Levain Cup

Group B

Match 5

Shimizu S-Pulse 0-1 Nagoya Grampus

Saturday April 23rd 2:00pm

IAI Nihondaira Stadium

S-PULSE GOALS

YELLOW CARDS

RED CARDS

PENALTY KICK (against 67)

ATTENDANCE 7688

LINE UP

GK Gonda

DF Hara, Valdo, Yoshinori Suzuki, Yamahara

MF Nakayama, Shirasaki, Matsuoka, Kamiya

FW Yuito Suzuki, Santana

SUBSTITUTIONS

Miyamoto on for Shirasaki (55)

Nishizawa on for Nakayama (5)

Oh Se Un on for Kamiya (55)

Carlinhos on for Santana (73)

Kololli on for Matsuoka (83)

REPORT

Good-bye Levain Cup!

Big disappointment would be a tame comment…

Both teams had fielded their best teams of the day in front of a surprisingly good crowd for a Levain Cup match day. Mind you, everyone knew it would become a decider for the play offs. Therefore, the Nagoya contingent was pretty big and noisy, but as usual the “Tokai Derby” was played hard and fairly.

S-Pulse actually dominated the first half but could only create a few chances because of their unwillingness to attack boldly, wasting too much possession in highly predictable back passes that Nagoya felt too comfortable with.

Only once did they manage the perfect chance some time before half time with a great heading meeting a beautifully curved corner kick but the Nagoya keeper produced the save of the season to somehow palm away a ball that would have scored 9 times out of 10.

The second half saw the same tame back passes from S-Pulse with Nagoya comfortably defending.

But in the 67th minute a Nagoya ran a dangerous attack around our left flank, and when Yamahara slid to counter the ensuing cross, he forgot to keep his arms and hands to his body and conceded a silly penalty by blocking the ball with his arms inside the box.

Nagoya did not make any mistake and it was back to the same tactics from S-Pulse in spite of 5 substitutions.

The game ended with S-Pulse fans unusually booing their team off.

The less said bout this game, the better. It is just too painful!

Now S-pulse will have to regroup quickly with the help of more players coming back from injury on Friday against Hiroshima Sanfrecce to at last achieve their first victory at home!

NEXT GAME

Meiji Yasuda J1 League

Match 10

Shimizu S-Pulse vs Hiroshima Sanfrecce

Friday April 28th 2:00pm

IAI Nihondaira Stadium, Shizuoka