One of the feel-good stories of last season has taken up the prestigious domestic trophy. However, this is hardly positive news. Urawa Red Diamonds of Andrew Nabbout has won the Emperor Cup by defeating Vegalta Sendai 1-0. Yet, they maintain the old record of Oswaldo Oliviera, the manager with a great record when it comes to Japanese football.
Even though Nabbout has been an unused substitute in finals, he has played for only nine minutes in the whole competition. The Australian player has started just 2 J-League matches since the time that he joined the club. This includes his debut and only 4 throughout the three competitions.
The twenty-five-year-old player has suffered from a shoulder injury in the month of May and he failed to appear in the game, till the month of September. However, even after experiencing a strong run in 4 matches off the bench when he rejoined the squad, he had been left out of the side completely for the last 2 J league games of this season.
After he had worked in this manner into the run for World Cup under Bert van Marwijk, it appears like Nabbout is an outsider who is going to make an impact on the Asian Cup to be held next month with Tomi Juric, Martin Boyle, and Jamie Maclaren who are ahead of the striker stakes of Graham Arnold.
Quite surprisingly, Dimitri Petratos, his former standout teammate has experienced a great season at Newcastle and has left a real prospect which none of the resurging talents of Newcastle Jet is going to be involved in the next Socceroos tournament.