About a week back several Japanese sports dailies speculated that troubled J-League club FC Tokyo were set to launch an audacious bid to sign Juventus midfielder Pavel Nedved at the end of the current Serie A season.

It appears that the only thing audacious about the story was the fact that anyone ran it all, since FC Tokyo themselves admitted that the first they heard of the bid was when they picked up the newspapers.

Of course no mention of FC Tokyo would be complete with employing the phrase "once bitten, twice shy" after Costa Rican World Cup star Paulo Wanchope turned out to be one of the most disastrous signings of the last J-League season. He was shipped off about halfway through last season, palpably unfit and having scored just once for the capital club.

With former Stades Rennais striker Lucas Severino having departed for Gamba Osaka and the anonymous Evaldo having rejoined Santos FC in Brazil, FC Tokyo have replaced them with a couple of uninspired looking signings in former Consadole Sapporo defender Bruno Quadros and ex-Iraklis midfielder Emerson. There's room in the squad for one more foreign signing, but with the Gasmen heavily linked with a move for Gyeongnam FC striker Capore, it seems unlikely that the final foreigner in the Tokyo squad will be Pavel Nedved.

When the foreign press mention big-name signings in the J-League, they invariably throw about names like former Kashima playmaker Zico, ex-Nagoya striker Gary Lineker and his infinitely more successful team-mate Dragan Stojkovic. Yet those players signed for J-League clubs almost two decades ago! The reality since then is that most of the successful foreign players in the J-League are unknown outside of Japan.

Korean striker Cho Jae-Jin scored a hat-full of goals for an otherwise struggling Shimizu S-Pulse before departing for pastures anew, while Nagoya's key man is former Rosenborg striker Frode Johnsen. Over the past few seasons Urawa have relied on goals from the likes of newly-naturalised Qatari Emerson and ex-Fenerbahce striker Washington - relatively unknown players even in their home countries.

It's not that J-League clubs can no longer afford genuinely big-name players - no one batted an eyelid when Urawa Reds were linked with a move for Alessandro Del Piero, it's just that more often than not these types of players are ineffective. One might argue that Del Piero would help bring fans through the turnstiles, but given that Urawa already average gates of around 45,000 for most league games, it's not like they need him.

More importantly, as Matsu of The Rising Sun News has pointed out repeatedly, it's cheaper for J-League clubs to stack their teams with cheap Brazilian talent. Why? Because of an abundance of Japanese-Brazilian migrants in Japan who can act as translators for the clubs. When Cho Jae-Jin left Shimizu S-Pulse his chief translator departed with him, and an S-Pulse official admitted to me that they had no compulsion to hire another translator for their teenage Korean striker Kim Dong-Sub. To avoid that situation plenty of clubs simply opt to sign players from the one country, with J2 outfit Avispa Fukuoka currently raiding the A-League under the auspices of former Sydney FC coach Pierre Littbarski.

So I doubt that Pavel Nedved will be lobbing up at FC Tokyo any time soon. Not only would he only feature for half a season in Japan, but judging by his recent performances at Juventus, he's still got plenty to offer in European football. He is even rumoured to be willing to come out of international retirement and feature for his country at EURO 2008. Looks like this is just another one of those stories destined to be consigned to the "slow news day" bin.

Just kidding folks, just kidding! I thought one way to get everyone interested in Japanese football is simply to talk about the English Premier League.

It seems that interest in Japanese football is on the wane, even *gasp* right here in Japan! While I can understand that Kashiwa Reysol vs FC Tokyo might not capture the attention of your average fan from Barcelona to Bury, I think it's a little concerning that media coverage of the J-League in Japan is plummeting as fast as the attendance figures of certain clubs.

According to The Rising Sun News - which is by far and away the best resource on Japanese football...on the web or elsewhere, interest in the J-League is dwindling, both in the media and with your more casual fans. And on the issue of decreasing interest in the league, The Rising Sun News has been most vocal on the topic of the poor standard of refereeing in Japan. I can see why.

When Shimizu S-Pulse took on Yokohama F. Marinos in the League Cup last weekend, I was really not looking forward to attending the match. That was for the simple reason that, in the previous two matches, both against Kashiwa Reysol - once in the J-League and once in the League Cup, S-Pulse had been on the receiving end of some seriously dubious refereeing. 

I took it with a grain of salt, since in 2006, Shimizu had been the beneficiaries of poor refereeing on numerous occasions. And they were the beneficiaries once again on Saturday afternoon, when referee Masaaki Iemoto gave a straight red card to Omiya's new signing Mauricio Salles just eight minutes into his Omiya debut.

The send-off probably had little impact on the outcome of the match, since Shimizu were playing Omiya off the park anyway. But what impact will it have on the miserly 7,737 crowd that bothered to turn up at Komaba Stadium - where standing behind the goals offers you the same kind of view that you might have if you were standing on the moon? 

I think I know. People stop coming. And who can blame them? When they can just as easily sit at home and watch Liverpool vs Arsenal instead, there's little incentive for the casual fan to get out to a windswept Japanese stadium, only to watch their team's chances disappear down the drain - which is where any credibility that J-League referees once had, has long since disappeared.

