Sunday 20 November 2011

S-Pulse 1-2 Kashiwa

Barry Barry writes

S-Pulse 1-2 Kashiwa
Bosnar 43 ---------------- Kudo 62
-------------------------------- Leandro 85

Att. 19584

Line Up

GK K. Yamamoto

DF Muramatsu
DF Iwashita
DF Bosnar
DF Ota

MF Jong a Pin (yellow 54)
MF Edamura
MF Ljungberg

FW Omae
FW Takahara
FW Takagi

Subs Used

Takagi on for Edamura (57)
Sugiyama on for Takahara (67)
Nagai on for Ota (85)

Report

Them: Hard to play against, highly motivated, firing on all cylinders, potentially just two wins from the title. Us: winding down, missing our captain, looking towards the cup, nothing but pride to play for. And that was that. They won, we lost and we all went home in foul moods.

Despite all the above, it was very tight game, with the first half especially on a knife edge. The visitors in particular were largely restricted to long range efforts. The second was far more open, no doubt due to Bosnar's unstoppable free kick just before the break. It made Reysol throw everything they had at us to get back in it. They don't play very attractive football, but look at the table - it's been getting the job done.

They penetrated our defences on several occasions with some slick passing, and it was from a swift bit of overlapping that a shot drew a parry from Kaito. That was then headed home by the completely free Leandro to give them the lead. At 2-1 we kept having a go, but the look of a team playing for the title and one playing for pride is impossible to mistake. A late free kick from Bosnar went wide and that was pretty much that.

Kashiwa are now a whisker from the title and it'll be hard too see them blow it against either Cerezo or Urawa. If Nagoya fail to beat Yamagata on Saturday and Kashiwa win, it's all over. This time next year, it'll be us. #optimism

While I'm here, today S-Pulse became only the 5th team in the country to welcome its 5 millionth supporter through the gates. Top work.

Ghotbi Says

Translated back to English.

I have to choose my words wisely. I'm a little disappointed with some of the ref's decision making today. Omae was in the area and got surrounded by two players and pulled down. I'm 1000% percent certain that was a penalty kick. If that had been given it would have been a different game.

We made a mistake for Kashiwa to equalise, and the second goal too came about from a mistake. After their second we changed the system and went with two up front. We created some chances to equalise.

I think Leandro is one of the best foreigners in the J. League, but with his diving he was trying to get a second yellow card for Jong a Pin, and that's disappointing.

Never mind the game, look at this instead

Videos

Eddy's belter. You really don't need to see anything else.



But if you want to put yourself through it, here you go:

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

No Freddie, why? Is he injured? / Arsenal supporter

Barry said...

Crap, sorry! Ljungberg did play - I made a mistake on the starting line up. I've corrected it now.

He did OK today, but misses Ono (who is injured) to play off. He was usually involved when we created anything, and it was him who got taken down for the free kick we scored from.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Barry, you're a star! I so appreciate your reports, including videos, there's not too much of this in Swedish media. / Arsenal supporter

shadows said...

Hey Barry..I think Ghotbi screwed the pooch yesterday if you ask me..We were doing just fine leading 1-0 when he sacrificed a midfield player(Edamura) for a forward(Toshyuki). This created a mismatch in midfield with only Jong having to defend(considering Ljunberg doesnt defend mostly)..and Alex didnt drop back to midfield which can only mean he was instructed not to!