Sunday, April 13, 2008

The bull sees red as Verdy gets the gas

Yesterday saw the first official Tokyo Derby since the relegation years and unfortunately Verdy dropped it 2-1 on an own goal from young midfielder Shibasaki. Didn't catch the game but someone who did was our very good friend Nick, who has the report!

well moving on to the Tokyo Derby... the first half an absolute snorefest. Somebody correct me if I am mistaken but neither goalkeeper made a save?? Boring! Boring Boring!! NOTHING doing from either side until Hulk won a free kick on the edge of the FC Tokyo box. Diego teed it up to make the angle and the boy Hulk curled it round the keeper for a 1-0 lead. Cue the crap rocking the baby celebration...dear oh dear, next guy who does it should be shot for sheer unoriginality. In the World Cup 15 years ago for Brazil, OK it was cool, now its just rubbish. Anyhow, on a score basis I was happy at half time and chuckled that I had been pissed off to not be able to make the game because of work. On to the second half, started as before though with increasing regularity, the play was getting further and further towards the Verdy goal, this is not to say that Doi was being tested in any way, just that the crap game was being contested nearer to our goal than theirs. Diego (after being played in brilliantly by Hulk)had a glorious chance to put us 2 up 10 mins or so after the break only to fire at the keeper from just inside the box.This was made 100 times worse when around the 60 minute mark FC Tokyo, lashed in a corker. Quick 1-2 outside the box and Hanyu (I think) hit it first time on the volley, Doi got his fingers to it but it wasn`t enough. An excellent strike and the marker for the last 30 minutes. We were at full stretch for the last third with little going forward. The other team in Tokyo were REALLY pressing but fortunately they struggled with the final ball big time. Their guy Cabore...wow! hope he didn`t cost much on todays performance. Anyhow Verdy wouldn`t be Verdy without messing things up in injury time. To be fair they had battered us for the last 30 minutes since their goal and although its always a sickener to lose in injury time, it WAS on the cards. Own goal again im afraid... Even more annoying and made me want to puke was Hulks sending off!! Now we were very lucky last week with decisions but the opposite today, Hulk got his marching orders for THE most fussy yellows ever. The first a debatable foul ok,Ive seen them given, the second in the 93rd minute for jumping for a header!!If ANYONE can find an offence in Hulks second yellow card today, please write in.Is it an offence to jump within someones "personal space" now?? Sorry sir, yellow card, your armpits smell?? The Tokyo guy didnt go down, didnt feign injury, didn`t do anything, just carried on. Maybe the rocking the baby celebration was too much for the ref...We lost today but gave as good as we got. A draw would have been fair but since when have Verdy made things easy!!?? Its great being Green!!

I too hate the baby rocking.

A couple of other notes, looks like a Gashead has popped up on the Rising Sun News message board and there are unflattering pictures of Verdy up and away. Show your love!

Also, I don't understand why the good folks at the LoveDoll headquarters keep writing but they do. I think it's for prostitutes but I'm not sure. any of you brave souls wanna check it out and let me know, I would love for the LoveDolls to be my first site sponsor. maybe one of them could be Miss Soilent Green 2008. Just a thought!

Next up for team green is a Nabisco Cup match against somebody evil.....ahh yes, Shimizu away. After that is a quick jaunt to the always hated Kashiwa Reysol, where Diego and Yukio Tsuchiya get to meet up with their old friends and Verdy gets a shot at the squad who sent them to second tier hell. Good Times!

17 comments:

dokool said...

To be fair I *do* have pictures of when you guys did your flag display right before the game, when it didn't look like your stands were half-empty =P

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dokool/2407115351/in/set-72157604497486114/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dokool/2407116467/in/set-72157604497486114/

But between the pre-pre-game card display, the arrogance of showing video of the last time Verdy won a Derby match (with Doi in goal for FC Tokyo, hmm), and the sheer balls of the "REAL TOKYO" display and claiming "WE ARE HOME" when Gasmen outnumbered you somewhere close to 1.5-2:1, y'all had a severe karmic imbalance against you before the whistle even blew.

