The Sunrise at Nagoya

Written by Debopam Roy on February 1, 2018

Nagoya Grampus are certainly not a glamour team of J League. However, they mesmerized everyone with their flair for two seasons in the 90s before burning out at the final hurdle. More than a decade later, the team traded flair for spine as Debopam Roy looks back at a tale spread across three seasons and finds the one common link between them.

When does a story become a legend?

The most conventional answer is that when there is no actual way to verify the story. Back in the cauldron of the Kashima stadium on 7 November 2010, when fans of Nagoya Grampus were within touching distance of their championship Holy Grail with a win, one man was reminiscing a day fourteen years back. That man—Dragan Stojković—was serving a ban for violent conduct back in 1996. With only four matches left in that 1996 season, Kashima was above Nagoya in the table by the goal difference of one solitary goal. The penultimate of the remaining matches was a straight clash between the top two at the Kashima stadium. Rumour has it that in 2010, before that pivotal match, Dragan had received a phone call from London. A certain Arsene Wenger had called him up to wish him well ahead of the clash with Kashima. And even though we don’t know the veracity of that call, we do know about the prowess of Dragan ‘Piksi’ Stojkovic—who finally led Nagoya to the promised land.

In the Beginning…

Before we venture into the story of Nagoya’s trilogy of seasons, it is pertinent to understand the history of J-League and its many avatars. Football in Japan had already been around for over a hundred years, but its popularity increased only in the 1960s. That was when Otto Cramer, a German, managed them to continental prominence—ultimately leading to their ’68 Olympic bronze. Local football, however, was still played by university and corporate teams. These corporate teams, created to foster the spirit of togetherness and a sporting culture, were the dominant ones. However, the national team was not improving well, and the domestic scene was stagnating with sub-standard ground conditions and low spectator turnouts.

All that changed due to the efforts of a man named Saburo Kawabuchi. Once a sturdy midfield general and a manager of the national team, he founded (and became the chairman of) the Japan Professional Soccer League. Incidentally, he was also the President of Japanese FA when the world cup was co-hosted by Japan and South Korea later in 2002.

The J League was formed in 1992 with eight clubs from JSL first division, one from second division, and one newly formed club. The second-division club was originally known as the Sumitomo Soccer Club, and was owned by the Sumitomo Metal Industries in Osaka. When the J League began, the owners of Sumitomo approached Kawabuchi, hoping to be considered for membership. They were told that “it is 99.9999 per cent that it will be impossible.” ^[4]It is said that the Sumitomo Soccer Club’s president, Masaru Suzuki, took the answer philosophically and replied: “That means we still have a 0.0001 per cent chance”. ^[5]Indeed, it turned out that many clubs from the first division “opted” out of the new league as they didn’t meet all the requirements.In the meantime, Sumitomo got ready and built the first football-only stadium in Japan and rebranded themselves as Kashima Antlers. Ironically enough, the Kashima Antlers play a major role in our story—being one of the only two clubs that has never been relegated from J League’s top division. The Nagoya Grampus were up against a pretty feisty opponent.

1995: A New Era

The J League adopted a somewhat Latin American format in the beginning. Each league was divided into two phases. In each phase the teams played each other twice, and there was a champion of each phase. At the end of the second phase, the two champions played each other over two legs to determine the J League champion. In case of draws over 90 minutes, the tie was decided by a tiebreaker. Verdy Kawasaki had won the inaugural season’s championship twice in a row, and Nagoya had crawled to the penultimate position in each season. To improve their worth, the team hired one Arsene Wenger, who was revolutionising the tactical sphere in France. They had already hired Gary Linekar, who was a fading star in 1992. And then, in 1994, they got a star who was nowhere near fading—Dragan Stojkovic, also known as Piksi. Piksi could have been the best European footballer of the 90s, but persistent injuries curtailed his time at the top and he sought greener pastures in Japan. 1995 was the season when it seemed the championship would arrive at Nagoya, the key ingredients being the trifecta of Arsene’s tactics, Dragan’s all round game making, and an out-and-out goal-scorer in the team. The problem was, this third component never materialized. In each phase of the season, Nagoya only had two wins less than the top team.

Nagoya finished second in the second phase of the league and missed out playing the championship decider in 1996. This time, they were upset by Yokohama Marinos. Nagoya did win some individual awards—Piksi won the Most Valuable Player award, and the Manager of the year went to Arsene. It is notable that no Nagoya player was among the top ten scorers and no one except Piksi got into the Best XI. Nagoya did brighten their season by winning the Emperor’s Cup, beating Kashima 5-1 on way.

The season was completely unexpected, and, on the strength of this showing, better things were planned for the future.

