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.

Internationals and charity matches

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!)...

ACL away in China: Shandong 2-0 Cerezo

Shandong Luneng were good, well done to our fans who made the trip, it was emotional after the earthquake/tsunami and I think most people at the stadium felt that. So we lost, but our first away game in the ACL was action packed and we had some good chances, it's all very new for Cerezo and the group itself is still obviously wide open. We can qualify but need to concentrate a whole lot more for 90 minutes. Jin-Hyeon also made a penalty save at the second attempt. Renato and Wang Yongpo scored for Shandong.

Shandong Sports Centre

...and the army were waiting inside.

A warm welcome...

In other news Spurs drew with West Ham which was shown live on J-Sports 2,featuring a MOM performance from their keeper Robert Green and an "I still love West Ham" performance from Jermain Defoe missing some good chances, and Wayne Bridge played really well for the Hammers. Plus we have Real Madrid to look forward to in the Champions League quarter finals. The main worry at the moment though is whether we (Spurs and/or Cerezo) can clinch another Champions League spot for next season.

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.

All J-League games are cancelled today.

Because of the earthquake all games are off. That's it, we're lucky compared to those who were living closer to the centre of it. It was huge, people in Osaka could feel it, look at this map of Japan and see the distance from Miyagi where it happened, that's really far.

Spurs into the Quarter Finals, Cerezo face Kashiwa Reysol on Saturday

Not our usual type of performance in Europe but that's all we needed to beat AC Milan, the current league leaders in Serie A! Great stuff, COYS! Because AC Milan are my team in Italy and as a reminder of just some of their past glories here's Capello's Milan vs Cruyff's Barcelona back in the 1994 Final. Great game, legendary team. Better than the current Barcelona team? We will never know.

Cerezo's next opponents are newly promoted Kashiwa Reysol who won their first game back in J1 3-0 last week so will be on a high. It will be interesting to see if Culpi tinkers with the starting 11 for this game. The game will be played in Kincho Stadium. A bit of nostalgic trivia, Reysol can boast having once fielded Brazilian star striker Careca and later Bulgarian Hristo Stoichkov. Of their current crop of imports Brazilian midfielder Leandro Domingues is a key player and he got on the scoresheet last week. Come on Cerezo!

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