Chiba 1-2 S-Pulse

Barry writes:

Chiba 1-2 S-Pulse
Fukai 58 ---------------Okazaki 18
-----------------------------Aoyama 80

Att. 15142

I didn't go up to Chiba for this one, although our travelling army was out in force as ever. I also didn't see it, on account of being in Kansai for the weekend. I got back late last night, hence the late update to the site.

While I was over enjoying Universal Studios, the boys were doing the business grabbing another vital three away points. Okazaki and Johnsen demonstrated their increasingly deadly partnership to open the scoring. JEF levelled in the second half with a cracking goal from Fukai before Aoyama connected with a long free kick to grab a rare goal, and what turned out to be the winner.

With many teams above us dropping points, we could make up some ground on the top five. Next up is Urawa in the league cup before facing them again next Sunday in the league. They've lost their last two, away to bottom of the table Oita (who have lost 15 from their last 16) and they got spanked at home 3-0 by Nagoya on Saturday, so it's as good a time as ever to play them.

Click here for the full up to date league table. Our match with Albirex Niigata in a fortnight is going to be a huge yardstick as to how we can expect the second half of the season is going to go. Compared to last year, we're well placed and have it all to look forward to!

Line Up

GK K. Yamamoto

DF Ichikawa
DF Iwashita
DF Arata
DF Ota

MF Fujimoto
MF Ito
MF Honda
MF Edamura

FW Okazaki
FW Johnsen

Subs used

Aoyama on for Fujimoto (HT)
Hara on for Ota (60)
Paulo on for Okazaki (89)

Videos

Full highlights:

And finally, a video of part of the excellent Hollywood Dreams rollercoaster at USJ.



I loved it. :)

S-Pulse 2-1 Chiba (Nabisco Cup)

Barry writes:

Three points, and with FC Tokyo beating Yamagata, it's means we can possibly clinch our place in round two with a win away at Kobe on Sunday.

A second half corner for us

A plus 10000 crowd for a midweek Nabisco Cup game for the first time in nearly a decade - brilliant work from the S-Pulse massive, and it was a pretty entertaining affair, all told. We lost Masaki to injury just three minutes in, but Honda stepped up and did an excellent job in his stead.

Hara opened the scoring on 19 minutes with a great finish from a Jungo through ball. It's his first goal for a while, so will do his confidence the world of good. 70 minutes later Johnsen pulled a ball back for a free and advancing Hyodo who, to my surprise, didn't smash it out the stadium, instead he drove a low, hard and sweetly struck shot past the keeper into the back of the net.

Leaving stuff unattended for the entire game isn't uncommon. It wouldn't happen in Liverpool!

Shortly after that, Chiba pulled one back, but nobody really noticed, and it was soon all over. Let's do the business on Sunday and give ourselves a stress-free final match day against Tokyo in a fortnight.

Player celebrations reach new levels of gayness :-D

Line Up:

GK K. Yamamoto

DF Takaki
DF Aoyama
DF Iwashita
DF Kodama

MF Fujimoto
MF M. Yamamoto
MF Edamura
MF Hyodo

FW Johnsen
FW Hara

Subs used

Honda on for M. Yamamoto (3)
Paulo on for Hara (75)
Tsujio on for Fujimoto (83)

Highlights

Extended highlights courtesy of You Tube user imoimo9's personal cam.



Official pictures can be found here.

S-Pulse 2-2 Chiba

Forget your glamour of Gamba Osaka winning the Asian Champions League and forget your glory of Kashima Antlers securing back to back J. League titles. This is the true nuts and bolts, bread and butter, and any other clichés you want to throw into the mix, this is what your average J. League match day is all about.

Awful conditions made it something of a lottery

A hard-fought two all draw in the pouring rain? After last night and our Reysol meeting, I've felt recently like I've been transported back to England where I spent countless evenings watching football in the rain when I should have been out meeting girls or something. Last night at two nil down, dripping wet and with time running out, my fighting spirit and belief was in danger of running out with it.

What followed was a late, late show from our boys in orange, with Johnsen (80) and Edamura (88) chipping in with goals to salvage a point from what looked like a lost cause. I'm not ashamed to say I had tears of relief in my eyes when Edamura smashed the ball home with barely 120 seconds left. Eight minutes before that, Johnsen's first goal in an orange shirt had got us back in a game where our hopes were on the verge of disappearing down the drain with the falling rain and the spilt beer. It's taken a while coming, but now that issue has been put to rest the big man can concentrate on adding to his tally.

Well, four draws on the bounce, and while we've not lost since the derby, we've not won, or really looking like winning. Now are these games we'd have lost last year? Are these points we would have dropped entirely in 2008? I'm tempted, in my blind faith in all things bright orange, to say YES, and that yeah, we've drawn games we should have probably won on paper, but we've also drawn games we might easily have lost. It's easy to forget that before winning the (fictional) second stage last year, we had such horrible days at the office as the 4-1 spanking by later-to-be relegated Verdy.

