FC Tokyo 1-0 S-Pulse (Nabisco Cup Semi-Final 2nd Leg)

Barry writes:

FC Tokyo 1-0 S-Pulse
Hirayama 16

FC Tokyo win 3-2 on aggregate

Att. 22181

Report

Right, suggestions for fun ways to spend Culture Day please? It suddenly became freed up.

Errr, sorry, what?　;-)

It was a bit of disaster all round for our boys. Nagai limped off before the first half was even up and Aoyama went off injured on 56 minutes. Despite that, and the lack of Iwashita and Okazaki which had an obvious impact, for spells we looked OK. However, the fact we had nearly double the corners but only half the shots of the home team tells the story.

Perhaps a quarter of our turn out

Coming out to rapturous welcome

There was a lot of forward movement and nice passing play which carved routes through the Tokyo midfield, but the end product just wasn't there. The one or two clear cut shots we had ended up in the stands or in the safe hands of Gonda.

No Hara on ｔhe bench (he's still out for another week or so) meant we were reduced to throwing Nagasawa on for the last 20 minutes. No disrespect to him, but when he's your final roll of the dice to get goals, you pretty much know it's a lost cause.

Full time and the cup dream is over for another year

So in isolation, and given the absence of Okazaki, Iwashita, Hara, and Nagai and Aoyama's enforced substitutions, not a horrendous performance. But of course, this was a cup semi-final second leg which we had to win. We didn't, and wouldn't have if we'd played till midnight, so that's that for 2009's Nabisco Cup run.

My best wishes to the fans of Kawasaki and Tokyo - cup final day is a wonderful experience, so have a great one. Me? I'll be washing my hair...

Line Up

GK K. Yamamoto

DF Ichikawa
DF Aoyama
DF Arata
DF Ota

MF Edamura
MF Honda
MF Ito
MF Hyodo

FW Johnsen
FW Nagai

Subs Used

Fujimoto on for Nagai (42)
Hiraoka on for Aoyama (56)
Nagasawa on for Ito (70)

Videos etc

Reports from The Rising Sun can be read here. Official pictures can be found here (top row).

Highlights of this, and the other, semi final: