It's a funny old league, the J-League. Whether it's players labelling their coach "an idiot" in front of the press, referees sending off the wrong bemused player or top teams choking badly at already relegated clubs, there's rarely a dull moment in the Japanese game.

The same could be said of the 2.Bundesliga - a league I know well having watched many a Fortuna Köln game in that division, before die Fortunen died a slow, agonising death. One club that has managed to avoid a similar fate is eastern German side FC Carl Zeiss Jena, and by all accounts the second-from-bottom strugglers are on the verge of signing one Naoya Kikuchi.

It would be safe to say that 2007 wasn't quite Kikuchi's year. The midfielder was enjoying a solid, if unspectacular start to the new J-League season when word came through of an indiscretion that was set to cost the former Japan under-22 international his job.

In a turn of events that left even the most hardened J-League watcher shaking their head in disbelief (or maybe chuckling ever so slightly), Kikuchi was involved in one of the most bizarre sex scandals ever conceived.

It seems that one afternoon the young midfielder was particularly taken with a certain schoolgirl who happened to be passing him by. The two apparently locked eyes, and next thing you know they were getting jiggy with it in the back seat of Kikuchi's car. For some reason, Kikuchi attempted to pay the young lady in question the token sum of 10,000 yen after the deed was done. But his indiscretion was to cost him a lot more than that.

Kikuchi, in his infinite wisdom, inadvertently left his wallet in the front basket of the schoolgirl's bicycle, and left. The schoolgirl, being an upstanding, albeit amorous citizen of the world, dutifully handed the wallet in to local police, claiming that she had found it on the ground. The police took one look inside the wallet and promptly declared her a thief.

Evidently not wanting to take the fall for a crime that she had not committed, the schoolgirl confessed that she had had sex in the back seat of the car with the owner of the wallet. But this wasn't your average case of a star-struck teenage fan. She'd never even heard of Naoya Kikuchi!

The police had certainly heard of Naoya Kikuchi. They charged him with having sex with a minor - the schoolgirl was just 15, and Kikuchi was immediately sacked by his club side Jubilo Iwata. Claiming that his team's image had been tarnished, Jubilo Chairman Hiroshi Ukon even took a pay-cut - and fined several other members of his staff, for allowing Kikuchi to bring the club into disrepute.

The morality of Kikuchi's shenanighans aside - and let's not forget that it takes two to tango, he certainly took quite a fall for a few minutes worth of summertime fun. Ironically had he bothered to drive his femme fatale across prefectural borders to Kanagawa-ken, he wouldn't have even committed a crime! He just so happened to be committing a crime in his native Shizuoka Prefecture.

After being slapped with a year-long domestic ban, it looks like the erstwhile Jubilo star will be resurrecting his career at the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld in Jena. I'm sure that the locals will take to him if he can help steer the struggling outfit to safety. But for everyone's sake, let's just hope the Jena training ground isn't located next to a school!

I read an interesting article over at the Kicker Magazin website yesterday about the transfer of Urawa Reds midfielder Makoto Hasebe to German Bundesliga side VfL Wolfsburg. Hasebe has been a lynchpin of the Urawa side for the past two seasons, but with his contract having expired, the 23-year-old has decided to try his luck in Europe.

According to Wolfsburg coach Felix Magath, Hasebe has been on the club's radar for some two years now. Magath claimed that the club's scouts had been interested in Hasebe since early 2006. But I wonder.

Certainly Hasebe did well enough to attract the attention of at least one European club, with Serie A strugglers Siena widely linked with the out-of-contract Reds star towards the end of 2007. Their interest came to naught though, with the Tuscans instead signing Brazilian goalkeeper Artur Moraes and soon-to-be Socceroo striker Richard Porta during the January transfer window.

