Albirex Niigata 1 - 0 Cerezo Osaka

This was a game we were expecting to at least come away from with a point but after Edno spurned our best chance created by Kakitani we were left with nothing as another bit of dodgy goalkeeping from Jin-Hyeon presented the ball to a grateful Kentaro Ohi who wrapped up the 3 points for Albirex. This video shows highlights of the all the recent J.League games with a focus on the returning heroes from the East Asian Cup in South Korea where Zaccheroni was successful with an experimental squad. Kakitani scored 3 goals in the two games he started including a brace that sealed victory for Japan. Yamaguchi was named player of the tournament while Ogihara also made his debut for the national team. From a Cerezo point of view this has raised the profile of the young players making it tougher to hold on to them when foreign clubs start their approaches. But another way of looking at it is that now they are under pressure to be consistent performers which will only help us in the league this season. After that who knows? The Cerezo highlights start at 03:24 on the video and are followed by a chat with Kakitani.

Cerezo kick off the season with a win

Kakitani's calm finish secured an incredibly undeserved 3 points as Albirex will be wondering how they are going home with nothing. No outfield player for us performed particularly well as Jin-Hyeon had to be in top form to keep us in the game. Worryingly our new no.9 Edno “the Rock” lived up to his nickname by being a motionless inanimate object for most of the game before being subbed. Hopefully Culpi will change the starting line-up for the next game as quite a few players failed to impress but Ogihara's introduction added some urgency and bite to the midfield. An unexepectedly depressing moment came as we brought on the re-branded Branquinho who now goes by “Branco”. This is a guy we have on loan and we subsequently loaned to Yamagata in J2 as he proved to be largely ineffective last year. As he came on looking at his name on the scoreboard I thought it was a new signing until on closer inspection it turned out to be our unsuccessful loaned loanee sneaking back on to the pitch under a different name, very odd. In other news congratulations to Shinji Kagawa who grabbed a hat-trick in the early hours this morning for Man U against Norwich. Man U will visit Osaka in the summer for a friendly bringing with them overpriced tickets, an extra game in the middle of the J1 season and the Japanese superstar we sold for 350,000 Euros. All said and done we got 3 points but if we can't improve drastically we could well be flirting with relegation again. 

 

Cerezo Osaka 0-1 Albirex Niigata

Just under 10,000 for this game which started at 7pm on Saturday which this season will be the normal K.O. time at home for some reason. The Niigata fans gave their usual pre-match version of “Can't help falling in love with you” by Elvis, good stuff and fairplay to the traveling support in one of the most unwelcoming away areas in J1 (in Kincho Stadium at least). Yellow cards aplenty in this game, mostly for dissent with a couple of bad challenges thrown in to the mix too. Our new gaffer Sergio Soares has us trying harder to play possession football but...again it might be too early for a rant but so far our new striker, Kempes, looks awful (despite his derby winner). He managed to put one header over and contribute nothing else. Our other new Brazilian, Branquinho (who hasn't looked too bad so far) was taken off for Kakitani and later Ogihara was replaced by Bando as Soares decided to go all out for the three points. We weren't looking too solid at the back at this point as despite having lots of possession, Michael, their lively No.10 missed an open goal in the second half. Jin-Hyeon also made a couple of timley saves during the game. Clearly we were going to be exposed as our main attacking threat Bo-Kyung retreated to try and fill in for one half of our Olympic bound defensive midfield partnership. Niigata sub Yano scored close to full time with a well placed shot (did Kempes,our No.9, see that and realise it's possible?). So despite a great result away from home in the last match some Cerezo fans booed the team although you couldn't fault the team as a whole or indeed the manager going for the three points at home. Next up away to Urawa Reds tomorrow in the Nabisco cup followed by a trip to Kashima Antlers on Saturday in J1.   

Our fans in good voice, the boos came later...

The Niigata away supporters on a tiny grass patch below a huge screen (they obviously couldn't see)
displaying Cerezo and Japan U23 Olympic hopeful Hotaru Yamaguchi...it was worth the trip for them though.

Yano's 85th minute goal celebrations.

 

Arema 0-4 Cerezo

On a horrible pitch Cerezo looked really good in Indonesia, Inui got a couple following goals from Kiyotake and Pimpao. All of the goals featured some pretty slick passing and build up play. I don't know what happened to Arema, the team just didn't turn up and there was a huge gulf in class between the teams this time around.

We now have two home games in four days. Vegalta Sendai in the J-League will be a good test to see if we keep our confidence (Inui in particular) after an impressive performance. Vegalta of course is the team worst affected by the earthquake and there will a show of support from our fans with banners and memorial scarves.

Vegalta have started strongly this year and sit top of the table after four matches. Star player? Osaka-born captain Yong-Gi Ryang who plays for North Korea can provide and score goals if given the chance. It's a little worrying as our last performance at home (especially the first half) was awful against Albirex Niigata before Inui earned us point. It could be another frustrating night at Kincho Stadium. Midweek we have the crucial game against Shandong in the ACL where a win or draw will see us through to the next round.

C'mon linesman!

Insert Brazilian goalkeeper joke here.

On to Spurs, well on our way to blowing our chances of Champions League football next season. Although two non-goals by Chelsea weren't helpful we shouldn't be in the position of now worrying whether Liverpool can grab 5th and the Europa League spot by the end of the season. We play Blackpool at the Lane which will be on J-Sports Plus for viewers in Japan.