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April 4, 2004

April Fools ?

We often hear the vernacular press, the fans and even league officials moaning about the national team's weak perormances in international competition. But until players start experiencing international-quality officiating, week in and week out, it will be no surprise that they fail to perform well when exposed to "real" referees. Though there was quite a bit of exciting football played, over this weekend, all of the positives were overshadowed by a few pathetic referees, and to make matters worse, they were the same buffoons who have been missing calls for the past ten years. You would think it is about time that the league began weeding out the ones who fail to do their job, week in and week out. But the joke continues. . . .

Oh well, its still only April.

Date	Home	.	Visitor	Venue
3 Apr		3 - 2		Ajinomoto Stadium
3 Apr		1-3		Hiroshima Big Arch
3 Apr		2-1		Yokohama Int'l
3 Apr		3-1		Yamaha (Iwata) St.
3 Apr		4-0		"Banpaku" Stadium
3 Apr		0-0		Kobe Wing Stadium
4 Apr		vs		Kashima Stadium
4 Apr		vs		Kashiwa-no-ha Std.

3 - 2

As noted above, the contest between Verdy and FC Tokyo provided an interesting contrast in styles. Though it is certainly a bit of an oversimplification, FC Tokyo tends to be a "passing team" whereas Verdy are more of a "dribbling team". FC uses an aggressive, trapping press to win loose balls, while Verdy defenders tend to hang back and use their excellent anticipation to surge forward into passing lanes. Add in the attraction of a "father-son attack team" (the 33-year-old Patrick Mboma is easily old enough to be Morimoto's father) and the result was great football.

Though FC Tokyo had a greater number of shots over the opening 15 minutes of the match, it was Verdy who took the early lead. In the 18 minute, Jean Carlo Witte broke up a Verdy attack, but sent the ball spinning towards touch. Chasing after the ball, he managed to lash out a boot and stop it from crossing the sideline. But his weak clearance fell right at the feet of Takeshi Hirano, unguarded and level with the top of the penalty box. Hirano snatched up the loose ball and began to drive for goal, but as soon as he looked up he recognised that keeper Yoichi Doi had been caught badly out of position. He quickly released a high lob for the far corner, and though Doi raced back in a valiant effort to recover, the ball just cleared his fingertips as it dropped into the right corner of the net.

Though FC Tokyo had several good chances to equalise, Verdy held onto their lead until shortly after intermission. But in the 50 minute, a long ball from Jean, deep in his own end, sent Mitsuhiro Toda away on a galloping run, behind the Verdy defence. With two defenders breathing down his neck, Toda managed to settle the ball, then fire into the low left corner, knotting the score.

But Verdy were far from finished. Ten minutes later, a brillant combination play produced the most impressive goal of the match. Mboma started the play with a nice post play and through pass to Kentaro Hayashi, cutting across the box from right to left. Unfortunately, the pass was a bit too strong, and Hayashi had already passed the far post when he caught up with the ball. But Hayashi spottedAtsuhiro Miura, who was curling into the area from the opposite direction, and as the two crossed paths, Hayashi dropped the ball off with a clever flick. Miura sent his first touch on a looping line drive, across the face of goal, and Mboma soared over the defence for a thunderous header.

But despite their advantage on the scoreboard, Verdy had been conceding nuerous opportunities to their opponents throughout the match, and it finally began to catch up with them. In the 71 minute, "FC" won a free kick on the left side, just beyond the top of the penalty box. Somehow, Jean managed to wriggle free of his defender and was wide open for Miura's long ball for the far post, heading it down and into the corner to beat the keeper's desperate dive. With time running down, the Verdy defence began to crumble under FC's pressure, and there were several close calls before the killing blow finally came. With ten minutes left, Lucas Severino led an attack up the right side, and spotted Naohiro Ishikawa on the opposite side of the box. As Ishikawa waited for Lucas' lob, he watched young midfielder Yuta Baba make a run through the middle, and with perfect timing, headed the ball into Baba's path. Baba lunged forward and headed a strike into the low right corner to give FC Tokyo the victory.

Lineups:

Yoichi Doi, Shuhei Tokunaga, Jean Carlo Witte, Teruyuki Moniwa, Jo Kanazawa, Yasuyuki Konno, Masashi Miyazawa (Fumitake Miura 80), Naohiro Ishikawa, Lucas Severino, Mitsuhiro Toda (Ryoichi Kurisawa 70), Yoshiro Abe( Yuta Baba 51), .