So what's my point? To quote detective Columbo, I'm not sure I have one. Anyway, onwards we go and it's champions, best team in the country and all round tough old nut Kashima away on Sunday. It'll be nice to play a team who doesn't swamp the midfield (Hiroshima had six midfielders while Chiba had five) so we may be able to play some more football. Having etched out narrow draws with the likes of Reysol and Chiba, we'll probably go and beat Kashima 2-0. :-D

Just one more thing, after yesterday we are in dire need of a good performance, as the crowd reaction last night shows:



Line Up:

GK Nishibe

DF Takaki
DF Aoyama
DF Iwashita
DF Arata

MF Hyodo
MF Ito
MF Yamamoto
MF Edamura

FW Nagai
FW Okazaki

Subs used:

Johnsen on for Yamamoto (67)
Hara on for Nagia (67)
Tsujio on for Takaki (78)

Links:

Read another perspective here, from Mike Tuckerman. Click here for The Rising Sun's match report.

Highlights:

Kyoto Sanga 1-3 S-Pa

J. League 2008 is over!

Champions: Kashima Antlers
ACL Qualification: Kashima Antlers, Nagoya Grampus, Kawasaki Frontale
Relegated: Condadore Sapporo, Tokyo Verdy
Promotion Relegation series: Jubilo Iwata (J1) v Vegalta Sendai (J2)

What a great way to end the season. :)

Highlights:



I wasn't at the game, or watching on TV, as I was deep behind enemy lines at the Yamaha Stadium watching Jubilo crash to defeat at the hands of Omiya. The defeat puts them into the promotion / relegation series with Sendai. The second, and home, leg for Jubilo is next Saturday, so I'll probably wander over to Iwata again, yellow t-shirt in hand. ;-) While we'd all like to see Jubilo drop, I'd seriously miss the derby next season should Jubilo go down, so it's win win for many S-Pulse fans. The fact they even have to play in this series is a humongous embarrassment to all connected with the club, so even if they stay up, you could argue they will have suffered enough! The last three pro / rele ties have all gone the way of the J2 side, so Jubilo are up against it!

The story of the day today was in Chiba, where the miracle escape was made even more miraculous by the fact they were 2-0 down before they came back to win 4-2. Losses for both Jubilo and Verdy meant they leapfrogged both teams to preserve their J1 status. Well done Chiba and especially Alex Miller who truly did perform a miracle!

Well, we went out on a high, and we have every right to look forward to our Emperor's Cup 1/4 final with optimism. Opponents FC Tokyo were the team on the receiving end of Chiba's four goals today, and as a result were displaced into 6th place by us who finished this season a respectable 5th. Had Aurelio put away the last minute penalty back against Omiya earlier in the season we would have equalled 2006 and 2007's finish of 4th. No matter - it's been a roller-coaster season and we ended it on a high. 5th place also brings with it a cool 40 000 000 yen. Nice! Now just bring on the cup on the 20th!

S-Pa 3-2 JEF United

Here's an excellent video from the last home game of the season which captures all the fun of the game, a great video of this year's last Loco Loco, and an awesome shot of our very own UK Ultras flag in the centre of the screen for several seconds. Enjoy!



Now the goals individually, starting with Hyodo's boomer.



From an alternate angle:



Our second:



Our third:



Lucky for JEF, both Jubilo and Verdy lost. All the best for next week!

S-Pa v JEF United (Preview)

I can't believe we're here already - the last home game of the season! Since March, the year has just flown by, and it'll be with a heavy heart that I make my way up to Nihondaira tomorrow morning. No more 'Daira for four months!! It's back to real life we go! Back to families, back to long-suffering, and badly neglected, girlfriends, and back to other things too numerous to mention which have been pushed aside for the last eight months.

Still, before all that nonsense, we have one final Saturday down the 'Daira to enjoy. While we've got slim to no chance of sneaking into the third ACL spot, our visitors JEF United have everything to play for. JEF are the team with the longest running uninterrupted spell in Japan's top flight. In the current J. League, and as Furukawa Electric in the Japan Soccer League before it, JEF have racked up an impressive total of 43 seasons of top flight football.

It's all on the line going into to tomorrow's game, as a result for S-Pulse could all but seal JEF's demotion to J2. A win for us, and it would only need Verdy and Jubilo to both pick up a point and that's it - good night JEF. At least new arrivals to J2 from the JFL, Tochigi SC would set up a new local(ish) derby for them!

As you may expect, the Yellow Dogs of Chibapool will be out in force tomorrow. They have completely sold old their upper tier allocation of away area tickets, which, if memory serves, makes them the only team aside from Jubilo to have done that this year. The, as of Friday lunchtime, 1094 remaining tickets may well go on the day. Led by ex-Liverpool coach Alex Miller, who has so far done an amazing job of dragging them to within sight of safety, they will not be happy with anything other than three points.