Kashiwa Reysol in first? Jubilo Iwata coming last? There's nothing like the opening day of the season to expose all your shortcomings as a pundit!

Last week I suggested that FC Tokyo and Jubilo Iwata were two teams to watch out for. I was certainly watching, as both teams were smashed on the opening day of the season. With regard to FC Tokyo, it was a case of "same old, same old," as they conceded four goals to a rampant Sanfrecce Hiroshima. FC Tokyo scored two themselves, but they seem to struggle with the concept of outscoring their opponents, in order to secure all three points. It was interesting to note that one of their big-name signings from last season, Sota Hirayama, finally cracked a place in the starting line-up, while Costa Rican World Cup star Paulo Wanchope warmed the bench. I guess that means that Wanchope should expect to make his FC Tokyo debut around the year 2008 - watch this space, he could be primed for a cracking start to his Tokyo career in about twelve months time.

Jubilo Iwata, meanwhile, seemed to be suffering from shock in their match against Kashiwa Reysol. Kashiwa employed some interesting tactics, which seemed mainly to revolve around kicking wildly at any Jubilo opponent within a ten metre radius. That opened up a lot of space for Kashiwa...since Jubilo were reluctant to go anywhere near the ball, and they exploited it by scoring four goals, to Jubilo's somewhat paltry none. At one stage I thought the fourth official should have run on and handed a pair of boxing gloves to Masahiro Koga and Norihiro Nishi, especially since Nishi looked like one of the few Jubilo players who was willing to duke it out! Kashiwa travel to Sanfrecce Hiroshima this weekend, which means that Kazuyuki Toda's eyes have probably already started to glaze over. Whatever odds you can get in Vegas on Toda being sent off, I think you should take them!

All eyes this weekend will of course be on Japan's second largest city, Yokohama. It's been eight years since Yokohama Flügels were "absorbed" into the Yokohama Marinos, sparking the wrath of the Flügels' support. Instead of sitting around and pining for days gone by, the Flügels fans did what any normal, slightly-insane football fan what do - they started their own club. Fast forward to March 10, 2007 and Yokohama FC are making their top-flight home debut at Mitsuzawa Stadium. Who should be their worthy opponents? Why none other than Yokohama F. Marinos, of course! Expect a positively nuclear reaction from the Yokohama FC fans, when the F. Marinos players step onto the pitch. Keep an eye on Yokohama FC's Tatsuhiko Kubo as well - he smashed home a 35 yard piledriver against Urawa Reds last weekend, as you do, and he joined Yokohama FC from...you guessed it, F. Marinos.

I myself will be delivering my own, somewhat warbled reactions, from JEF United's brand-spanking-new Fukuda Denshi Arena in Chiba. Okay, so the stadium is a couple of years old now, but at least it was built in the last three hundred years, unlike some other stadiums in Japan. JEF United were beaten 2-0 by Nagoya last weekend (remember how I said that that match could be really interesting? It wasn't!) and now they're under a bit of pressure, as they take on Shimizu S-Pulse in their first home match of the season. While I wouldn't like to suggest that JEF United Chairman Takahiro Yodogawa is trigger happy, I certainly get the feeling that coach Amar Osim could be headed for the unemployment office sooner, rather than later, if United don't take something from this match.

So there you have it. Lots of interesting things happening in the J-League, but if you have any sense, you probably won't take my word for it!

Don't let the snappy title fool you. This is no laughing matter. Yuki Abe has moved to Urawa Reds. And the fate of the entire Universe may rest upon his shoulders.

Not really, although a lot of people here in Japan were kind of disappointed that Yuki Abe has joined the dark side, setting a record for the highest fee paid for a Japanese player in a domestic transfer in the process. It's not that they begrudge Abe success - after eight years at JEF United, you could hardly begrudge the man anything - it's just that some J-League fans are claiming that Urawa are strengthening their team, by dismantling others. Hey, if it works for Chelsea, it could work anywhere!

After virtually single-handedly (or should that be, single-footedly?) firing JEF United to successive League Cup crowns, Yuki Abe virtually WAS the team at JEF United. His sale may have raised around $US3 million dollars, but it has left United without their talisman. Curiously, they've chosen to remedy this by getting rid of half their squad, although the fact that most of those players were entirely useless was probably a solid basis for doing so.

In other news, there have been several more juicy transfers in the J-League so far. Paulo Wanchope to FC Tokyo! Takayuki Suzuki to Yokohama F. Marinos! Yoshito Okubo to Vissel Kobe! The entire Jubilo Iwata over-30's brigade to another team! None of these matter. No, my friends...the only transfer that matters, is former Espanyol and Bolton striker Akinori Nishizawa's move to Shimizu S-Pulse.

It seems that the S-Pulse management have heeded my calls to get rid of Marquinhos. That's probably because I persisted in making those calls about five metres away from the S-Pulse bench. Marquinhos will be diving and writhing in agony for Kashima Antlers next season - just his fifth club in his long and loyal six year career in the J-League so far. He will be replaced by none other than Nishizawa himself, a player that struck fear into the hearts of every fan sitting in Row F last season, with his wayward finishing and strange hairstyles.

Fear not, Akinori. I have faith. And what's more, I don't even sit in Row F.