Yoshinari Takagi, Masayuki Yanagisawa, Takushi Yoneyama, Claudio Ubeda, Atsuhiro Miura, Kentaro Hayashi, Daigo Kobayashi (Yoshiyuki Kobayashi 48), Shingo Nejime (Hugo do Nascimento 61), Takeshi Hirano, Patrick Mboma, Takayuki Morimoto (Naoto Sakurai 70) .

3 - 1

The match actually started off with great promise. Just over ten minutes into the contest, Toshiya Fujita made a surge into the box which resulted in a mad scramble for the ball. Eventually the Reds managed to clear, but Hiroshi Nanami snatched up the clearance at the edge of the box, sent a quick lateral pass to Norihiro Nishi and the midfielder slammed a curling shot with the outside of his right boot, that slipped inside the right post.

Five minutes later, the Reds responded as Yuichiro Nagai dashed down the right sideline, beat a defender to turn the corner, and raced for the right post. As six players -- both offence and defence -- dashed for goal, Nagai sent a sizzling grounder across the face of goal, and Naoya Kikuchi bundled the ball into his own net. In Kikuchi's defence, though, it was one of those plays where either he made the effort to clear, and scored an own goal, or one of the Reds players would have toed the ball in themselves. The match ws shaping up to be a real see-saw battle.

But then Mr. Matsumura decided to get involved. First, he showed Emerson a yellow for a very innocuous tackle that looked like a foul, but certainly did not require a caution. Then, just 90 seconds later, Emerson started a break up the right sideline and was clearly hacked from behind, not once, but twice. As he tumbled to the ground -- a bit theatrically -- Matsumura allowed play to go on, and Emerson bounded to his feet with a shout. To everyone's dismay, the ref pulled out another yellow, then a red. It wasnt an April Fool's joke. The referee had just sent the Reds' ace striker to the dressing room with 70 minutes left to play.

According to the match commentators, Emerson received the second yellow for "simulation". If that is the case, Matsumura deserves a red card for "simulation" every time he puts on a striped shirt, since nobody could possibly be fooled by his efforts to simulate a referee. The play took place near midfield, and though Emerson did fall to the ground theatrically, there was no question that he was fouled -- not once, but twice -- and from behind, no less. A news article on Sunday morning, on the other hand, suggests that Emerson got his second yellow for disputing the call. If this is the case, it might be a tiny bit more defensible, since we have no way of knowing what Emerson said when he bounded to his feet. However, any competent referee would have simply blown play dead, reminded Emerson that he had one yellow card already, and pointed out that, even if he honestly thought he had been fouled, he shoud do his best to keep his temper in check. Of course, none of this would have happened in the first place had Matsumura made the original foul call, and there is no question whatsoever that Emerson was, indeed, fouled on the play.

On the subsequent free kick, after Emerson retreated to the locker room, Jubilo scored as Masashi Nakayama headed down the initial lob for Fujita, who found Nishi at the far post.

Later in the match, Rodrigo Gral tipped in a lovely lead pass from Nishi (who had a fine outing, and finished with two goals and an assist), and then proceeded to celebrate for over two minutes, complete with a gorilla mask and a t-shirt saying "I Love Jesus". Needless to say, the buffoon Matsumura failed to penalise this "celebration" and blatant waste of time, with even a caution.

With a man down and their ace striker gone, the Reds clearly didnt have a chance. Indeed, the Reds coaching staff seemed to concede that fact just ten minutes into the second half, substituting Alex Santos and Tatsuya Tanaka, the only other offensive weapons left.

"By sheer coincidence", when Jubilo and the Reds played head to head LAST April, the referee was also Mr. Matsumura. Early in the match, he sent off Nobuhisa Yamada on a widely disputed call, reducing the Reds to ten men. Jubilo ended up winning the match. Even for someone who had not seen the pathetic calls that produced these two dismissals, the "coincidence" of these events make it extremely hard to avoid the impression that something is SERIOUSLY amiss. Once again, crooked officiating has conspired to grant Jubilo a tainted victory. How much longer will the J.League management allow this to go on before they realise what a farce their League has become?

Lineups:

Yohei Sato, Hideto Suzuki, Makoto Tanaka, Naoya Kikuchi, Norihiro Nishi (Sho Naruoka 80), Takashi Fukinishi (Takahiro Kawamura 83), Toshihiro Hattori, Toshiya Fujita, Hiroshi Nanami , Masashi Nakayama (Ryoichi Maeda 69), Rodrigo Gral.

