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FC Ryukyu 2020 Schedule Preview

For the second installment of the 2020 FC Ryukyu season preview, I will look at the schedule of FC Ryukyu in 2020. While it is hard to predict which teams will start slow but finish strong, Omiya and Tokushima come to mind from last season, as well as who will be good and who will be bad, I will make some generous assumptions in this entry.

As you may know, there are 42 games in the J2 season with an even split of home and away games. The half way point of the 2020 season will occur around Sunday June 21st. However, there is a long “work stoppage” due to the Tokyo Olympics which begins on Sunday July 19th and lasts until Monday August 10th. That is a total of 21 days between matches in the J2. As you would rightly assume, this will have massive implications for all the teams throughout the J League.

Players will still be required to train during this period and they will have already played an additional 2 mid-week matches up to this point (in the J2 at least). There is also the possibility of playing 1, if not 2, Emperor’s Cup games at this point for some J2 clubs. Many teams may look back at the end of the year and see this as the tilting point to their season. There will certainly be equal shares of teams, both with and without momentum at the stopping point, who will witness a change in their fortunes. Another factor is that key players may also return from injury, or at the very least, have additional time to rehabilitate that will also shape the outcome of teams for the all-important end run of 2020.

For FC Ryukyu there is one additional tax that many mainland teams do not need to pay. They have to travel long distances for every road game. The farthest they will travel will be to Montedio Yamagata with the shortest trip being to V-Varen Nagasaki. Yamagata is not nearly as far as some of FC Ryukyu’s past opponents, like Akita and Morioka in the J3, but they still have to fly 2-3 hours plus factoring in additional commute times by bus to some locations. This will certainly take its toll on the squad. But with that being said, lets begin!

MATCHES 1-21MATCHES 22-42
1. @ JEF United Chiba22. JEF United Chiba
2. Fagiano Okayama23. @ Mito Hollyhock
3. @ Kyoto Sanga FC24. Kyoto Sanga FC
4. Albirex Niigata25. @ Tokushima Vortis
5. @ Thespakusatsu Gunma26. @Tochigi SC
6. Tokushima Vortis27. Thespakusatsu Gunma
7. @ Ventforet Kofu28. @ Fagiano Okayama
8. Matsumoto Yamaga F.C.29. Omiya Ardija
9. Montedio Yamagata30. @ Giravanz Kitakyushu
10. @ Omiya Ardija31. @ Renofa Yamaguchi
11. Mito Hollyhock32. Avispa Fukuoka
12. FC Machida Zelvia33. @ Matsumoto Yamagata FC
13. @ Avispa Fukuoka34. Zweigen Kanazawa
14. Renofa Yamaguchi35. @ Montedio Yamagata
15. @ V-Varen Nagasaki36. @ Albirex Niigata
16. Giravanz Kitakyushu37. Ventforet Kofu
17. Tochigi SC38. Tokyo Verdy
18. @ Tokyo Verdy39. @ FC Machida Zelvia
19. Ehime FC40. Jubilo Iwata
20. @ Jubilo Iwata41. @Ehime FC
21. @ Zweigen Kanazawa42. V-Varen Nagasaki

1. FC Ryukyu will play 11 home games in the first half of the season and 10 in the second half.

2. FC Ryukyu will play the 4 J1/J2 playoff teams from 2019 in a matter of 5 weeks (Vortis & Kofu Match Days 6 & 7; Yamagata & Omiya Match Days 10 & 11).

3. FC Ryukyu will play 4 mid-week matches in 2020, Match Days 5,12, 14 & 34. The last 3 are all at home.

4. FC Ryukyu will have 4 pairs of both back to back home games, and back to back away games.

5. The J League schedulers are funny people as one of those back to back road pairs happens to be the 2 farthest locations for the club in 2020. FC Ryukyu will play away to Montedio Yamagata and Albirex Niigata in a matter of 6 days on Match Days 35 & 36. I hope they intend to stay on mainland and find a suitable practice facility as that back forth distance leaves little time for recovery, training and travel between games.

