2019's last fixtures ended with a rainy sunday.
A big upset in divison 2, YC&AC managed to win against Suns raising them from 9th place into 7th place (tied). Eastern Capital are looking strong as ever, winning against Nepal United. At this rate they will be getting promoted into division 1, a formidable feat given that they were in division 3 just last season!
2019's last Robert Walters Team of the Week goes to British Embassy!
Their first and second won both their games, scoring a total of 16 goals.
Despite being mid December, the TML has been blessed with fairly warm weather this weekend.
Real Celts have won their first game of the season to mid table Guts. Ironically Guts beat Kanto Celts (the Celts' first team) in the Cup a few weeks ago.
Tomoyoshi Tsuchiya (Lions FC) scores his first hat trick of the season on the beautiful grass pitch in Tendaicho but got outshined by the precise passing of Sala's strikers and midfielders.
BFC and Panthers had a very civil match this weekend. 3 yellow cards and 2 red cards making it this seasons most carded game! However, Kohei Hanadas goal reeled in the win for BFC while Panthers new signing superstar, Hiroyuki Uchida, will be suspended for 2 games. This will most certainly hurt Panthers for the league.
Pumas had a suprisingly close match against Lions this weekend. Just a one goal lead until deep into the second half. Pumas continue to march on with no draws or losses.
With 5 goals against FC International, Takuma Ueyama (Zion) is back on top of the goal scorer rankings making him a threat to win both Division 1 and Division 2 golden boots. During November 9/10, every cup game went as predicted. The higher division team has always won. However, on November 16th, Guts SC pulled off a giant killing in their cup match against Kanto Celts.
Kanto Celts just came off a tough loss to Panthers the week before (2-1) and Guts were coming off a win against YeBoiz FC (also known as Instagram Boys FC).
An interesting phenomenon unfolded during the gigantic 12 hour booking of Shigaku. A few TML teams contacted the Footy Japan Headquarters saying they don't have enough players for the Shigaku weekend. Professor Ochiai explains that "with 12 TML games played on the Shigaku booking day, it means 24 teams have to put out a unique team with no overlapping players (unless those players are willing to play two TML games the same day). Thus with so many games on the same day, it makes many players unavailable to play for their second or third team.
It's been a month since TML 17 has started. Every team has now played a game and the competition seems to be tougher in each division.
The only teams that have not had a loss or draw yet are Hibernian FC, Pumas FC (Div 1), Suns FC (Div 2), Fussa (Div 3). Every other team has had a draw or a loss which speaks volumes on how competitive teams are.
Robert Walters Team of the Week award this time will go to Brunello FC!
After starting their season with a hard 4-0 loss against Fussa, they bounced right back and won their next 2 games.
Some interesting stats unfolded this weekend.
Hibernian FC, TML’s most succesfull club, have joined the fray. They had a tough game against British Embassy that went down to the wire but Tomoitsu Kunii of Hibs made the difference between the two.
King George also got their first win of the season. They unfortunantely will not be winning their next game due to former TML manager, James Bates, joining them for the next match.
Pumas have scored over 5 or more goals per game giving them a double digit goal difference (12) in just three games.
Panthers FC
BEFC
Hibernian FC
FC Sagarmatha
Eastern Capital FC
Brunello FC
Pumas FC
YeBoiz FC
Clash FC
FC International
Guapo FC
SUNS FC
Sala FC
Fussa FC
Zion FC
YC&AC
Dutch FC
FC Nomade
Shane FC
BFC Tokyo
King George FC
BEFC Lions
Lions FC
Saitama JETS FC
Kilimanjaro FC
Jetro FC
Teranga FC
Albion Old Boys FC
