http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DGl-4gByV4
This week was a semi-off week for the relegation teams. However, there were some minor rumbles felt by all the teams in the cup week that was. Digging in-
12. Cerezo Osaka- Cerezo matched up on Wednesday against Montedio Yamagata and former teammate Branquinho. Another former Cerezo player, defender Kazuya Maeda, put Montedio up early in the second half. Cerezo would come back on goals by Olympian Kenyu Sugimoto and defender Kota Fujimoto.
THE GOOD- Getting Sugimoto back on the scoring track is a positive, especially since Mario Kempes does not seem to be the most reliable goal scorer in the league. The game also was Cerezo's fourth comeback victory in a row.
THE BAD- For the fifth game in a row, Cerezo allowed the opposition to stake a lead.
THE UGLY- That would actually go to Cerezo's opponent next week, FC Tokyo, who crashed out of the Nabisco Cup yesterday with a 3-0 loss to Shimizu S Pulse. This marks the second game that FC Tokyo has lost by 3 goals or more (both on the road). If FC Tokyo's mood is "ugly", Cerezo might be in for a long game. If FC Tokyo's form is "ugly", you might see Cerezo romp to an easy victory.
13. Kashima Antlers- Relegationistans big winner and busiest team. Kashima opted to go with a weaker lineup for their game against Gainare Tottori (only 2 of the starting 11 were starters for the Nabisco Cup Semifinal yesterday). Chikashi Masuda helped stake Kashima to an early lead before Tottori came back to force extra time. Shinzo Koroki got the game winner in the 110th minute to avoid a very embarrassing result.
Saturday saw the defending Nabisco Cup champs take on the defending J League champs in the second leg of the Nabisco Cup semifinals. Kashima quickly added to their 3-2 first leg lead with a goal from the white hot Dutra. Moments later, Yuya Osako would add one more. Jorge Wagner and Neto Baiano would grab goals back for the home side to make things nervous, but Kashima would hang on and book a trip for Tokyo on November 3rd.
THE GOOD- Dutra added to his goal streak with another early tally. It finally looks like the Brazilian midfielder is getting comfortable in Ibaraki after a tough start. Kashima also gambled on flaming out of Emperors Cup with a B team and won. Guys like Masuda and Koroki got on the score sheet and alot of reserves got a bit of a confidence boost.
THE BAD- Not so much bad as inconvenient but if things go bad for Kashima in the league, they are going to have to make a decision on going full bore in the Nabisco Cup final, or hedging and saving some guys for the matchup four days later against Omiya.
THE UGLY- Yuya Osako's pk miss and follow-up shot over the bar. Osako is doing alot of things right this year but finishing isn't one of them. Don't know if it's a fad or a long term mental problem but Osako needs to fix it fast. Combine him with Yuji Ono and you have the beginnings of a new generation of talented but mentally fragile target men. Not that that's new to Japan.
14. Vissel Kobe- Homes Stadium saw 615 people go through the gates for a PK thriller between JEF Chiba and the home side...Sagawa Shiga. Vissel unfortunately were training and not playing.
THE GOOD- Vissel had two weeks and plenty of match footage to go through to plan for next weeks opponent, Shimizu S Pulse.
THE BAD- If you go on the Vissel Kobe website, you'll see a banner for "One Heart" with pictures of Nishino and 5 players. Next week will see three of those players sitting out with yellow card accumulation (Kitamoto) or injuries (Okubo, Inoha). Add to that the off again-on again health issues of Yuzo Tashiro and you have a recipe for a very, very long 6 game stretch.
THE UGLY- Stories out of the tabloids earlier this month were saying that Masahiko Inoha was dealing with injuries before the call-up for the France game. He's now out for 3 weeks after picking up an injury in France, not helping his National Team chances and forcing Kobe to field a centerback pairing of Kazumichi Takagi and Lee Kwang Seon. I understand that playing a big country like France in France is a good prestige match for the National Team, but really Nishino and Zaccheroni need to use their heads in this situation and come to an agreement on backup National Team players not threatining their careers over the most meaningless of friendlies. In this case it cost the player and it might cost the club and Zac earned nothing from the move.
15. Omiya Ardija- If Kashima was the big winner of the week, Omiya gets a good second place spot with a successful Wednesday night victory over Avispa Fukuoka. Omiya started off the scoring in the 45th minute off a Yu Hasegawa goal in the middle of a Fukuoka pack. Zlatan doubled the scoring in the 54th minute with a sliding shot. Osmar would grab one back for Fukuoka in the 66th minute, but Novakovic would put the game away late with a rebound goal in the 87th minute.
THE GOOD- Including Fukuoka University, Omiya had a 4 game losing streak to Fukuoka teams, so the emotional relief of getting past Fukuoka has to be a positive. All three strikers for Omiya got on the board in this game after two straight games of scoreless ties. Daisuke Watabe was able to successfully slot in a right side back and made no huge errors in the game filling in for Kazuhiro Murakami. Finally, schedule congestion for Kashima gave the team a bit of an advantage for the November 7th game. At this time of year, any advantage counts....especially against a team they only have one career league win against.
THE BAD- It was bound to happen sooner or later, but Omiya's clean sheet streak came to an end on Wednesday. Goals happen but the way it ended has to be categorized as.....
THE UGLY- During the scoreless streak, Captain Kosuke Kikuchi has been very solid and has cut down the mental gaffes that plagued him for most of the year. The old Kosuke popped his head out in the 66th minute, when a very lacsadaisical pass combined with some hesitation from Kitano led to a hustling Osmar grabbing the lone goal for Avispa. If he learns from it, great...it's a positive. But if he does it again....ala the Sanfrecce game....Omiya has some worries going into the last 6 games.
