August 24, 2005
Sending a Message?
It would be surprising indeed if that message failed to get through. Based on the content of matches played on Wednesday evening, we cannot see any other team in the J.League overtaking BOTH Kashima and Osaka. Though there may be a long way to go in the season, at this point it looks very much like a two-team fight to the finish. Unless there is even more blatant intervention by officials than what we have witnessed up to now, ther are no other teams with the complete package of capabilities to overtake the two leaders.
| Date | Home | . | Visitor | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Aug |  | 7-2 |  | Kashima Stadium |
| 24 Aug |  | 2-2 |  | Komaba Stadium |
| 24 Aug |  | 1-2 |  | Ichihara Seaside Std. |
| 24 Aug |  | 1-1 |  | Ajinomoto Stadium |
| 24 Aug |  | 0-2 |  | Yokohama (Nissan) Std. |
| 24 Aug |  | 1-2 |  | Nihondaira Stadium |
| 24 Aug |  | 3-1 |  | Kanazawa Stadium |
| 24 Aug |  | 2-1 |  | Hiroshima "Big Arch" |
| 24 Aug |  | 1-1 |  | Oita "Big Eye" Std. |
2 - 2
While the Gamba and Antlers matches may have been more importance from the standpoint of title competitions, the clash between Urawa Reds and Vissel Kobe did not take a subordinate position in terms of excitement and suspense. As we have alluded to in some of our recent reports, Vissel have been gradually improving as a team. Although they remain in the J1 cellar, on recent form there is at least some hope that they will be able to turn their season around and avoid relegation. Ever since Emerson Leao and the brothers Miura were sent packing, Vissel's team spirit has improved visibly, and this is no doubt one of the main reasons for their recent favourable form.
2 - 2The Reds, meanwhile, are in a clear transition phase, with two new foreign stars trying to find their place in the team and others either recently returned from, or still recuperating from injury. Though there have been some positive signs in the past two matches, we think it will be several months yet before they are anywhere close to "peak form". As much as it may disappoint the Urawa faithful, it looks like the team will have to settle for a cup title, at best, this season, and hope that they can finally put all the pieces together in 2006.
In this contest, Vissel took the lead twice by capitalizing on defensive miscues by the Reds. Both times, the Reds managed to fight back top level terms. The winning goal came on the stroke of full time, and though the Reds may have dominated the latter stages of play, it seemed to be a fair result for both teams. The inability to claim all three points is obviously a bigger concern for Vissel than it is for the Reds. However, it does now seem clear that Urawa will not be chasing a league title this season.
| Date: 24 August, 2005 | Location: Saitama Stadium | |||||||
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| Yuichiro Nagai (51') Robson Ponte (89') | Scoring | Tomoyuki Hirase (34') Atsuhiro Miura (56') | ||||||
| Masayuki Okano | Cautions | Seiji Kaneko | ||||||
Lineups: Ryota Tsuzuki, Keisuke Tsuboi, Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Hideki Uchidate, Tadaaki Hirakawa, Tomoyuki Sakai (Nobuhisa Yamada 45), Keita Suzuki, Alex Santos (Masayuki Okano 45), Robson Ponte, Tomislav Maric (Takuya Yokoyama 70), Yuichiro Nagai .  Makoto Kakegawa, Park Kang-Jo, Seiji Kaneko, Martin Muller, Kunie Kitamoto, Atsuhiro Miura, Akihiro Endo (Hiroyuki Komoto 84), Naoya Saeki, Pavel Horvath, Ivo Ulich (Tomo Sugawara 79), Tomoyuki Hirase (Keisuke Kurihara 59) . | ||||||||
3 - 1
Last weekend, we noted that Jubilo is beginning to play with much greater effectiveness now that aging stars, such as Masashi Nakayama, Hideto Suzuki and Hiroshi Nanami are being eased out to pasture. On Wednesday evening, the again looked like a competitive team, but it was equally clear that Gamba Osaka is in just a slightly higher class than Jubilo. The Gamba defence may still allow more goals than coach Akira Nishino would prefer, but there is no questioning the team's ability to produce goals.
