Meiji Yasuda J1 League

Match 18

Shimizu S-Pulse 1-1 Cerezo Osaka

Sunday June 26th 6:00pm

Yodoko Sakura Stadium, Osaka

S-PULSE GOALS Own goal (34)

YELLOW CARDS Santana (19)

RED CARDS

PENALTY KICK

ATTENDANCE 10026

LINE UP

GK Gonda

DF Katayama, Yoshinori Suzuki, Tatsuta, Yamahara

MF Nishizawa, Miyamoto. Shirasaki, Goto

FW Kmiya, Santana

SUBSTITUTIONS

Matsuoka on for Goto (67)

Carlinhos on for Kamiya (67)

Kololli on for Santana (79)

Disaro on for Shirasaki (79)

Hara on for Nishizawa (90 + 4)

REPORT

Soccer is a strange game, is it not? And very ironical at times. We lead at half time although we did not manage a single shot for the whole first half and we could have stolen the game away in the last minutes…

Against a team we have not beaten on their home soil since the 1990’s we almost pulled the upset of the day…

The first half started with an early Cerezo domination and Gonda had to extend himself in the 14th minute. The game was becoming somewhat insipid when in the 34th minute Nishizawa sent a long cross towards Santana only to be deflected by a Cerezo defender into his own net to the muted S-Pulse players’ celebrations.

In the next minute Cerezo wasted a great chance past the far post.

In the 34th minute gonad was extended by a long-range shot.

The second half started with non-stop pressure from Cerezo and a good attack missed the S-Pulse goal in the 54th to be followed by Katayama extending the Cerezo keeper following a good corner kick.

In the 62nd and 73rd minutes Gonda had to save his team’s somewhat static defense.

Finally, the S-Pulse’s defense completely cracked in the 76th minute when they allowed the Cerezo attack a free heading on a corner kick.

But in 83rd minute after some great work by Kololli, Disaro found himself completely unmarked but the shot was completely missed to see the ball fly high above the bar.

In the end it was a far more balanced game than the statistics suggested and S-Pulse had their chance to go home with a win in their pockets.

Although the team had to defend all day all substitutes were used to attack more, showing a growing confidence.

They will need it on Saturday against Yokohama F Marinos in front of whole Japan at the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo, a home match technically which was moved to the capital to commemorate the 35th Anniversary of the founding of the J League

Incidentally the Japan National Stadium is also another jinx to get rid of as S-Pulse has never won on that pitch!

NEXT GAME

Meiji Yasuda J1 League

Match 19

Shimizu S-Pulse vs Yokohama F Marinos

Saturday July 2nd 7:00pm

Japan National Stadium, Tokyo