1996: Promises Not Kept

If 1995 was the start of the ascent, then 1996 should have been the rise to the pinnacle. That year, the rules had changed for the tournament. Instead of a two-phase league-cum-knockout, it became a normal league of sixteen teams (two teams had been steadily added every year). Each team played the other twice. If matches ended in a stalemate, then 30 minutes of extra time (followed by a tie breaker) was used to decide the winner.

Nagoya started off the season well. They had a moderate transfer campaign, but Piksi was in devastating form. This early good form made them reach the top spot by the fourth round. But then, their form started wavering and they went down to around fifth or sixth on the table. A run of six straight wins lifted them to the top three again, but then Arsene decided to leave for Arsenal. His time in Japan made him a cult figure there, and he got a rousing ovation during his farewell speech. Three wins in the next four matches, under new manager Carlos Quireoz, lifted Nagoya to the top of the table—displacing Kashima Antlers. Six rounds remained, and with momentum behind them, it seemed that Nagoya could still hold on to the top spot. But unknown to the general public, Kashima were strategizing with their Brazilian imports—Jorginho and Mazinho. They had already spent nine of the 24 weeks on top spot and had a decisive home match remaining with Nagoya. Yokohama Flugels, Urawa Red Diamonds, and Kashiwa Reysol briefly threatened this duopoly at the top. Two-time champion Verdy were having a strange season, and, apart from one brief week at the top, they spent the entire 30 rounds consistently between the fifth and the seventh place.

Then Arsene decided to leave for Arsenal. His time in Japan made him a cult figure there, and he got a rousing ovation during his farewell speech

Going into the home stretch, Nagoya faced home matches against Urawa, JEF united, and Cerezo Osaka. Their away matches were against Gamba Osaka, Verdy, and Kashima. And there couldn’t have been a worse start to their home stretch. Nagoya lost a crucial away match to Urawa (who were fourth) through an own goal, even after dominating the match with more shots on goal, triple the corners, and more than double the free kicks. Kashima were playing the lowly Avispa, and an easy win lifted them back to number one.

There were still three matches before the top two faced off in the penultimate round, and fate couldn’t have been more different for Kashima and Nagoya. In an away match with reigning champion Yokohama Marinos, who were having a middling season, Kashima just scraped a 87th minute-winner from a dull match. The next two matches were against the tough teams of Urawa and Jubilo Iwata. Both the matches went to tiebreakers. Kashima managed to nick both of them in the shootout, thus maintaining their top position. Nagoya managed two wins, but interspersed it with a key defeat to Verdy, where Dragan ‘Piksi’ Stojkovic was shown a red for violent conduct. It was a body blow. If Arsene had been the brains, Piksi had been the heart and soul of the team. His eleven goals had already propelled the team forward, and his being banned for two rounds made Nagoya rudderless for their match against Kashima in the penultimate round.

The situation was simple—Kashima were three points ahead, and had a better goal difference. Having lost their talisman and two close matches, Nagoya were already on their back foot. They needed a big win, and Kashima subsequently needed to lose big in order for Nagoya to advance. On a relatively sunny afternoon at the Kashima stadium, the atmosphere suddenly changed.It was the away team that took a shocking lead. It was a balanced match with almost equal number of shots on target and free kicks, even though Nagoya had twice the number of corners, but the home team lacked in the finishing department. However, Kashima equalized in the 29th minute and went 2-1 up at half time. Two defensive lapses in two minutes leading to two goals in the 65th and 66th minute rendered the tie done. Nagoya got a late reducer, but a 4-2 win got Kashima their first championship. Stojkovic, again, was in the best XI of the league, but it was scant reward for his on field contributions.

The Prodigal Son Returns

After 1996, Nagoya went back to their inconsistent self. A couple of top three finishes in the first stage of the league were wiped out with finishes outside the top ten. It would be fair to say that Nagoya had hit the slab of mediocrity and the future looked bleak. Piksi, who had played for Nagoya for seven years, retired in 2001 and was immediately made the Yugoslav Football Association’s president. After a brief spell as the Red Star Belgrade president, Piksi returned to Japan to try his hand at management. As the rookie manager of Nagoya in 2008, Stojkovic inherited a team whose last four league positions were eleventh, seventh, fourteenth, and seventh, respectively. It was clearly a mid-table team at best. Many feared that the team might not survive relegation with a rookie manager.

