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.

Osaka Derby result : Gamba 2 - 1 Cerezo

Our fans in flag waving mode

Wouldn't you know it? Adriano opened the scoring for Gamba. Uemoto gave away a penalty which Endo proceeded to miss thanks to Kim's save. Kurata, on loan from Gamba, got a fortunate deflection to level the score. Endo, who was superb apart from the penalty, ensured Gamba got the three points with a really good finish. It was closer than I expected but depsite Cerezo bringing a very large number of away supporters to Bampaku it was not to be for us.   

Gamba fans were in good voice for the derby

Endo about to have his penalty saved by Kim

A match made in Osaka

Something old...

Before we became Cerezo Osaka we were Yanmar Diesel and this was our kit

 Something new...

The J-League kicks off today!

Something borrowed...

Most of our new players this season are on loan. I was going to do a preview but instead here's a link to Ryuji Bando's thoughts on the new season from www.goal.com in English, great interview. Also 'borrowed' from the same site, here is an interesting atricle by Cesare Polenghi about the transer system in Japanese football and why it's bad for Japanese clubs. Will anything change in the near future? Finally some comments from Levir Culpi in the Japan Times following our ACL debut.

Something blue...

The Gamba kit, Endo really needs a haircut