Ryota Tsuzuki, Keisuke Tsuboi, Hideki Uchidate, Tadaaki Hirakawa, Nobuhisa Yamada, Keita Suzuki, Alex Santos (Takuya Mikami 55), Makoto Hasebe, Emerson, Yuichiro Nagai, Tatsuya Tanaka (Koji Yamase 55), .

2 - 1

On the pitch, Cerezo looked quite competitive for half the match, only to allow the Yokohama Marinos to come back for a 2-1 victory. Cerezo held the upper hand for most of the first half, and finally produced a goal in the 38 minute, when Hideaki Morishima scooped up a weak clearance from a corner kick and slammed it into the nylon.

But a mere two minutes later, Yokohama were back level on a set play of their own. The Marinos won a free kick on the left side, about 35 meters out, and Antonio Dutra took the kick. Somehow, a Cerezo defender muct have missed their assignment because Tatsuhiko Kubo was left wide open at the far post, and played a beautiful volley inside the right post.

In the second half, though, Cerezo began to lose their sharpness and the Marinos took control of the momentum. Once again, though, it was a set play that produced the goal. Dutra took a corner kick from the left corner and sent a low line drive for the near post. Defender Yuji "Bomberhead" Nakazawa bombed a header across the face of goal which caught the inside of the right post and bounded into the net. With this goal, last year's champions collected their first win of the season.

Lineups:

Tatsuya Enomoto, Yasuhiro Hato, Yuji Nakazawa, Naoki Matsuda, Dutra, Yukihiko Sato (Yoo Sang Chul 62), Yoshiharu Ueno, Daisuke Nasu, Daisuke Oku (Daisuke Sakata 84), Nobuhisa Shimizu Tatsuhiko Kubo.

Tomohiko Ito, Ivan Radeljic, Davorim Kablar, Ryu Saito, Takanori Nunobe, Kiyokazu Kudo (Takeshi Hamada 69), Takaaki Tokushige, Yusuke Sato, Hiroaki Morishima (Takahito Chiba 61), Akinori Nishizawa (Noriyuki Sakamoto 75), Yoshito Okubo .

0 - 0

Compared with the aoutrageous "officiating" job done by Mr. Matsumura, in the Reds-Jubilo match, Mr. Yoshida actually did a creditable job over most of the 90 minutes. But he did make a few errors in judgement, and one of them cost Trinita a player. The match was quite phisical, and both teams were pulling out all the stops on both offence and defence, producing a very aggressive and exhausting -- albeit a bit sloppy -- contest. Five minutes before half time, Vissel were trying to launch a counterattack when Hiromi Kojima was knocked down by a Trinita defender. Richard Witsche picked up the ball and walked away from the play, and when a Kobe player shouted at him, he tossed it high in the air, to waste a bit of time. Mr. Yoshida immediately produced a yellow card, and though the penalty is hardly ever called in the J.League, we think this was a good call. That sort of poor sportsmanship ruins a match, not to mention disadvantaging a team that tries to use fast counterattacks as their main method to score.

But just moments later, Witsche was chasing down another counterattack and made a sliding tackle to break up the play. Chikara Fujimoto clearly recognised who was defending him, and put on a spectacular diving display (despite the fact that Witsche had made no contact whatsoever) in an effort to draw another card. Sure enough, the ref went to his pocket for both yellow and red cards, and Trinita were reduced to ten men, a minute shy of half time. Naturally, referees occasionally miss calls. It happens from time to time, in any league. But in this particular case Mr. Yoshida clearly seemed to let his annoyance with Witsche influence his judgement. The tackle was not that hard, and the player -- though he did already have one yellow -- had not made any hard tackles of a similar sort, earlier in the match (the first yellow was for an entirely different offence). Dismissing a player from the match for such a minor infraction (even if he HAD made contact with Fujimoto, which he didnt, the play was not particularly rough) is something that a good referee takes pains to avoid. But in this case, Mr. Yoshida seemed to relish the opportunity. Once again, the players and their fans paid the price for a dumb mistake by an individual who is never held accountable for his own actions.

Because they were short-handed, Trinita were forced to play a more defensive formation and strategy in the second half, and this produced a scoreless final result. However, if the two teams had continued the back-and-forth attacking they exhibited in the first 45 minutes, it seems certain that one or the other would have scored. A pity indeed, but the blame for this result is not difficult to assign.

