Another short post. Hand still injured so typing is slow and difficult, stream of the game cut out a lot so difficult to make any real judgements on the game, enthusiasm low… Season is now finished, goodbye to Okubo and Kazama and probably some others. Guess the real transfer business starts now. From my limited viewing of the game, feel like we put up a decent fight against a Kashima team who know how to win titles and were once again very physical and fouly. I’ll add the highlights when they are up and I have a long post summing up individual players’ performances this season, so they’ll be some more on here soon. But until then we can feel disappointed but hopefully inspired that we can push on next season and change some of these second places into firsts and pick up our first ever trophy.
No handy highlights package for this game that no Frontale fan probably ever wants to see again. The only decent quality video I could find is this 3 hour monstrosity to relive the whole horrible game in full. Can't imagine I'll be watching it, but if you're feeling masochistic, be my guest.
Sorry, this post is late and tiny. I am traveling, so didn’t see the game. Also, due to a bit of clumsiness, I have rendered myself one-handed for a few weeks, so typing even this is taking a very long time. But anyway, a great result, bit of revenge against Omiya and on to the final in Osaka against Kashima. Let’s hope we can make up for our bad performance against them in the play offs. From the highlights below it looked a pretty even game, but we’re through. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!
This will be a short post for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'm on holiday and it's Xmas day so I don't have a great deal of time. More significantly, I wasn't able to go to the game as I'm in London so anything I write is based on the inconsistent and grainy youtube stream that I watched. (Thanks to Kaoru for the photo above). As the next round is coming round quickly, I thought I had better get this online fast. Actually, I won't even be able to watch the next round probably, so that post could be even worse than this one!
Firstly, let me admit, that I was completely wrong when I said that Okubo would probably pick up a mystery injury before this potentially awkward game against his new employers. He also seemed to actually be quite up for it in this game, which was a bit of a surprise. The starting line-up was quite different from against Kashima and given our lacklustre performance in that game, it probably needed to be. We were still playing with a back three of Tasaka, Edu and Taniguchi, at least according to the Frontale website. Seemed that Tasaka was getting forward a lot more though. The midfield was the usual Kengo/Neto combination in the middle with Elsinho and Kurumaya on the wings. And up front we had Okubo, a fit-again Kobayashi and Nobori. As I always seem to be saying, our formation seemed quite fluid though. There were a lot of players appearing where you might not expect them to. As he has been doing a bit recently, Okubo was playing deeper than we might have previously expected him to be. And as mentioned above Tasaka was attacking a lot. Neto also seemed to be in more of an attacking mode than he usually is.
Our first goal came from Yoshito. Kengo played a ball out to the right hand side, Tasaka picked it up and put in a lovely cross. Both Yoshito and Kobayashi managed to get in front of the FC Tokyo defenders and Yoshito tried to head the ball in, but I think it came off his knee and flew into the corner of the net. Nice dummy, pretending to head it! Understandably given where he'll be playing next season, he didn't celebrate particularly wildly, but I can't imagine he has scored many knee-ers in his career. We went two up a little later in the first half. A fast counter attack saw Nobori, Neto, Elsinho and Kobayashi break up the pitch. Nobori and Neto exchanged a few passes before the ball was given to Elson, who took a touch and then bent the ball into the corner of the net, past the diving keeper. Two nice goals from us! We had a few shaky moments in the first half, but I thought we were generally good value for the lead. The second half was also a bit nervy. They dropped a looping shot on to the top of the cross bar and Maeda swung and missed when it was surely easier to prod the ball home. But we had chances too. Okubo hit the post, Kobayashi had one well saved. In injury time FC Tokyo pulled one back. After all, we never like to make things too comfortable. A free kick from the left was swung in, everyone seemed to dither, we let it bounce and there was a FC Tokyo head to nod it home. So, a nervier last few minutes than we might have hoped for, but we held on and progress to the next round.
I won't do positives and negatives as I couldn't really tell from the stream I watched, but needless to say, it's a good thing we are in the next round. It was also nice that we were able to pay tribute to Arthur Maia and the Chapecoense team who lost their lives in that horrible plane crash. All our players wore black armbands, the supporters had a few flags in tribute and apparently the goals were dedicated to Arthur Maia. Of course, any plane crash is a tragedy, but the fact that an ex-player was involved brings it closer to home. And it's particularly sad, that after not really getting a chance with us last season, his career seemed to be progressing well. Rest in peace, all of the victims.
