Episode 230 - Nishino’s 23 & J2 Special May 2018

Stuart Smith and Jon Steele return to the podcast for a discussion on Japan's squad for the World Cup, and the latest of our monthly J2 Specials.

In Part 1 we briefly review Japan's loss to Ghana and experimentation with three at the back in their final friendly on home soil before Akira Nishino named his squad for Russia, then run the rule over the 23 man group, focusing on the exclusions of Yosuke Ideguchi and Takuma Asano (to 30:50).

Then in our J2 Special we begin with the big risers in the table since our last installment, beginning with FC Gifu (with a tangent on 'triple punishment' for professional fouls in the box), and moving on to Kofu, Tokushima and Chiba (to 1:11:55). Then follows a chat on the four teams who have taken the biggest tumbles since Matchday 11: Tokyo Verdy, Kumamoto, Kanazawa and Mito (to 1:22:20), before we finish with the current top six, with a brief word on our All-time Japan XIs from The Guardian website right at the death - props to Ben Mabley.

Follow my guests on twitter and the web:

Stuart - @sushi_football

We Are Gifu

Jon - @J2KantoBites

From The Guardian - Choose your own All-time Japan XI