Summer, time of changes. Could be, could be not. Sure, there’s one certitude for Gamba Osaka : whether things change or not, the club keeps floating through mediocre tides. After winning the treble in 2014 and part ways with their mastermind Kenta Hasegawa (now leading the championship with a surprising FC Tokyo side), it was time to start a new cycle. Yet, you don’t feel such a big difference.
Gamba Osaka are currently going through a 18 months-stint when they offered Levir Culpi a chance to rebuild it all, only to ditch him after few games and rely on club legend Tsuneyatsu Miyamoto. Despite his knowledge of football and the squad’s skills (capable of proposing a good brand of football), Gamba are struggling. After coming 10th in 2017, they turned the tides in 2018 by finishing 9th after flirting with relegation.
But now… things look bleak, as they’ve looked like this in the last three seasons. There’s a ray of hope down the tunnel because of the talents in the squad (both senior’s and U-23), but they’re not performing as you would have expected. Yours truly has actually bet on Gamba winning the championship due to the push showed in the final part of 2018 season and instead the Neroazzurri of Osaka are still lingering on the bottom part of the table.
How it’s possible? How can you back from this? But most of all, how can you have such talents and still struggle? The answer might be found in one of the recent acquisitions Gamba have done in this turbulent Summer transfer window.
The ones who left (and they’re coming back)
He’s back. Despite his drive towards Europe was first waited for and then strongly wanted, Takashi Usami didn’t make it. The purest talent of the Platinum Generation – the kids from class ’90 to ‘92: Miyaichi, Kakitani, Saito – couldn’t make it in Europe twice. Precisely, he couldn’t make it in the friendliest football environment for Japanese players, Germany.
That’s tough. First the stint between 2011 and 2013, going from Bayern to Hoffenheim. Then the return to J. League, helping Gamba winning the treble and even proposing himself – finally, I’d add! – like the true talent Japan was waiting to be the heir of Honda and Kagawa. Then another move to Europe, this time first to Augsburg and then on loan to Fortuna Düsseldorf, where it worked partially.
In the middle, you can find some caps for Japan and a forced call for 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, where Usami played 68 minutes and mostly get everyone mad at him for his performance in the key-match against Poland. You could sum up his 2018-19 in this action.
But where has he gone, the golden boy from Gamba, the one who hyped everyone in 2011? It disappeared through his stints. Class is still there, as I’m sure he will confirm once he’ll step on the pitch for his third stint with Gamba Osaka. But despite this certainty, in Germany things haven’t worked out.
Bayern may have been just a wrong choice, since he couldn’t find a spot with that competition. With Hoffenheim, he was picked by Markus Babbel and scored a wonderful goal against Stuttgart, but it wasn’t enough to win hearts in a relegation-fighting team. About his second stint in Germany, the relationship with Augsburg was never good to leave him some minutes on the pitch.
Once he moved on loan – twice! – to Fortuna Düsseldorf, moment shifted a little. First year was good: Usami was a key-element to push the club back to Bundesliga, winning promotion from Zweite. Then, things quickly deteriorated in the first tier, where he found some pitch-time, but he didn’t leave any mark. This happened not in a dogfight-team, but in a club which finished 11th in 2018-19 season, living a decent season.
Augsburg weren’t interested in keeping him and Gamba might need some Usami magic to leave relegation zone behind their back. Plus, DAZN money come handy in these times, letting Japanese clubs gain back some talent. There are talks of Yosuke Ideguchi coming back as well (in this case, injuries have been plaguing his European career), but you might feel disappointed for Usami.
Such a huge talent – just like another hyped player, Hotaru Yamaguchi, who came back to Cerezo after six months in Hannover –, such a sad ending. Despite I imagine how he’ll shine on the pitches of J1 League, FC Tokyo would have been a more interesting and entertaining solution. And for someone coming, there’s someone leaving the Suita City Football Stadium.
The ones who are leaving
Just one year after Usami’s departure, with the club already facing fewer exciting times in the last years of Kenta Hasegawa’s tenure, Gamba Osaka signed a foreign striker. Back then he was one of the key-elements of Seongnam FC: Hwang Ui-jo might have been an outsider back then, but today he’s one of the best foreign players in the league.
And while Usami is coming back, Hwang Ui-jo is leaving Gamba Osaka. He’s doing it for an unique chance in Europe, in the league that might probably be the fittest for a first approach: Ligue 1. Bordeaux have just ended a terrible season and they needed a proper striker. They found an agreement with Gamba for purchasing him, with the South Korea player signing a 4 years-deal with Girondins.
If he needed some time to adjust to J1 League and Gamba Osaka when he first came to the team, his 2018 season was just mesmerizing: while the Nerazzurri of Osaka were falling behind, he still delivered. 21 goals in 34 games in all competitions, a display that granted him the title of the best South Korean footballer of the year and a spot in the Best XI of J1 League 2018.
At the same, he also took off with his national team. After coming in and out of the team in the past years, he became a sensation also for Taeguk Warriors: surprisingly he was left out for the 2018 World Cup, but newly appointed-head coach Paulo Bento thought it differently. He became a key-part of the team, scoring seven goals just in the last year of matches.
Most of all, he’s one of the reasons why Son Heung-min doesn’t have to face mandatory military duty in South Korea, which takes away two years of your life. At the 2018 Asian Games, Hwang Ui-jo played to avoid himself the task and he delivered, massively, by scoring nine goals in the competition and gifting South Korea U-23 (mmm, kind of…) a gold medal.
His football-QI, the special awareness in the last 20-25 meters, the capability of playing not just for himself, but also to create chance for others… made him a favorite for Gamba’s fans. Right now, though, he has to take his chance. South Korea needs him to improve and J. League will probably remember him among the greatest players we witnessed in the last 4-5 years.
Which leaves us though with one question: which future is shaping up for Gamba Osaka?
The next gem
Who may be next? Can someone else leave Osaka? Yes, indeed. Keito Nakamura is on the radar of several clubs; among them, FC Groningen is ahead, with the Dutch club following the same steps already done for Ritsu Doan some years ago. Both shone with the U-23 team, both played few matches with the senior squad and both flew off Japan before showing J. League followers their real potential.
Even if it doesn’t come to this end, others might leave. Gamba Osaka U-23 is shining in J3 League this season, with another couple of talents who are catching everyone’s attention. Takahiro Ko has emerged as a possible replacement for Yasuyuki Konno, while Akito Takagi is scoring a lot of goals in J3. Not to mention Ryotaro Meshino, who just single-handedly some wins and he’s filling too small shoes in this current J. League.
But if everyone kind of promising leaves Osaka, who’s going to stay for an actual rebuilding of Gamba’s greatness? That’s a question that someone probably has to ask among the board of the club, just to avoid being a mere point of transition between a point A and a point B of someone’s career.
[…] While FC Tokyo and Cerezo Osaka’s U-23 teams haven’t been memorable in J3, Gamba Osaka had so much talent that we envisioned them taking J1 by storm. Besides 2020, though – when the club reached second on the table -, that never materialised. And if we look back at some of those players, surely some of them have fulfilled their potential, but mostly left a sour taste into the fans’ mouth. […]