3 - 1 Jubilo got off to a solid start, with Ryoichi Maeda driving a half-volley from the edge of the box past former U-20 NT keeper Yosuke Fujigaya, and the defence holding Gamba at bay until half time to carry a lead into the locker room. But Gamba exploted for three goals in the second half -- two by Araujo and one by Fabinho -- to claim a victory which seemed more convincing to those who witnessed the entire contest than the box score may imply. For one thing, it was poor shot selection and a few dreadful misses by Masashi Oguro which prevented Gamba from equalising early in the first half. For another, despite Jubilo's fairly competitive showing in the first 45 mintues, over the final half hour they really seemed to be hanging on for dear life, as Gamba players dashed through their defensive formation time and time again. Incidentally, Jubilo keeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi was injured in a collision, early in the first half, and the lack of a mobile and veteran goaltender at the back may have caused Jubilo's defensive miscues to seem even worse than might otherwise have been the case.
The only real question where Gamba is concerned is whether their potent offence will be enough to carry them through to the end of the season, or whether their tendency to concede a lot of easy goals will eventually come back to haunt them. The Antlers owe their success more to solid defending and a tendency to avoid mistakes, whereas Gamba owe theirs to an explosive attack. The conventional wisdom says that offence wins matches but defence wins championships. We will just have to wait and see whether this old adage holds true in 2005, or whether Gamba can be the exception to the rule.
| Date: 24 August, 2005 | Location: Kanazawa Stadium | |||||||
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| Fernandinho (66') Araujo (73') Araujo (84') | Scoring | Ryoichi Maeda (24') | ||||||
| Mitsuteru Watanabe Hideo Hashimoto | Cautions | Yoshiaki Ota Takayuki Chano Ryoichi Maeda | ||||||
Lineups: Yosuke Fujigaya, Satoru Yamaguchi, Sidiclei, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Mitsuteru Watanabe (Akihiro Ienaga 45), Hideo Hashimoto, Yasuhito Endo (Noritada Saneyoshi 86), Takahiro Futagawa, Araujo, Masashi Oguro (Kota Yoshihara 87), Fernandinho .  Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi (Yohei Sato 19), Takayuki Chano, Makoto Tanaka, Toshihiro Hattori, Yoshiaki Ota, Takashi Fukunishi, Hiroshi Nanami (Choi Yong-Soo 80), Shinji Murai, Sho Naruoka (Takahiro Kawamura 67), Robert Cullen (Masashui Nakayama 72), Ryoichi Maeda . | ||||||||
7 - 2 
Four days after an atrociously officiated match caused them to drop a close result to a feisty Sanfrecce Hiroshima, the Kashima Antlers apparently wanted to let the rest of the league know what they are made of. Though they had to play without both of their starting central defenders, who "earned" (somehow that doesnt seem like the right word) red cards last weekend, and this provided for a few moments of excitement at Albirex' attacking end of the pitch Kashima left viewers with little doubt about who was the better team.
7 - 2 At first, there were some indications that this contest might provide even more fodder for angry Antlers fans to chew on, as Albirex took an early lead after the referee ignored what looked like a foul on Masashi Motoyama , in th 7 minute of play, and the resulting counterattack led to a nice finish by Edmilson and an early lead for Albirex
But Kashima responded midway through the first half, with Motoyama collecting a loose ball that had been swatted clear by the Albirex keeper, and tucking it into the right corner to level the score. Soon thereafter, Mitsuo Ogasawara won a free kick about 25 meters out and cured a shot to a cutting Keiji Haneda , who made just enough contact with the ball to get credit for the goal (though replays suggest that it would have gone into the net in any event). Just before half time, Ogasawara replayed the shot identically, this time without any assistance from Haneda, and the Antlers had a 3-1 halftime lead.
Under normal circumstances, the Antlers probably would have used their impressive defense to make the remaining 45 mintues an exercise in futility for the opposing team. But for some reason -- whether it be pride, or revenge, or merely the desire to sent a message to the League in general -- this week was quite different from "usual". Rather than play out the clock with quiet efficiency, the Antlers came out for the second half with fire in their eyes, and proceeded to dismember the hapless Albirex defence piece by piece. If not for a wayward shot from a wide-open Takayuki Suzuki shortly after the restart, and one or two narrowly missed connections on breakaway passes, they might easily have produced a double-digit score line.
