Yokohama FM 0-0 Urawa (Nabisco Cup)

Barry writes:

Yokohama FM 0-0 Urawa

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And with that display of sheer bloody mindedness, Urawa (who were already out of the competition), gleefully dragged their old rivals down with them. The Saitama reds knew they had more to play for then just their pride - there was of course the chance to royally screw over a bitter enemy.

And screw them over they did, doggedly defending, rushing them on the counter attack, and wasting time at every opportunity until the ref finally blew his whistle deep into the 95th minute. A single goal would have put Yokohama through to the knock out stage at our expense, but Urawa made it their mission to see it didn't happen.

So all that works out just dandy for us, as the group B final standings look a little like this:

#		Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	D	Pts
1		iwata	6	4	1	1	12	5	+7	13
2		S-PULSE	6	3	2	1	6	3	+3	11
3		Yamagata	6	3	1	2	6	6	+0	10
4		Yokohama FM	6	2	3	1	6	3	+3	9
5		Urawa	6	2	2	2	6	6	+0	8
6		Kobe	6	2	1	3	8	10	-2	7
7		Shonan	6	0	0	6	4	15	-11	0

Iwata's impotence in front of goal clearly came to a head at the Yamaha Stadium tonight, as they released Sunday's frustrations all over Yamagata's face in a veritable ejaculation of goals. A 5-0 win for the sky blues (their largest victory for roughly 152 years) sent the visitors out. Given all they needed was a draw to progress, any Mountain Kings who made the journey to iwata tonight will have just cause to be a little peeved at their team's capitulation.

So the next round of fixtures lines up thusly:

Quarter Finals 1st Leg
September 1st 2010 (Wed)

Kashima v Kawasaki
iwata v Sendai
G. Osaka v Hiroshima
FC Tokyo v S-PULSE

Quarter Finals 2nd Leg
September 8th 2010 (Wed)

Kawasaki v Kashima
Sendai v iwata
Hiroshima v G. Osaka
S-PULSE v FC Tokyo

These games happen to fall when I'm back in England for a week, so it pains me to report I'll be missing my first home game of the season. That said, I'll be there for the semi final first leg against either Hiroshima or G. Osaka on September 29th should we make it. The return leg on October 10th I may or may not treat myself to (it's the day before my birthday after all!).