So, next we have Omiya Ardija at Yokohama's stadium. Omiya managed to overcome Shonan Bellmare 4-2 AET. You've got to feel sorry for Shonan, as they managed to come back from a goal behind whilst playing with 10 men, and even took the lead early on in extra time, before Omiya managed to overpower them. This could give us a chance to get some revenge on Omiya after they beat us in a game which I think definitely was a major part of our second stage capitulation. Let's just hope that both Okubo and our Kazoku supporters can keep their cool a bit better than they did at the stadium in Kumagaya, which was a definite low point of the season.
The end of the season this year is a bit of a weird one. This game saw us take on my least favourite team Urawa in the Emperor’s Cup. If we manage to get to the Championship final, we’ll be meeting them again quite soon. In order to do that, we have to beat Kashima, who we played a couple of weeks ago. Things are definitely getting quite familiar. I think we’ll all know each other’s game in quite a lot of detail now, so there are going to be some interesting results. I’d say after we snatched three points from Kashima in the league, they will be quite keen to get some revenge. They pretty much dominated that match and got nothing from it. Urawa might be equally keen for revenge if we end up meeting them in the final. However, I wouldn’t say they dominated us like Kashima did. In fact this game was one of the most open games I’ve seen for a while. Our usual tactics of attacking and hoping we score one more than we concede were in full effect. And Urawa seemed to have come with a similar game plan. It was a very exciting and entertaining match. Not sure I would be so excited and entertained though if we hadn’t won in the end.
There were a couple of big pieces of news coming in to the game. Firstly, Kazama’s heir has been announced and it is very much keeping things in the family, with his assistant Toru Oniki, former Frontale and Kashima midfielder, being handed the reins. I’m cautiously optimistic about this. I think it means we will be playing the same kind of football, which I’m very happy about. Maybe he is not the most experienced candidate, but he certainly will know the club and the squad well which has to be a good thing. The second big piece of news is the departure of Okubo, who will leave us at the end of the season for FC Tokyo. Whilst I am not particularly upset about this, (he’s not been contributing much recently), the timing of the announcement is a bit weird. I have no idea why, even if the deal had been done, the announcement wasn’t saved for after the end of the season. After this victory in the Emperor’s Cup, we will now face FC Tokyo in the next round, which is going to be a bit weird for him and for us and for them. If he doesn’t play well for us, we’ll definitely have something to moan about. If he does, it’s going to be a strange start to his FC Tokyo career. I wonder what kind of reception he’ll get. Just weird timing all round. I don’t get it at all. I wish him the best of luck in the future (apart from when he plays us…). He’s given a lot to Frontale in his time with us, but I think realistically we all know it’s probably time for a change.
Getting round to the game, there were a couple of notable pieces of team news. Sung-Ryong was back in goal after his injury. And as one player comes back from injury, another gets crocked (Kengo). I don’t think it’s very serious, but he wasn’t able to play against Urawa. Itakura started, which is a good thing for us looking towards the future. Hasegawa and Miyoshi featured up front again and Okubo seemed to be playing a much deeper role. He was announced as a midfielder. But then again, Tasaka was announced as a striker and he seemed to be taking his usual position at the back. Itakura and Neto were playing in central midfield and Itakura was getting forward a lot. I didn’t realise that he could play there. I guess it says a lot that I can’t really say the exact formation after watching 120 minutes of the game. Positions seemed pretty fluid, and it was a very strange game. Very, very open with plenty of chances for both teams. Once again we were treated to a wildly inconsistent referee, a new one for my list, Ueda. Some of his decisions were extremely dodgy, but pleasingly the dodgy ref seemed to be handing out bad deals to both teams fairly equally. Some pretty meaty challenges were ignored and some pretty innocuous ones punished. I reckon both teams were denied what were probably penalties. Us when Itakura was knocked down in the box, and them when a ball definitely seemed to hit a Frontale hand. But the most baffling thing was when one of our players was flagged offside and he let Urawa take the free kick from well inside our half. Thankfully it didn’t come to anything. So much happened in this game that it’s difficult to remember everything, but the notes I made on the first half remind me of a truly horrible miss from Yoshito right in front of the goal and a strong first half performance from Neto. Also it would be a shame for me to not mention the rotten Urawa fans. When they really get going the noise they make is very impressive. But this happens so rarely. They spend most of the time fairly silent and only made noise when we have the ball, booing and whistling. Maybe they believe that this is what the English hooligans they model themselves on do. I just don’t get it.
