S-Pulse 1-5 Nagoya

Barry writes:

S-Pulse 1-5 Nagoya
Edamura 47 -------------- Tamada 50, 62, 71
----------------------------------Kennedy 58, 83

Att. 19496

Line Up

GK Nishibe

DF Hiraoka
DF Iwashita (red 69)
DF Bosnar
DF Ota (yellow 8)

MF Hyodo
MF Honda
MF Ono

FW Okazaki
FW Johnsen
FW Fujimoto

Subs Used

Edamura on for Fujimoto (25)
M. Yamamoto on for Ono (68)
Tsujio on for Hiraoka (68)

Report

Faith: You know you're gonna live thru the rain
Lord you got to keep the faith
Faith: Don't let your love turn to hate
Right now we got to keep the faith!

Not my words, the words of John Francis Bongiovi. And who are we to argue with the multi-million selling god of mild rock? The fact is, our chances of a first J. League title are now pretty slim, and barring an apocalyptic collapse aka Urawa in 2007, Nagoya should be champions come December.

Any Nagoya disaster would of course have to come in tandem with an S-Pulse winning streak akin to what Kashima put together in '07 in pipping Urawa to the title, and who can honestly see that happening? So while a league title is pretty unlikely, an ACL spot is still a very real possibility and has to be the goal. But hey, this is the J. League where crazy stuff happens, so we're teaming up with Bon Jovi and are keeping the faith!

The league apart, we've got a league cup semi final to think about, and given the Nabisco is currently our best chance of silverware, we should be putting EVERYTHING into Wednesday's game with Hiroshima. No Nagasawa up front, please. No Ono on the bench, please. No half measures, for goodness sake.

Your guess is as good as mine

So what about Saturday? The difference was finishing. Much like our game earlier in the year with Sendai, there actually wasn't a great deal to choose between the teams, either in the first half or in the second up to Iwashita's sending off. Up until Keisuke's red for pulling down a red on his route to goal, the then 3-1 scoreline was still a mountain not impossible to climb. (EDIT - having finally brought myself to watch the replay, it's clear contact was minimal, the striker went down - dived - like a sack of shit, and Bosanr was still available to attempt a final tackle meaning he wasn't clear through on goal. A red card was not the right decision. The referee clearly made a bad call.) But not only were we then down to ten men, they went and scored from the freekick. 4-1 behind and a man down? Yep, there are better situations to be in.

The reds roll into Shimizu

It was all about Nagoya's prowess in front of goal. Our handful of chances went agonizingly wide, including one at 2-1 which preluded the visitor's third goal by just a few minutes. We took the lead through substitute Edamura who had replaced Fujimoto early in the game, but Nagoya replied almost straight away, and then wasted not much time in taking the lead. After that it was all a bit of blur, with Iwashita's red (and the following goal) the end of the game as a contest. But despite the horrendous scoreline, at 11 v 11 we were at no point completely overrun. We obviously have to be better against Kashima on Saturday, but I don't expect another baseball score.

Word

So in summery, a bloody nightmare. But, bollocks, what's done is done, and now it's all about Wednesday. Forget about playing the defending champs until Thursday.

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