S-Pulse on the other hand have only pride to play for. Well pride stood us in pretty good stead last week when we saw off newly manager-less Urawa in Saitama, but do we really have the heart to relegate a team? You're God damn right we do! It's survival of the fittest in this world, Chiba old chums, and besides, the humiliation you caused us with this little beauty is still far from being forgiven or forgotten!



Nishibe wont be starting tomorrow. :-D

Well, worst case scenario we get beat, the chances are Jubilo won't be coming away from Kashima with too much. Over 30000 will be piling into Kashima Stadium to see Antlers retain their title with three more points. They're not going to want to have to traipse up to Sapporo next week to do it there if they can help it! So a loss, while a downer on which to end the season, could at least plunge our rivals to within a whisker of J2 oblivion!

The forecast points to sunshine, so pack your sandwiches, don't forget your beer, and get down 'Daira early for another near-full house. It's your last chance till 2009!

S-Pa 1-0 JEF United

And there was me talking about a nice, low key game... The only thing low about tonight was the crowd. 4214 rattled around inside Nihondaira as one of the most open games of the season unfolded with 26 shots between the two teams, several rebounds off the woodwork and countless near misses.
To be fair to JEF, the following they brought down for a game of little importance to them was pretty good. They have far bigger fish to fry, and as their fans continued to bounce around even after the final whistle, it was clear the Emperor's Cup comes nowhere close to J1 survival. The semi-reserve team they put out also bore testament to that.

But forgetting all that, the game was non-stop end to end stuff, and how we went into stoppage time still goal-less was anyone's guess. Both teams had had the ball in the net with each ruled out for offside. For us Okazaki had headed home after a thunderbolt from sub Omae Genki came back off the bar, but the flag was up.

So as the ref had the whistle in his mouth, extra time was looming, and everyone started wondering what time they would get home, Okazaki broke free, was pushed wide by the keeper, almost impossibly wide, but under pressure from the JEF defender he somehow got to the ball inches from the touchline and turned it in the from the tightest of tight angles. Have a look here to get some idea of how acute the angle was.

The place erupted, I now have a horribly painful case of whiplash as my skeleton attempted to exit my body with joy, and for two minutes, the pain of last Saturday was forgotten. The goal had been coming all game and the fact it meant we avoided 30 extra minutes I don't think anyone wanted, meant it was not only elation, but also a decent amount of relief, which washed over 'Daira.

It was the last kick of the game, and never has a 94th minute stoppage time winner been more deserved. Next up Antlers for the 5th time this season. November 15th.

The Goal:



And extended highlights:



Night night!!

Emperor's Cup Round 4: S-Pa v JEF (preview)

Riding the bullet back to Shiz on Saturday evening, I could barely imagine watching another game of football this year, let alone the very next Wednesday. Well, three days have passed and all I can say about tonight's Emperor's Cup (the Japanese equivalent of the FA Cup) fourth round tie is BRING IT!!!

What better way to forget a lost cup final that getting stuck straight back into another cup competition? This game would have been played on Sunday had we not been busy on the Saturday, so it was shifted to midweek. As such, we'll be lucky to see more than four thousand there tonight. Cup football, especially midweek cup football, in Japan never seems to catch the imagination. That's until teams reach the final whereby they then take 20000 fans to Tokyo!

Well it's all good. I'm looking forward to a night down at the 'Daira considerably more low-key than recent cup events. We want the win as much as any game, but a game lacking the tension of the Kashima league cup quarter final will be warmly welcomed by many! And speaking of Antlers, the winner tonight is rewarded with a trip to Ibaraki for a last 16 game. Kashima, who only made it past Kokushikan University on penalties on Sunday, are going for another league and cup double, so the draw could have been kinder!

After the last 16, ties are pre-planned to be staged at neutral venues all over the country. I guess the rationale behind it is to spread the game around to areas which don't normally see professional football, but for the fans of both teams who have to trek hundreds of miles, it has always struck me as an odd system.

After Saturday there is only one team in the history of professional football in Japan that has been to more cup finals than S-Pulse, (yep, that would be Kashima, then!) so with our awesome cup pedigree lets steam in to the this with the confidence only a team with eight final appearances can have! JEF are a different prospect to the team which lost eight from it's first eleven games in the league, but for all their exertions in trying to stay up, I hope the cup is going to prove one distraction too many.

Whatever happens tonight it's a perfect way to ease ourselves and our still-smarting hearts back into the footballing mindset before Saturday's massive Shizuoka Derby. Jubilo have their J1 status on the line, so things may get heated! So far as tonight goes, lets have a win for us, and no repeat of Nishibe getting lobbed from 70 meters as per last season's league game, please!