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.
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.
Cerezo won 2-0 against Kyoto Purple Sanga in a charity match on Saturday with goals from Takahashi and Pimpao. J1 and J2 fixtures will now resume from the 23rd of April and our ACL game against Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors on Tue 5th April in Osaka is unaffected. England beat a poor Welsh team 2-0, Lampard pen and Darren Bent goal early in the first half. Tomorrow there is a huge charity game between the JFA and J-League in Nagai Stadium, tickets selling out ridiculously quickly along with huge queues in Nagai park to watch the practices today and yesterday. The highlight of this weekend fixtures for me though was one particular friendly, Brazil v Scotland, played at the Emirates for some (£$?) reason, why not in Scotland? The emergence of the next Brazilian superstar perhaps? Enjoy Neymar (he's 19, which might explain his haircut!)...