6. In one 10 game stretch, Match Days 8-17, FC Ryukyu play 7 out of those 10 games at home. There are no other combinations in the schedule where FC Ryukyu plays more than 6 home/road games in any 10-game stretch.

7. FC Ryukyu will once again play Ehime FC on the road on Match Day 41.

8. FC Ryukyu will face Jubilo Iwata & Ehime FC in consecutive weeks twice this season. And they both occur at the same time in each half of the schedule (Match Days 19 & 20 & Match Days 40 & 41).

9. FC Ryukyu will play 17 games after the Olympic break (8 home/9 away).

10. FC Ryukyu will play 4 home games and 7 road games in the first 11 games after the Olympics.

11. FC Ryukyu will play 4 of their remaining 6 games in 2020 at home.

12. FC Ryukyu will play JEF Chiba United on Match Day 1 & Match Day 21 to start both the first and second halves of the season.

13. The shortest time gap between playing any one opponent is 8 weeks when FC Ryukyu play Tochigi SC (Match Days 17 & 26).

14. Every match following a game in which FC Ryukyu faces Montedio Yamagata, the opponent’s primary color is Orange (Omiya & Niigata).

15. FC Ryukyu play 24 games on Saturday, 13 on Sunday, 4 on Wednesday and 1 on a Monday.

16. FC Ryukyu play 16 games over a 3-month period (March to May)

17. The busiest month for FC Ryukyu is May with 6 matches and the slowest is July with 3 games.

Simple Observations

Whereas FC Ryukyu started amazingly fast to open the 2019 season, and caught teams sleeping on them, FC Ryukyu have a brutal 11 game stretch to open the 2020 season. They open against a team that beat them twice last season, face two newly revamped sides aiming for promotion in consecutive weeks, then play 4 JI/J2 playoff teams from 2019. Next, we sprinkle in games against the newly promoted J3 side who may have the “new boy bump” occurring, as well as the newly demoted side seeking to climb right back up to J1. Then to top it all off, they face a side who barely missed the playoffs last season. The schedule does not let up until match day 12 for this club and I hope we are not near the bottom left wondering where a quarter of the season disappeared too.

For a large part, the paragraph above represents a combination of how a majority of those teams finished in 2019 as well as some of the more popular opinions floating around today. As my knowledge of the J League continues to grow, thanks in large part to the excellent group of people on twitter – as well as the series of J-Talk podcasts- it is becoming apparent that players change clubs routinely and therefore so do the fortunes of the clubs. But make no mistake, this is a tough schedule for any side and FC Ryukyu will need to do all they can to grind out some early points so as not to find themselves in a relegation scrap come September.  

Welcome to the FC Ryukyu 2020 Season!

Greetings, and welcome to the unofficial FC Ryukyu English blog for 2020. For those of you that are familiar with this blog, thank you for your patronage and for those that are just discovering this blog for the first time, welcome. I started the blog in 2019 in order to expose FC Ryukyu to a large non-Japanese speaking community here in Okinawa as well as abroad. I was initially frustrated with the lack of English content provided by the club’s website and wanted to generate interest for the team to the large expat community here on Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan. The end result was far greater than I expected as I was able to meet so many great people along the way who not only love FC Ryukyu, but love Japanese Football and Football altogether. It was a truly amazing ride in 2019 and I hope to continue this blog’s success in 2020.

Throughout 2019 I was able to meet many FC Ryukyu fans from all over the world as well as officials from the club. We traveled to away matches together, attended several events for the club outside of the match days and discussed how to gain exposure for the club. My only regret was I couldn’t speak Japanese as it would’ve made a much richer experience but I am so grateful for everyone that I met along the way. I was also able to gain a better understanding of football here in Japan, as well as abroad through so many great people on Twitter as well as the J-Talk & J-Talk Extra Time Podcast. Appearing on their podcast was one of the greatest moments I’ve ever had and if you do not follow them already, you really need too.