That Hasebe chose to sign for a Bundesliga side comes as no surprise, given that his former coach at Urawa is none-other-than 1990 World Cup winner Guido Buchwald. Indeed, Hasebe's best season with Urawa came when the Reds lifted the J-League title under Buchwald in 2006. Yet I can't help but feel that the decision to sign Hasebe is as much an attempt to lift Wolfsburg's global profile, as it is one designed to strengthen their midfield.

Coach Magath has claimed that he envisages Hasebe to be a defensive midfielder in a two-man shield in front of the back four. Yet Wolfsburg already have two defensive midfielders in the form of Christian Gentner and Brazilian international Josué. The highly experienced Guinean Pablo Thiam is also standing in Hasebe's way.

Should Hasebe wish to break into the Wolfsburg starting eleven, then he'll invariably need to work on his physical strength. The 1.77 metre-midfielder was repeatedly knocked off the ball when Urawa came up against Milan in the recent FIFA Club World Cup, and he'll no longer have the intuitive Keita Suzuki by his side to clean up his mistakes. Indeed it's a wonder that no European clubs have made a more concerted effort to sign Suzuki, given that he's so clearly the most influential player in the Urawa line-up.

Of course pre-judging Hasebe's European career before a ball has even been kicked is hardly fair. It's just that history is not on his side. Of the Japanese players who have gone before him, only the exceptional Shunsuke Nakamura has shone in European football. Naohiro Takahara scored eleven league goals for Eintracht Frankfurt last season, only to up-and-leave for Urawa as soon as Frankfurt brought in some competition up front.

Mitsuo Ogasawara is perhaps a better example. He played over 200 games for Kashima Antlers, yet played just six times while on loan at Italian club Messina. He then returned to Kashima midway through the 2007 J-League season and promptly fired the Ibaraki club to the J-League title.

To suggest that Hasebe won't be the only foreign player at Wolfsburg would be an understatement, given that he becomes the SIXTEENTH different nationality at the club this season. But he'll need to adjust to the language and the food quick-smart. He'll also have to adjust from playing in a side that is perennially challenging for the league title, to one that is conceivably battling against relegation this season.

Perhaps the 2008-09 season is a more realistic timeline for Hasebe to break in to the Wolfsburg team. By then Christian Gentner could possibly return to VfB Stuttgart - who loaned him to Wolfsburg, while Pablo Thiam's contract is set to expire. Wolfburg's financial position will also play a role, given that the club spent a whopping 30 million euros on players last summer, and are so far yet to see any tangible returns. Wolfsburg won't be in Europe next season, but at the very least, Makoto Hasebe will hope to be.

I'm a big fan of the Bundesliga. I've been a fan ever since a young Sydney boy named Ned Zelic signed for Borussia Dortmund back in 1992. I saw my first Bundesliga game in 1996 at the old Müngersdorferstadion in Cologne, when 1. FC Köln lost 3-1 to an Andi Möller inspired Dortmund. The first goal I ever saw in the Westfalenstadion was scored by an Australian in 2000, when new Adelaide United signing Paul Agostino thumped a header in for 1860 München in front of the Südtribüne, to silence the massive home crowd. I have no familial connections to Germany, I didn't speak the language when I first arrived there to live for a year in late 1999. I simply enjoy travelling.

So it irks me when, year after year, I hear about European leagues growing more boring. They probably are growing more boring. I wouldn't know, since I don't watch them. At least, I suppose I don't watch them since when the media talks about "European leagues" they are invariably referring to the English Premier League, Spain's La Liga and Serie A in Italy. Apparently the German Bundesliga doesn't count as a "European league" which is probably a good thing, since it would turn the media's oft-spouted clichés upside down.

Every season in the Bundesliga is exciting. Every year more goals are scored in the Bundesliga than in any of the three aforementioned "European" leagues. Every year a host of clubs have the chance to win the league - this time around it was Stuttgart, and every year fans of their team dream anew of winning a trophy, like fans of Nürnberg, who won the 2007 German FA Cup. And every year, at the end of the season, I read about how European football is growing "more boring."

