Goooone! The Aussie dream at Avispa Fukuoka is over
Friday, 11 July 08, 04:42 AM
Auf wiedersehen, Pierre Littbarski. The man affectionately known as "Ritti" here in Japan has been sacked as coach of Avispa Fukuoka along with assistant coach and former Norwich midfielder Ian Crook and strength and conditioning coach Anthony Crea.
The multi-national coaching staff joined from A-League club Sydney FC, and Littbarski signed former Sydney FC players Mark Rudan and Ufuk
Talay to try and propel the Kyushu club back to the top flight. Halfway through the J2 season, however, and Fukuoka are languishing in tenth place in the fifteen team table - a massive 23
points behind league leaders Sanfrecce Hiroshima.
Neither Rudan, nor Talay featured in Fukuoka's most recent 2-1 win away at Thespa Kusatsu, with ex-Japan u-20 striker Mike Havenaar and Takanori Nakajima scoring the crucial goals for the Kyushu side.
Yoshiyuki Shinoda takes over as head coach of the struggling southern side, with mounting debts threatening to cripple the former top flight outfit.
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1 Comments
was littbarski`s side as bad as their league position?
a long time ago talay was one of the best aussie players to never make it into the national team.
rudan left sydney fc with a lot of fan support. there was a feeling that the loyal club servant was squeezed out to make space for the returning ex-socceroo, tony popovic. similar players - old, big, slow cranky centrebacks, so you didn`t want to play them together ... but rudan was benched in favour of poppa, even though he was performing better at the time.
interesting about that other guy, the striker, name escapes me. but he was the best in the a-league last year. the up and coming talent was too up and down in performance, and nobody else established really came close. the best players from the year before were better, but by then they had gone to the MLS and the english championship.
i think in time middling aussie talent (say, those not good enough for the english championship or the league below) will start migrating towards asia. china and korea maybe. one aussie player was loaned from his club in romania to a chinese club. was making money that just isn`t possible in the a-league. when rudan and talay went to fukuoka, all the local papers referred to j2 as the "lucrative" j2. if an a-league player ever goes to the j-league, the local newspapers will have to find some new hyperbole.