Nagoya, too, had made some changes. They had changed their name from Nagoya Grampus Eight to Nagoya Grampus. With a new manager and a club legend at its helm, the club boldly moved forward to forge a new identity. Piksi inherited a team low on confidence. His big striker was Frode Johnson of Norway and a couple of promising local boys—Maya Yoshida and Shohei Abe. There were established hands like Seigo Narazaki, the national team’s goalkeeper, and Keiji Tamada, who had already been a scorer for Japan at World Cup 2006. It wasn’t an exciting team, however. Piksi managed to get it to the top with his managerial acumen. He would switch his team composition cleverly from a 4-4-2 stout formation to 4-3-3 or 4-5-1, with Keita Sugimoto changing from winger to left half. The centre of the field was marked by hard tackling Keiji Yoshimura, and Naoshi Nakamura did the scheming from midfield. Tamada would drop in as the secondary striker playing under the shadow of the towering Johnson.

But this form would not remain. The goals dried up as they managed only two wins in their last nine rounds. Johnson’s twelve goals in the league was Nagoya’s top score, but that was hardly worthy of a championship winner. J League had abolished the tiebreaker at the end of a drawn match and a run of four draws book ended by two defeats from the 26th round of a 34-round league completely sapped any momentum. Nagoya managed only eleven points from the last nine rounds to finish third. Champions Kashima had only four points more. Surprisingly,Yoshizumi Ogawa won the J League Rookie of the year. In his first full professional season, he became the first ever and till now the only Nagoya player to win this award.

Since expectations had been low, Nagoya’s third place was considered an achievement. They had even won at the Kashima stadium this time round. It was expected that they would improve during the next tournament in 2009. As preparation, they bought in a few experienced players—Igor Burzanovic from Red Star Belgrade, Alessandro Santos from Urawa, and Davi from Consdole. But it was the signing of Joshua Kennedy from Karlsruhe that would prove to be seminal, as he replaced the 34-year-old Johnson. The season of 2009 was a step backwards overall as Nagoya finished ninth—a whole sixteen points behind champions Kashima. Even though the champions had only five goals more than Nagoya, the latter’s defence leaked all season—conceding 42 goals in 34 matches. With Nagoya’s attack bolstered, Piksi turned his eyes to defence. The only purchase for the 2010 transfer season was a Colombian defensive midfielder—Danilson Cordoba.

The Year of the Orca

When the season started off in March, there were no big expectations from the Nagoya team. Kashima were the forerunners as usual. The season started in March, but had a summer break as the World cup came to Africa. Nagoya started somewhere in the middle— a hard-fought away win to Gamba was spoiled by a home loss to Kawasaki. A run of three wins with three clean sheets was stopped abruptly by a home draw with Albirex and away loss to Sanfrecce. Four losses in twelve games is not the stuff of champions.The last of those losses was a 1-4 thrashing at home from Kashima.

During the season break, this is what the table looked like:

Table 1: League table at break for World Cup[1]

Seven goals from Josh Kennedy and three vital ones from defender Marcus Tanaka had propelled Nagoya to seven wins with only one draw. All the other teams had many more drawn matches.As one can see, Shimizu was at the top at this time.But that was thought temporary with Kashima charging in—they were only four points behind with a game in hand. The three-time reigning champions had a good team and were expected to abolish opponents for an easy fourth win. They had just thrashed Nagoya 4-1 away, and were on a winning streak. And then a little miracle happened. The team for Japan’s world cup had been announced. It had more Nagoya players than Kashima ones. One of those—Atsuto Uchida—was sold off after the World Cup. No big name joined Kashima. Meanwhile, the national team performed beyond expectations in South Africa, reaching the second round over Denmark and Cameroon. Marcus Tulio Tanaka was a mainstay of that defence. Japan was ultimately ousted in a tiebreaker by Paraguay, but the expedition was considered a success. The team that returned from South Africa was feted. And this had a direct impact on the J League.

The league recommenced on 17 July and Nagoya went on a six-match unbeaten streak with five wins. Even a shock 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Kawasaki Frontale was not enough to dampen the spirits. Nagoya went on another unbeaten run of six matches, winning five more of them. Thus, Nagoya had captured 32 of the 39 points on offer in thirteen rounds. This had catapulted them to the top of the league rankings. This was what the table looked now:

Table 2 : J League – 13 rounds after recommencement[2]

With nine matches left, this gap of nine points was indeed looking quite daunting. The only thing preventing the Nagoya fans from starting celebrations was the gnawing fear of Kashima’s potential for resurgence. And indeed, they did have an upcoming match away to Kashima after three rounds. In all honesty, those three rounds went better for Nagoya. Nagoya had two wins and a loss, while Kashima had one draw, one win, and one loss. So, going into the pivotal match at the Kashima stadium on 7 November, Nagoya were eleven points ahead and needed a win or a draw to effectively kill off the race. There was just a match against struggling Ardija after that to effectively bag the title. Kashima were heavy underdogs and Nagoya were favoured to win. Piksi had prepared his team well and there were no major injuries. As noted earlier, even Arsene supposedly contacted him to wish him ahead of the tie. But everyone had that nagging fear of the three-time champions. Nagoya wouldn’t rest till they had actually won.

