Kofu 1-2 S-Pulse

Barry writes:

Kofu 1-2 S-Pulse
Paulinho 42 ------ Ono 29
------------------------ Omae 45 (+1)

Att. 12114

Line Up

GK Usui

DF Tsujio
DF Iwashita
DF Bosnar
DF Ota

MF Ono
MF Muramatsu (yellow 68)
MF Kobayashi

FW Brosque
FW Takahara
FW Omae

Subs Used

Hiraoka on for Iwashita (HT)
Sugiyama on for Ono (60)
Edamura on for Tsujio (73)

Report

I'm not going to lie - we were fortunate to come away with all three points today. But for two or three heart-stopping, nay STUNNING saves, from Usui, we'd have drawn this. But, you know, it works both ways. If you can't beat a keeper one on one not once but twice, then you don't deserve to equalise.

We got battered for the final 35 minutes having started the second half so well, but could thwart Kofu's attempts for the most part. The couple of times they broke through Usui played a bloody blinder to stop at point blank range certain equalisers.

The first half was better, and Kofu's constant standing off of Bosnar allowed us to push further and further into their half which gave us several good chances. After Ono's stunning strike to open the scoring it was his own sliding tackle on the halfway line (even geniuses make mistakes) which bounced through our back line and let Paulinho in in the 42nd minute. He rounded Usui and stroked it home. Bollocks. But playing right up to the whistle, Genki was on hand, totally unmarked, to volley in a Tsujio cross.

Taking over the Chugin Stadium

Despite the one sided second half, we held on for the the win riding our luck, but that's football, and the boys bag another three points. jubilo lost again meaning we climb above the sky blue scum bags. It's been a while coming, but is the natural order of the J. League, so we can all rest easy tonight knowing things are as they're meant to be.

Wednesday we head to Sendai to play a Vegalta team who just lost in the 94th minute to Kashiwa. Three more points and we could reach the heady heights of 5th. Blimey.

Ghotbi Says

Translated back from Japanese.

"I think it was a really exciting game for the supporters. There was lots of goal mouth action and we scored to great goals. Ono often scores goals like that in practice, so we've been waiting for him to do it in a game!

Kofu fought with all their power, especially in the second half. They've got some good players and are a dangerous team. Usui made some great saves and our centre backs defended well.

I was really happy to see Sugiyama back after a long injury lay off. I want to congratulate the club doctor and medical staff for working with him for such a long time. I know how good he is, and make no mistake, his return is going to help us as a team."

Videos

Full highlights (thanks, William!):