22 Mar 2007(Thu)

March 20, 2007: There's nothing like a bit of pressure on your forwards to see who delivers the goods at the crucial time.

This is surely what Ivica Osim is doing with his strikers in the build-up to Saturday's friendly with Peru.

His 18-man squad on Monday included just one forward, Takahara of Eintracht Frankfurt.

The rest, such as Maki, Ganaha, Bando, Sato and maybe even Okubo, are all on hold for one reason or another -- lack of fitness or lack of goals.

With Wednesday's national holiday bringing with it Nabisco Cup and Asian Champions League games, Osim will hold off for the time being and add a few more names later.

For the strikers, then, there is only one way to impress him -- goals.

I watched Maki on Saturday against Antlers and thought he played okay.

Nothing special, no goals, but well marked by the human bulldozer Iwamasa. There was an amusing spell in the second half when the ball was played up to Maki on the halfway line three times in quick succession, and Iwamasa battered him on each occasion. Hard but fair, Akita-style. No problem with that at all, even though the JEF trainers had to bring their shovels on to the pitch the third time to dig Maki out of the turf.

Maki works hard for the team and never hides. He's always running and making himself available, despite knowing that a good clobbering is just around the corner -- and he always comes back for more.

So Maki, currently a goal-free zone, would still get my vote -- and don't forget he's pretty much a one-man band up front for JEF with Hanyu buzzing around from deep and Arai still finding his J1 feet. Arai should have scored first in Saturday's goal fest with Antlers, but directed his free header to Stoyanov's wonderful left-wing cross against the bar.

Sato embarrassed FC Tokyo on the opening day of the season, and always makes an impact for Japan off the bench, while Bando is full of fire and energy. Just a pity about the theatrics to get Fabao sent off the other week, though. Bando looked like he was auditioning for a part in Hamlet, and that he had been poisoned, strangled or both.

Ganaha missed Saturday's rout of Yokohama FC due to injury, so Osim will take his time before naming Takahara's sidekicks. A Taka-Maki partnership looks pretty good to me, though, now that Takahara has kept the goals coming in Germany. One to run and one to score.

Taka-Maki? I am sure someone ordered that in an izakaya near Soga Station on Saturday night.

ends