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May 10, 2004

Slip-Sliding Away

Date	Home	.	Visitor	Venue
9 May		1-1		Ichihara Seaside
9 May		0-3		Niigata "Big Swan"
9 May		2-0		Hiroshima Big Arch
9 May		3-0		Kashima Stadium
9 May		3-1		Yokohama Int'l
9 May		1-2		Nihondaira Stadium
9 May		0-2		"Banpaku" Stadium
9 May		2-1		Tokyo Nat'l Stadium

2 - 0

Lets give credit where it is due. During the second half Jubilo put on a very slick, effective demonstration of short-range one-touch passing to dice up the Gamba defence and produce two very pretty goals. If we could ignore the events of the first half, this was a match that Jubilo fully deserved to win.

The only problem is that things were looking very different in the first half, and if not for a blatant "make-up call" by Mr. Kashihara, who not surplisingly ranks dead last in our current ranking of referees, the result might have been wquite different indeed.

Over the first half hour of play, both teams faced some difficulties with the slippery pitch conditions, as their efforts to create scoring opportunities with precision, medium-range passes were repeatedly frustrated by the inability of players to keep their feet when making a quick cut. The only events that really had much significance in terms of their later impact were an apparently inadvertent hand ball by Hiroshi Nanami, which earned him a yellow, and an even less deliberate foul by Satoru Yamaguchi, which earned a similar booking. Then, in the 36 minute, came an event that might have been decisive in determining the match result. Gamba produced a quick counterattack as Takahiro Futagawa made a steal and dashed through midfield with three men in support. Nanami was clearly beaten, but to stop the dangerous break, he reached out ahd grabbed Futagawa by the arm, pulling him off his feet. Whatever one might say about Nanami's first booking, his second yellow was an obvious one, that nobody could really argue with.

With ten minutes to go in the first half, it looked like Gamba were in the driver's seat. But just minutes later, as Jubilo made a push for the Gamba box, the referee blew his whistle and produced another yellow. The Gamba players stood around in disbelief, wondering what had happened, though Sidiclei, who had blocked the Jubilo drive for the box with a hard tackle, stepped forward figuring that he was about to get a cheap card, as a "make up call". Imagine their surprise when Mr. Kashihara pointed to Yamaguchi, and displayed the red plastic rectangle. Replays show that the only contact Yamaguchi made on the play was a perfectly legal shoulder charge. It is hard to spot any illegal contact whatsoever, on the play, though the most generous reading would have been a free kick due to a foul by Sidiclei (and even his contact was largely with the ball, and could by no means be viewed as a yellow-card offence.

The only conclusion one can make is that Mr. Kashihara felt bad about sending off a Jubilo player, and was looking for any excuse to restore the two sides to equal numbers. Not that Jubilo requires such assistance. Indeed, this is the most disturbing thing about the trend in officiating this season. Jubilo Iwata are a very competitive team, and they certainly do not need help from the referees, in order to be one of the top contenders for a title. Unfortunately -- and this is a sad thing for Jubilo fans as well -- even if Jubilo manage to win the title this season, they will always have to face the stigma that it was handed to them on a silver platter due to dodgy officiating. The fact is, Jubilo may be good enough to win the league championship without such help. But so long as they continue to be the beneficiaries of an unbroken string of bad calls, their achievements will remain unconvincing.

In the second half, Jubilo displayed their strengths, using short, one-touch passes to scramble the Gamba defence and produce two goals. The first came on an inlet pass from Norihiro Nishi to Toshiya Fujita. Fujita was closely marked, at the left post, and both he and the defender reached the ball at the same time. The ball bounded clear, but straight towards Ryoichi Maeda at the edge of the box, for a wide-open shot.

Midway through the second half, another sequence of short passes in the box again gave Fujita a chance to play provider, as he rolled a soft set-up pass across the face of goal to Rodrigo Gral, for another unchallenged, short-range shot. Jubilo's dazzling pass work in the second half was certainly deserving of two goals. Unfortunately, we will never know whether the team truly deserved a win, since once again, Jubilo's opponent had one fewer man on the pitch than they deserved to. When will this travesty end?