Which, in a convoluted way, brings me to the J-League. I have no familial connections in Japan. I still don't speak the language. Sense a connection? It seems to me, that no matter how many outstanding English-language books Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger writes, no matter how many matches with English-language commentary the Bundesliga broadcast, people are still oblivious to the charms of German football. I think that's a shame.

As much as I enjoy German football, I've found a new love. The J-League. And with the mid-season break looming, I wanted to share a little bit of information about the J-League in the hope that more people take an interest. The J-League is just as interesting as the Bundesliga! To that end, I thought I'd write my very own team-by-team guide to the J-League. It's not much. But it's a start.

DISCLAIMER: The following guide represents my own personal views! Not all information may be 100% correct. Some of my assertions are meant to be humorous - such as the idea that Jubilo Iwata are still a big club. If this bothers you, try reading Jane Austen instead.

Albirex Niigata

What's to know?: Niigata (<-- the town) have the second highest average attendance figure in the J-League, behind Urawa Reds. Why is this? Well I have no scientific proof...since I've never actually been there, but I'd hazard a guess and say there's not all that much to do up in rural Niigata. The club also seem to have done better than others at tapping into a "community spirit," which sees crowds hover around or just under the 40,000 mark. Some critics are pointing out that crowd figures are slowly but surely dipping, suggesting that the popularity bubble may soon burst in Niigata, as it has done at other J-League clubs.

Stadium: Officially known by its newly corporatised name of Tohoku Denryoku Stadium - everyone just calls it "Big Swan Stadium" - because, well, apparently it looks like a big swan. It hosted matches at the 2002 World Cup, where I bet the running track around the ground went down well with fans.

Interesting stuff you probably didn't need to know: They field a reserve team in Singapore's S-League. Is this productive? I don't know. I read elsewhere that only Atomu Tanaka has graduated from the reserve squad to the first team squad of late, but I can't verify this because I can't actually bothered be looking it up.

Should you support them?: Yes! Especially if you plan to spend some time in a town that is really, really far away from Tokyo and Osaka.

FC Tokyo 

What's to know?: Often referred to as "The Gasmen" for the fact that they are company offshot of Tokyo Gas, FC Tokyo are younger than several other J-League clubs, at least in a professional sense, rising through the ranks of Japan's lower leagues, before reaching the top flight in 2000. Other than that, what are they known for? Well, they won the League Cup in 2004. They signed Costa Rican World Cup star Paulo Wanchope this season...and I reckon he'll be match-fit by the time the next World Cup rolls around too. Other than that, not much.

Stadium: They play at Ajinomoto Stadium. Ajinomoto are, according to the number of condiment bottles sitting on my kitchen shelf, some sort of company that sells stuff you put on hot dogs. Or something like that. The ground, supposedly, was built in preparation for the 2002 World Cup. Of course it never actually hosted a single World Cup game, but what's the harm? It holds 50,000 but somehow looks bigger than the Azteca in Mexico City. Bring a small (ie. large) telescope if you plan on sitting behind the goals.

Interesting stuff: Their supporters pride themselves on their "English-style" support, and usually offer up a cracking rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone" before every match. Also, if you listen very carefully, you can still hear FC Tokyo officials laughing at Tokyo Verdy's decision to move to the city.

Should you support them?: Yes! If for no other reason than that Tokyo is the first place people usually visit in Japan. Their supporters are pretty passionate too, if that comes into consideration.

Gamba Osaka 

What's to know?: Gamba (<-- not the town, but Cerezo Osaka are another J-League team, albeit in J2) are a pretty powerful club who, if I'm not mistaken, are bankrolled by the company that produces Panasonic goods, among other things. That comes in handy when you want to purchase the best players from rival clubs, such as Ryuji Bando and Bare. They won the J-League in 2005, but surrendered it meekly to Urawa Reds last year. Now they are back on top of the table, not the least it seems because half of their team tend to get on the scoresheet each week. Last weekend they were 2-0 down to FC Tokyo after fifteen minutes - they won 6-2 with Magno Alves scoring twice, as did substitute Bando...who only came on because Bare limped off injured.