Great, fierce match though. As a relatively new supporter I'm glad to finally see an opponent get our supporters so riled up.

See you in May ;-) And I'll get working on that blog =P

Anonymous said...

Only a karmic imbalance if you presume that FC Tokyo are the natural and only incumbents of Ajinomoto...

Anonymous said...

"Someone evil"? :-D

I'm sure any warm feelings you may have had left for S-Pulse have now well and truly been extinguished! Should have been six really, too...

dokool said...

Between Verdy and Omiya you didn't have a good night, did you =P

Anonymous said...

Takagi in goal and Funakoshi up front on his own.....hmmmm. Nabisco Cup run would`ve been nice but as the classic line for anyone who has just been knocked out goes "At least we can know concentrate on the league". Bollocks that is, any cup win is ace, be it Nabisco, Carling,Worthington, Johnstones Paint, Simod, Sherpa Van, Littlewoods, Rumbelows,Coca Cola, McDonalds Community, Autoglass, any more for anymore??(All the above are sponsors of similarly crap cups in England from one time or another). My boys in England (Wolves) were proud winners of the Sherpa Van Trophy as it was back in 1988. I saw the game at the old Wembley with 80,000 others against Burnley, a 2-0 win too!! Happy Days. A cup win is a cup and we are out of one of the two in Japan. Nuts, but nevermind eh, we can now concentrate on the league...

Anonymous said...

Best to go out of the cup early as you've got a mammoth task in just staying up this season.

Anonymous said...

Dokool's obviously got too much time on his hands since Nova went to the wall.

Although, I'm sure he's glad now of the Saturday's off, but the question is, how does he afford the tickets?

Tokyo Verdy Gaijin Aggro!!!

Anonymous said...

Great atmosphere for the first game for the newly formed Verdy Foreigners Firm. Got to the match 15 minutes late due to the ground being a long bloody walk from the station. Once we got to the ground realised we were in the opposite stand so had to walk round, but were able to walk inside the top tier which was great for soaking up the noise and spectacle of it all. Turns out we'd bought tickets in the boys pen, lots of Dads, lads, Grandads and MILFS scattered around, with the Verdy youth team 8 rows behind us. Cornered the Beer girl as we took up our seats and got ourselves holed-up with 9 cans of Suntory Malts, possibly the worst beer in Japan, but no one seemed bothered, we were after all drinking beers in our seats, a strange but welcomed concept.

The game - Verdy were all over them the 1st half, playing some nice attacking play with plenty of passing on the floor, looks like the midfield can play a bit, apart from the right winger, he was shit, always delivering the cross into row-Z of the away end.

Our number 9, Hulk, had a good first half and scored in the 36th minute with a beautiful free-kick, 1-nil Verdy.

At this point a strange thing happened, we stopped talking about the team in terms of, 'they' and started talk about them in terms of, 'we'. Everyone noticed it and mentioned the change in our attachment to this surrogate team. From then on in it was all 'we' and 'us', and we began to hate the opposition with a passion, FC Tokyo.. The scummers!!!

Anyway, 2nd half was shit, we got tired, they equalized, we tried to hang on, lost more energy and they scored in the final minute.. Our hearts sank, but something good had come of it, we were 9 lads from the UK, reconnected with that feeling, the feeling of getting up on match day, an afternoon of analysing, drinking, swearing, spitting and shouting. To be honest it felt nearly as good as watching Leeds.