Lineups:

Naoki Matsuyo, Noritada Saneyoshi (Masashi Oguro 61), Sidiclei, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Arata Kodama, Hideo Hashimoto, Satoru Yamaguchi, Takahiro Futagawa, Fernandinho, Kota Yoshihara, Magrao (Masanobu Matsunami 82).

Yohei Sato, Hideto Suzuki, Makoto Tanaka (Takahiro Kawamura 49), Naoya Kikuchi, Norihiro Nishi (Sho Naruoka 74), Takashi Fukinishi , Toshihiro Hattori, Toshiya Fujita, Hiroshi Nanami, Ryoichi Maeda (Robert Cullen 81), Rodrigo Gral.

3 - 1

Despite going a goal down, Verdy continued to generate some of the best scoring opportunities of the contest. In the first half, Kazunori Iio and Kazuki Hiramoto produced some fine breaks, with one-touch passing and fast-paced movement. On a dry pitch, they might well have generated a goal. Patrick Mboma came on as a substitute, ast half time, and though this deprived Verdy of the speed and slashing drives that Iio created in the first half, it also allowed the offence to hold the ball longer, on the attack, and try to find more high-percentage opportunities. With 15 minutes to go, Verdy finally got the payoff, as Yoshiyuki Kobayashi turned the right cornerand played a soft, drop pass to the top right corner of the box. Takashi Yoneyama steamed in at a full sprint and blasted a shot inside the right post, levelling the scores.

For a while, it looked like the match would end in a deadlock. Thoguh both teams made aggressive efforts to generate a goal, the defences held firm, and as the match neared injury time, the score was still 1-1. But with seconds left in regulation time, Dutra sent a fast roller through the box. None of the Verdy defenders could react quickly enough, on the slick surface, and the ball rolled through a crowd of flailing bodies to the far post, where Yukihiko Sato got a toe to it, which sent it bounding high into the air. In one of those plays that seems to move in slow motion even during the live shot, the keeper, a defender and Sato all stmbled towards the right post, as the ball arced high in the air. Amidst the flailing bodies, Sato's shoulder hit the ball, knocking it into the net.

On the very next sequence of play, Verdy's defence made a horrendous clearance that fell right to Ahn Jung-Hwan, just a few meters outside the penalty area. Ahn pounced on the ball, took two steps towards goal and then ripped a shot into the far corner. Thus, with two goals in injury time, Yokohama claimed victory in a contest that was far closer than the final margin of victory.

Lineups:

Tatsuya Enomoto, Eisuke Nakanishi (Yukihiko Sato 79), Naoki Matsuda Daisuke Nasu, Yasuhiro Endo (Yuji Nakazawa 68), Yoo Sang-Chul, Yoshiharu Ueno, Dutra, Daisuke Oku (Norihisa Shimizu 70), Ahn Jung-Hwan, Daisuke Sakata.

Yoshinari Takagi, Takushi Yoneyama, Kenta Togawa, Claudio Ubeda, Takuya Yamada (Daigo Kobayashi 62), Kentaro Hayashi, Takeshi Hirano, Atsuhiro Miura, Yoshiyuki Kobayashi, Kazuki Hiramoto (Takayuki Morimoto 76), Kazunori Iio (Patrick Mboma 45).

0 - 3

Five minutes later, Alex Santos fought his way through three defenders at the left side of the area, and ripped a shot at goal. The keeper deflected the shot away, but it fell to Emerson inside the penalty arc, for an uncontested put-back that gave Urawa a commanding 2-0 lead even before all of the fans had found their seats.

The home team did not give up despite this state of affairs, and managed to hit the woorwork two or three times over the next 30 minutes. But even though the shots on goal were a bit less lop-sided, as early as half time it was clear that Albirex were unlikely to ever get back into this contest. Ten minutes before full time, Emerson completed his hat trick, this time on a nice feed from Nobuhisa Yamada, on the right wing. His shot, from 30 meters, rocketed off the crossbar, bounded on the goal line, and spun into the net on the second ricochet. The win moved the Reds into second place in the league table, though the Marinos still have a game in hand.

