The Talisman-Verdy vs Consadole Sapporo

Allright, I'm not gonna pretend like everyone doesn't know the score already......it's Friday and I'm sleepy so here it is

VERDY LINEUP

GK Takagi
DF Ishikawa, Aoba, Hagimura, Kaimoto
MF Nejime, Sugawara, Marcus, Ze Luis
FW Saito, Hiroyama

Bench: Mizuhara, Tomisawa, Kuba, Maatsura, Kanazawa

This game was kind of a chippy affair, with Sapporo coming out physical (borderline dirty, actually). Early on, two of the forwards went sliding into the feet of Takagi on balls that they seemed to have no chance on. Verdy in turn were very short on their passes and committed a ton of turnovers. In the 29th minute, Makoto Sunakawa came up with a heady play to force a corner and put a spot on kick to an unmarked Genki Nakayama, who was nearly in the goal.

Verdy would make it even in the closing minute of the first half when Masaki Saito saved an errant pass, kicked it off to a trailing Ishikawa who put a beautiful serve to a charging Koijiro Kaimoto.

The second half would see a beautiful bomb from midway between the box and the half line from MF Shinji Otsuka which ate Takagi up. Sweet shot and that was your ballgame. After that there was alot of muddling from Verdy and alot of stalling from the Consadole keeper.

2-1 was your final

RANKINGS

GK-Takagi had a pretty non descript game tonight. Couple of nice saves but kind of a step down. He looked a little confused on the first goal. Kind of a step back for the big man. 5.5

DF-I've seen em do worse and Ishikawa and Kaimoto were arguably the best players on the field for Verdy. Hagimura was decent except for the marking on the first goal (might have been Kaimoto?) and Aoba was solid. 6

MF- 9 very weak shots from the midfield, (12 if you count Tomisawa in his midfield role) 3 yellow cards for arguing, numerous turnovers, consistent passing up of opportunities to connect with the forwards. They were terrible. Marcus had arguably his worst game in green. The team is built around his distribution offensively and he was lacking . Marcus is the engine......he is the talisman (previously 2-2-0 in his 4 matches) and Wednesday the engine wasn't firing. It was a good thing that Ze Luis was on the field because Ze Luis made you not notice how mediocre Marcus was on the night. ZE LUIS is my goat.......i think you could sum it up with his bypassing a breaking Saito and Hiroyama for a pathetic dribbler to the goalie that probably wouldn't have crossed the line. 4

FW- No chances, they worked hard but didn't so much. 5

RAMOS- I don't understand why you take off a striker for a D Mid when your down 2-1......I know Maatsura isn't much of an option but I still don't get stifling the attack.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I think someone needs to find the number of Tadamichi Machida.....he was released by Kawasaki Frontale in preseason and as far as I know, he hasn't been picked up by anyone. He's still relatively young and he's not awful. He might make a good 3rd or 4th striker.

Goal # 5000 will be scored in the Shonan/Consadole game tomorrow. they are lucky enough to play 5 hours earlier than the rest of J2 and the league is sitting on 4999, so unless there is a shutout, it will be in this game. Shonan-Naoki Ishihara-5000.......I'm calling it now.

Tomorrow is a matchup in Mito. No Hiramoto, who was in a suit signing autographs before the game on Wednesday. Maybe Basilio though, Kazu1968 had a pictur of Basilio at the most recent training so we might see a Hiroyama/Basilio teamup at the start with Saito as the third or Basilio coming in for Saito, who seems to tire at about 65 or 70 minutes each game.

Your views are welcome! Send em in!