It's a blog (in English mostly) all about football...in Japan with the J-League and Cerezo Osaka, in the English Premier League with Spurs and anywhere else the football takes us.
New manager Yuji Okuma started with a win against Jubilo Iwata who are 3rd in J2 and as we are currently 3rd from bottom in J1 that should make us pretty evenly matched right? Just over 4000 people turned up for this in a stadium that was used in a World Cup so you can imagine it looked a bit odd. Kusukami started and showed what he can bring to the team by setting up Minamino who finished well for the first. Ryo Nagai worked tirelessly all night and was rewarded with a goal he took thanks to his speedy footwork and thinking. Our injured captain Yamaguchi wasn't missed as we got our first meaningful win in a long time. Everyone put a decent shift in tonight compared to our performances in the league. I'm hoping Okuma doesn't feel pressured to bring back any big names, match-fit or not, for the next game on Saturday against 6th place Kashiwa Reysol. Kagawa has returned to Dortmund recently but in bigger news Mitch Nichols quietly joined Perth Glory on loan after a ridiculously wasted (first?) spell in Osaka.
The unusually sparsely populated I4
This is what a world cup stadium looks like for a dry Wednesday night Emperor's Cup game in Osaka
Someone's sitting there mate
The acoustics are great in Yanmar Stadium so their efforts were heard
Lonely jobs, all of them, cameraman (or woman?), manager and linesman (or woman or assistant referee?)
New gaffer Yuji Okuma gets nervous as he is surrounded...by drink bottles lined up and ready to spring the offside trap
A very exciting but annoying game due to the fact that we should have walked this but the players weren't bothered to impress new manager Marco Pezzaiuoli and made hard work of knocking Veertien Kuwana out. Yamaguchi started after returning from the World Cup. It looked like Veertien would pull off an upset for large periods but I wonder how good they really are or whether we were just poor on the day. Jin-Hyeon was lucky not to see red and give away a penalty even though the Veertien player was looking for it. U18 player Masaki Sakamoto replaced Sakemoto at half time and saved us with two goals in extra time. For anyone wondering "Veertien" means 14 in Dutch. The Kuwana kit is similar to the Oranje one so is their name Cruyff inspired? Partly, it could also be because there are 11 players plus 3 subs and additionally Kuwana has a population of 140,000. So plenty of good reasons there then. To be fair a look their fixture list shows them facing a team called "Black Kitty". This win means we will face Kataller Toyama in the next round in August so I'll let you know what Kataller means then.
Kincho is no longer "Awaycist" as we have added proper seats to the grassy knoll that used to welcome visitors
In good spirits as usual despite a frustrating evening
Gamba
squeezed through past Ossie Ardiles' Machida Zelvia who were rooted
to the bottom of J2 for most of the season and find themselves in the
JFL (Japan Football League) next season. Shame for Ossie, I was
hoping to catch a game to see the Spurs legend but it looks like the
Ardiles experiment has backfired for Machida. We knocked four past
Shimizu to progress. Special mention goes to “one for the future”
(ie. expect him to leave for Germany if he fulfils his potential) 17
year old Takumi Minamino with a great finish for our first and his
first senior goal. In the second half Hotaru Yamaguchi made it two
connecting with a nice cross from Sakemoto. Kenyu Sugimoto settled
the nerves further in an open game with a good finish in off the
post. Speed demon Kurata finished things off calmly when he found
himself through with only the keeper to beat. The score flattered to
deceive but let's see if we can knock out Gamba Suita in the next
round. Exciting stuff awaits this Sunday in Nagai Stadium!
Worth watching to see a 17 year old kid's first senior goal. The Cerezo youth system continues to produce gifted players.
Branquinho
looked up for it last night with a point to prove as he's currently
on loan from us. His corner was nodded in by Montedio's Maeda as our
2nd choice keeper Matsui came of his line and achieved
nothing but helping to give away a soft goal. After a dreadfully flat
first half where if you didn't know beforehand you would be hard
pressed to figure out which team was in J1 or J2 Culpi threw on
Sugimoto and Edamura for Kempes who was awful today and the lively
but ineffectual Heberty. I was expecting these two to start today as
it would've given them a chance to prove themselves. As it is despite
Sugimoto's goal sadly I don't expect he will get a decent run in the
team while Kempes is about. It's a shameful waste of talent
especially seens as in the league we have nothing much to play for,
start with them Culpi! Captain Kota Fujimoto's belter sees us in the
hat for the next round, a goal from an unexpected source and likely
to be the best he'll ever score, fabulous winning goal but overall a
poor performance.