Lineups:

Yosuke Nozawa, Yasushi Kita (Hikaru Mita 45), Anderson Luis da Silva, An Yeon-Ha, Katsuyuki Miyazawa (Fabinho 45), Yoshito Terakawa, Hiroyoshi Kuwabara, Motohiro Yamaguchi (Masahiro Fukazawa 83), Shingo Suzuki, Edmilson, Yusaku Ueno.

Ryota Tsuzuki, Ichiei Muroi, Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Keisuke Tsuboi, Tadaaki Hirakawa (Masayuki Okano 84), Tomoyuki Sakai, Alex Santos, Keita Suzuki, Makoto Hasebe (Hideki Uchidate 79), Koji Yamase (Nobuhisa Yamada 65), Emerson.

1 - 2

Though Mr. Takayama handed out two relatively cheap cards in the first 10 minutes, the travesty really began in the 24 minute, when Yoshito Okubo chased after a long ball, all the way to the edge of the box. But when it was clear that the keeper would get there first, Okubo pulled up, falling to his knees to stop his momentum a full three meters short of the keeper. But because of the wet pitch, Okubo slid through the spray, and his momentum carried him into the keeper. There could be no doubt whatsoever that Okubo tried to avoid the collision, and even the keeper seemed to take it in stride. But to Okubo's clear derision, Mr. Takayama pulled out his book (perhaps he should have given the card to S-Pulse, since it was THEIR pitch which caused the collision).

S-Pulse took the lead early in the first half, thanks to an unforced error by the Cerezo defence. A very weak clearance from the deep right corner of the back line was easily intercepted by Keisuke Ota, who immediately lofted the ball to Hideaki Kitajima at the top of the penalty arc. Kitajima had plenty of space, and just one defender back, and might have tried his own luck. But spotting Araujo a few steps to his left, and in an even more wide-open position, Kitajima unselfishly gave up his own shot to set up an easy volley-home by the Brazilian ace.

S-Pulse continued to control the match for most of the first half, but shortly after the break, a fine set play by Cerezo would level the score and change the momentum completely. Two minutes after the restart, Cerezo won a free kick about forty meters out from goal, near the right sideline. Tadaaki Tokushige took the kick and sent a well-placed drive to the far post. Veteran Akinori Nishizawa made a prodigious leap, soaring over his defender's back and heading the ball home. The goal gave Cerezo a boost of adrenaline, and for the next 20 minutes or so S-Pulse were steadily pushed back on the defensive foot. Cerezo ace Yoshito Okubo shook off a banged-up knee to generate tremendous pressure on the S-Pulse back line, but several close calls failed to produce the go-ahead goal. Then, With just over 15 mintues to play, Okubo took a throw-in from the right sideline, turned towards goal and made a nice feint move into the box. Unfortunately he pushed the ball a bit too far, and it looked like either the keeper or the last defender would get their first. But both were slow to react, and when they did see the ball rolling across the area, their desperate efforts to clear caused both to lose their footing on the slippery pitch. The ball continued rolling, straight past both defender and keeper, as Okubo chased it all the way to the far post, before tucking it into the empty net.

That should have marked the end of the day's activities, but thanks to some truly incomprehensible officiating, the final five minutes of play turned into a total fiasco. In the 85 minute, as Cerezo pressed for an insurance goal, Okubo received a high lob into the box, and with his back to goal, wound up for a bicycle kick. But an S-Pulse defender dove into his path at the last minute, causing Okubo to kick him in the head. As was the case with his first yellow card, Okubo could not possibly have intended the foul. His back was to the defender, and he aimed his kick directly at the ball thinking he had an open shot (indeed, he made contact, and might have had a goal if not for the diving attempted clearance). Nevertheless, the ref produced another card, sending Okubo to the showers. Just seconds later, Tokushige (who also had one yellow already) was chasing back on an S-Pulse counterattack, and as he and an opponent crossed midfield the two inadvertently got their legs tangled and went down. Not only was it obvious that the contact was unintentional, but since it happened at midfield, it would be virtually impossible to describe it as either a "professional foul" or a "breakaway". Nevertheless, Tokushige was sent to the showers, reducing Cerezo to just nine men.

