Meiji Yasuda J1 League
Match 2
Shimizu S-Pulse 1-2 Nagoya Grampus
Saturday July 4th 6 pm
IAI Stadium Nihondaira, Shizuoka

S-PULSE GOALS Kaneko(18)
YELLOW CARDS Kanai (6) Okui(17) Valdo(90+4)
RED CARDS
ATTENDANCE 

LINE UP
GK Umeda
DF Okui, Valdo, Tatsuta, Kanai
MF Okazaki, Takeuchi, Suzuki
FW Kaneko, Goto, Carlinhos

SUBSTITUTIONS
Nishizawa on for Carlinhos (61)
Teerasil on for Suzuki (61)
Dutra on for Kaneko (61)
Nakamura on for Takeuchi(73)

REPORT
Playing home in front of empty stands is proving a handicap as proven by only two won games out of 9 home games all over Japan for the J 1 League on that day!

S-Pulse started well enough in the 18th minute with Kaneko stealing the ball in midfield to send Goto through before the latter returned the ball to the same Kaneko who fired it home past three defenders. In the 28th minute Carlinhos should have scored thanks to a great cross from Okui but Goto found himself blocking his teammate’s shot. Carlinhos somehow shot the rebound only to see the ball deflected to the bar by the opposite goalkeeper.

In the 32nd minute S-Pulse allowed Nagoya to score a scrappy goal after Umeda had parried twice in a row with all defenders looking at each other. Worse was to come when in the 40th minute when goalkeeper Umeda parried a cross onto Waldo for the ball to trickle in for an own goal. Kaneko had a good chance to equalize in the 57th minute from the same angle as his first goal only to see the ball deflected by the stretched palm of a 2-meter tall opposite goalkeeper. The match then trickled away before finishing on a sour note with one Nagoya player getting ejected for a useless foul. S-Pulse should have killed the game in the first half but it was just not their day.

Let’s hope such misfortune will be forgotten when they travel to Cerezo on Wednesday once again in front of empty seats! Incidentally, fans will be partly allowed in from Sunday 12th for a home game against Gamba Osaka!