Vissel Come Up Short Against Gasmen

Vissel Kobe sank closer to the relegation zone on Saturday, as they were eventually outclassed by FC Tokyo. Although they started brightly, and for 20 minutes or so they managed to hold their own, once the visitors got into their stride, it was all one way traffic towards the Vissel goal.

A decent crowd of 15,000 turned up to watch Kobe take on high-flying Tokyo, in Masahiro Wada's first game in charge. It was to prove a harsh lesson for the new manager, as the lack of match practice for Ganaha and Botti became apparent as the game wore on. Both the underused Ganaha and the returning Botti look as though they need another game or two to fully adjust to J1 level again. Kobe fans will certainly hoping they do so soon, before the club become engulfed in a full fledged relegation battle.

Vissel
Tatsuya Enomoto
Yosuke Ishibitsu, Kunie Kitamoto, Tsuneysu Miyamoto, Toshihiko Uchiyama
Kenji Baba (Park Kang Jo 56), Botti (Alan Bahia 85), Hideo Tanaka, Yoshito Okubo
Kazuki Ganaha (Akihito Kusonose 64), Hiroto Mogi

FC Tokyo
Shuichi Gonda
Yuhei Tokunaga, Bruno Quadros, Yasuyuki Konno, Yuto Nagatomo
Takuji Yonemoto (Jo Kanazawa 84), Yohei Kajiyama, Naohiro Ishikawa, Naotake Hanyu (Tatsuya Suzuki 73)
Cabore (Shingo Akamine 78), Sota Hirayama
Scorers: Ishikawa 50, Cabore 55