At this point (to no one's surprise), all hell broke loose as playes on both teams apparently decided that if they were going to get carded for inconsequential infractions, they might as well just make sure that the infraction was well worth the penalty. Four more cards were handed out in the final two minutes of play (plus extra time), putting the cap on a truly reprehensible evening. We have said this several times in the past, but this time we have to draw the line. If the league fails to discipline the official -- who was far more to blame than any of the players for this fiasco -- it will lose all credibility whatsoever! As noted before, we intend to follow up this report with specific evidence of incompetence, and will link the evidence permaently to Mr.Takayama's information, on this website. Stay tuned. We will surely have more on this issue, soon.

Lineups:

Yohei Nishibe, Ryuzo Morioka, Toshihide Saito, Tomomi Tsurumi, Keisuke Ota, Teruyoshi Ito, Kota Sugiyama Takumi Wada (Naoki Hiraoka 69), Araujo, Hideaki Kitajima (Masaaki Sawanobori 78), Yoshikiyo Kuboyama (Kohei Hiramatsu 64) .

Tomohiko Ito, Takaaki Tokushige, Takahito Chiba, Kenichi Uemura, Davorim Kablar, Tomi Shimomura, Takanori Nunobe, Noriyuki Sakamoto, Yusuke Sato, Hiroaki Morishima, (Kenichi Uemura, Kiyokazu Kudo, Akinori Nishizawa (Takuya Kokeguchi 86), Yoshito Okubo, Kruno Lovrek .

3 - 0

Seven minutes later, Motoyama got his second assist of the night, once again drawing a crowd of defenders as he dribbled acrobatically into the left side of the penalty area, then spun a pass to Mitsuo Ogasawara in a wide-open position, just beyond the penalty spot. Oga calmly settled the ball, picked out a spot and drove his shot into the far side of the net to give the Antlers a 2-0 cushion.

Trinita refused to lie down and die, but even with several starters missing, the Antlers are a team that rarely relinquishes a two goal advantage. Though they seemed to dial back the energy level after about 30 minutes, they cruised along on their two-goal cushion until about the 75 minute mark, when substitutions and accelerated pressure from Trinita began to produce some dangerous opportunities. Following a series of two or three plays that required strong efforts by Hitoshi Sogahata to keep his sheet clean, Kashima began pressing hard at midfield, once more, and the result was an almost immediate swing in the momentum and several chances for the Antlers. Defender Daiki Iwamasa narrowly missed one header off a corner kick, and just moments later as he dashed for the left post, on a free kick, Oita's Daiki Wakamatsu was forced to push him down rather than concede a header from point-blank range. Unfortunately, the referee spotted the infraction and pointed to the penalty spot. Ogasawara slotted home the PK and Kashima sealed their victory.

Lineups:

Hitoshi Sogahata, Jun Uchida, Daiki Iwamasa (Tomohiko Ikeuchi 85), Go Oiwa, Tatsuya Ishikawa, Masashi Otani (Koji Kumagai 74), Toru Araiba, Mitsuo Ogasawara, Chikashi Masuda (Takuya Nozawa 84), Masashi Motoyama, Fabio Junior .

Riki Takasaki, Tetsuya Yamazaki (Hideki Nagai 84), Kazuyoshi Mikami, Sandro Chavez Rosa, Koji Arimura, Takayuki Yoshida, Richard Witsche (Haruki Seto 87), Tomoaki Komorida, Shota Matsuhashi (Yuichi Nemoto 50), Magno Alves, Daiki Takamatsu .

1 - 1

Opposing JEF on Sunday afternoon was a team that has splurged on quality players over the past decade, yet never seems to produce the results to match its spending. At the start of this season, many thought that Grampus would be one of the top contenders for a title, but as has happened so many times in the past, the team just cant produce results to match the talent that they seem to possess, on paper.

Grampus took the early lead in this contest when Kojiro Kaimoto found an opening on the right wing and crossed in to Ueslei, for a short-range header. But midway through the second half, JEF equalised on a corner kick from the right side. Yuki Abe's cross was punched clear by the keeper, but fell right to Yuto Sato, at the top of the penalty arc, and Sato blasted the rebound into the low left corner.