The second half started with some singing from Urawa. Amusingly it was to the tune of ‘Go West’, that football hard man tune recorded by tough guys the Village People and covered by the Pet Shop Boys. I wonder if they are aware of the connotations that come with the song. Given the general bigotry (for example, the famous JAPANESE ONLY!! banner) of some of their fans, I suspect this has gone over their heads. Kind of amusing anyway. By the way, I should have mentioned that our fans singing was in a bit better order this week with the return of the banned ‘Kazoku’ member who leads the singing. Also we seem to have introduced a snare to our drumming arsenal which gave things a jaunty feel. It sounded pretty good to be honest. On the pitch, loads of chances were being made again. Yoshito seemed to be getting involved quite a lot which was nice and his criticism of the other players wasn’t as intense as it has been previously. Neto began to give the ball away a little but was still doing a decent enough job. Just not as perfectly as he was in the first half. There was a heartbreaking moment when Miyoshi managed to dribble into the box but couldn’t quite get the shot away and stumbled instead. Elsinho, (who was playing well, got stretchered off the pitch but thankfully managed to come back on after a bit of treatment), was replaced by Moriya, who played in a kind of right wing back position, not exactly his favoured position. Hasegawa, who had also done a pretty good job and run himself into the ground was taken off and Noborizato brought on. Our formation got a little more confusing, but it seemed that Okubo moved forward a little and Itakura was still all over the pitch doing a great job. This is where my notes start to run out. The game got a bit too intense and as the highlights for the Emperor’s Cup take ages to come online I can’t use them to refresh my memory. I remember the way Urawa took the lead though. A long ball hoof caught us flat-footed and Koroki was able to take the ball round Sung-Ryong and slot home. It’s a shame that we conceded in such a way, but we were still in the game as we were making a lot of chances. We rolled up our socks and kept on pressing and making chances and we were equal on 86 minutes. It looked like we had missed another chance as the shot was saved (if I remember correctly), but the ref pointed to the penalty spot, Moriwaki having handled in the box. Yoshito and Morimoto (who had come on for Kurumaya by this stage), did a weird thing in that they had a conversation at the side of the goal whilst having a drink, presumably well within earshot of the Urawa keeper, I guess discussing how the penalty would be taken. I can’t say if the mind games worked or not, but Yoshito was able to put the penalty away, even though the keeper got a hand on it (see photos below. The first time photo burst has been any use for anything for me). Given that this was on 86 minutes, it looked like we were heading for extra time. And we were, but not before a couple more goals were scored. Urawa once again took the lead through a not so dangerous shot, as far as I can remember, which Sung-Ryong decided to punch instead of catch and straight at a prone Noborizato’s foot and the ball bounced into the net. Pretty ridiculous. This was on 88 minutes, so once again, we had scored and then conceded pretty much straight after. This is when we seem to be most vulnerable recently. So, it looked like we were going out of the cup. But in the five minutes injury time we managed to equalise again. Nobori crossed the ball into the box. Edu who was pretty much playing up front now, swung and totally missed the ball and it dropped for Morimoto who lifted a volley over the keeper into the corner of the net. Extra time!
In extra time, Urawa again took the lead. Things were really stretched at this stage, but you have to blame our defending again. On a quick counter attack, Urawa crossed the ball along the floor and a completely unmarked Aoki was able to sweep it home. Looking at a replay it does look a bit like Edu is tugged back when he tries to get towards him though, but it would have been a tough call to give it. On 117 minutes we were level again. Miyoshi crossed a lovely ball over, Itakura headed the ball back into the centre of the box and Edu was able to head it into the corner. Lovely finish! So on to penalties it was. I can’t remember ever watching one of my teams win on penalties. I’m sure it has happened sometime in the last 25 years, but if it has, the memory has long faded. They are undeniably exciting, but I think I probably could have done without the extra stress at this stage. Although as it turned out, maybe I needn’t have worried so much as we coped with them pretty comfortably. Yoshito put our first one away fairly easily. Their first penalty hit the post but was then retaken and scored as Sung-Ryong was a little off the line the first time (and got booked for being so. Not sure what the ref would have done if he did it again…). Our second was gutsily taken by Miyoshi and bent right into the corner. Perfect! Their second was saved by Sung-Ryong diving to his left. Our third was scored by Edu, again very gutsily chipping the ball down the centre of the goal. He must have some nerve to do a Panenka in this situation! Then Koroki hit the post after doing one of those annoying run ups where he pretty much stops half way. Not sure why he’s allowed to get away with that to be honest. Justice! Our fourth to seal the win was smashed home by Neto, the keeper getting a hand on it, but it probably was a bit too powerful. And then everything went nuts. It was particularly satisfying to win for a few reasons. Firstly, it was against Urawa. We had been behind three times in the game but had really dominated on chances and we had managed to do it with three big players missing through injury. I would say this is a great morale booster going into the Championship, but given how these things tend to work out, we’ll probably just have made Urawa angry and that is if we even get to the final, having to defeat Kashima first, who we also pissed off recently. So, still plenty to do. But it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Which is a big contrast to the last time we were at the Todoroki!
