J1 League

J1 100 YEAR VISION LEAGUE WESTERN GROUP

Game 16

Shimizu S-Pulse 1-1 Avispa Fukuoka (5-4 on penalties shootout)

Date: Sunday, May 10th, 2:00 pm

IAI Nihondaira Stadium (Shizuoka)

S-PULSE GOALS Oh (75)

YELLOW CARDS Yoshida (86), Chiba (87)

RED CARDS

PENALTY KICK

ATTENDANCE 15616

LINE UP

GK Oki

DF Brunetti, Honda, Sumiyoshi,Kitazume

MF Bueno, Uno, Shimamoto

FW Ohata, Ahmedov, Yoshiki Takahashi

SUBSTITUTIONS

Oh on for Ahmedov (56)

Matsuzaki on for Ohata (56)

Yoshida on for Honda (68)

Chiba on for Yoshiki Takahashi (86)

REPORT

Same old story…

Another sterile domination with a sterile attack…

The first half did not see a single shot on target for either team.

The game ended with 8 attempts each, with our sole shot on target, blessedly successful, against 2 for Fukuoka

Our opponents of the day had nothing to lose and adopted a defensive pattern placing their hopes on counters in a yellow cards strewn encounter. S-Pulse dominated the possession, the passes and the accuracy, but when it came to concrete results, it came to very little.

Predictably this led to a sucker punch of a goal from patient Fukuoka at the worst of times deep into the second half. It was swiftly answered a few minutes later thanks to substitute Oh’s 7th goal of the season after some good work by Matsuzaki, another substitute.

The team once again was a bit reshuffled, but we have only two games left plus two playoff games before the end of this once in a time competition with no pressure of eventual relegation.

This will determine the future teams fielded in the J1 League starting after the World Cup. To put things short players will have to raise their hands until then for the staff to select them on a more constant basis. And that includes everyone, supposedly established players and young hopes. We might be in for a few surprises from a staff which has very accommodating until now

That should give us some entertaining games to come starting with a difficult trip to Okayama on Sunday.

Time to please our fans!

NEXT GAME

J1 League

J1 100 YEAR VISION LEAGUE WESTERN GROUP

Game 17

Shimizu S-Pulse vs Fagiano Okayama

Date: Sunday, May 17th, 2:00 pm

JFE Harenokuni Stadium (Okayama)