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J.League Second Stage
Fireworks in the Rain

Kickoff	Home	.	Away
18:30		1 - 3
19:00		3 - 2
19:00		2 - 1
19:00		1-0 (ET)
19:00		2 - 1
19:00		3 - 2
19:00		2 - 6
Sep 1		vs

3 - 1

But the wet pitch would soon take its toll against the Reds, as well. In the 25 minute, Vissel's young striker Daniel drove to the right post and managed to get off a low shot, which seemed reasonably innocuous, but keeper Tomoyasu Ando fumbled the slick ball and it slipped underneath him and into the net, knotting the score. The Reds nearly got the lead back just before the half, as Nobuhisa Yamada led a rush down the right side, but Sidiclei's desperate stab broke up a pass that would have sent two Reds players free with only the keeper to beat. The two teams went into the locker rooms at half time with the scores all even.

In the opening minutes of the second half, Vissel began stringing together more passes and controlling posession, while the Reds missed a number of balls in dangerous positions, giving the team from Kobe dangerous scoring opportunities. On one set play, the Reds cleared the ball only to have it sent back in by Shigeyoshi Mochizuki. He found veteran Kazu Miura breaking on net, but Kazu knocked the ball over the bar and the chance went begging. Nevertheless, Vissel clearly seemed to have the momentum, and the home crowd began to chant with more urgency to try to get their team back into the game. Coach Tita finally decided to go to his bench, calling on Emerson, who was acquired from Kawasaki Frontale just a few weeks ago. Emerson replaced Nagai in the front line, and it didn't take him long to get involved in the match. The first time he touched the ball he went on a rush down the right sideline and was only stopped when Santos fouled him. Just a minute later, Tanaka broke across the middle and blasted a shot on goal. The momentum was starting to swing back towards the Reds.

But completely against the run of play, Kobe got the key break in the match. Daniel picked up a loose ball about 30 meters out from goal and unleashed a blast that caught the keeper by surprise. His shot curled just inside the right post, putting Kobe into the lead. The sudden shift of momentum fired up the Kobe team, while Urawa seemed to lose their composure. Just a few moments later, as the Reds tried to press forward, Masami Iihara badly misplayed a ball in the back line, handing it to the ever-dangerous Kazu in poaching distance of the goal. Kazu made no mistake with this golden opportunity, turning Iihara around, and then driving the ball past the keeper to put Kobe up by two goals and basically put the game beyond reach. Urawa stumbled to a disappointing start while Vissel begin their second-stage campaign near the top of the table.

2 - 1

Takayuki Suzuki nearly doubled the lead in the 19 minute with a blast from close range that the keeper Yohei Sato only just managed to parry, but the Antlers continued to keep the pressure on. Apart from a few long-ball counterattacks to Ryuji Bando, Consadole had little to offer in response. Yanagisawa had a very strong presence in the match, not only creating some good opportunities on offence, but also pressuring the ball at midfield and thus preventing Sapporo from creating counterattacks. The Antlers maintaained the pressure throughout the half, and went in at the break with a one goal lead and control of the momentum.

Just after the restart, however, Sapporo finally got loose on one of the counterattacks that they had been trying to create all through the match. Tomohiro Wanami picked up the ball at midfield and raced into space, firing a long shot that beat Jun Sogahata to the low, far corner. This blast not only to knotted the score, but also temporarily knocked the Antlers off their stride. Consadole took over control of the momentum for about the next ten minutes. But by the midpoint of the second half, the Antlers had recovered their poise and were starting to put the pressure on the Sapporo goal.

Finally, in the 76 minute, the Antlers got the lead back. After winning a corner kick from the right side, Bismarck found young defender Kenji Haneda right in front of the net. Haneda's header was ineffectual, but the ball fell right onto his own right foot, and he blasted it into the back of the net from point blank range.

Just two minutes later the Antlers scored again, on a beautiful exchange between Narahashi, Yanagisawa and Ogasawara, but Yanagisawa was ruled offside and the goal was taken back. As time ran down, Sapporo got one last chance to equalise, winning a free kick about 25 meters out. Biju hit a nice, low drive around the wall, but Sogahata smothered it and the chance went begging. As time ran down, the match began to disintegrate as Sapporo began to foul more aggessively and the Antlers began to lose their tempers. Nishi Morishita was send off for a second yellow card with three minutes to play, but just a minute later Bismarck received a second yellow as well, after he returned to the field from an injury without permission. The game petered out a few minutes later, but once again, the Antlers have put themselves in a difficult situation due to a lack of poise. No doubt Toninho Cerezo will have more to say about avoiding yellow cards.

