Ok, back on planet earth, and with a bang. Not much the score, but the performance in general was really miserable. The evening was warm, me and my 10yo buddy Akira (see picture) had free ticket on good seats, I ordered a beer and a sausage... all perfect, except one thong was missing... a game of soccer!!
Both Kyoto and Vissel were pitiful, somehow a repeat of the game versus Nagoya: boring, with few chances, a lot of confusion and two teams that played very-very ugly soccer. Truth to be told, Vissel seemed a bit more genki, plus they were fielding some subs (we had the full squad... wow...). So I believe Kobe stole nothing. It could have gone either way, but if one had to win, well, they were a bit better.
The very sad thing for Sanga is that even thou we brought in some SIX forwards this season, our team CAN NOT put together an attack. Data on shots and crosses are miserable, and there is nothing we can do besides counterattacking, which means that if we go a goal down, we're screwed. In fact... Only thing to do is pray that Yanagi will be back in four weeks for real, as they tell us.
Besides Paulinho (and Diego, when he makes it to the eighteen...), we have NO attacking power. Toyoda has been a disappointment, undecisive and poor at soccer's fundamentals; Kim definitely not ripe, and Hayashi... well, I have lost the will to look for an adjective. Suffices to say that in the first half he received the ball twelve times, and we counted that he lost it eleven times. The only time he did not, he dropped it back five meters. In the second half he had some very good touches, then he finally won a dribble, went 1v1 with the keeper... and shot it against him, again. Total numbers for his season, so far? He played 15 games, no goals and two assists, including one assist, coming out of a wrong shot, that in any case did not count, as we lost that game (vs Jubilo)...
So we're finally out of the dumbest soccer competition in Japan (that's how the Nabisco Cup is called, once your club is eliminated--teehee), and I hope in the remaining three games we'll have to play anyway will finally feature somebody who wants to play for real. Today, Watanabe, for example seemed there only because he REALLY had to... Really hit on my nerves to see him lose the ball, and watch the opponent running away without fighting back...
We returned home in a gloomy mood, surrounded by people wearing anti-swine influenza masks. I heard one child on the train saying that at least now he can fart and nobody will stare at him. That was perhaps the best thing happened since the game started.
0 comments:
Post a Comment