How did we get here? Well we drew the playoff semi-final 0-0 (of course) with FC Ehime which meant that we "won" by virtue of finishing above them in the regular season (can you see where this is going?). So we needed to win the final to go up. I was one of the few (perhaps the only) Cerezo fans (there were almost 30,000) who genuinely wanted us to lose. Why? We have been rubbish all season and I'm pretty sure we'd come straight back down. We finished 15 points behind Fukuoka who had a storming season. We played both these playoff games in our home stadium when it should be played on a neutral ground which annoyed a lot of J. League supporters. At this point Paulo Autuori had resigned and Kiyoshi Okuma was at the helm. I was happy to be in J2 another year, Fukuoka deserve it and at least stand a chance of staying in J1. Hopefully we can learn how to put a run together and finish in the automatic promotion spots next year.
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| Our fans have been great all season, unfortunately the team has not, we belong in J2 |
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| Plenty of Fukuoka fans happy with the 1-1 victory. All the best in J1! |
Very interesting blog. A lot of blogs I see these days don't really provide anything that attract others, but I'm most definitely interested in this one. Just thought that I would post and let you know.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, it took a long time to reply...slightly depressing year in terms of football here in Osaka!
DeleteI really appreciate your professional approach. These are pieces of very useful information that will be of great use for me in future.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I don't know about professionalism! I'm glad it's useful for you.
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