For those of you just tuning in, 2019 was a historic season for FC Ryukyu on several fronts. It was the first year that they would play in the J2 league after spending 5 season in the J3. It was also a year that saw the club achieve a historic moment in J Leauge Football. FC Ryukyu surpassed a 30 game unbeaten at home streak by Urawa to become the only club in the history of the J league to win/draw 36 consecutive games at home. There was some nervy, crazy and enjoyably moments during that streak and it was truly memorable. They almost made it to 37 but despite their 2-0 advantage over Ventforet Kofu just before halftime, they ultimately lost that match 5-2 and the streak came to a screeching halt.

FC Ryukyu’s 2019 campaign can best described as a roller-coaster ride of emotions for their fans. They began really hot by winning 4 in a row and drawing their next 2 to jump out to the table topping position with 14 points. They then struggled for points on the road as well as wins at home and began tumbling down the J2 table. They saw Koji Suzuki depart for Cerezo Osaka, but were reinforced by some key players in the summer transfer window. The most important being Shinji Ono. While Shinji didn’t score a goal for FC Ryukyu in 2019, no one can deny he drove up attendance levels over the remaining 2019 home matches for FC Ryukyu. They would eventually arrest their slide and settle for 14th place on 49 points. They broke out of their road form funk at the most crucial moment near the end of the season and pushed themselves into safety by October. However, this was a club that surrendered a league leading 81 goals and was only saved by some favorable results in addition to the teams below them faltering at critical moments.

So what do we have to look forward too in 2020? Uejo, Tokumoto, Masutani have departed to Fagiano Okayama and Nishioka has left for Ehime FC. FC Ryukyu have a very hard task of replacing their top two goal scorers from 2019 (Suzuki & Uejo) and will need to sure up the back line. They will also be dealing with injuries to key players to start the 2020 campaign as both Dany Carvajal (GK) and Torikai (RB) are recovering from off season ankle surgery.

Their off-season signings indicate a few things. First, Higuchi will continue to employ a 4-2-3-1 formation. Second, a majority of the signings are veteran players outside of a select few which means we have traded youth, or simply couldn’t afford them, for players that offer immediate returns on investment. Lee Yong Jick, a North Korean national team player will slot into the CB role along side Okasaki. Numato is a like for like replacement for Tokumoto at LB but he is five years older than Tokumoto. FC Ryukyu will also need to replace Torikai at RB while he recovers and that may come in the form of newly signed Felipe Tavares. An interesting prospect from Brazil that could either adapt quickly to life in the J2 and become a force to be reckoned with or turn into a role player for the club.

Up front the main question is who leads the line for Higuchi? Uehara scored some spectacular goals, at crucial moments for the club, but was never able to stay healthy for the whole campaign. Takuma Abe is looking to revive his career and I hope he can find that rich form down in the J2. But both players are over 30 years old and if injuries or poor form hit the club hard in 2020, we may see the infamous false-9 lineup that was made famous in La Liga so many years ago.

As far as the midfield is concerned, Higuchi has a major crisis selection on his hands as this is where a majority of talent resides for this club. But this is a good thing. Uesato and Shinji are likely to be the two CDM but its anybody’s guess who the remaining 3 midfielders will be. Kawai brings so much speed and developed into such a fine player in 2019 you wonder how he could be left out of the side. Tomidokoro is our FK specialist and then there are brothers Koya and Koki who are solid players. Tanaka maybe the teams come back player of the year and then we have the new signings and prospects. Koizumi is going to be a player some day but needs match day experience. Because he is a MF it maybe difficult on this club which is unfortunate. Yamaguchi from Bellmare and Motegi from Mito add the two crucial elements of speed and service to the FC Ryukyu attack both feature early on. As I said earlier, it is really hard to see how they all figure into the lineup in 2020.

Over the next few days I will release some entries that include a team preview, an early look at our 2020 schedule and areas of improvement I hope the club has addressed in 2020. Until then, enjoy the off season as the stress of playing in the J2 is merely a matter of days away.