and that’s why Marinos must act before the whole season is lost. Next up is the third round of the Emperor’s Cup, in which they might still have a shot. They’re still into the J.League Cup – they’ll play a destroyed Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo in the quarter-finals. And in September the AFC Champions League “Elite” (whatever the fudge that means) will be back. Too much at stake to be bottled.