I guess the “aggressive” nature of Nekoma here was instead of just challenging sarukawa to a purely defensive battle where Nekoma would pamper Kenma with the receives (which Kenma said would be boring), Nekoma instead implemented a plan to pretend to play into Sarukawa’s plan and switch it on them at the last second
Hachishark
2025-01-06 23:51:12 +0000 UTC
I’m not sure of you remember but last episode they mentioned that Nekomata was the coach of the other team when he was younger, so it wasn’t just acknowledgement from a powerhouse school but acknowledgement from who he learned from. You can tell by the flashback with younger Nekomata and how Aritaka (the other coach) also leads a defensive heavy team that Aritaka really respects Nekomata, which is why the mutual respect there meant a lot.