Hola, cómo están? Hacía tiempo que no escribía acá en el Futblog, así que hoy me di una vuelta y decidí empezar a escribir sobre equipos del mundo y lo que los rodea, como sus aficionados, estadios y momentos importantes. Esto para que conozcan a los menos mediáticos y se enteren de detalles interesantes sobre otros más famosos. Click to continue reading...

Whilst Australia is cracking down on diving, their Asian brethren Japan are reeling from a slightly stupid - or tremendously stupid, your choice - remark by Urawa Red Diamonds gaffer Volker Finke (who is not, in fact, Japanese) which derided a player for not going down in the box. This has, predictably, resulted in a [. Click to continue reading...

Por Nunn
No tienes ni puta idea de que los mejores ultras del mundo están en Japón.
Piensas en aficionados Reds y te sale el Kop y el You'll never walk alone. Piensas en los mejores ultras del mundo y te vas a Italia, Argentina, España... Pero estás engañado, amigo: bienvenido al universo de los ultras del Urawa Red Diamonds, rojos y mejores que todos ellos (y estas imágenes son sólo del calentamiento del equipo)
Allá en Saitama, donde Txiki Begiristain acabó sus días de futbolista o donde Gasol y amigos ganaron el Mundial de baloncesto, se ubica una masa de japos gritones que ha llevado el concepto 'animación en la grada' a una dimensión difícilmente imaginable. Click to continue reading...

Asian football players are far and between in the world class elite. The Japanese Naoki Yamada has the potential to belong to one of the few big names in football.

He currently plays for Urawa Red Diamonds, he started in the first team in 2008. He also made his debut for Japanese national team on May 27, 2009 in a friendly match against Chile, which the Japs convincingly won 4-0.

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On Wednesday 29th April 2009, defending Macedonian league champions Rabotnicki Skopje raised hopes of salvaging a top-three finish with a heartening victory over Milano Kumanovo. Elsewhere, Kashima Antlers rose to the top of the J-League after slaying Vissel Kobe, overtaking Urawa Red Diamonds who could muster the sole point at Shimizu S Pulse. Click to continue reading...

Urawa Red Diamonds (浦和レッドダイヤモンズ ) is a professional football club playing in Japan's J. League. It's of Japan's best supported teams boasting the highest average crowds for eight of the J-League's fifteen seasons thus far. In 2007 the team attracted an average gate of over 46000, the highest in both Japan and Asia as a [. Click to continue reading...

Defending champs Urawa Red Diamonds had the upper hand as they hosted Gamba Osaka in the semifinal of the Asian CL semifinals today, having drawn in Osaka through The Almighty Away Goal. They made it 2-1 in the first half, but 45 minutes and some shoddy corner defending later, Gamba were through to their first [. Click to continue reading...

An all-Japanese semi-final will take place in the AFC Champions League as defending champions Urawa Red Diamonds and Gamba Osaka were drawn together. Three clubs from Japan could have made it to the last four but Australia's Adelaide United beat Kashima Antlers 2-1 on aggregate to terminate any possibilities. Click to continue reading...

Thank goodness, club football is back. I have nothing against international football, I'll even blog about it when I have nothing else to talk about, but I do love me some club football.
All of the WCR Top 25 Clubs in the World are in action this weekend. The most anticipated matches are taking place on Saturday morning and coming out of England, where Manchester United takes on Liverpool and Robinho-riffic Manchester City hosts Robinho-less Chelsea. Click to continue reading...

This goal would be absolutely fantastic at any point during a game. 95th minute down one? Nigh unbelievable. Ball's sent hurtling through the air by Kashiwa Reysol's goal keeper from his box in one last ditch attempt to salvage a point and the next time it hits the ground.....it's in the opposition's net. Click to continue reading...

Japanese League: Watch Urawa Red Diamonds vs Kashiwa Reysol LIVESTREAM here:   Pre-register at the NEW football site 11×2 today!  Click to continue reading...

There are a ton of great friendly matches this weekend involving WCR Top 25 clubs and, as usual, you can find them on . . . ESPN 360. Wait, what? Yes, ESPN 360. In addition to Russian and Japanese matches, ESPN 360 this weekend is broadcasting a plethora of friendlies, including PSV/Everton, Inter/Ajax, Roma/Tottenham, and Sevilla/Arsenal. Click to continue reading...

14 days till kick-off. The team blogs are buzzing with activity. This blog is slowly recovering from its' summer hibernation. Following the Weekly Dose's triumphant return to this blog, it's now time to have regular week-in-review posts again as well. Abby spent her time patiently waiting for Etoile's Amine Chermiti. Click to continue reading...

After over a month of no laser lightshows, and no killer whale mascots, the J League returns to action tomorrow. With the European Championship winding down, the attention in Japan will be returning to domestic football, and since we've been a bit distracted ourselves, let's take a look at how things stand in J [. Click to continue reading...

This is just a quicky, an idea I want to throw out there to see if I can't kick up a discussion/round of speculation. For the record, watching Urawa Red Diamonds play AC Milan this morning inspired it. Question: Is Japanese club football at a higher level than Major League Soccer (MLS)? My answer: The way [. Click to continue reading...

(I'll start with a confession: for the second day running, I screwed up my attempt at recording Club World Cup semifinal between Urawa Red Diamonds and AC Milan. Being an insomniac, however, I woke up in time to turn on the cable and record the second half. I can't even beat old technology. [...] Click to continue reading...

Urawa Red Diamonds 3-1 Sepahan Looks like a case of same result, different score.� As they did when the same two sides contested the AFC Champions' League final in the middle of November, Urawa Red Diamonds beat Iran's Sepahan by two goals.� And, in spite of this being the most evenly contested game of the FIFA [. Click to continue reading...

A clarifying thought came to me as I saw Waitakere United's Jason Hayne come on for Christopher Bale somewhere around the 60th minute.� When you're part of team to whom fell the misfortune of demonstrating the gap between professionals and part-timers, well, what do you have to lose?� Go out there loose, get a high [. Click to continue reading...

Now that I've got the bug - and, no less crucially, the indulgence of my wife with regard to TV time - I'm going to make an honest stab at covering the 2007 FIFA World Club Cup.� The first step begins, of course, with education - specifically, getting up to date on the clubs that [...] Click to continue reading...

* I kid. I kid. I just didn't get to it this weekend. It's only when the desperation gets one poking under the cushions of soccertv.com that one truly realizes the full-time nature of the global soccer calendar. I see now that waiting won't be at all necessary, not with the U.S. U-17s [...] Click to continue reading...