Kiyotake helping Japan get to London next year

Kiyotake had a hand in both goals against Malaysia and he's making progress for the full national side too this year. Great pass for the first goal and he picked out someone in the box for the second. From Cerezo Yamaguchi and  Ogihara also made appearances.

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 2 Cerezo Osaka

Kawasaki had some good chances and Jin-Hyeon recovered well after he's become something of a youtube sensation due to his error last week. But he produced a solid display including a couple of quality saves from stinging shots, one of which ended with him hitting the post, dedication. In the end that was enough to see us take the three points. We scored another goal from a very similar corner to our last game where Kiyotake was able to head in from the 6-yard box. Our second came from a nice build up and Kurata finished the move well. Also well done to whoever works on set-pieces in training, we saw some threatening and carefully though out free-kicks the kind of which I have never seen before. Perhaps they do this stuff in Brazil all the time but I haven't seen it. But the three points takes us further away from the bottom which is important for Cerezo fans after we finished 3^rd last season, it's always a worry we might get relegated! Our first half display was too god for Frontale who picked things up in the second half but couldn't get nything out of the game. A good turnout and atmosphere for the game which included a minute silence for the recently deceased Naoki Matsuda. Terrible news. Our fans chanted his name after the silence was over and had a banner to pay our respects. Kiyotake's good form continiued against Korea on Wednesday in Sapporo's full international between the two neighbouring countries. He got a couple of assists while Kagawa got two goals. Kim Bo-Kyung also came off the bench for Korea who were surprisingly poor. Next up it's Osaka derby time!

Kawasaki's stadium, in the middle of nowhere

Cerezo fans' message to Naoki Matsuda

Another innovative free kick

Kim Bo-Kyung delivers a corner

Our away support bring the noise and colour

Two wins in the J-League so far!

We played Ventforet Kofu without Kiyotake who was on Olympic qualifying duty (see you in London!) with Japan U22s and Inui becuase of his possible move to the Bundesliga. Read Culpi's thoughts about an Inui move here. Is Inui that good? He's been great in the ACL this year and previously in J2 but he must have a good agent I guess, he managed 4 goals in 33 matches in J1 last season. Despite that it only took a goal each from our subs Komatsu and Bando in the 85min and in injury time respectively to get us our second win this season. Tomorrow Nagoya visit Kincho with their legendary manager Dragan Stojkovic, Japanese international defender Tulio and the J-League's joint top goalscorer last season (they were champions by the way) Australian Joshua Kennedy.

Kiyotake scores the first against the mighty Kuwait 3-1 to Nippon 

Weekend roundup and Tuesday's Champions League double!

Spurs ruthlessly drew 0-0 at Wigan to remain in 5th and out of contention for a Champions League spot for now. Lots of live Premier League games this weekend on J-Sports, here's hoping Man City slip up tonight. Here's an interesting interview with Sandro one of our star Champions League performers. Spurs play Real Madrid away on Tuesday with Bale likely to be fit but our usual injury problems at centre back.. Real lost at the Bernabeu this weekend which was, amazingly, Jose Mourinho's first home loss for 9 years! Higuain also returned after a four month absence in this game. Elsewhere in Europe an important result in Italy's Serie A with the Milan derby finishing 3-0 in AC Milan's favour.

Our Korean opponents

Japan were scheduled to make their second appearance since 1999 in the Copa America this July but the JFA are now considering what do after the disaster. Cerezo take on Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in Nagai Stadium this Tuesday. Jeonbuk are previous winners of the ACL in 2006 and scored four without reply in their last ACL game in Indonesia against Arema. They look like the toughest team we will face in this group. In world football news the Asian football boss Bin Hammam will challenge Sepp Blatter for the FIFA presidency.

Gambare Nippon Charity match in Nagai

Zaccheroni's JFA (Samurai Blue)  beat Stojkovic's J-League (Team as One) 2-1 last night. A free kick from Endo and a calm finish from Okazaki in the first half followed by a crowd pleasing wonderfully taken goal by the Japanese (44 year old) legend Kazuyoshi 'King Kazu' Miura. All the proceeds from this match go towards helping those affected by the earthquake/tsunami on March 11th.

A moment's silence

A sold out Nagai Stadium

In other news England drew with a vibrant Ghana side 1-1, the 8th most expensive player ever, Andy Carroll, scoring for England before Sunderland striker Asamoah Gyan scored an injury time equaliser. But of course the main story is about Japan with many supporters at Nagai Stadium donating plus the magic of seeing a Japanese superstar footballer scoring in front of an adoring crowd. Gambare Nippon indeed. Anyone watching Football Italia many years ago might remember this from Kazu while he was playing for Genoa in Serie A.

English information about the earthquake/tsunami

Here are some useful links in English (most have information about sending donations from anywhere) for:

Lots of useful information from Google's Crisis Response
A blog providing many links in English to the affected areas and updates
What to send if you live in Japan
How to help if you live in Japan

Click on the above to go to those pages.

Stadium choices for Cerezo, Spurs and West Ham!

Tickets went on sale yesterday for our first home Asian Champions League game against Arema from Indonesia. This game will be played in Nagai Stadium, the one with a running track. The choice is most likely down to the fact you can fit a lot more people in this stadium but the fans are pretty far from the action, West Ham take note. Our first home game in the J-League will be in Kincho stadium which has a reduced capacity but the fans are much closer to the action, possibly the closest you can get in Japan. It's a difficult one, since I've been watching we rarely get huge crowds at the former World Cup venue, with the athletics track. Look at the layout of the two stadiums below. The prices are the same for both stadiums with the pink being sections being the cheapest! It seems odd that Cerezo can choose between 2, or indeed 3, grounds all in the same park while Spurs and West Ham have both been encouraged to go for gold, in the Olympic sense so to speak in East London.

Kincho Stadium

Nagai Stadium ( Complete with athletics facilities! )

So West Ham won the bid to take over the Olympic Stadium. It is going to be in East London but there are so many question marks about the future under the Hammers. Can they fill the stadium (heading into the Championship as they are) ? Will the Boleyn faithfull be happy with having the track between them and the players? So it's back to the drawing board for Spurs and the new stadium but here's a quick reminder of what the club had on the drawing board for the Olympic site ( no athletics stuff here! ).

London - look at what we could have had...

Some notes about the Asian Cup

Congratulations to Japan, Zaccheroni and finally Tadanari Lee for this spectacular winner!

The final also saw fans with tickets being locked out but not to worry Qatar has many years to avoid a repeat before the World Cup. Low attendances in the tournament could have been due to the poor showing from the teams from Qatar and her close neighbours.