Positives and negatives. Let’s start negative this time. Injuries (but not from this game). Hope Kengo and Oshima are back soon. Poor defending for all three goals we conceded. Positives, plenty. Good performances again from Hasegawa and Miyoshi up front with plenty of energy and threat. Long may that continue. Itakura was something of a revelation, doing a great job all over the pitch. Neto was great in the first half. Yoshito seemed to care a bit more. Let’s hope he can continue that and leave us on a high. Crucial goals from Morimoto and Edu. Winning on penalties, with some young players having the nerve to step up and managing to score. And also credit to Sung-Ryong, who did a great job in the shoot out. If you save one you’ve done well and I’ll give him credit for the miss too as the mind games is all part of it. And finally, we’re in the next round, but sadly (for me) it’s on Christmas eve, so I won’t be able to watch it as I’ll be in the UK. An interesting match against FC Tokyo (hello Yoshito!).
Now, we have a week and a half off until the first Championship game on the 23rd against Kashima. This should hopefully give my voice a bit of time to recover. I got a little excited in that last game. Let’s hope we are not swinging from good to bad performances and we can keep things going in a positive way. Kashima didn’t have a very good second stage, but then neither did we really, and like I said above, they’ll probably be looking for revenge but let’s hope we can stay strong and keep the momentum going!
Less than a week on from the Omiya disaster we’re back in action again and back at Todoroki. Given that this was an Emperor’s Cup game we might have expected a few changes, but given that we’re playing again on Sunday (vs. Yokohama, at home again) it was more like a whole new team than just a few changes. Yoshito and Neto both started though as they are banned for Sunday’s game. The wholesale changes were not just restricted to on the pitch though. Because of the pathetic argy-bargy after the Omiya game the ‘kazoku’, the guys who wear the blue t-shirts, lead all the chants, try to get people singing and on occasion surround the opposition team bus after a defeat (the latter only once as far as I know), didn’t turn up. Presumably, this was to show their contrition for what happened last Saturday. I have no idea how many of them were involved and what actually happened, but there were apparently no arrests or charges. Possibly, things have been blown up out of proportion, but at the same time, it takes 20 years to build an image of being nice fans and one evening to ruin it. I’m still pretty peed off at what happened, but imagine things will be back to normal on Sunday with them in attendance. One of my fellow locals in my favourite pub who happens to be an Urawa fan thought the whole thing was negligible anyway. Urawa get up to far worse he said, which is almost certainly true, but why would we want to get associated with that kind of thing at all?
So, back to the matter in hand, a third round Emperor’s Cup tie against JEF United, a team lying almost slap-bang in the middle of J2. On paper a fairly easy tie I guess, but as we know, football isn’t played on paper and things don’t often work out how you might think they would. The game saw the return to Kawasaki of Takayuki Funayama, who left us at the end of last season. Always a 100% effort player, but one who never managed to find the net in the whole time he was with us, he inevitably scored against us… There were other returns too. Komiyama, Nara and Morimoto all started their first games for quite a while and the number of players being rested for Sunday meant that we saw quite a few players starting a game for the first time in a while (Harakawa, Hasegawa and Itakura). So, quite a few changes and it seemed like quite a few people playing in unfamiliar positions. Hashimoto was used as a kind of defensive central midfielder but seemed to be popping up all over the pitch, apart from on the wings where he normally plays best. Consequently, with the changes in personnel and positions, we weren’t exactly firing on all cylinders in the first half. JEF were defending in numbers and doing a decent job of it. We were passing the ball around as usual, but mainly sideways and backwards. It seemed that we didn’t quite have anyone who was starting dangerous moves. It was just lots of possession and not really going anywhere. That is until we gave the ball away, which we did quite a few times, creating problems for ourselves. Neto seems a little out of sorts recently even before the Omiya game. Maybe he needs a bit of a rest, but something’s not quite clicking at the moment and he's losing the ball a bit. The highlight of the first half was naturally Morimoto’s first goal for quite a while (since the home game against Shonan in March!). It was a decent goal, as far as I can remember without seeing the highlights and with it being at the other end of the pitch, it was a shot into the corner from around the edge of the box. [Having now seen the highlights, it was an absolute cracker from quite a way outside the box. Great goal!]. So far so good, but a bit unspectacular on the whole. We didn’t really threaten much.
