Stuart Woodward returned to the pod to chat about his appearance on the Ｊリーグと私 You Tube series (link is for the You Tube playlist, Stuart's episode isn't up yet), and Yokohama F.Marinos making it two straight wins in the wet at Machida on Saturday (to 34:10).

Then in Part 2 Jonny and Ben round up the other nine games, as Kashima kicked six points clear at the top of the table as we reached the halfway point of the season.

In this week’s JTET, James Taylor and Jon Steele review the latest Levain Cup and J2 action. In part 1, James has a roundup of 2 Levain Cup games and 6 league matches from matchday 17 (start to 05:45). In part 2, James and Jon talked about Iwata’s cup win over Gamba Osaka (05:45 to 14:40) and Kofu’s dismantling of Yamagata in the league (14:40 to 27:55), selected their Most Bravo Player (27:55 to 32:05), discussed some managerial news (32:05 to 40:15), and previewed league and cup fixtures (40:15 to end).

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Dan Orlowitz joined Jonny and Ben in Part 1 of our new episode to chat about his new piece in The Guardian, Hajime Moriyasu's experimental national team squad, and Hiroshima's comfortable win over FC Tokyo at the National Stadium on Sunday.

Then in an elongated Part 2 Jonny and Ben run through the other games from J1 Matchday 18, including Yokohama F.Marinos ripping up the form book with a fine home win over leaders Kashima, as the bottom three at the start of the matchday had a weekend to remember.