The defending J. League champion won its sixth game in a row, including five on short rest since being eliminated from the Asian Champions League last month.
Soccer: Hosts Japan thrash Panama 7-0 in women s int l friendly
April 11, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)
Yuika Sugasawa (9) scores the first goal for Japan s national women s soccer team, Nadeshiko Japan, in a 7-0 friendly win over Panama at Tokyo s National Stadium on April 11, 2021. (Kyodo) TOKYO (Kyodo) J-League first division champions Kawasaki Frontale outclassed FC Tokyo 4-2 in their Tamagawa Clasico game at Tokyo s Ajinomoto Stadium on Sunday behind an early brace from Akihiro Ienaga. Leandro Damiao twice set up Ienaga and scored one of his own, while dynamo Kaoru Mitoma scored the league leaders third in the heated rivalry between teams whose stadiums sit a few kilometers apart on either side of the Tama River.
Feb 24, 2021
If last year was the J. League’s season of uncertainty, this year will be its season of chaos.
A scant two months and change after its coronavirus-struck 2020 campaign finally came to a close, the 2021 edition will kick off on Feb. 26 with far more at stake than ever before in the 20-team first division.
The J1’s largest-ever field expanded from 18 after officials nixed relegation due to the impact of the pandemic, and it will return to that figure next year after completing this season’s supersized 38-round schedule.
With league officials deciding against a promotion-relegation playoff in the name of simplicity, all of that adds up to a four-spot relegation zone the biggest in J. League history.