Dan Orlowitz
@aishiterutokyo
Sports (& more!) journalist (ditto) in Japan | Lots of soccer but sometimes everything else | available for commissions | nerdy shit at @nerdy.tokyo | all hot takes my own | 日本語OK | Philly & Tokyo >>> | he/him | danorlowitz.carrd.co
The J3's Roasso Kumamoto closed the club's offices early and canceled the top team's training session following today's Reiwa 8 Kumamoto Earthquake. Worth noting that the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake, which occured just a few weeks into the season, caused significant disruptions to the team's schedule.
The JFA have announced Nadeshiko Japan's 22-player squad for the upcoming Asian Games in Aichi as they look for a third straight gold. Sanfrecce Hiroshima Regina lead the WE League with five picks; only non-WE Leaguers are Toyo University defender Sakurako Ohashi and Rangers goalkeeper Shu Ohba.
The best way to watch a Day 15 sumo playoff is obviously in the air conditioned izakaya down the street.
A tape-delayed King Kazu Alert (cc @jasondcsoccer.bsky.social), but 59-year-old Kazuyoshi Miura scored his first goal for Fukushima United tonight in the Emperor's Cup Fukushima Pref. qualification final against Iwaki Furukawa FC. Miura's 52nd-minute goal made it 4-0; final was 7-0. #jleague
Not a bad end to the night. Good match and hopefully a few new young woso fans created as a result.
A late penalty from Alara Sehitler makes it 4-1 and that’s your final score! #bayern #fcbfrauen
Announced attendance is just over 6,500. That includes a lot of freebies - Ardija were offering tickets to youth teams - but still an impressive turnout.
Ardija goal! Minami Munakata heads in Yuna Takahashi’s cross. Great sequence.
3-0 to Bayern and that’s it for Tanikawa, who goes off to a warm round of applause from the Nack 5 crowd.
Halftime sweet treat. Bayern are the better team but Ardija were unlucky to give up a second.
Bayern on the board first after Pernille Harder scores from a corner kick. Omiya are doing decently but the size difference is very apparent.
The teams are out! Not a cloud in the sky. #ardija #bayern #fcbfrauen
Some Momoko Tanikawa warmup footage for @cybeam1.bsky.social #bayern #fcbfrauen
Sun’s starting to go down and actually the breeze is pretty nice? Have been told 6,000 expected at Nack 5 Stadium.
It has been quite a few years since I’ve done this walk let’s see how it goes…
The #JLeague is promoting the new fall-spring season with outdoor advertisements outside Wembley Stadium. The ad copy: "Dear Top-Flight Players, Your next season starts in August. Now, for the first time, so does Japan's. 60 clubs await. J.LEAGUE"
The #JLeague has just announced its standards for water breaks and cooling breaks, explicitly stating that they will not implement World Cup-style hydration breaks. Decisions made based on wet bulb globe temperatures, with >28C triggering mandatory water breaks and >31C triggering cooling breaks.
A couple weeks after Urawa Reds cut him for an unspecified "breach of contract," midfielder Kai Shibato has landed at Tokyo Verdy. #jleague
Used to be that if I clicked a sumo wrestler's name on the Sponavi results page it would bring me to their profile or whatever instantly, now it loads up Yahoo Japan's stupid chatbot and makes me wait 10 seconds for it to load up essentially a summary of their Wikipedia entry. This has to stop.
FC Imabari have signed former Real Madrid academy player Takuhiro "Pipi" Nakai, who had a lot of hype but never broke through the reserves. He will join former Barcelona B reservist Hiroki Abe, who's basically barely played since returning to Japan and signing with Urawa in 2023.
Good reminder to BDSMSky that there's never a bad time to review safewords with your partner, because the last thing you want is to be choked out in public.