The second half started with no changes for either team. The ref (Nishimura, complete idiot as far as I’m concerned) was being ultra fussy about everything making himself the centre of attention. Before I encountered Ogiya last week, Nishimura was the ref whose name I most feared seeing before one of our games. Totally obsessed with making himself the centre of attention and demanding free kicks being taken from the exact centimetre of turf where the infringement happened especially if it doesn’t make any difference to either team. There was a certain irony to this later in the half… On 51 minutes, we conceded the inevitable goal to Funayama. A JEF corner was punched clear by Shota but they worked the ball out to the wing again and the cross found Funayama who diverted it into the net. Having seen a replay filmed by someone in the crowd, I’d say there’s a hint of offside about it, but no-one seemed to complain too much. It was probably a fair enough score as neither team had exactly set the game alight. But it was a bit of a wake up call for us. After another ten minutes or so of us flapping around Kazama decided it was time to try and play a bit better and in short succession brought on Miyoshi and Elsinho for Hashimoto and Morimoto. And it kind of worked. Miyoshi and Elsinho were both really running at them and causing some problems. We started creating chances but sadly not putting them away. Yoshito was looking very out of sorts again, kind of sleepwalking his way through the match. On 79 minutes he woke up a bit though. A through pass found him racing clear of the JEF defence at the edge of the box and he was bundled to the ground. He felt it was inside the box and therefore a penalty, but the ref disagreed. Personally, I couldn’t tell. It was very much borderline. Nishimura though felt that it was definitely a metre outside the box which I find hard to believe, but wonder if he was just trying to erase any doubts people might have had if he gave it right on the edge. For a while it looked like we might have a repeat of the Omiya situation where we lose a player to a red card from a free kick we won. Yoshito wouldn’t shut up and kept berating the ref, even after he had been booked for his initial complaints. I’m kind of surprised that he didn’t get another yellow. Nishimura sent him off at the end of last season for a dive I think. But thankfully he calmed down in time. The remaining ten minutes was played out with some action and anxiety as both teams seemed to be looking for the win. Shota made a great save right at the death to keep us in the match. So, on to extra time.
In the first period of extra time the game was being played at almost walking pace. I know we like a slow and patient build up, but it seemed that the majority of the players were totally knackered! I guess most of them haven’t been regularly playing 90 minutes, so 120 was a bit of a stretch. Possibly because of this or possibly unconnected, Hasegawa pulled up with some kind of muscle strain and had to be stretchered off. Cue Kurumaya, who maybe might have hoped to get the evening off as he’ll almost certainly be playing 90 minutes on Sunday. He helped us step up another gear and actually scored the goal that put us ahead. It was down the other end of the pitch so I can’t remember much but it was a very nicely placed header from a right wing cross. He was really causing JEF some trouble too with his pace and energy. The second half of extra time was where poor JEF, who had done a good job on us got what they definitely didn’t deserve. Yoshito curled one in past the keeper from just inside the box (see the aftermath in the picture below) and then immediately started playing like a man possessed. Wish he’d done that a little earlier and then we would have been spared extra time. He followed this up with a tap in after a goal-bound Miyoshi shot was somehow blocked. I would have liked to see Miyoshi get another goal but maybe considering the remaining games this season, Yoshito needs all the goals and confidence he can get. Although that won’t be much use this Sunday when he’s watching from the stands. Like I said, a final score that was very tough on JEF, but we deserved to go through to the next round. It’s not often that you can call a 4-1 win unconvincing, but this was probably the best way to describe it.
