Match Preview #36 |

Match Preview

“A head-to-head battle to eliminate the lead”

Due to schedules such as cup matches, this will be Verdy’s first game since October 23 and 18 days later.

The last game was the J1 Round 35 away game against Niigata. They beat Urawa at home in a come-from-behind game, then traveled to Niigata three days later. The game was at a standstill in the first half, with both teams allowing just one shot, but the second half started in the 49th minute. Kosuke Saito volleys from CK. This bounced off the post, but Goki Yamada pushed it in. Verdy took the lead with Goki Yamada’s first goal in J1. From there, there was a strong attack on Niigata, but everyone resisted, and in the 87th minute, Yudai Kimura met Daito Yamami’s cross from the right and hit the post, but Hideto Taniguchi went through with his right foot and got an extra point I mention it. “Although we won the match against Urawa, we had a problem with closing,” said coach Hiroshi Shirofuku, and this victory gives a sense of further growth. They will enter to the last three games with still room for improvement.

And, as Coach Jofuku admits, “Kobe were champions last year and they are currently in the lead, they are definitely one of the strongest teams in Japan,” and this game will be the against the strongest opponent in the J League.

Kobe played the AFC Champions League Elite MD3 game against Ulsan on the day Verdy played against Niigata, and including that game, they have played four official games so far. First, in ACLE, they have 4 points with 3 wins and 1 draw in the league level. Under the rules, the top eight clubs advance to the knockout stage, and they are clearly the frontrunners. In the semi-finals of the Emperor’s Cup held on 27 October, they beat Kyoto 2-1, advancing to the finals to be held at the National Stadium on 23 November. They then won 2-0 against Iwata in Round 35 of the J1 Championship held on the 1st of this month, passing Hiroshima, who lost 1-0 to Kyoto in this round, and about eventually they moved in the direction. It feels like they have more momentum than just the result of winning four official matches in a row.

It’s not just the team that has momentum. On his own, Daisei Miyashiro has scored five goals in each of the last four games. On the other hand, as Coach Jofuku said, they kept their top three players, Takanori Sakai, Yoshinori Muto, and Yuya Osako, from the latest ACLE League match against MD4 Gwangju. There are almost no blind spots going into this season.

How do you fight against that opponent? The boss also said something like this. “Fast movement and high intensity. It looks like it’s going to be a head-to-head battle.

What we have to be careful of, says Onaga Sei, is “going into the game.” A veteran who always talks to young players,

“The opponent can be tired from consecutive games, but on the other hand, we didn’t play a game. Under this situation, I think we have to be careful at the beginning of the game if we lose, we might have won I can’t recover.

I’m talking to you. Looking back, their last match was a match in which they had to start after suffering a heavy loss against Machida in the previous match. Onaga’s cross prompted an own goal by the opposition, and they defended that goal to win the game. A number of reasons have been cited for the win, including a change in system, but particularly in the first half, despite being attacked one-sidedly, they continued with spirit strong It can be said that this had an effect. This game, just like that time, we want to fight through the 90 minutes with a strong spirit from the beginning.

(Photo: Atsushi Kondo)