Lineups:

Makoto Kakegawa, Park Kang-Jo, Yukio Tsuchiya, Kunie Kitamoto, Roger, Shosuke Tsubouchi, Hiromi Kojima, Mitsunori Yabuta Mitsutoshi Watada 75), Chikara Fujimoto, Ryuji Bando, Kazuyoshi Miura (Leandro 58) .

Riki Takasaki, Tetsuya Yamazaki, Haruki Seto, Kazuyoshi Mikami , , Koji Arimura, Takashi Umeda, Tomoaki Komorida, Richard Witsche, Yuichi Nemoto (Takashi Miki 45), Takayuki Yoshida (Ryosuke Kijima 82), Magno Alves (Daiki Takamatsu 75) .

4 - 0

Things go much worse for S-Pulse in the second half, as they continued to look like a bunch of schoolboys, plauying way out of their depth. Gamba's second goal was a beauty, as Takahiro Futagawa chased a long pass to the end line and suddenly backheeled it to Masashi Oguro, on the right side of the box. Oguro had to retreat to collect the ball, but he made a nice pivot and hooked the ball towards the post. The shot was rather weak, but the keeper was caught completely off guard and before he could react, the ball dribbled into the right corner.

Oguro added a second goal a short time later, on a middle-range shot that again caught the keeper napping. Then, with time running down, Oguro returned the favour to Futagawa for his earlier assist, with a well-timed through pass that met Futagawa dashing full speed into the box. The speedy midfielder got there a step ahead of the keeper and toed the ball underneath his body to close out a complete rout of a team that is already looking like a relegation candidate, a mere three matches into the season.

Lineups:

Naoki Matsuyo, Mitsuteru Watanabe, Sidiclei, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Arata Kodama, Satoshi Yamaguchi, Yasuhito Endo, Takahiro Futagawa, Fernandinho (Hideo Hasahimoto 76), Kota Yoshihara (Masashi Oguro 54), Magrao, (Satoshi Nakayama 82) .

Yohei Nishibe, Shohei Ikeda, Ryuzo Morioka, Naoki Hiraoka, Keisuke Ota, Teruyoshi Ito (Yoshikiyo Kuboyama 77), Fabinho, Takumi Wada, Masaaki Sawanobori (Kohei Hiramatsu 64), Araujo, Hideaki Kitajima .

1 - 3

Though both teams had their chances in the first half, Sanfrecce seemed to have the edge in momentum, and they got the lead on the scoreboard as well thanks to a spectacular long-distance two-cushion billiard shot by Koji Morisaki. The U-23 playmaker took a long outlet pass down the right sideline, spun to the middle to elude a defender, and then uncorked a blistering line drive from 30 meters that slammed off the inside of the right post, bounded across the goal mouth to hit the left post, and then ricocheted into the net.

But after a long layoff due to injury and Olympic team commitments, captain Yuki Abe put on a virtual one-man show in the second half, leading his team back into the match. Ten minutes after the break, he sliced open the Sanfrecce back line with a lob pass to Seiichiro Maki, who headed the ball home from close range to level the score. Then, just three minutes later, Abe took a free kick from at least twelve meters outside the area, and drilled a low, screaming line drive into the right corner to put JEF in the lead.

Once JEF took the lead, Sanfrecce seemed to fall apart, and the visitors remained in control for the remainder of play. With time running down, Abe once again turned provider, sending a long cross-field pass to Yuto Sato on the break. The speedy midfielder volleyed it on to Satoru Yamagishi, racing for the left post, and Yamagishi had only to tap the ball home to close out the scoring.

Lineups:

Takashi Shimoda, Norio Omura, Ricardo Ribeiro, Megumu Yoshida, Yusuke Igawa (Kazuki Sato 63), Ri Han-Jae, Daisuke Tonoike (Genki Nakayama 65), Kota Hattori, Kazuyuki Morisaki, Koji Morisaki, Hiroto Mogi (Yasuo Manaka 68) .

Ryo Kushino, Daisuke Saito, Zeljko Milinovic, Takayuki Chano, Masataka Sakamoto, Yuki Abe, Yuto Sato, Takashi Rakuyama (Satoru Yamagishi 76), Naotake Hanyu (Koji Nakashima 89), Seiichiro Maki (Takenori Hayashi 81), Sandro Cardoza, Marquinhos .