So, positives and negatives. Let’s start negative. A J2 side took us to extra time, almost knocked us out in the last few minutes of the 90 and it was an unconvincing performance from us. Another injury, let’s hope it’s not too serious for Hasegawa. Yoshito would have again been a big negative but his transformation after his first goal changed my mind. He has to keep that going for the remaining games he plays if we want to get anything from this season. Positives, a few. Lots of players back from injury, an important goal from Morimoto who we are going to need playing well on Sunday, Komiyama and Nara playing 120 minutes, the late in the game transformation of Yoshito, a decent performance from both Hasegawa and Itakura. Oh, and we’re through. And finally I should mention the great job done by the guy who lead the singing in the kazoku's absence and the stand-in drummers. The timing between them and us was a bit shaky at times, but I can't imagine any of them really expected to be in that situation, so well done to them!
Now, three days rest and then back to the league on Sunday. The next cup game won’t be for a while as the draw isn’t even made until October 4th. Yokohama will want to try to mess up our season after we did the same to them a few years ago so it definitely won’t be an easy one. As I probably keep saying, it will be a season defining game as we’ll have a couple of notable absences and we are now playing catch up (second stage) or grimly trying to hang on to our dwindling advantage (overall). Let’s hope we can get back to winning ways in the league and give Urawa (at home to Sanfrecce) and Gamba (at home to FC Tokyo) something to think about.
After last week’s horror show against Kashiwa it was probably a good thing that we could distract ourselves with this year’s first Emperor’s Cup game. Presumably the team selection was made with an intention to give the first team some confidence after last week’s disappointment. It was pretty much a first choice team but with Arai in goal instead of Sung-Ryong (away on international duty securing a good victory for Korea against China and playing 90 minutes!). Normally I would expect Kengo and Yoshito to be rested in games like these, but maybe the absence of Oshima and Kobayashi (also on international duty), along with the confidence smashing defeat last week meant that this game would potentially provide an opportunity for the first team to score a few goals, regain some faith in their own abilities and make everyone happy again. Not sure how well this worked for the first hour or so of the game though…
Possibly ominously, it started raining as soon as the players walked out on to the pitch. I quite enjoyed the rain though. It was like one of those spray mist things that you can use to water plants and consequently was quite refreshing! Slightly butchering the usual football cliche, this was not a game of two halves but a game of three thirds. Or more accurately a game of one section of two thirds and one section on one third. The first hour was full of the same mistakes that littered the game against Kashiwa. Giving the ball away constantly, an inability to make challenges at important times, an uninterested Yoshito, plenty of passing the ball around inside our own half but not actually going anywhere. Not particularly encouraging. The difference from last week was probably the fact that we were playing the excellently named Blaublitz Akita a team currently playing in J3, who were not as capable of punishing our mistakes. Or so we thought until the 28th minute when we let a Blaublitz player waltz through our non-existent midfield and blast one into the corner from quite a way out. It was actually a pretty good finish and I don’t think Shota can be blamed for not reaching it. So far, so bad. The rest of the first half played out in a similar way. Nakano got a bit of stick from the crowd (as much stick as Frontale fans give anyway) which I thought wasn’t really that fair as there were players playing worse than him (hello Yoshito!). At least Nakano was playing with some enthusiasm. He did give the ball away a bit though. He does seem predominately right footed but was being used on the left which gives him a bit of trouble straight away. Probably this contributed to him wanting to roam across the pitch a little. Otsuka, who was back from illness not injury gave his usual high intensity performance. I think we have definitely missed his willingness to chase all over the pitch.
The second half started with Nakano being removed and replaced by Eduardo. Bit harsh on Nakano but there definitely was a need to change something as things weren’t working and we were in danger of turning a bad performance against Kashiwa into a season ending trough of nervousness and poor performances. Takeoka moved from centre back to right back, replaced by Edu and Elsinho pushed up onto the right wing, Moriya moving to the left. Initially, not a great deal changed though. We had two major let-offs early in the second half as Blaublitz had two good chances to extend their lead. Thankfully due to a combination of poor finishing and bad refereeing (something which plagued the match, some of his decisions were literally incomprehensible), we escaped. Just before the hour mark, Tasaka was ready to come on for Otsuka when Takeoka took one of many smacks of various sorts from a Blaublitz forward. He left the pitch on a stretcher with us all fearing the worst, potentially putting us down to about four fit defenders in the whole squad. Thankfully he was able to come back on a couple of minutes later and the planned substitution, which had sensibly been delayed whilst we worked out what was going on, went ahead. Tasaka made a big difference. I’m pleased, as he doesn’t seem to have had many chances recently. He gave us some real drive, probably doing his best to prove a point, and we finally started looking dangerous. We had two wings both providing dangerous attacks. Moriya and Kurumaya were doing great down the left and Elsinho and Tasaka were tearing up the right. Moriya and Tasaka were doing all the things I would have expected Okubo to be doing, pressuring defenders on the ball, chasing stuff down, running at Blaublitz. It was clear that the tide was turning.