3 - 2

After Gamba settled down a bit, they began to trade thrusts fairly equally, and the match soon took on a very aggressive tone. Both teams picked up a number of yellow cards during the first half for overly aggressive challenges on the ball. However while Ko Ishikawa and Keiji Kaimoto did a good job of turning away Gamba's attempts to drive into the box, Grampus continued to find big openings on the right flank throughout the first half. In the 35 minute, following a Grampus corner kick, keeper Seigo Narazaki sent a quick outlet to Tetsuya Okamoto, and the veteran blasted a long ball that sent rookie Naoshi Nakamura away on a wild break. Nakamura split two defenders and turned on the afterburners, bursting through the center of the field and leaving Masao Kiba and Tsuneyasu Miyamoto choking on dust. Nakamura finished his run off with a rising line drive that blew past the keeper.

Less than a minute later, veteran Ko Ishikawa once again exploited the space on the right sideline and sent a pinpoint cross to Okayama for a point-blank header that put Grampus up by three goals. Nagoya nearly added another goal before half time after winning a free kick just outside the box, but Oulida's shot flew just outside the right post.

After dominating the first half so completely, Grampus appeared to slack off a bit in the second stanza. While they created some good opportunities in the first ten or fifteen minutes, their finishing was a bit too casual, and they were unable to add to their lead. Gamba, on the other hand, brought in Hiromi Kojima as a third forward and pushed Reginald Vital up close to the front line. As the half progressed, this pressure at the front started to open up some holes in Nagoya's back line. In about the 60 minute, veteran forward Masanobu Matsunami replaced Kota Yoshihara, and the pressure increased even more. As the half wore on, Nagoya seemed to grow even more complacent, and it nearly came back to haunt them. In the 67 minute a beautiful exchange between Vital, Bule and Matsunami resulted in a point-blank shot, but Matsunami's header came back off the post. Another thrust down the left flank sent Nino Bule free, but the play was ruled offside. It wasn't until the 77 minute that the pressure finally paid off. Futagawa picked up the ball on the left sideline and carried it to just outside the penalty area, looping a pass for the far post which Nino Bule headed past the keeper.

The score gave Gamba a lift, and they stepped up the pressure a bit more, while Nagoya continued to squander the ball on offence. There were still about seven minutes left to play when a slant pass from Takahiro Futagawa to Vital sent the deft midfielder to the left post. As the keeper reacted, Vital dropped the ball back out to Nino Bule rushing free on the net for an easy tap-in. Gamba pressed hard in the final five minutes, searching for the equaliser, but they had left their comeback to the last minute, and despite a few close calls, Nagoya were able to turn away the final flurry of attacks. Nagoya thus begins their drive for the second stage crown with a victory.

2 - 6

The two teams traded offensive rushes for the next fifteen minutes, with play careening from end to end at a wild pace until Cerezo finally managed to equalise. On one of their countless forays forward, Kazunari Okayama sent a lob into the middle and, after deflecting off a defender, it fell to Masaya Nishitani, who hit the ball on the short-hop and drilled it into the high left corner. Just three minutes later, another break saw Cerezo apparently take the lead, as Kenji Oshiba put the ball in the net, but he was ruled offside and the goal disallowed.

With five minutes to go in the half, Hiroshima resumed the lead as Kentaro Sawada played a high ball to the middle and Tatsuhiko Kubo took a prodigeous leap, soaring over his defender to head the ball just to the left of the keeper.

In the second half, Cerezo came out with an even more offensive lineup, substituting veteran midfielder Yasuo Manaka for Okayama. The move paid dividends almost immediately, as Hiroaki Morishima was fouled just outside the penalty area and won a free kick in the 47 minute. Claudio lined up to take the kick, and sent a screaming shot to the low left corner. The keeper went sprawling to try to keep the ball out of the net. He managed to deflect the shot, but Oshiba pounced on the rebound and drilled it into the net to knot the scores once again.

However, Cerezo's enthusiasm on offence would soon get the best of them. In the 55 minute, as the Osaka players swarmed forward on the attack, Sanfrecce got a counterattack down the left sideline, and Kota Hattori sent a ball into the box. Though Claudio managed to get a head on the ball, his deflection fell right to Oki, who slammed the ball into the net.

