#114 Football Theory (7) | 1995 J.League - Marinos' First Championship
The 1995 J.League season left a huge impression on me.
I was supporting Marinos at the time, so it was a very happy season for me as they won the annual championship and stopped Verdy from winning their third consecutive title.
Let's look back at the 1995 J.League season!
10th Place: Hidetoshi Nakata's Debut
In 1995, a man who would leave his mark on Japanese football history, Hidetoshi Nakata, made his debut with Bellmare Hiratsuka.
I still remember his first goal; I recall seeing it on the football news at the hotel where I was staying during a football tournament in Yubari over Golden Week.
The opponent was Kashima. He smashed in the opening goal with a long-range shot.
The name "Nakata" made a deep impression on me at that moment, but I never imagined back then that he would become the player who would save Japan just two years later.
9th Place: The Cerezo Whirlwind
This year, Cerezo Osaka was promoted to J1 along with Kashiwa Reysol.
I remember them making a big splash right after being promoted.
Morishima was incredible. The way he would scurry around despite his small stature and score goals.
When you think of Cerezo's number 8, it has to be Morishi!
8th Place: The Hell of 52 Matches
In this year, the J1 League consisted of the original 10 teams plus Bellmare and Jubilo, who were promoted in '94, and Reysol and Cerezo, making it 14 teams.
The 1st stage was a home-and-away round-robin of 26 matches, and the 2nd stage was the same, totaling a hellish 52 matches.
Considering that today (2022) there are only 34 matches in total, that was an outrageous death schedule.
It must have been brutal for the players who played every match.
7th Place: Kawaguchi's Debut
Also this year, the legendary Japanese goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi made his J.League debut and won the Rookie of the Year award.
He had originally prepared himself for five years of apprenticeship when he joined Marinos, where Japan's No. 1 goalkeeper Matsunaga was, but he was unexpectedly chosen by Jorge Solari to make his debut!
At 20, he became the starting goalkeeper for the J.League championship team, and the following year at 21, he was in the Olympics, and at 23, the World Cup...
This year was the start of it all.
6th Place: Yokohama Flügels were strong
I remembered the Flügels being strong that year, but they finished 13th, so they weren't actually strong (lol).
It seems they became strong in '96. My memory was wrong.
However, goalkeeper Narazaki also made his debut around the same time as Kawaguchi, they had a reliable national-team-class defensive midfielder in Motohiro Yamaguchi, and they had the Brazilian trio of Zinho, Sampaio, and Evair, so it was likely a significant season in terms of preparation for the following year.
And above all, there was Zono. Masakiyo Maezono. He was insane during this period.
I admired Zono during his Flügels and Atlanta Olympic days.
5th Place: The Pixy Whirlwind
And the MVP of this year was Pixy, also known as Dragan Stojković.
He was a troublemaker when he first joined, but he gradually fit in and turned the weak Grampus into a winning team.
I still watch Pixy's plays from this period sometimes, and they are truly amazing. They are truly artistic plays worthy of a fantasista.
4th Place: Fukuda as Top Scorer
The Japanese players were not losing out either.
The first top scorer was Mr. Reds Fukuda.
The Reds were the runaway bottom team in '93 and were weak in '94 too, but they gradually got stronger, and
I remember that from around this time, they started to enter a mode of shedding their image as a weak team.
3rd Place: Leonardo's Insane Goal
Anyway, this goal is truly amazing!
Leonardo was definitely in his prime, and after Kashima, he went to PSG and Milan and was playing regularly as a starter, and there was a dream back then that such players would come to the J.League.
2nd Place: Yokohama M Wins First Stage
I was supporting Marinos wholeheartedly around this time, so I was happy when this happened!
I still remember that on the day of the opening match, all of us in the youth soccer club were eating yakiniku.
The results for the day came on the news there, and "Oh, Marinos beat Kashima 4-3! That's intense!" is what I remember thinking.
And there were twists and turns, and I remember it going down to the final matchday, with Kashima as the opponent for the final match.
We defended Medina Bello's goal to win the 1st Stage! That made me so happy!
I also remember being moved when the Kashima supporters held up a banner saying "Congratulations Marinos" and chanted for Marinos afterwards.
There wasn't a good video, so here's this lol
1st Place: Yokohama M's Long-Awaited First Championship
Although they won the 1st Stage, their arch-rival Verdy won the 2nd Stage, and the Championship series became a fateful showdown between Verdy and Marinos, but Marinos won both matches 1-0 (uno-zero) to become the annual champions!
In the 1st leg, David Bisconti scored from a loose ball to win!
And in the 2nd leg, they defended the opening goal—a perfectly scripted play where captain Ihara scored from a Bisconti free kick—to win!
With a total score of 2-0 over the two matches, it was an undisputed complete victory!
However, I remember being indignant that only Ihara and Masaharu Suzuki were selected for the Best Eleven that year lol
"Why wasn't Bisconti selected!" lol
Anyway, the J.League was interesting that year, but after this year, my personal J.League boom began to decline.