Nagoya Ease Past Kofu

Nagoya earn another 2-0 result, with a controlled performance against a spirited Kofu.

This was a game that saw Nagoya fairly comfortable in control for most of the match, although Kofu do try to play some good football. However, I still think that the loss of Bare to Gamba may prove fatal to their chances of survival in J1 this year.

The game started with one of the few instances of Grampus playing as was expected before the season began, a deep ball from midfield was flicked on Frode Johnsen for Keita Sugimoto to fire in a shot from a tight angle, that was easily dealt with by Abe in the Ventforet goal. Having praised Keita for some intelligent play in the opening game, he spent most of the first half of this game straying offside. Fortunately, he managed to correct this revision to the wasteful ways of last year and was much more effective in the second half.

This lack of focus to the Grampus attack meant that Kofu had slightly the better of the first 45 minutes, with Alberto flashing a shot across the face of goal and Ken Fujita wasting a couple of good chances. Nagoya's flow was not helped by an injury to Atsushi Yoneyama midway through the half that saw him replaced with second year youngster Takeuchi after 36 minutes. Thereafter, most of Nagoya's efforts came via Honda free-kicks, while Kofu saw Suzuki volley a shot straight at Narazaki and Alberto fail to capitalize after getting free inside the box.

The second half saw Grampus settle into their rejigged defensive formation, with Masayuki Omori taking charge of the central role. This untested formation was able to restrict Kofu to a couple of long-range efforts by Shigehara, while the midfield and attack was able to probe the Ventforet defense more effectively than they had been able to do in the opening half. A scuffed Nakamura shot that drifted wide, and a neat Kim flick and shot that flew just over the bar set the tone for the remainder of the match.

Nagoya duly took the lead when Kim slotted home a wicked Sugimoto cross-ball across the face of goal. Soon after this, Naoshi Nakamura made one of his surging runs from midfield that eventually saw his show cleared off the line. Grampus continued to look comfortable but had to wait until the 80th minute to extend their lead, as Honda slipped in a pass for the recently introduced Tamada to tap home at the near post. Johnsen should have added to the lead, but was unable to control his shot after Nakamura pulled a pass back across to him after another good run.

Pos.	Ventforet Kofu		Nagoya Grampus Eight	Pos.
GK	Kensaku Abe		Seigo Narazaki	GK
DF	Arata Sugiyama		Masayuki Omori	DF
DF	Michitaka Akimoto		Atsushi Yoneyama (Akira Takeuchi 36)	DF
DF	Takuma Tsuda		Takahiro Masukawa	DF
DF	Hideami Yamamoto		Keisuke Honda	DF
MF	Kentaro Hayashi (Daisuke Sudo 87)		Kei Yamaguchi	MF
MF	Ken Fujita		Toshiya Fujita	MF
MF	Katsuya Ishihara		Kim Jung Woo	MF
FW	Kenta Suzuki (Taro Hasegawa 64)		Naoshi Nakamura	MF
FW	Alberto (Josimar 78)		Frode Johnsen	FW
FW	Tekehito Shigehara		Keita Sugimoto (Keiji Tamada 78)	FW
			Scorers: Kim 50, Tamada 79