Bosko Gamble Pays Off as Grampus Fight Back to Share Points

Stand-in manager Bosko Djurovski gives up and coming young goalie Hasegawa his first league start. Although the young keeper had a rough first half, seeing the home team go 3-0 down by the 48th minute, his team-mates fought back to earn a 3-3 draw. Whatever Bosko said to the players at half time clearly worked, as they clawed back the three goals to avoid a demoralizing defeat.

Although Toru has been our fourth choice keeper for the first two years of his career, he has recently usurped Nishimura as the third choice. He may have had a rocky start, but he will have learned much and gained some valuable experience in a battling performance. Grampus were reduced to 10 men (again) shortly before the end, when Burzanovic picked up his second yellow of the game. The other gamble in this game was starting Yuki Maki as a centre back. Although, this gave us a very inexperienced player in that position, the lad has played their position at high school level. He made enough of an impression to give him another game or two to see if he can adapt to this position properly. If he can, and is happy to do so, it would give the team some much needed additional options in that area. At the moment, Maya Yoshida is the only experienced and able-bodied option we have. (Although Masukawa is expected to make his return form A-type influenza in the next game.)

As for the game itself, it was not quite as lopsided in the first half as the scoresheet suggests. Josh had the best chance early on, but saw his effort well parried by Hatta after racing clear through the middle. Magnum also had an effort saved after Maeda had spurned a chance to give the visitors the lead a few minutes earlier. The league's leading scorer made no such mistake a few moments later, stroking home a neat flick-on by Nishi, from a tight angle. The Jubilo ace then doubled the lead with a blast from 20-odd metres after Magnum had given possession away cheaply in midfield. Tamada had a chance to close the gap before the interval, but saw his shot from a tight angle blocked by the Jubilo custodian. And so the half ended, with Jubilo going in with a 2-0 advantage.

The visitors' extended their lead soon after the restart, with Maeda completing his hat-trick with simple header after poorly protected Hasegawa had made a fine stop. At this point it looked like the young debutant would be on the wrong side of another disheartening display. Fortunately, the introduction of Ogawa helped turn the tide, although the Grampus cause was helped when Oi deflected a dangerous Abe cross past his own kepper. Ogawa it was who provided the pin-point cross for Kennedy to power home our second and set the stage for an exciting close. Tamada converted a penalty to bring the teams level and Santos almost stole the victory, but saw his fierce drive smack the bar after an angled run through the middle as time ran down.



Nagoya Grampus
Toru Hasegawa
Hayuma Tanaka (Yoshizumi Ogawa 63), Maya Yoshida, Shohei Abe, Alex Santos
Keiji Tamada, Keiji Yoshimura (Akira Takeuchi 70), Igor Burzanovic, Magnum (Keita Sugimoto 64)
Josh Kennedy, Yuki Maki
Scorers: OG 60, Kennedy 74, Tamada 79

Jubilo Iwata
Naoki Hatta
Yuichi Komano, Daisuke Nasu, Takayuki Chano, Yusuke Inuzuka (Kentaro Oi 57)
Sho Naruoka (Kota Ueda 84), Ryu Okada, Norihiro Nishi (Takuya Matsuura 66), Shinji MUrai
Ryoichi Maeda, Lee Keun Ho
Scorer: Maeda 31, 39, 48

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