Gametime 4-1: Kashiwa Reysol vs VERDY

The Yellow Juggernaut is upon us. Predictions were truly dour for the other team from Chiba entering the 2006 J2 campaign after the losses of Keiji Tamada, Yukio Tsuchiya, Yasuhiro Hato, Tomokazu Myojin and our own Harutaka Ono among others . Kashiwa Reysol has confounded those predictions and produced a cohesive unit who plays a vice-like defense and a multifaceted offense. No fewer than 4 players have notched 2 goals in the early campaign for the Sun Kings. Unlike Los Buitre, Kashiwa has produced a stable core by promoting from their strong youth programs. Everything starts from the back with good goalkeeping and a solid back 4. If Verdy expects to advance to J1 next year, this is one of the hurdles they will need to overcome.


PROBABLE LINEUPS

Kashiwa Reysol

GK 1 Yuta MINAMI

DF
2
Ryo KOBAYASHI

DF
5
Sota NAKAZAWA

DF
32
Kazunari OKAYAMA

DF
13
Yuzo KOBAYASHI

MF
28
Tatsuya YAZAWA

MF
11
DIEGO

MF
18
Iwao YAMANE

MF
24
Tomonori HIRAYAMA

FW
22
Tatsuya SUZUKI

FW
25
Hideaki KITAJIMA

VERDY

GK
1
Hiroki MIZUHARA

DF
3
Taisei FUJITA

DF
4
Kenta TOGAWA

DF
5
DEDIMAR

DF
6
Tomo SUGAWARA

MF 15 Shin KANAZAWA

MF
11
Harutaka ONO

MF
8
Hideki NAGAI

MF
10
ANAILSON

FW
25
Kazuki HIRAMOTO

FW
9
BASILIO

BENCH:Takagi, Saito, Iio, Ohashi, Kuba

*MY THOUGHTS: Kanazawa took his opportunity and grabbed it by the horns which makes me happy. I think Basilio gets his spot back in the starters position (though Saito is not at fault)....Kuba is still a couple good games away from the starting 11, Iio had a good training match and Ohashi is coming back from being banged up so I think you'll see him on the sidelines but probably not game action. It also looks like they were flirting with the 3-5-2 in training so they might switch it up during the game.......which just scares the hell out of me considering the "quality" or lack thereof between the pipes.

ONE TO WATCH: GK 1 Yuta Minami- It was very difficult to pick out one certain player on the team because everyone seems to contribute on this team. Minami is chosen because he has put up 4 clean sheets in a row. He almost had five but a last second score by Shonan ruined that. If Verdy can crack the brick wall early, they might be able to score alot but it seems highly unlikely.

WHEN AND WHERE: 2pm, April 1st at Tokyo Verdy's glorious Ajinomoto stadium

I will be in attendance and I'm buying Skyperfect so I'll be able to see every game from now on. Thanks to Aaron for shaming me into it!