16. Albirex Niigata- Albirex opted to go with one starter from their Vissel Kobe draw and a pack of bench players for their game against Fukushima United. Didn't go quite the way Albirex would have liked with Fukushima notching the lone goal of the night. On again/off again starter Naoya Kikuchi picked up a knock early in the game and is questionable for next weeks 6 pointer.
THE GOOD- Shimizu won their Nabisco Cup semifinal, so Albirex gets to face them on a short week and a possible cup hangover. That's a positive. Morishita also managed to get some time for his bench, especially backup keeper Hideaki Ozawa. Wouldn't seem important, but....
THE BAD- Masaaki Higashiguchi was rumored to be carted off the field during yesterday's training match between Niigata and Thespa Kustatsu's U-23. Albirex went 0-1-3 in the games Higashiguchi missed earlier in the year, so losing him for even a couple games would be a blow to Albirex survival hopes. Twitter feeds were saying the player doesn't think it's serious enough to jeopardize him for the Omiya game but we don't know for sure.
THE UGLY- Shoki Hirai and Kisho Yano had a chance to stake a claim to starting spots and failed miserably against a 4th division squad. The 22 goals (bolstered by a 5 goal outlier against Nagoya) should have Niigata worried. Losing wasn't the worst thing to happen on Wednesday.....not scoring was.
17. Gamba Osaka- Gamba opted for a hybrid method in their Wednesday match against Mito Hollyhock. Yasushi Endo and Yasuyuki Konno both were off to France for National Team shenanigans and Ienaga, Sato, and Fujigaya all took seats on the bench. Gamba was able to win with a familiar formula- get the ball to Leandro and get out of the way. Yohei Takeda managed to keep a clean sheet and gives Gamba something to think about for their game against Kawasaki.
THE GOOD- A win and a clean sheet are good confidence boosters, especially without your best midfielder and defender. Leandro gets back on the score sheet with his strike also restores a bit of invincibility lost last week at the hands of Sendai. Finally, both Konno and Endo represented themselves well after going a full 90 against France in the Samurai Blues 1-0 win. Endo tied the record for most caps as a National Team player. Congratulations.
THE BAD- Both players have one more midweek game to play against Brazil in Poland before coming back to Japan for the Frontale game. It's a lot of travel and alot of game time for two veterans who may not have a full tank after the cross-continental trip. Do you put them in the starting 11 and hope they can go a full 90, do you risk it and have them come off the bench, or do you save one or both of them and gamble on getting past a very mediocre Kawasaki side?
THE UGLY- What's going to happen if Fujigaya plays on Saturday and blows another game for the team. Takeda wasn't brilliant against Mito, but he did just enough to take the win. At this point in the year, should Gamba stay with arguably the worst keeper in J1 or throw out the untested Takeda? What's gonna be ugly is the fan reaction if the gamble does not pay off. Keeper controversies aren't good this time of year.
MORE EMPEROR'S CUP THOUGHTS
I'm all in on this year's Emperor's Cup, not least of which is because Omiya is still actually alive. However, I got a bone to pick with the schedulers. Midweek games are unavoidable and the upsets caused some really unfortunate attendance numbers. Machida Zelvia and FC Imabari got a grand total of 304 for their game in Hiroshima. Yokogawa Musashino and Nagano got 312 in Hokkaido. JEF and Sagawa Shiga got 615 in Kobe. Those are weird matchups in even weirder places so I don't have a problem with that.
The highest attendance on the night was a derby match between Yokohama F Marinos and Yokohama FC which saw a gate of 8862. Over double everything else on the night. Not bad.
The JFA in it's infinite wisdom, decided the 4th round should be a draw....no problem again but they opted to give home games to Omiya, Urawa, JEF, Kashiwa, Gamba, and Cerezo, while Jubilo, Shimizu, Kawasaki, and Yokohama all get road games. No derbies in the 4th round. Which also means no attendance in the 4th round. What's a more compelling game.....Jubilo-Shimizu or Jubilo-Omiya? Not a difficult question to answer. Are they doing this so that they can get a team who will undoubtably get to the ACL round of 16, lose and then spiral to 13th in the table next year? Stop screwing with the cup.......unless you are going to do it to benefit the competition.
DIRTY SIGNS IN YOKOHAMA
The moment of outrage in round 3 happened at the Nissan when Yokohama FC fans put up a large banner telling Marinos to go fuck themselves. I'm not that offended by it.....its rude but a little funny. I think they missed an opportunity to get creative. The whole GFY with the finger came across as Urawaesque, big on shock but not that creative. Had they put a picture of the Flugel mascot shoving his head up a seagulls poopshoot, then I'd be behind this 110 percent. It would have been a nice summary of the merger and the feeling of the Fulie. GFY wasn't elegant and it wasn't worth the outrage and fine it caused. If you are gonna go for shock......go all the way.
GAME OF THE WEEK- Gamba versus Kawasaki. There are two games on Gamba's schedule that are dead lock must win contests and Kawasaki is the first one. It's been detailed about the three positions that are up in the air for Gamba going into the match. What's not in question is Leandro. If he has a good game against a pretty average defense, Gamba probably rolls. A tie doesn't really help in this game considering that Omiya and Albirex face off in Omiya, especially if one of the orange relegation candidates wins. Time is runnning out for Gamba so this game is the big one. Especially with Sanfrecce coming into town next week.
VIVA TOYAMA!
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