Lineups:

Ryo Kushino, Daisuke Saito (Satoru Yamagishi 62), Zeljko Milinovic, Takayuki Chano, Masataka Sakamoto, Yuto Sato, Yuki Abe, Shinji Murai, Naotake Hanyu (Koji Nakajima 86), Seiichiro Maki (Takenori Hayashi 62), Sandro Cardoza .

Seigo Narazaki, Masayuki Omori, Yutaka Akita, Masahiro Koga, Kojiro Kaimoto, Kei Yamaguchi, Harutaka Ono (Kunihiko Takizawa 83), Yusuke Nakatani, Naoshi Nakamura (Tetsuya Okayama 81), Ueslei, Marques .

2 - 1

Lineups:

Yoichi Doi, Akira Kaji, Teruaki Moniwa, Jean Carlo Witte, Ryuji Fujiyama, Naohiro Ishikawa (Oh Jang-Eun 85), Yasuyuki Konno, Satoru Asari, Mitsuhiro Toda, Lucas Severino (Yoshiro Abe 75), Yohei Kajiyama (Yuta Baba 72) .

Kenta Shimizu, Yasuhiro Namida, Takeshi Watanabe, Mitsuru Nagata, Naoya Kondo, Ricardinho, Takahiro Shimotaira, Dudu (Takehito Shigehara 53), Tatsuya Tanizawa (Shunta Nagai 77), Ze Roberto, Minoru Suganuma (Keiji Tamada 53) .

0 - 2

Lineups:

Makoto Kakegawa, Park Kang-Jo, Kunie Kitamoto, Roger, Naoto Matsuo, Mitsunori Yabuta (Shosuke Tsubouchi 32), Hiromi Kojima, Koji Yoshimura, Chikara Fujimoto, Leandro (Kazutaka Murase 78), Ryuji Bando (Kazuyoahi Miura 86).

Takashi Shimoda, Norio Omura (Yuki Tamura 79), Ricardo Ribeiro, Megumu Yoshida, Yuichi Komano, Ri Han-Jae (Susumu Oki 80), Kazuyuki Morisaki, Koji Morisaki, Daisuke Tonoike (Cesar Sampaio 45), Kota Hattori, Thiago Honorio (Yuki Tamura 73).

And so, with six matches still to play, it is starting to look like the Yokohama Marinos are the only team that can still catch Jubilo Iwata. Yokohama have a game in hand, which they play against Shimizu S-Pulse on Wednesday, and they play Jubilo head-to-head next weekend. Considreing how many of Jubilo's wins have been handed to them through egregious officiating, it is hard to underestimate the degree of support that now exists for a Marinos comeback. The backlash against Jubilo may be unfair in some ways, since it is hard to deny that the team has played quite well. Nevertheless, there is a growing impression in J.League fan circles -- certainly not confined to The Rising Sun News -- that something is rotten in the city of Iwata. Jubilo still has to play the Marinos, JEF United and Kashima Antlers, and no doubt there will be many fans, even among those who typically do not support Yokohama, Ichihara or Kashima, who will rooting for these teams to win, if only to stifle the rah-rah contingent in the National Press, which seems to be heavily invested in a Jubilo championship.

1 - 1

But for some reason, the only word that can be used to describe the team's performance on Wednesday night is "uninspired". The Marinos were flat, and came within a referee's whistle of being run out of their own stadium. Of course, much of the credit for this result should go to S-Pulse, who have finally begun to put their internal bickering behind them and, under coach Antoninho, are playing some very good football these days. Though still struggling near the bottom of the league table, S-Pulse put its disappointing loss to Cerezo, on Sunday, behind them and came out with a very impressive "full court press", which had the Marinos backed up in their own end for most of the evening.