Stadium: Nicknamed "Banpaku," officially it's called Expo '70 Stadium. I might be speculating wildly here, but I'd venture to say that's because it was built for the 1970 World Expo ("your powers of deduction are exceptional!"). I haven't been there, so forgive me if I'm not entirely accurate, but I bet it's part of one of those "multi-use" sports centres that were built around the seventies, that feature several different stadia as part of one large complex. It holds around 20,000 depending on how many are standing.

Interesting stuff: I'm not a big Gamba fan, but I always try to watch them on the tele since they look like scoring virtually every time they touch the ball. Football in the Kansai region (containing the cities of Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto) tends to struggle in competition with baseball, with the region's Hanshin Tigers being a wildly popular team. Coach Akira Nishino is the longest serving coach in the J-League, and he's a pretty suave looking bloke too.

Should you support them?: If you have to. Cerezo Osaka are reputedly the more popular club in Osaka (try telling that to the few thousand Cerezo diehards these days) but Banpaku is generally pretty full nowadays.

JEF United 

What's to know?: They used to be called JEF United Ichihara. Sometimes people still call them JEF United Chiba. Why do they do this? I don't call them Everton-Liverpool. Or FC (Gelsenkirchen) Schalke, and you know how fond I am of brackets. I know they come from Chiba. I know they used to represent Ichihara. Just call them JEF United already! Anyway, these are happy days at JEF United. Bulgarian defender Ilian Stoyanov has recently told the club that if coach Amar Osim stays, he is going. At some clubs that wouldn't necessarily pose a problem, but since Stoyanov is their only decent defender, they could be in a spot of bother here. Basically what has happened at JEF United is this; they won the League Cup under coach Ivica Osim in 2005. They were well on the way to winning the League Cup in 2006 when coach Osim took over as coach of the Japan national team. Curiously, the club left his son Amar Osim in charge, despite the fact that his only coaching credentials seemed to be that he had watched a lot of JEF United games for free when his Dad was coach. Under Amar Osim they won the 2006 League Cup - dooming JEF United fans to his incompetence for the foreseeable future. They then sold their best player, Yuki Abe, to Urawa Reds because Abe was "concerned about United's prospects" (the man is a visionary, Nostradamus-style!). Selling their only good player has prompted somewhat of a crisis at United, who have spent almost the entire season in the relegation zone. Their fans have taken to jeering their own team at every opportunity (as you do) whilst Seiichiro Maki looks like the answer to a trivia question that reads "who is the most out-of-form player in the history of football to ever be called up for a major international tournament?"

Stadium: Fukuda Denshi Arena is great, if you ignore the fact that is employs the standard Japanese architectural concept of "let's take something simple...and make it uncomfortable." Apparently the idea of wind flow is important in Japanese architecture, and explains why rooms in Japanese homes are often separated by paper-covered sliding doors. This idea has been eagerly transposed on to Japanese stadia. They may have cost 60 zillion yen to build, but if you think you are going to be protected from the wind, think again! There's a massive gap between the roof and the stands at Fukari, which not only lets a freezing wind blow in off the Pacific Coast, it also helps it to whip round and round the stadium like a pair of socks in a washing machine. The wind aside, Fukari differs from most other Japanese stadia in the fact that it was built this century (and not in say, 1361, as I suspect several other J-League grounds were). The seats are somewhat uncomfortable but the sightlines are fantastic, and the JEF United fans generate a pretty good atmosphere - even when they're jeering their own team. I'd heartily recommend a trip to Fukari, just remember to bring a warm jacket.

Interesting stuff: See above.

Should you support them?: If you like roller-coasters or anything else you can think of that consistently goes up, then down and ends up back where it started (trampolines, maybe?) then this might be the team for you.