Post match - We headed up the station, mingling with the Tokyo FC lot, as we walked along we started our own chants based on English football songs, Come on Verdy, You're Just The Man U of Tokyo, We Love You Verdy, etc... As you can imagine we got some very funny looks from both camps. We holed up outside a 7/11 and bought a case of ale, this time Asahis and carried on with our chants, to the amazement and amusement of the locals. Then we saw them, a group of gaijin (non-japanese) supporters dressed in blue and red, Tokyo FC, scummers. The chants got louder and we even threw in a, "Where's your Nova gone?" Nova being an high-street English school/teaching company which had famously gone bust and left loads of teachers stranded with no pay and no digs, working at Nova was one up from from being a drug-dealing and one down from being a recruiter [sorry albert herbert hawkins]. We continued chanting into the station and back into Shinjuku for a few wets..

A good day out, shit result, but we've all brought that match-day feeling back in our lives and feel much better for it.

Hopefully our little Tokyo firm will go from strength to strength...

Cold Lamb and Dog Wanking flags at the ready for the next game...

Anonymous said...

Anybody going to Reysol tomorrow night?? I will be there hopefully not pissed wet through. Looking forward to it, Reysol is always a good ground to go to. Gnats chuff away from the pitch, Reysol fans usually put on a good show. Unfortunately, we usually lose. My first ever Verdy game was against Reysol where we shaded a 1-0 win in the middle of a typhoon at Kokuritsu. Edmundo did the business that day. Fast forward to the next season (2002 I think). Away this time and ex Verdy now Cerezo dwarf defender Yanagisawa rifled in from fully 35 yards after 10 minutes and we went on to romp to a 4-1 defeat. Another visit was of course in the relegation season when we had to win to have a chance to stay up, cue the 6-0 reversal and missed penalty. Any of the new boys up for an away day tomorrow night?? Kashiwa is well easy to get to from Tokyo. The away end is tiny so if you are there I will no doubt see you as they arent any other foriegners pretty much. Ill be the other foriegn guy...

SMB said...

Wow, more foreign Verdy fans.

thought it was only Nick in this country and our amigos from abroad.

How many are in the new green foreign legion?

Anonymous said...

There's about 18 of us in total :) Only 9 of us could make it along to the derby, but we're expecting a few more for the Yokohama game. Unfortunately, I'm in Kyoto for the Nagoya game, but there should still be a few of our guys there for that one. We're planning a few away trips as well, but we couldn't get it together for tonight's match. For the Yokohama game we should be meeting at the Hobgoblin in Shibuya, possibly 2.5 hrs before kick-off.

We must make a note not to get tickets in the 1969 stand next time :)

We'll look forward to your report on this blog, it definitely looks like a labour of love, good work fella..

We love you Verdy - 3 points tonight onegai!! Matt

Barry said...

"Real Tokyo" and "We are home" Cheeky fuckers - you gotta love it! :D Fair play though if it puts a bit of needle into the game - that's what Derbies are all about!

Barry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Barry said...

ust noticed that snidey little post by Tokyo Verdy Gaijin Aggro. Tragic mate, very tragic.

Fair play you're into J. League and that, but why would you have to start shit slinging and bitching about other foreign fans? Get over yourself and just enjoy a bloody fun way to watch football. It's such a good crack in large part because it's free of the childish mentality of name calling and bitchy chanting. The locals have seen it all a hundred times with drunk and mouthy foreigners at their first J. League game. Used to be like that myself once upon a time - makes me cringe now though!

Once you get used to it, going to football without having to worry about sneering at the away fans and calling them a bunch of c*nts every five minutes is a shite sight more fun!

Anonymous said...

Shizza - don't understand what you mean, 1st j-league game, not really, most of us have been here for 10+ years. Anyway, I'll let you crack on with your little assimilation project, all very wet if you ask me, whilst we'll enjoy the football and barricking the oppostion if that's what we want to do..

Anonymous said...

p.s. that snidey little comment as you put it was actually a write up for a UK newspaper, go figure...

Anonymous said...

"Used to be like that myself once upon a time - makes me cringe now though!"

Well done, you're pitching your tent next to the gaijin talento camp. Acquire a dodgy flashed hair style and obligatory crap ear-ring and the job's yours mate.

Snidey post, I ask you..