December 21, 2003
A Flurry of Action in Emperor"s Cup

Though all the true "underdog" teams in the Emperor"s Cup this year had already been dismissed by the start of the round of 16, that did not diminish the frenzied nature of many of the matches. On the "left bank" of the tournament table, in particular, there were comebacks aplenty and all four of the matches were fairly close contests. The "right bank" was a bit more clear-cut, with three of four teams. However, what made the weekend most interesting, particularly for those watching at home, was the fact that heavy snowfalls at two locations forced matches to be postponed for over an hour. Since one of these matches -- S-Pulse vs Bellmare -- was scheduled to be shown at 1:00 on nationwide TV, the NHK broadcasters were forced to show the Antlers- Reysol match instead, and then show the S-Pulse match in its entirety after the first match ended. The result was a boon for couch potatoes, who were able to watch Emperor"s Cup action almost continuously from 1:00 until almost 9PM!

2 - 1

After their near catastrophe last week, against Ichi-Funabashi High School, Yokohama fans were watching closely to see whether the Marinos would pick up their operformance, or be an early casualty. Fortunately, Tatsuhiko Kubo had one of his occasional "big days", against his former teammates, providing all the offence that Yokohama needed for the win. However, the Marinos' overall performance against recently-promoted Sanfrecce Hiroshima was not one to inspire confidence of an Emperor's Cup title.

For most of the match, the Marinos struggled to create any sort of fluidity, getting their best opportunities on long balls to the front line. By contrast, Sanfrecce had good possession and ball movement at midfield, but were unable to finish effectively, and must have been wishing that Kubo were back in their lineup, rather than on the opposite side of the pitch.

Kubo spent most of the match lurking far forward in attack, waiting for the occasional long ball from his teammates, and though the opportunities were few, they tended to be quite dangerous as the big striker used his speed to outrun Sanfrecce's defenders. After two or three close minutes, he finally found the net in the 33 minute, after outrunning the defence to a looping, 60-meter pass, and then volleying it over the outrushing keeper's head on his first touch.

Thereafter the match stagnated a bit, with Sanfrecce controlling much of the possession but getting few looks at goal. Then, in the final five minutes of play, there was a flurry of action, started when Kubo again outran his defender for a long ball, nad then cut a low pass across the face of goal that was stuffed in at close range by Nobuhisa Shimizu. But just moments later, Sanfrecce finally responded as Cesar Sampaio pounced on a deflected ball at the edge of the box, slipped it through the defence and Kota Hattori slammed it home. Sanfrecce rushed back to the center circle to restart play, but despite a few late and dramatic efforts, the Marinos were able to turn away Sanfrecce's final push and preserve their victory

3 - 2

In Yutaka Akita's final home match at Kashima Soccer Stadium, the Antlers very nearly stumbled tio a loss against local rivals Kashiwa Reysol. Akita started the match on an ignominious note, creating Reysol's first goal when he back-headed a ball past his own keeper, and the loose ball was tapped home by Mitsuteru Watanabe. The Antlers rebounded from the initial shock to put heavy pressure on the Reysol goal, but despite a number of near misses, were unable to equalise. Then, just before the half time break, Reysol got a huge boost when rookie Yazawa

Below is a full table of results for the third round matches, and the tournament table, thus far.

Yokohama Marinos2 - 1
Sanfrecce Hiroshima
Kashiwa Reysol2 - 3Kashima Antlers
Cerezo Osaka3-2 (ET)Gamba Osaka
Vissel Kobe2 - 2
(5-4 PK)		FC Tokyo
JEF United 5 - 0Kawasaki Frontale
Shimizu S-Pulse2 - 1Shonan Bellmare
Nagoya Grampus0 - 1Tokyo Verdy
Jubilo Iwata3 - 0Albirex Niigata




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