Tokushima Vortis 0 - 2 Cerezo Osaka

Glad we got the points obviously but this was a poor quality game at the Pocari Sweat Stadium. Thanks to a great free kick from Yamaguchi and an own goal by Chiyotanda we came away from Tokushima with 3 points. This was Tokushima's first home game in J1 and they may struggle to stay up based on this performance. Cerezo will also need to find another gear when we come up against better teams. Fans were treated to an Awa Odori show at halftime showcasing Tokushima's famous festival of dance. Serbian Gojko Kacar started his first game at centre-back and looked comfortable. On Tuesday we face Shandong Luneng in the ACL.

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The season opener is as damp as the weather for Cerezo

A crowd of 37079 were in the renamed Yanmar Stadium yesterday to watch the J1 season opener against reigning champions Hiroshima. Our fans were a bit impatient throughout perhaps expecting immediate results despite a new manager and a few new signings. Ogihara was disappointing but having more competition for places this season means he will be forced to perform with greater consistency. Hasegawa didn't contribute much either hopefully he just needs a few games to settle in. Forlan wasn't fully match fit but showed glimpses of how his link up play with Kakitani could lead to a fair few goals. Ultimately this was the kind of performance and result you would expect against Sanfrecce. Our defending, as ever, never looked solid enough to inspire confidence while we were having one of those days when our attacking play wasn't clicking either. Shiotani scored an unchallenged volley from Chiba's pass who despite being surrounded by pink kits was allowed to find his man. Sugimoto was brought on for Forlan but it would have been nice to see Ryo Nagai who is more direct and arguably more of a goal threat. Interesting to see his development after being loaned out to Perth Glory. Ogihara was eventually subbed for Serbian loanee Kacar. Hasegawa came off for Kusukami and he immediately injected some urgency into our attacking play. Notsuda missed a great opportunity to make it two for the visitors but one goal was enough to bring us back to reality. I fear that a lot of our support were expecting too much too soon especially considering this was our first game in the league and it was against the defending champions. Although there wasn't a huge difference in terms of quality with Cerezo and J1 all predictions for this season are out of the window although considering Yanmar's considerable investment this season it would be nice to improve upon our 4th place last year. New manager Popovic will be looking to introduce some of our new signings for a full 90 minutes especially as we have a busy few weeks ahead with our Asian Champions League group matches. It will be interesting to see how Popovic utilises the likes of Mitch Nichols and Gojko Kacar. We have to get used to not having Simplicio's midfield presence too. Last week we did well to get a point away in an ill-tempered game in Korea against Pohang Steelers with Kakitani scoring another beauty (video below).

The pink ponchos were out in force on a rainy day

Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do? Leave with 3 points thank you

Kacar's positions according to Football Manager

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Omiya sack their manager after losing 0-3 to Cerezo

Omiya are still 4^th while we should take no small amount of confidence into the next few games with this performance. This was Omiya's fifth straight defeat and signalled the end of manager Zdenko Verdenik's time in charge after leaving Omiya in 4^th place (they have never finished above 12^th in the top flight) and going on a J.League record unbeaten run of 21 games. What's the big idea? Omiya were league leaders back in April but apparently there will be an announcement from the club later which will do well to justify such a move. Moving swiftly on to more positive things and the second goal is becoming Kakitani's trademark, assured first touch and a calm finish. Simplicio put in a good shift today too. After this game Cupli challenged Kakitani to stay near or on top of the goalscoring charts and disappear in games less often while Kakitani himself said he wants to win J1 with Cerezo. Home supporter tickets are in very short supply for the next game against Shimizu S-Pulse on the 17^th. Enjoy the highlights below and for all who come on Saturday, bring the noise!

Tut-tut, a bit of booing at the end of our loss to Ventforet Kofu

A game were expecting to win but after a couple of poor results hopefully Kakitani's goals will stop us from freefalling but we are in danger of missing one of our best chances in recent seasons to finish with a spot in the ACL. Kusakami started his first league game since joining us and was our most impressive player. We tried or were instructed to intricately pass our way directly through the Kofu team whilst on numerous occasions while our full-backs waved their arms in despair. One of the key successes of our way if playing is the width provided by our full-backs, which does leave us vulnerable with four at the back, but we didn't use them enough today. Culpi took off Kakitani and Kusukami a few minutes after Ventforet's Akito Kawamoto put the away side a goal up with what proved to be the winner. An odd change as Kusakami was looking dangerous throughout. A change of tactics would have been better especially after the nth attempt of playing through the middle was dealt with by Ventforet. A few fans in Kincho Stadium were booing at the end despite this being a young team needing support and, be fair to them, they aren't flirting with relegation like last season.

Kakitani Documentary

Interesting, more so if you can understand the Japanese, sorry no plans to add English subtitles. But you get see how the hype started with a teenage Kakitani impressing at the U17 World Cup a few years back and the ups and downs of his career since then. This was shown before another great tournament performance from him in South Korea in the East Asian Cup.

 

Albirex Niigata 1 - 0 Cerezo Osaka

This was a game we were expecting to at least come away from with a point but after Edno spurned our best chance created by Kakitani we were left with nothing as another bit of dodgy goalkeeping from Jin-Hyeon presented the ball to a grateful Kentaro Ohi who wrapped up the 3 points for Albirex. This video shows highlights of the all the recent J.League games with a focus on the returning heroes from the East Asian Cup in South Korea where Zaccheroni was successful with an experimental squad. Kakitani scored 3 goals in the two games he started including a brace that sealed victory for Japan. Yamaguchi was named player of the tournament while Ogihara also made his debut for the national team. From a Cerezo point of view this has raised the profile of the young players making it tougher to hold on to them when foreign clubs start their approaches. But another way of looking at it is that now they are under pressure to be consistent performers which will only help us in the league this season. After that who knows? The Cerezo highlights start at 03:24 on the video and are followed by a chat with Kakitani.

Cerezo Osaka 4 - 1 Sagan Tosu

An entertainingly open game and there could have been more goals but for the woodwork and of course the goalkeepers. Spreading the goals around a bit this game with the player of the East Asian Cup tournament Yamaguchi scoring the first after Kakitani's persistence. Sakemoto scored a bit of a fluke goal before Sagan Tosu scored their only goal of the game. Yokoyama got our third and had a fine game in a midfield lacking Simplicio anchored by him and Ogihara allowing Yamaguchi to play further forward. Defender Yamashita scored the fourth which was also a just reward for his recent performances deputising for Moniwa.