3 - 2

With Yutaka Akita making his first return to Antlers Stadium in a Grampus uniform, you always knew that this was going to be a fiercely contested match. The Antlers tried to address the pressure that they knew they would face by coming out strong, pushing hard for an early goal with plenty of overlaps on the wings by Akira Narahashi and Toru Araiba, and quick cuts through the middle by Masashi Motoyama Nagoya were caugth on the back foot, and were forced to respond by fouling early and often to break up the Antlers counterattacks. Yet despite several very severe hacks from behind -- including two in a row on Motoyama that surely deserved a booking, the referee did his best to turn a blind eye. By the time he finally got around to calling anything, the match was already completely out of hand, and his dithering calls over the remainder of the match ensured that he would never get it back under control.

Eventually, the hacks began to get numerous enough -- and the Antlers fains noisy enough -- that Mr. Kashiwabara finally was forced to start calling fouls and awarding kicks. On one such set play, Fernando played a nice low cross in front of a dashing line of Antlers players, and the ball bounded loose in front of goal. Defender Seiji Kaneko got to the ball a half-step ahead of the Grampus keeper, Seigo Narazaki, and tried to bundle the ball into the net with his chest. Narazaki threw his arms around Ikeuchi and literally tackled him, as the ball spilled into the net. But Mr Kashiwabara felt that Kaneko had been the guilty party, and disallowed the goal.

Naturally, feeling aggrieved, the Antlers began to respond with some rough stuff of their own, and as the the half hour mark passed, even though nobody had yet been stretchered off, it was obvious that the match was out of control. Both teams began to dish out the punishment, fouling on every potential break, until finally Mr. Kashiwabara had no choice but to start showing yellow cards. By this time, though, it was far too late.

In the 40 minute, Kashima won a free kick on the left side, and Mitsuo Ogasawara sent a perfectly weighted line drive for the far post. The ball just cleared the pack of tall players, gathered on the near side, and flew towards Araiba, making a lovely back-door cut. Seeing the ball's trajectory and Araiba's dash, Narazaki froze on his line, hoping to react to Araiba's touch and try for the diving save. But the ball ewas actually just milimeters beyond Araiba's reach. As the Antlers midfielder dashed past kicking at air, the ball bounded once, and Narazaki -- completely fooled -- could only watch it skip into the back of the net.

But Grampus came roaring back just minutes later, as Naoshi Nakamura made a nice anticipation steal and then dashed around the right flank towards the box. Both Grampus strikers, Marques and Ueslei, ha dsingle coverage As they dashed towards goal, allowing Nakamura to choose his target and send a low hopper in front of net. The ball was slightly behind Marques, but he managed to clip it with his heel and curl it inside the far post, knotting the scores.

On the very next sequence, things began to get really ugly, as the Antlers again made a surge forward and the Nagoya defenders used fouls to stop the rush. Ogasawara tried to grab the ball and quickly put it back into play, but Ivica Panadic stepped in the way, and received a kick in the ankle for his trouble. Panadic kicked back and Ogasawara kicked a second time before the ref arrived to break up the fracas. Ogasawara was the lone recipient of a card, on this occasion, but once again the signs of a match spinning out of control could not have been clearer. Once again, Mr. Kashiwabara simply turned a blind eye, and did nothing to try to calm down the boiling tempers.

Just after half time, Kashima once more grabbed the lead, As Fabio Junior FINALLY started to get involved with the offence. Up to now, he has looked completely lost, making some nice runs into space from time to time, but generally failing to read his teammates' intentions and adding little to the attack. But on this occasion, Ogasawara spotted him moving into an open lane and sent a ball into the right corner for the big Brazilian. Though the pass was a bit too long, and Fabio Junior had to chase it all the way to the corner, a nice cutback move allowed him to get a clear lane for a cross. His pass was beautifully struck, bounding for the far post as Motyama made a run. The speedy midfielder had just enough acceleration to get a toe to it, as the ball reached the left post, and half-volley it into the nylon.

Grampus was immediately back on the attack, and now things began to get truly ugly. On a corner kick from the left side, Masahiro Koga made a dash for the far post and, when he found keeper Hitoshi Sogahata in his path, simply bulled right over the keeper, as well as an antlers defender, and sending all three into a heap inside the goal net. Sogahata is not a player to trifle with, with a fierce temper disguised behind his quiet on-field demeanour. He was immediately on his feet and right in Koga's face, as both teams began a pushing and shoving contest that you chould have seen coming well before half time. The referee gave Koga a yellow card, but again, failed to really take action to calm things down. At this point, it might have been futile anyway, but at the very least he should have pulled both captains aside and made it clear that things needed to settle down. But then, that would probably be expecting a bit too much from a J.League referee.

