Kobe gets in on the bidding war

That picture has nothing to do with the headline......I'll get to that later

First- Sports Hochi Yomiuri is reporting that Vissel Kobe is making it priority one to sign Vegalta Sendai man and main Urawa target Lopes to strengthen their back line. Good fit as a distributor and would help feed Okubo and Leandro. Somehow though, the cash splashing by Rakuten doesn't sit too well with me. I think they have more problems with their leadership structure. A team with that much firepower shouldn't be struggling as much as they do. FC Tokyo of the South.

Second-The picture above took place yesterday in Mitsuzawa as J2 debutante Yokoham FC crashed to their 9th loss in a row and 25th in 30 games. The team hasn't scored since the 69th minute of a 2-1 loss to Sanfrecce Hiroshima on the first game of September.......561 minutes and over 6 games ago. Their current coach, Julio Leal has not won in his 8 games as head man.

I was in attendance yesterday as a team laden with misfit Verdy players from yesteryear took to battle against a squad with less misfit Verdy players from yesteryear. The game was decided on a goal from......yes.....a Verdy player from yesteryear against a product of the Verdy youth system.....1-0 Verdy misfit players from yesteryear over even more Verdy misfit players from yesteryear.

The game was played in front of 4,114......2800 came pissed off....were pissed off during the game...and went home pissed off. At the start of the match, The Yokohama Oen were dead silent when the 11 came out for warmups. The game was started with a SAKAMOTO YAMEROO chant (Sakamoto out). 90 minutes of hurricane weather and slick ball later and Yokohama was finished. The end of the game started like the beginning with another out chant. Finally, the man of the moment skulked out to face the angry pale blue mob. I give him credit, there was a lot of anger.

Third-JESSE FINK RETURNS

Friend of SG Jesse Fink is back starting tomorrow with his sometimes scathing, always entertaining takes on Australian Soccer. Fox is out, THE WORLD GAME is in.....here is the link, which does not seem to work at the moment http://www.theworldgame.com.au/ Anyhow, glad to see Jesse is off his backside and writing again......on his backside, I guess.

Finally- A reasonably similar starting 11 takes the field in an hour against the Spa boys of Thespa in a battle of teams I blogged about. Verdy has a real chance to solidify their promotion aspirations today with a win and stay in reach of a championship.

With Vegalta and Consadole winning and Kyoto crashing out, the race for promotion is starting to take shape. A win would knock Shonan Bellmare out of contention for automatic promotion and put some distance between Verdy and third place Vegalta Sendai before their big clash on November 10th.

P.S. The tWo is getting pounded today 4-0 against Kawasaki Frontale at the half..........I'm hoping for double digits. Down with FCT!