There you have it, folks. The first ever no score draw in a league Shizuoka Derby. It took 17 years and 40 games to come, but come it did. It takes our unbeaten run at home against iwata to seven years.
Nagai on for M. Yamamoto (HT) Ota on for Arata (77) Omae on for Fujimoto (85)
Videos The game was sold out and the place was rocking.
Not S-Pulse related, but here's a video of a game this weekend with goals. Gamba Osaka beating Urawa after Urawa had equalised in the 93rd minute. Brilliant stuff.
According to a poster on a Plymouth Argyle fans forum, the proposed bid for Okazaki is rubbish. From the mouth of the Pilgrims' manager himself, it's not going to happen.
Kinda nice that Okachan's name is being bandied about abroad, though. When a serious bid from a team worth considering comes in I'll be the first to wish him all the best, but first things first: the 2010 J. League championship. :)
Over in Yokohama, S-Pulse's satellite team played Marinos' equivalent today. Two games were played, the first ending 1-0 to the home team, the second 5-1 to us.
The satellite line up differs from regular J. League in that it's a mixture of first teamers and reserves with unlimited substitutions available. Over the first 90 minutes 14 different players took to the field, and in the second game we tried out 18 different players.
Our goals came from:
Fujimoto Okazaki (2) Johnsen Ito Nagai
Great to see both new singing Ito getting on the score sheet, and Okazaki showing he's raring to go after his World Cup adventure. Click here for full line ups (in Japanese). Speaking of Okachan:
Yes, that's Plymouth Argyle, currently in the third tier of English football alongside the likes of Exeter City and Walsall. And, yes, that's Okazaki, the Japanese international who just held his own in the World Cup against the best Dutch, Danish and Paraguayan defenders, and who was the highest scorer in international football in 2009.
It remains to be seen if Okachan, who has stated in the past his hope to move abroad one day, will be enticed by the prospect of playing in front of 5000 people away at Carlisle, or, even better, 2500 at Dagenham and Redbridge.
Seriously, Shinji - you're playing at a higher level than England's third division already. Much like Jubilo's Robert Cullen snubbed Plymouth last year, don't even think about it. I've nothing personal against the Pilgrims, (I'd say the same thing if my beloved Albion made a bid), but for an international striker hitting the peak of his career, a move to England has to be at least to Championship level.
S-Pulse are off in Gotemba (minus Okazaki who is busy firing Japan into the last 16 in South Africa) for their mid-season camp and I, like the rest of you, am existing on a substantial and enduring lack of sleep. The eight hour time difference, and the resulting sleep deprivation incurred when watching games live, means this website is very much in World Cup hibernation mode.
However, in the preceding fortnight it was announced that a new addition to the Orange Machine is 21 year old Sho Ito from French team Grenoble Foot 38. The former under 20 national team member is the first Japanese player to have gone straight to Europe from high school, and counts Arsenal manger Arsene Wenger amongst his fans.
I'm looking forward to seeing some of the 184cm striker in action.
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!).
S-Pulse 2-0 Iwata Nagai 38 -------------------Park sent off 79 Hiraoka 62
Att. 17521 Line Up
GK Nishibe
DF Tsujio DF Hiraoka DF Bosnar DF Ota
MF Hyodo MF Honda MF Ono
FW Nagai FW Johnsen FW Fujimoto
Subs Used
M. Yamamoto on for Hyodo (75) Hara on for Nagai (82) Omae on for Fujimoto (84)
Report
Perfect day for a derby win
We comfortably beat Iwata at a packed Nihondaira Stadium to extend our run of unbeaten home fixtures against Jubilo into it's eighth year. The win leaves the Nabisco Cup group B looking like this:
#
Team
P
W
D
L
F
A
D
Pts
1
S-Pulse
6
3
2
1
6
3
+3
11
2
Yamagata
5
3
1
1
6
1
+5
10
3
Iwata
5
3
1
1
7
5
+2
10
4
Yokohama FM
5
2
2
1
6
3
+3
8
5
Urawa
5
2
1
2
6
6
+0
7
6
Kobe
5
1
1
3
5
8
-3
4
7
Shonan
5
0
0
5
2
12
-10
0
So all we need to hope on Wednesday is that Yokohama don't win. In that case anything can happen in the Iwata v Yamagata game. If Yokohama win, then we'd need the Iwata game to end in a draw to progress. (Not entirely true - see comments.)
As for today, we were the better team; sharper and quicker to the punch than the visitors who, despite getting far enough forward on a number of occasions to shoot, they wouldn't have hit the target if they were still playing now.
The freekick we extended our lead from
Both our goals came from the height of Bosnar and Johnsen creating havoc in the Jubilo penalty area. Johnsen, who admittedly didn't have a great game, was still the main reason we took the lead shortly before the break. A nicely weighted freekick floated in by Ono (who was effortlessly world class again. Okada's unfathomable decision to exclude him from the national team is our gain) was met by the towering Frode. He nodded it into the danger zone, and after another flick on, it was met by Nagai. 1-0.
In the second half it was another freekick which was met by the two metre Bosanr. His powerful header brought a good save from Hatta in the Iwata goal, but it was too much for him to do anything other than parry, and Hiraoka was on hand to smash the rebound home.
Unquestionably helped by the sending off of Park, Jubilo never really looked like scoring, and Nishibe, save for one near catastrophic error of judgement in the first half, was solid as a rock. To be fair, he recovered well from his one mistake and went on to have a great game. As mentioned, Johnsen wasn't at his best with his first touch letting him down more than once, but we all have off days, and his strength in the air was instrumental today.
I'm tired and sunburnt, so I'm going to call it a day. Just before I do, hello to Ken - excellent to meet someone with such a strong English accent!
Now it's all about Wednesday...
Videos
Nagai's goal from a personal cam. A hint of the offsides about it to say the least.
So all we can do tomorrow is win and hope. Kobe and Shonan are out, with Urawa as good as gone. If we win tomorrow we'll go top with a poor goal difference. On Wednesday the final round of games takes place:
Yokohama FM v Urawa Shonan v Kobe Iwata v Yamagata
So if we win tomorrow, we have to hope Yokohama don't win, and then either Iwata or Yamagata beat the other. Simple.
Barry writes:
