Josh Speeds Nagoya into Emp Cup Semis

A Josh Kennedy hat-trick sees Nagoya Grampus ease into the semi-finals of the Emperor's Cup. These goals take his total for the season well into double figures, and means the team can sill has a chance to win some silverware this season. (It also saw my cold take a sudden change for the better.)

In a game that saw the J1 team in comfortable control, if not dominant, the lanky Australian scored his tenth goal for the team with a glancing header from a Shohei Abe, just before the break. He then added two more in the second half, one with either foot, to set-up another encounter with Shimizu S-Pulse in the semi-final. (Let's hope the water bottles will be safe from Pixie's boot this time.)

Gifu gave as good as they got in the first half, and could easily have taken the lead themselves in the closely fought opening 45 minutes. However, their chances were thwarted by another impressive showing from Narazaki. He made one good save late in the half to keep the visitors off the scoresheet and Kennedy's strike near the end meant that Nagoya were able to enjoy a far more relaxing second half. Their extra speed, skill and fitness became ever more influential and they eventually ran out as comfortable winners.



Nagoya Grampus
Seigo Narazaki
Hayuma Tanaka, Milos Bajalica, Takahiro Masukawa, Shohei Abe
Keita Sugimoto (Maya Yoshida 74), Naoshi Nakamura (Alex Sanotos 60), Keiji Yoshimura, Igor Burzanovic (Sho Hanai 81)
Keiji Tamada, Josh Kennedy
Scorers: Kennedy 44, 67, 82

FC Gifu
Kyohei Noda
Shinji Tominari, Yoshimoto, Shuto Tanaka, Hideyoshi Akita
Kazunori Kan, Suguru Hashimoto, Kazumasa Takagi (Kazuki Someya 74), Shogo Shimada (Satoshi Otomo 86)
Yudai Nishikawa, Koichi Sato (Takuma Nagayoshi 74)

Other Views
Japan Times: Kennedy's hat-trick shoots Nagoya into Emperor's Cup semis