Jubilo Iwata 

Stadium: They play at the compact Yamaha Stadium (why yes! they are the former company team of Yamaha Motor Corporation), which seats around 18,000 or so off the top of my head. They also play a few games a year, such as the upcoming clash with Urawa, at Ecopa Stadium in Fukuroi...just a few stops down the train-line from Iwata. Ecopa holds about 50,000 and was a 2002 World Cup venue. It's also really drafty. True story.

Interesting stuff: The fact that they hold their highest profiles matches (against Urawa, Shimizu and one or two other clubs) at Ecopa Stadium often swells their average attendance to a figure higher than official capacity of Yamaha Stadium. That once lead some Australian kids on a message board I was reading to write something like, "look at these idiots! They say their average attendance is more than what their stadium holds...they must be idiots, aher aher aher." Good one fellas!

Should you support them?: No.

Kashima Antlers

What's to know?: They are the most successful club in professional Japanese football. They are the former company team of Sumitomo Metal Industries. They named a cheeseburger in one of the local fast-food restaurants "The Zico Burger." Okay I made that last part up. But they are a hugely successful team, albeit not in recent seasons. I arrived in Japan when Paulo "Hey everybody...let's see how big my mouth is!" Autori was trying to steer the club back to the glory days. He had been signed for big money after winning the Club World Cup with Sao Paulo, but his efforts to win in Japan were hampered by the fact that his team was, basically, pretty crap. He needed to win the 2006 League Cup Final to keep his job, but history will show that JEF United won 2-0, which is the reason why they, and not Kashima, are still burdened with a crap coach. After coming under intense pressure, new coach Oswaldo de Oliveira (they always hire Brazilians. Direct your complaints to Zico) has suddenly steered his team to the dizzying heights of third in the table. That's probably good for the J-League, since Kashima were arguably the first team to bring a genuine fan culture to the competition.

Stadium: They play in Kashima Stadium, which holds just over 40,000 but which is only ever close to full when Urawa bring their travelling army to town.

Interesting stuff: Zico used to play for them. Could you guess? I'm subtle, aren't I? I saw some old video of him on YouTube not long ago and, despite the fact that he was about forty, he seemed to score at least 6436 spectacular free-kicks whilst playing for Kashima...which is never a bad thing. He also spat directly on the ball when Tokyo Verdy were awarded a penalty that cost Kashima the championship which, these days, will get you at least a seven match suspension (oh, bravo! I can hear you Kofu fans quietly applauding in the back).

Should you support them?: Get back on the bandwagon now, before it's too late!

Kashiwa Reysol

What's to know?: Their fans appear to be somewhat psychotic. Aside from that happy fact, Kashiwa (<-- a town in Chiba prefecture) spent last season in J2. Before that, back in the days when the J-League was booming - as Sebastian Moffett describes so well in "Japanese Rules" (I can't wait for yet another person to tell me "I should read that." No wait...you reckon?!?) they were probably a half-decent side. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention back then. These days they've got a couple of gun youngsters like Tadanari Ri and Minoru Suganuma. Ex-Bayer Leverkusen striker Franca keeps the Bundesliga fans among us happy. They're also interesting to watch because they tend to try and kick the bejeebus out of opposing sides. Their reserve goalkeeper Yuichi Mizutani even flipped the bird at Shimizu S-Pulse fans after those two clubs met in the League Cup this season. And why not?

Stadium: They play at a couple of stadiums - Kashiwa Hitachi Stadium, which is so small it's always full and the slightly larger Kashiwanoha Stadium. Apparently both stadiums suck. The Reysol supporters are some of the most vociferous fans in Japan though, so if you're looking for an intense atmosphere, then Kashiwa is probably the place to go.

Interesting stuff: When they came to Nihondaira Stadium for the League Cup clash with Shimizu S-Pulse this season, their fans mocked Shimizu supporters by imitating the dance that Shimizu fans are fond of doing on the terraces, before launching into loud, mocking laughter.

Should you support them?: If you think you're well 'ard.

