Cerezo Osaka 2 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale
Going to keep this brief, as I’m not in the mood to spend much time thinking or writing about this game. We came up short again. At the final hurdle again. It’s likely that the season is over on all fronts now. It’s going to take a hell of a lot of bouncing back to pick ourselves up for our final three games and I think there’s plenty of us who would be quite happy with the season finishing now. This was a brutally effective performance from Cerezo, knocking lumps out of us and getting away with it most of the time. Nishimura might not be as useless as many of the J League refs but this was another rotten refereeing performance, at least from my point of view. Cerezo beat us by hacking, diving, lumping long balls forward and time wasting. Yeah, I’m bitter. And biased. We dominated the game, but didn’t score and it’s goals that count rather than possession. Their first goal came from an early howler from Edu and their second was a sucker punch as we desperately pushed forward for an equaliser. A beautiful-but-unincisive-passing sandwich made with soft-Cerezo-goal bread. It speaks volumes that we’d had so much of the ball but barely managed to trouble their keeper. We can’t complain about injuries as we had pretty much our first choice 11 on the pitch. Elsinho’s early booking was significant as I think it definitely shackled him. Neto was great in the first half but faded later on. Kengo and Kobayashi had off days. Our approach play was good but the final ball wasn’t there. Our crossing was pretty bad, but not as bad as our shooting. I can’t remember their keeper having to make any tough saves. So, heartbreak at the Saitama Stadium for the second time this season. Perhaps Urawa will beat Kashima tomorrow and then give us the opportunity to mess things up in three competitions in the same venue in one year when we play them away in the league in two games time. 
Next up is Gamba Osaka at home in two weeks time. It’s good we have a break, because I can’t find any enthusiasm for football right now and I’m sure plenty of us feel the same way.
Team
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 18. ELSINHO (Yellow card 6')
DF 23. EDUARDO
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 41. IENAGA AkihiroFW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
Subs
GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 2. NOBORIZATI Kyohei
FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki (on for E. NETO 80')
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for MIYOSHI 46')
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for ELSINHO 75')
DF 28. ITAKURA Ko
Goals
SUGIMOTO (Cerezo) 1' 1-0
SOUZA (Cerezo) 90+2' 2-0
Highlights
Don't particularly want to watch them, but they're here if you are a masochist
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