Emperor’s Cup

2nd Round

Shimizu S-Pulse 1-1 Gifu

Wednesday June 7th 7:00pm

IAI Stadium Nihondaira (Shizuoka)

S-PULSE GOALS Carlinhos (78)

YELLOW CARDS Kishimoto (33)

RED CARDS

PENALTY KICK Carlinhos (82)

ATTENDANCE unannounced

LINE UP

GK Okubo

DF Suzuki, Kikuchi, Miyamoto, Kishimoto

MF Nishizawa, Naruoka, Kitagawa, Disaro, Saito

FW Morishige

SUBSTITUTIONS

Yamahara on for Miyamoto (46)

Ronaldo on for Morishige (71)

Oh Se-Un on for Morishige (71)

Carlinhos on for Nishizawa (79)

Takeuchi on for Kikuchi (85)

Kitazume on for Disaro (95)

REPORT

On a giant-killing day, even featuring J1 League side, we found ourselves losing at first (actually second round of the Cup itself) try at the Emperor’s Cup try fro the first time since 2015, …

Football/soccer has progressed enough in later years to guarantee a full-strength side whatever the opposition. The last game for the Ybc Levain Cup amply proved it when we beat seemingly better opposition. But we fielded a second-string outfit at best with some players operating out of their usual positions against a J3 side at full strength who had come to create a surprise at all costs.

In spite of having 16 attempts at goal against the opposition’s 4 and twice as many corner kicks, we broke through only once thanks to a penalty kick to equalize a few minutes before normal time.

Before that we had good enough chances in the 8th minute with Kikuchi’s heading following a free kick and in the 43rd minute with Saito7s middle-range shot barely missing the framework.

In the 75th minute we were soundly beaten through a cross that exposed our defense.

7 minutes later Carlinhos converted his own penalty to equalize in time for extra time.

13 minutes into extra time we cleared a cross only to hit the post before it was helped inside the goal by a lurking opposite forward.

Very few positives on a game we did too little to win or defend. The ony positive is that Yamahara is back from injury and that we should be able to field a far better side on Sunday in Kumamoto, a game we must win for better progress in the J2 League!

NEXT GAME

Meiji Yasuda J2 League

Match 20

Shimizu S-Pulse vs Roasso Kumamoto

Sunday June 11th 7:00pm

Egao Kenko Stadium (Kumamoto)