Match Report: J1 Week 16, Vissel Kobe vs. FC Tokyo

J.League Division 1 Week 16
	First Half 0 – 0Second Half 0 – 2 Final 0 – 2
July 4th 2009, 7PM Kickoff at HOMES Stadium (Kobe, Hyogo) Attendance 14,915
GK 1 Tatsuya Enomoto DF 25 Yosuke Ishibitsu DF 4 Kunie Kitamoto DF 14 Tsuneyasu Miyamoto DF 15 Toshihiko Uchiyama MF 22 Kenji Baba MF 10 Botti MF 18 Hideo Tanaka MF 50 Yoshito Okubo FW 13 Kazuki Ganaha FW 21 Hiroto Mogi	Starting Members	GK 20 Shuichi Gonda DF 25 Yuhei Tokunaga DF 4 Bruno Quadros DF 6 Yasuyuki Konno DF 5 Yuto Nagatomo MF 28 Takuji Yonemoto MF 10 Yohei Kajiyama MF 18 Naohiro Ishikawa MF 22 Naotake Hanyu FW 9 Cabore FW 13 Sota Hirayama
56′ 7 Park Kang-Jo (for Kenji Baba) 64′ 31 Akihito Kusunose (for Kazuki Ganaha) 85′ 8 Alan Bahia (for Botti)	Substitutes	73′ 40 Tatsuya Suzuki (for Naotake Hanyu) 78′ 33 Shingo Akamine (for Cabore) 84′ 24 Jo Kanazawa (for Takuji Yonemoto)
	Goals	50′ Naohiro Ishikwa 55′ Cabore
42′ Toshihiko Uchiyama 89′ Kunie Kitamoto	Cautions	69′ Takuji Yonemoto
	Ejections

Report

Y’know those games that are unbalanced not because one team is playing particularly poorly, but because their opponent is in such a groove that they are simply outmatched?  Where you almost feel embarassed for the losing squd because they simply have no chance and everyone in the stadium knows it?

That’s pretty much how I felt watching the second half of Saturday night’s fiesta in Kobe (a late afternoon nap caused me to sleep through the first half).  In recognition of the 4th of July, the blue and red boys put on some white and added a few fireworks to the evening.

Tokyo outshot Kobe 19 to 4.  Let me repeat that because I ‘m not entirely sure I believe it.  19.  to 4.  There were so many 2-on-1, 3-on-1, even 4-on-1 breakaways that Vissel is very lucky that their goal differential only took a 2-point hit.  Kobe resembled a mouse underneath the paw of a giant cat, doing its damndest to put up a fight but ultimately resigned to the fact that it would eventually be crushed and consumed.  If you told me that over 2/3rds of the second half were played on Vissel’s side of the field, I would not be surprised in the least.  When Kobe did mount a counterattack, it was quickly snuffed by the likes of Yonemoto or Konno, whose performance was so outstanding that El Golazo gave him Man of the Match status.

But of course while defense saves games, offense wins them.  There are truly not enough terms in the footballing vernacular to describe Naohiro Ishikawa’s form at the moment.   His play is worthy of praise from bombastic ESPN commentators declaring that you cannot stop Ishikawa, you can only hope to contain him.  While the entire front line worked together to trap the Vissel defense and open up the top of the box, Nao produced a shot that made his needle-threading against Shimizu seem like childs play.  He now sits at the top of the league scoring table along with a couple of foreign players, but sooner or later he will likely stand alone.

Hanyu should also be lauded as well for his beautiful pass to Cabore which managed to shred Kobe’s defense completely and make the second goal a mere formality.

After a fortuitous set of results on Sunday, Tokyo sits alone in 5th place, 6 points out of an ACL slot and something like 13 away from league leaders Kashima.  We have a big test coming next week – 3 games in 7 days, two at home against Nagoya and one away at Omiya.  While I’d of course like to see Tokyo advance in the Nabisco Cup (since I’ve started following the team they’ve been eliminated in the quarterfinals twice), now that the team has regained its footing all eyes should be on cracking the top 3.

Vamos!