Wednesday, July 12, 2006

THE SENDAI BLOOD FEUD

14000 plus showed up to see the rematch of a controversial 2-0 decision that took place last month in the National. Of course, it was bound to be interesting because A. There is now recent history between the two squads, and B. My big butt wasn't there. Anyhow, from the ticker, this game did not fail to entertain.

VERDY LINEUP

GK Takagi
DF Kaimoto, Aoba, Ichiyanagi, Fujita
MF Kuba, Marcus, Sugawara, Nejime
FW Saito, Hiramoto

Bench Tomisawa (79), Morimoto (60), Ohashi (89), Kina(That old chestnut?), Mizuhara

THE REPORT

What do 6 yellows, 1 red, a PK, and a 20 to 10 shot disadvantage equal? If you said a stunning 2-1 victory for Gang Green, you'd be inexplicably correct. But that's not the shocking part. The scoring began in the 37th minute when Masaki "Big Marty" Saito put one in the net off a pass from Hiramoto. That's not the shocker...........the shocker came in the 64th minute when......I think......Vegalta was called on an offsides. Big Takagi took the free kick and........wait for it.....SCORED THE WINNING GOAL! I'm hoping that Ultranippon can contact his friend and get this game up on the web so I can see what happened. Ichiyanagi did his best Hagimura impression by getting a red card.

Vegalta was awarded a PK in the 80th minute and Borges put it in.....I think it was Nejime's fault but I'm not sure.

Anyhow.....an enthralling game against Jun Tamano awaits at Ajinomoto on the 16th.....I'll be in the 1969 seats. TV 1969 is winless at the Aji but Vortis really stinks......somethings gotta give.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great game,on the back of this result the 2 draws dont look so bad... To start with we were not looking like anything worthwhile was gonna happen for the umpteenth game on the row, we were slow on the uptake and having to absorb wave after wave of yellow attacks...Takagi was forced into a number of quality saves in the first 20 minutes and we were offering nothing at the other end. However as the half wore on Vegalta were becoming visibly shaken by their inability to complete their multitude of chances.The longer the game went on the stronger the Verdy boys seemed to believe and the more desperate Vegalta seemed to become. Our first goal was a real corker!! Marques broke like lightning from his own half to feed Hiramoto in the left channel he in turn beat his man with ease and thumped a cracking shot against the inside of the near post, Saito took the rebound very well as it was coming at some pace,to toe poke it home. An undeserved lead to say the least after what had gone before. Fujita also had a good chance to make it two just before the break but seemed to scuff his shot after doing the hard work of getting clear in the box. 1-0 at half time and we werent looking good. Second half started much the same as the first until about 15 minutes in....You suggested it might have been a Takagi free kick that went in...NOPE it was a goal kick!! The ball came back to him from open play and he proceeded to hoof it up to the forwards,however it bounced just outside the box and looped over the Sendai keepers head, the keeper was caught in no mans land and Takagi was left to take the applause from the 20 or so Verdy fans who bothered to show up.FANTASTIC!!! I don`t care what Takagi does from now till he retires hes a scoring goalie....and thats not all he did. We had a ridiculous 3 times taken penalty awhile back,cant remember against who.....Well numpty defender number 1 gave away the penalty and got sent off for his troubles (second yellow) Takagi dived to his left to make the save but on the rebound numpty defender number 2 gave away ANOTHER penalty!! Anyway Takagi guessed wrong on this penalty and the ball went in. Now Ive no idea why but the ref re-spotted the ball again,much to the displeasure of the Sendai players/fans/evryone in the stadium (bar about 20). The taker scored and it was now 2-1. Despite some concerted pressure,we managed to hang on and even allow the penalty taker for Sendai to miss a SITTER from the six yard box with only Takagi to beat. If they played the same game ten times,Sendai would win every time. They are a better team,however today is what matters and we have the three points not them. We have needed a bit of luck recently and we certainly got it tonight. Great first goal,crap/brilliant second goal and Sendai off night all contributed to the win. Looking forward to Sunday lets hope we can keep the points up.Nothing less than a win will do. A scrappy 1-0 will do us.Points make prizes after all!!(Saying that I`d prefer a 7-0 Blitzkrieg anyday....)Onwards and slightly Upwards it seems, The Boys March On!!