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
Extended higlights taken from the mainstand at Kincho
Jubilo
pulled back two goals in the last 5 minutes but the game should have
been over as a contest with Kempes missing two easy chances in either
half and Kakitani also being wasteful on one occasion. Kiyotake
scored a lucky first with a mis-hit shot then another Olympic bound
Cerezo midfielder, Ogihara, added the second as the Jubilo defence
looked shaky. Bo-Kyung (heading to London 2012 with Korea) continues
to play out of his skin though which is nice as he got our 3rd
of the night. Some news from our last away game against Kashima Antlers. The plastic bottle
throwing fans have been banned for life while the Cerezo team bus
kicking supporters have been banned for five games. Next game is in
Sapporo on Thursday as it's Golden Week followed by a Kansai Derby vs Kobe
in Osaka on Sunday.
Jubilo fans in the tiny away section
Just over 12,000 for this game
Detective Conan's half-time appearance
Kiyotake with Kakitani, as Kiyotake goes to Nuremburg
this summer Kakitani will be looking to take his place.