Just moments after the fracas in the Antlers goal mouth, Kashima won a corner kick on the right side, and Fernando played a short ball to Narahashi. about level with the top of the box. Narahashi scanned the area for an open man, then drilled a pass towards the penalty spot, where Seiji Kaneko had slipped away from his defender. Kaneko sent a powerful header into the corner, and the ball somehow managed to squeeze between Narazaki's hand and the left post, for a third goal.

Now Nagoya sensed that they were in a pickle, and only desperate efforts would get them out. Ueslei and Marques began making pell-mell dashes towards goal as Nagoya's midfield began lofting long balls and hoping for a break. In the 76 minute they finally got one. A high lob pass from deep in the Grampus end put Ueslei in a footrace with two Antlers defenders. They seemed to have him cut off, but at the last minute he lunged between them in an effort to reach the ball, and all three went down in a heap. It looked like inmcidental contact -- indeed, if anyone were to blame for the collision it was probably Ueslei -- and a wise referee would have simply waved play on. But instead, Mr. Kashiwabara awarded a free kick just centimeters outside the Kashima penalty area.

Given the sort of contest this had been, and the extreme importance of the kick, it goes without saying that players from both teams were jostling furiously with one another in the wall. After letting the two teams beat each other silly for 75 minutes, the ref could hardly expect them to suddenly stop, on the biggest play of the match. But instead of just accepting that sort of roughhousing, Kashiwabara came over and warned everyone on both teams, ordering them to stand perfectly still until the kick was taken (yeah, right!) As he backed away and raised his whistle to his lips, Koga apparently felt a hand on his back, and jostled against the wall, probably to check whether he was being held by the shirt. To everyone's amazement (even the Antlers), Kashiwabara pulled out a yellow -- Koga's second), and sent him to the locker room. Once again, a crappy referee had cost a team one of their players.

The dismissal would prove to be crucial, indeed. When he finally was able to take the kick, Ueslei fired his point-blank shot into the low right corner, pulling Grampus to within a goal. But with a man missing, the red whales eventually had to concede that they were outgunned. Kashima killed the clock for the final 15 minutes, and claimed the win. Perhaps their victory was a deserved one, considering how many times earlier in the match that an Antlers opportunity was stopped by a cynical Nagoya foul, but it was nevertheless marred by the unwarranted sending-off.

Lineups:

Hitoshi Sogahata, Akira Narahashi (Takeshi Aoki 78), Seiji Kaneko, Go Oiwa, Toru Araiba, Koji Kumagai, Fernando, Mitsuo Ogasawara, Masashi Motoyama, Fabio Junior, Masaki Fukai (Daiki Iwase 88) .

Seigo Narazaki, Yutaka Akita, Andrej Panadic, Masahiro Koga, Kojiro Kaimoto(Tetsuya Okayama 63), Makoto Kakuda, Masayuki Omori, Kunihiko Takizawa (Yusuke Nakatani 56), Naoshi Nakamura, Ueslei, Marques.

1 - 2

Lineups:

Yuta Minami, Takeshi Watanabe, Mitsuru Nagata, Naoya Kondo, Tomokazu Myojin, Dudu, Takahiro Shimotaira, Tadatoshi Masuda (Tatsuya Tanizawa 58), Ricardinho, Yoshiteru Yamashita (Ze Roberto 65), Keiji Tamada (Takayuki Komine 89) .

Yosuke Nozawa, Yasushi Kita, Anderson Luis da Silva, Yoshiaki Maruyama, Kentaro Suzuki, Motohiro Yamaguchi, Hiroyoshi Kuwabara, Yoshito Terakawa (Masahiro Fukazawa 83), Shingo Suzuki, Edmilson (An Yeon-Ha 87), Yusaku Ueno .

And so, thanks to the intervention of a friendly referee, Jubilo Iwata move into sole possession of first place. If this is the way the league wants to run things, they migh as well just hold a beauty contest and elect the J.League champion, rather than forcing teams to actually play football matches. At least THEN we would be able to understand the basis for the choice. As it is now, it seems that the J.LEague crown will be decided merely on the whims of some buffoon with a whistle.

Rumours and Rumblings