After a rather uneventful first half, in which the most dangerous opportunities resulted from S-Pulse steals in the Yokohama half, followed by lightning counterattacks spearheaded by ace striker Araujo, the wingheads got a the tally that they clearly deserved, just before half time. Oddly enough, this was one of the few occasions when the scoring opportunity did not come off a steal in deep midfield. Instead, it was created by defender Ryuzo Morioka, who pushed forward on an overlap down the right wing and sent a cross to the top of the penalty arc, for Yoshikiyo Kuboyama. Kuboyama struck a brilliant, looping header which sent the keeper backpedaling frantically, but which just missed the target, and came back off the crossbar. But as the keeper tumbled heavily into the back of his own net, the rebound dropped loose in the box, and Araujo dashed in to nod it home.

The second half did not look much better for the bay-city seagulls. Despite several offence-oriented changes, they simply could not find the key to unlock S-Pulse's defensive press. With ten minutes remaining on the clock, it looked very much like S-Pulse would claim all three points. But in the 80 minute, midfielder Kota Sugiyama was a bit overexuberant in pursuing a Marinos player at midfield, and was awarded a second yellow card. While not as egregious as some of the other calls, this week, you could certainly describe it as a "cheap" card -- the sort of play that is often simply waved on in European leagues. In any event, the Marinos were rescued from impending disaster, as they received a chance to make up the deficit with an extra man. Even so, it was S-Pulse who nearly doubled their lead moments later, when a long lob by Araujo fooled the keeper, but flew just a bit beyond the target and landed on the roof of the net.

It was not until the final minute of regular time that the Marinos finally struc, but when it did arrrive, it was an impressive goal indeed. Ahn Jung-Hwan made a sleek dribbling move into the box, on the right side, and sent a low line-drive cross for the far post. U-20 striker Daisuke Sakata dashed in and threw himself through the air, ignoring an impending collision with the left post to steer the ball home. Fortunately, the joy of bringing his team back level seemed to help Sakata shake off the impact, and celebrate with his teammates. But while this late strike allowed the Marinos to rescue one point, they failed to get the win that they really needed to keep the pressure on Jubilo. Following this result, they still lag six points back, with just six matches to play. Jubilo have a difficult schedule, down the stretch, but if their opponents continue to drop opportunities like this one, they certainly look like favourites to take the title.

Tatsuya Enomoto, Eisuke Nakanishi (Yoshiharu Ueno 57), Naoki Matsuda, Yuji Nakazawa, Yasuhiro Endo (Yukihiko Sato 64), Daisuke Nasu, Yoo Sang-Chul, Dutra, Daisuke Oku, Norihisa Shimizu (Daisuke Sakata 49), Ahn Jung-Hwan, .

Yohei Nishibe, Ryuzo Morioka, Toshihide Saito, Tomomi Tsurumi, Keisuke Ota, Teruyoshi Ito, Kota Sugiyama Takumi Wada, Araujo, Hideaki Kitajima (Jamelli 83), Yoshikiyo Kuboyama (Kazumichi Takaki 80) .

Rumours and Rumblings

Reds to Challenge The Reds

The name of this event is a bit of a misnomer since it is not truly a "cup' format.The four teams involved in this tournament will be hosts Manchester United, Urawa Reds, Holland's PSV Eindhoven and Boca Juniors, from Argentina. The teams will play a "double-header" exhibition on August 3 and August 5 (two matches will take place on each day, for the price of one admission ticket). The Reds will play Boca Juniors in the "preliminary" match on Aug 3 (followed by Manchester United vs PSV), and will take part in the "main event" on Aug 5 , when the Reds will face "the Reds" (Manchester United) following a contest between Boca Juniors and PSV. The only question remaining is: since it isnt a complete round-robin, nor is it a "knockout" tournament, how will they decide who is the winner?

Jubilo Tumble Out of ACL

Jubilo started to get into gear as the second half came to a close, and regained level terms shortly after the restart, on a strike by Takashi Fukunishi. But in the final 15 minutes of play, Jubilo crumbled, conceding three late goals. Edu put the Koreans back in front in the 76 minute, again thanks to a defensive blunder by Jubilo. Though Ryoichi Maeda equalised again, a few minutes later, Chonbuk scored twice in the final four minutes, on goals by Park Dong-hyuk and Nam Kung-do, to complete the collapse.