I'm beginning to understand what the great Australian football broadcaster Les Murray was getting at when he said in his autobiography "By The Balls," that analysing football for a living can be a grinding experience.

That's certainly what watching Shimizu S-Pulse's 0-0 League Cup draw against Kashiwa Reysol last Wednesday night felt like. That result means that, for the second season in a row, Shimizu S-Pulse have been knocked out at the group stage of the League Cup.

The result was arguably more interesting for the fact that Kashiwa bludgeoned their way to a draw, with any promising S-Pulse attack invariably broken up by a foul. That tactic has brought Kashiwa success in the J-League as well, but it's sure to infuriate opposition players and fans alike - and the angry scenes after Kashiwa had beaten S-Pulse in the League Cup earlier in the season, bear testament to that.

Elsewhere in the League Cup, defending champions JEF United look a good bet to progress to the quarter-finals, despite their 1-0 loss to Gamba Osaka in their most recent match. They should be joined by Oita Trinita and Ventforet Kofu, although Shimizu's group is a lot tighter, with Omiya Ardija the favourites to go through.

After the disappointment of Wednesday's result, I was hoping for better things in Shimizu's J-League blockbuster with Kawasaki Frontale on Sunday. As it was, Shimizu went down 2-1 in a pulsating encounter, but only after a terrible backpass by Arata Kodama (I think...I may have been blinded with rage at the time) gifted an equaliser to substitute Masaru Kurotsu. A shell-shocked S-Pulse immediately conceded a second, to the delight of the majority of the 21,208 fans inside a packed Todoroki Stadium.

The real match of the day was probably at the National Stadium in Tokyo, however, where 35,013 fans witnessed Urawa Reds beat the aforementioned Kashiwa Reysol 2-0. Washington and Shinji Ono scored the goals in front of a sea of Urawa fans, with Reysol's Kashiwa Stadium far too small to accommodate the Reds' travelling army.

There was a similar scenario in Yokohama, where a crowd of nearly 20,000 turned out to witness Yokohama FC go down 1-0 to an out-of-form Kashima Antlers on Saturday. Both matches were interesting in that the partisan atmospheres generated at Mitsuzawa Stadium and Kashiwa Stadium respectively were negated, by the necessity to play in a much larger stadium.

Coming full circle then, and its interesting to note that Shimizu S-Pulse have switched their derby with Jubilo Iwata from Ecopa Stadium - a 2002 World Cup venue, back to their spiritual home of Nihondaira Stadium. S-Pulse have even gone to trouble of printing t-shirts proclaiming as much, with the unpopular Ecopa a sixty minute train ride from Shimizu. Just goes to show that when it comes to generating an atmosphere, sometimes less truly is more.

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.

So the League Cup kicks off here in Japan this week, and woe any coach who doesn't take this competition seriously!

With talent spread so evenly in the J-League, plenty of clubs realise that the League Cup represents an excellent chance to pick up a piece of silverware.

Conversely, a poor run in the Cup can spell doom and gloom if you're a highly paid foreign coach brought in to win trophies. Just ask Paulo Autori!

The League Cup in Japan features only J1 clubs, and kicks off with a four-team Group stage. There a couple of interesting looking groups this year, but none of that is important...because my home-town team Shimizu S-Pulse have been drawn in the same group as Kashiwa Reysol.

Now I'm a mild-mannered man and I try to be fair and objective. But last weekend in the J-League, Shimizu were robbed thanks to what can only be described as THE WORST DECISION IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL.

Okay, it wasn't really that bad. But I reckon Shimizu will be out for revenge, since it was Kashiwa Reysol to whom they lost at Nihondaira Stadium for the first time in ages, and since they kick-off their League Cup campaign, predictably, against Kashiwa Reysol.

As for the decision in question - let's just say it was another classic piece of J-League refereeing, which saw Shimizu striker Cho Jae Jin pulled down in the box, Shimizu midfielder Fernandinho slot the ball into the net, and J-League referee Tsutomu Anazawa blow for a foul - after the ball had hit the back of the net - against Shimizu.

Anyway, I would say that JEF United are the team to beat in the League Cup, since they've won the last two editions, but I reckon a team of blind monkies could probably beat United at just about anything right now. Kashima Antlers obviously couldn't, but that's another story.

On a final note, Kawasaki Frontale and Urawa Reds are absent from the group stage of the League Cup, as they are competing in the "prestigious" (according to the AFC) Asian Champions League. Kawasaki take on Bangkok University tomorrow, but I must confess a personal interest in the Sydney FC - Urawa game.

I was a Sydney FC season-ticket holder during their inaugural A-League season, and since I possess a healthy disdain for all things related to Urawa, I'll be cheering louder than usual for their opponents in this one.

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!