As we noted in our previous report, on the Gamba-Jubilo match, the conventional wisdom suggests that the team with the better offence sometimes wins head-to-head matches, but the team with the better defence usually wins the titles. However, after watching this Wednesday's performance by the Antlers offence, Gamba had better hope that this was just a rare case of all the right things happening for Kashima. If they start turning in offensive performances like this one on a regular basis, you can be sure that nobody is going to catch them.
| Date: 24 August, 2005 | Location: Kashima Stadium | |||||||
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| Masashi Motoyama (31') Keiji Haneda (38') Mitsuo Ogasawara (44') Toru Araiba (72') Alex Mineiro (82') Miotsuo Ogasawara (87') Takuya Nozawa (89') | Scoring | Edmilson (7') Anderson Lima (80') | ||||||
| Alex Mineiro | Cautions | | ||||||
Lineups: Hitoshi Sogahata, Akira Narahashi, Jun Uchida, Keiji Haneda, Toru Araiba, Takeshi Aoki, Fernando, Mitsuo Ogasawara, Masashi Motoyama (Masaki Fukai 61), , Alex Mineiro (Ricardinho 85) Takayuki Suzuki (Takuya Nozawa 71) .  Yosuke Nozawa, Anderson Lima, Naoki Takahashi, Shigenori Hagimura, Yasushi Kita (Naoya Kikuchi 57), Isao Homma, Hiroyoshi Kuwahara (Daisuke Aono 79), Fabinho, Yoshito Terakawa (Yusaku Ueno 45), Shingo Suzuki, Edmilson . | ||||||||
0 - 2 
Some teams have come back from their summer break looking more competitive than they did prior to the interval. Others have come back and stumbled, but provided strong indications that they are still going to be a force to be reckoned with. Yet others have demonstrated rather clearly that they are setting their sights on next season. Kawasaki Frontale probably fit the second category. They look as inconsistent now as they did before the break, but at least they look like a team that will cause trouble for some of the top contenders. The Yokohama Marinos, however, would clearly appear to fall into the latter group.
0 - 2 Since league play resumed, a week ago, Yokohama have scored just one goal in 180 minutes, and that was a goal scored from a set play by a defender, who managed to be overlooked by the opposing defence. Though Tatsuhiko Kubo and a href="../../jleague/marinos/yamase.html"> Koji Yamase have returned to the lineup, and (for reasons only heaven and Takeshi Okada know) Rodrigo Gral has been signed on transfer from Jubilo Iwata, the Marinos offence has looked sadly impotend in the past two matches, and if they are not able to figure out what has caused this total lack of coordination in the offensive half of the pitch, they could be in for a very disappointing run over the next three months.
Frontale, on the other hand, have recorded two straight wins since the break, and have climbed into the top half of the league table. Much of this is attributable to the many offensive weapons at their disposal. Marcus de Morais and Juninho have both been very much on form, while young Masaru Kurotsu is emerging as one of the J.League's most promising "newcomers" (though he played frequently last year, this season marks his first chance to play in the J1).
| Date: 24 August, 2005 | Location: Yokohama Stadium | |||||||
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| Scoring | Marcus (39') Kengo Nakamura (64') | |||||||
| Yoshiharu Ueno Eisuke Nakanishi | Cautions | Hiroyuki Taniguchi | ||||||
Lineups: Tetsuya Enomoto, Yuji Nakazawa, Naoki Matsuda, Eisuke Nakanishi (Nobuhisa Shimizu 69), Hayuma Tanaka, Magrao, Yoshiharu Ueno, Dutra, Koji Yamase (Daisuke Oku 61), Hideo Oshima (Rodrigo Gral 61), Daisuke Sakata .  Takashi Aizawa, Yoshinobu Minowa, Shuhei Terada, Hiroki Ito, Yasuhiro Nagahashi, Kengo Nakamura (Toru Oniki 88), Hiroyuki Taniguchi, Augusto de Souza, Marcus de Morais (Kazuki Ganaha 79), Juninho, Masaru Kurotsu (Hideki Sahara 58) . | ||||||||
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