Kawasaki Frontale 

What's to know?:  Kawasaki (a town...somehow...sandwiched between two of the biggest cities in the world, Tokyo and Yokohama) were in the Second Division as recently as 2004. They got their big break in 2001 when Verdy Kawasaki said "that's it...I'm leaving!" and upped and moved to Tokyo, rebranding themselves as Tokyo Verdy (and hasn't that worked well!). After that Frontale kicked about in J2 for a bit longer, before local hero Kengo Nakamura (okay, he's actually from Tokyo) fired them up to the top flight. He didn't stop there, firing them to second place in the league last season, with a little help from the likes of Hiroyuki Taniguchi, Kazuki Ganaha and a bloke called Juninho (no, not the midget one...or that one that plays for Lyon...another one!). Kawasaki became the first Japanese team to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Asian Champions League since it was revamped in 2003 (take that, Urawa!) but since then, they've struggled to crack a win in the J-League...suggesting that knocking off the likes of Bangkok University in Thailand in midweek before flying back to play in the J-League on the weekend is somewhat tiring for the legs.

Stadium: They play at Todoroki Stadium, which unfortunately I've not been to yet, since it looks like one of the better football stadiums in the top flight. Admittedly it has a running track, but for big games it's usually close to it's 25,000 capacity.

Interesting stuff: Under Takashi Sekizuki - the second-longest serving coach in the J-League behind Gamba's Nishino, Kawasaki have perfected a wonderful game-plan that seems to run something like this, "if the other team scores, we'll try and score six to make up for it." It hasn't worked lately, but probably not for lack of trying.

Should you support them?: There's plenty of choice in the area, with the likes of FC Tokyo and Yokohama F. Marinos just down the road (at either end), and J2 club Shonan Bellmare also relatively nearby. However Kawasaki are a young club that espouse a philosophy of attacking football, so why not?

Nagoya Grampus Eight 

What's to know?: That's right all you Arsenal fans, THIS is Arsene's old team. Yes, the team that once signed Gary Lineker only to see a sore toe keep him to scoring just four goals, Nagoya are backed by Toyota, which should mean they've got the resources to build a healthy squad. They splashed out on former Rosenborg striker Frode Johnsen midway through last season, and he scored ten goals in seventeen games to steer the club away from the wrong end of the table. They also tried to sign JEF United midfielder Yuki Abe this year, only to see him scuttle off to Urawa instead. They've got plenty of handy players - Seigo Narazaki, Keisuke Honda and the aforementioned Johnsen among them, but they just can't seem to crack a winning combination under likeable Dutch coach Sef Vergoossen. They're a big mid-table club - just like every other team in the English Premiership that didn't finish in the top four or bottom three last season.

Stadium: Recently coach Sef Vergoossen called Toyota Stadium "one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world," which is a shame since Nagoya actually play at the decrepit Mizuho Athletics Stadium. The reason is this; Japan built many of its 2002 World Cup stadia outside major cities. That means that while Ecopa "Shizuoka" Stadium might look nice, it's not particularly practical for Shimizu S-Pulse fans who have to travel for an hour on the train just to get there. The same can be said of Toyota Stadium - except for, and here's the best part - it wasn't even used at the 2002 World Cup. In their enthusiasm to start construction work in preparation for the tournament, Japan built something like ten new stadiums, and then watched in disbelief as FIFA decided to "co-host" the tournament with South Korea. That means that grounds like Toyota Stadium and Ajinomoto Stadium were unnecessary, although it probably also explains why FIFA continue to play the Club World Cup in Japan. At any rate, Toyota Stadium is used for big matches against clubs like Urawa and Kawasaki, whilst Mizuho - which is not far from downtown Nagoya city centre, is used for all other games.

Interesting stuff: You know you're running out of ideas when all the interesting stuff is about the ground they play at. Dragan Stojkovic is probably still considered a legend in these parts though.

Should you support them: Yes, especially if you live in Nagoya (or Toyota).

Part II