Fuwa

Fuwa was the coach under whose control, ETU was dropped from the first division to the second division. He dislikes the ETU management and believes that the management of ETU is inadequate. He pities Tatsumi as Tatsumi is coaching a team with no foreign players. Fuwa has stated that he cannot imagine coaching a team with no foreign players and himself hand picked three Brazilian players for Nagoya Grand Palace. Believing that the Brazilians also elevated the playing style of the Japanese players around them with their skill and experience. However, Itagaki, the former lead striker and star of Nagoya Grand Palace is more frustrated then anything else by the presence of the Brazilians and, in addition, Tatsumi was able to find and exploit a weak-spot in the team’s defence when he realised that the Nagoya Grand Palace defenders were all taking their clues from Carlos (one of the Brazilian midfielders) and if he moved even a little up the field, the defence collapsed.

It is almost impossible to judge whether Fuwa is any good or not. His desire for high profile players, foreign if possible, is not in itself a bad thing. Nor will a team win just because it has a collection of outstanding individual talents that don’t work together and the coach is needed blend the talents together to form a strong team. However, the problem is that his three Brazilian players work well together as they are used to playing together (possibly in the Brazilian National Team as all three are suppose to be National Team players) and together can create opportunities without the help of special tactics. In addition, unlike the Hiraizumi, Fuwa was not immediately able to detect and correct the gaping hole in the defence that Tatsumi exploited. Further more, unlike Dulfer, Fuwa did not seem to acknowledge his part in the defeat—which lead to Tatsumi informing him that if he doesn’t accept that he lost, he’s going to find the rug pulled out from under him again and again.