Our first goal came from an unexpected route. I was hoping to check the video highlights to refresh my memory a little, but it seems that highlights of emperor’s cup games get deleted quite quickly. I have found one video, with an interesting musical accompaniment added that I’ll post below, but I am guessing that it might not be around for too long. [Edit: there now seems to be a proper video up, so have changed the link to that one]. So, yeah, Eduardo smashed a shot in from the edge of the box. I seem to remember that he was up for a corner which got cleared and then played back towards the Blaublitz goal. It was a nice finish in any case and I’m really pleased for him. He seems to be a player who really cares and he was certainly very happy to score. I guess he might be starting next week. After this first goal, Blaublitz’s resolve was broken and it wasn't very long before we went ahead. It was a strange goal, or at least the reactions were. Moriya crossed the ball along the ground to Okubo who was just outside the box. He fired a powerful curling shot right into the corner and didn’t really react at all. Given some of his shots in recent games I think the crowd thought he’d drilled another one into the side netting and it really took a while for anyone to realise it had gone in. It was quite a bizarre moment. As cool as Okubo’s reaction was, I think it was a bit of a weight off his mind. After the goal he really upped his game and seemed to really want to get involved. It was great to see. I’ve been moaning a bit about him recently and I felt we have been carrying him, but if he’s coming back into form it might well be just at the right time and his performances will have a very significant effect on how this season finishes for us. Pleased to have you back, Yoshito!
By the time of the third goal Blaublitz were hanging on. I was pleased to see Tasaka get a goal as he hasn’t really had many chances this season for whatever reason. It was normal assist service resumed as Kurumaya, our recent assist king drove a low cross into the box which Tasaka walloped into the roof of the net. Quite a dramatic finish. Perhaps it was a bit tough on Akita, but at least they can go away with the knowledge that they were pretty easily beating the J1 leaders away from home for about an hour. I salute their fans as this was a pretty long away trip and they did a great job of supporting their team. Hope they enjoyed their visit. Can’t exactly say it was the confidence restoration we were hoping for, but maybe we’ll get something from the fact that we definitely finished the game on a high. Let’s hope we can take that into next week against one of this season’s bogey teams, Avispa. I think we owe them a beating.
Positives and negatives. Let’s start with the negatives and end on a high. The first hour was pretty horrible, we were pretty hopeless and very reminiscent of the game against Kashiwa. Other big negative is that in spite of playing 90 minutes, Takeoka limped off the pitch at the end of the game helped by a couple of team staff. Will he be fit for Saturday? Who knows, but I hope so. I hope if he is fit he’ll be playing at right back though and that Edu will be back in the middle. If he’s injured I guess Edu will go in the middle and Elsinho will have to stay at right back the whole game. That will probably leave Itakura as the only other fit defender though. Bit worrying, especially given the rate we are picking up injuries recently. Positives, surprisingly, I can find quite a few. Firstly we’re through and we came back from behind. Perhaps the score flattered us if you take the game as a whole, but it’s a cup game so the win is really all that matters. Secondly, Okubo is back in form (maybe). After his goal he really looked up for it. Let’s hope he can start banging them in again. Sanfrecce’s Utaka is injured so the top scorer position could be back on if he starts scoring regularly. Thirdly, a couple of goals for people who I think will really enjoy having scored. And finally a couple of people are coming back from injury/illness. I mentioned Otsuka above but some guy called Morimoto who some of us might be able to remember was brought on towards the end of the game. Could be a great time for him to be back from injury. It’s been a while and we were wondering what had happened to him. Hope he’s on the bench again at the weekend. At half time I couldn’t have imagined I would have such a positive feeling after this game, but I got there with my optimism. Let’s hope we can do things right at the weekend and fully get back on track!