And then all the fears and insecurities of the Nagoya came true.

In a scrappy match all round, Marquinhos scored for Kashima in front of nearly 28,000 spectators. The match ended 1-0, and suddenly everyone was questioning Nagoya’s ability. Local media channels claimed that this could be the start of the turnaround for Kashima. Piksi tried to downplay the incident – “Since August we have been in first and we will do everything in the last five games to keep that place. I think we deserve to be there — it is not coincidence. This result does nothing to change my mind. Kashima is an experienced team. They have been champions three times in a row and everyone must respect that. But now it is time to change that situation, and we will do that. We will decide our destiny, no one else.”^[3]

In the next round, Nagoya beat the ten-men of Ardija, while Kashima had a fortuitous result versus Frontale. Both matches ended 2-1. With four matches remaining, Kashima were still eight points behind. Any slip up from Kashima would conclusively hand over the crown to Nagoya, unless they too tripped up. So, when Kashima played a relegation-threatened Vissel Kobe, and Nagoya played at the already-relegated Shonan, it was advantage Nagoya as Kobe still had something to play for. As both matches started simultaneously on a balmy evening of 20 November, the burden seemed to weigh more heavily on Nagoya as it was a tense affair. Finally, a 66^th minute pacy run and finish from Keiji Tamada calmed Piksi’s tension. Vissel held onto a hard-fought draw with Kashima, and Nagoya were finally crowned the champions of Japan.

The team was flooded with emotion but the man in the centre of it knew how hard and how long he had to strive for it. “There are a lot of emotions,” he said. “I’ve been at this club almost ten years, seven as a player and three as a manger, and I’m very proud to have written a new page in Nagoya Grampus’ history.” ^[6]In becoming the seventh team to be crowned the J League Champion, Nagoya Grampus indeed created history. And Piksi, who was congratulated by Wenger after the win, won the ultimate prize. Wenger declared Piksi to be the person that Wenger wanted as his successor at Arsenal “Our ideas are the same and we both strive for perfect football.”(3) He emulated Wenger in becoming the second Nagoya manager to be awarded the Best Manager of the season.

I’ve been at this club almost ten years, seven as a player and three as a manger, and I’m very proud to have written a new page in Nagoya Grampus’ history.

However, if Piksi was pulling strings behind-the-scenes, then there were many heroes in the field. Goals came from Joshua Kennedy, who, with seventeen goals was the league’s top goal scorer—the first time a Nagoya player had achieved that in J League. Tamada scored thirteen goals. Marcus Tanaka and Takahiro Masukawa kept a tight defense, helped no doubt by Cordoba’s role as DM which only conceded more than Kashima and Cerezo Osaka. Tanaka and Cordoba also scored four goals each at vital times to propel Nagoya forward. With Kashima’s winning streak broken, Nagoya could always dream of a bright future ahead with Piksi.

The Aftermath

2011 was one of the tensest finish ever in J league history, when only one point each separated the top team from the second, and the second from the third. They had 72, 71, and 70 points, respectively. Nagoya finished the season with six wins and had a much superior goal difference, but finished runner up to Kashiwa Reysol. Joshua Kennedy scored nineteen goals to emerge as the top scorer once again. It was a close miss. However, that was as good as it got for the team. In 2012, they returned to the seventh spot.In 2013, they were eleventh. Piksi left at the end of this season, having won 103 of his 204 matches as a coach—with a win percentage of over 50. No one who had managed over 100 matches at Nagoya has ever come close to that win percentage. If we calculate the number of points achieved by J1 clubs between 2008 and 2012, at the summit we find Piksi’s Nagoya Grampus, with a total of 304 points. In second place are Antlers, with 285. That clearly shows how good a team Piksi had built. And but for luck, they could easily have had more than the one title that they got.

With the departure of Piksi, the team fell into a rut. The team had lost its inspirational figure and talisman. Significantly, there was no transfer window after 2009–10 when the owners spent over three million Euros. Till date the overall transfer spend had barely crossed more than 500 thousand Euros ^[5]. So there was no external input to stop the internal rot. Another couple of middling seasons later, Nagoya had a bad year in 2016.By then, the J League had shifted back to multistage system, with the year split into two halves, and a third and final championship stage. Having finished fourteenth and fifteenth in the two halves, they slid one place further in the cumulative tables and were thus relegated to the J2 League. Then in 2017 they got promoted from J2 league—the second tier of Japanese league. Though they are back in the top tier, their chances of coming anywhere close to the summit of Japanese domestic football seems far off.

References

About Debopam Roy

Debopam Roy follows football in Italy and South America. You can reach him on Twitter @rossoneri

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