Sam Robson and Ryan Steele guest on this week's pod in the wake of the amazing decision by the JFA to sack national team boss Vahid Halilhodzic just two months before the World Cup.

In Part 1 (to 26:55) we discuss the factors behind the firing, and the choice of Akira Nishino to step in, before musing over some players who may come back into the Samurai Blue reckoning under Nishino's watch (from 18:20).

Then in Part 2 we review all of the games from the weekend's J1 action, beginning with Urawa's first win of the season, and Ryan gives his thoughts on the firing of Takafumi Hori (to 46:30). Sam and Ryan each give a surprising and disappointing team after six games, and those teams' games are the next we cover (to 1:08:00), before we wrap up the other games, with yet another refereeing controversy (or two) an unfortunate talking point.

Follow my guests on twitter:

Sam - @FRSoccerSam

Ryan - @Steelinho

#AUDIO ISSUE# I think our Skype connection got a little tired, basically from the start of Part 2 onwards, so you may notice a brief 'pre-echo' before Ryan and Sam speak, and that contributes to what sounds like me cutting them off, especially right at the end of the episode. Apologies.