Rather than settling down and seeking to create more realistic offensive thrusts, Cerezo continued to race forward in waves. Although this nearly created the equaliser on two consecutive drives that had four Osaka players rushing into the box for the crossing pass, the team was clearly overextending themselves into offence. Sanfrecce's counterattacks began to find more and more open pasture at the opposite end of the pitch. In the 70 minute, Sanfrecce brought in their new offensive weapon, Sergey Skachenko, to add even more speed and punch to the counterattack, and the move quickly proved to be the final nail in the coffin for Cerezo. A ball played through Skachenko and Stephen Corica was sent back out to Chikara Fujimoto at the top of the circle, and he sent a loop shot over the keeper's head to put Sanfrecce two goals in front.

Now the floodgates were wide open, as Hiroshima built more and more opportunities on the counterattack. Although Cerezo nearly pulled a goal back on a long shot by Claudio, the keeper parried his drive and Morishima's follow-up header went just wide of the left post. As Sanfrecce came back up the field from the same sequence, Koji Morisaki took the ball up the right sideline and centered to Skachenko, who sent his first J.League shot on goal into the low left corner, to build the lead to 5-2.

And Hiroshima were not finished yet. With five minutes left, Skachenko stole a ball in the Cerezo end and drilled a shot that knocked the keeper clean off his feet. Fujimoto scooped up the rebound and popped it into the net to close out the scoring. With their resounding victory, Sanfrecce find themselves atop the league table for the first time since their improbable stage victory in 1995.

3 - 1

Verdy managed to preserve their lead throughout the half, and as the second stanza began, JEF were beginning to look a little bit desperate. However, tragedy struck Verdy in the 58 minute, as Masakiyo Maezono picked up a second yellow card for a rough tackle and was sent to the showers. With a man advantage, JEF United began to step up the pressure on the Tokyo defence. Just two minutes after Maezono was sent off, Zeljko Milinovic played a ball in to striker Choi Yong-soo , but Choi cleverly let the ball roll through to forward Kastsutomo Oshiba while breaking towards the net. Oshiba dropped the ball into the path of the unmarked Choi, and the Korean ace drilled his shot into the high corner to knot the scores.

Three minutes later, JEF midfielder Yuki Abe , who missed most of the first stage due to injury, collected a loose ball in the penalty area. His first shot deflected off a Verdy defender, but he calmly collected the rebound and made his second shot count, slicking it inside the right post.

Having been completely demoralised in the space of less than ten minutes, Verdy could do little for the rest of the match except defend desperately against a barage of JEF drives. However, the team from Ichikawa would get one more tally before the final whistle, when a long drive by Shinji Murai bounced off the keeper and straight back to Choi to the right of the penalty spot. Choi's thunderous drive put the finishing touches on a satisfying comeback, as the first-stage runners-up collected three points.

2 - 2

Reysol did their best to equalise, but despite their offfensive pressure, they needed a stroke of luck to knot the scores. After a weak clearance by the Tokyo keeper, Harutaka Ono picked up the ball about 30 meters out from goal, and fired a very wishful long shot. But by good fortune, his shot was parially screened by Hong Myung-Bo, and by the time the keeper reacted to the shot it was already past him and into the net.

FC Tokyo continued to delight their fans with some wild counterattacking, and it paid off once more in the 75 minute. Sato was again involved, bringing the ball up the right sideline, bursting through two defenders and then sliding the ball to Kelly who was camped in front of the net for an easy tap-in.

It looked like FC Tokyo would get all three points, but a last-ditch effort saved Reysol from disgrace. With the game already into injury time, Ono played a towering hail-mary pass towards the right post. As the ball floated down, Mitsuteru Watanabe lunged forward and got a foot on it, deflecting it into the path of Yoo Sang-Chul. Yoo managed to stab at the ball and knock it into the net for the tying goal, leaving defender Sandro pounding the ground in frustration. Neither team was able to score in extra time, so both get just a single point from this very important match.

1- 0 (ET)

Though only one round has been played, and Jubilo and S-Pulse have yet to play a match, here is how the league table looks at present:

Rumours and Rumblings

Toda Gets A Buzz

Shimizu S-Pulse defensive midfielder Kazuyuki Toda, who has a reputation for sporting some of the J.League's more outlandish hairstyles, will feature a new look for the upcoming friendly match with Australia. Toda, who in the past was known for his long ponytail, then for his bleached-white locks, now sports a Mohawk buzz-cut. It is still not apparent whether he expects this to intimidate the opposition, or cause them to lose their composure as they struggle to avoid incapacitating laughter.

Kobe Gives A Tryout to Okano

The only team that has expressed serious interest is Vissel Kobe. Okano attended a practice with Kobe on Wednesday, and the two teams are reportedly negotiating a transfer agreement.

Jubilo Receives US$750,000 for Club Championship Cancellation