SAITAMA — If Urawa Reds manager Volker Finke intends to focus on the positives from his first year in charge of the J. League club, new recruit Yosuke Kashiwagi is on hand to remind him how far the team still has to go.

Finke ran the full gamut of highs and lows last season as Reds set the early pace before a sequence of seven straight defeats derailed their title challenge over the summer, eventually finishing in sixth place.

But the German insisted throughout the campaign that league position was secondary to instilling his philosophy on a team that had become sated and stale since winning the Asian Champions League in 2007.