Sanfrecce 0-5 Cerezo

JI is back and Cerezo hit the ground running, romping past the home team to give a vital boost to their confidence in their first game of the post Kagawa era. Peter Pakeman gives us the details:

It would be nice to think that this extraordinary result without Kagawa and Martinez, and also Omata, is a good omen for the Kagawaless future--and it certainly is! However, some reservation is in order as Hiroshima did their best to commit suicide: they were down to ten men for the whole of the second half, the score was 0-0 at half-time, and, after Ienaga had scored his first goal for the club, a beauty, in the 53rd minute, the momentum-creating second goal in the 73rd minute was an own goal from Nakajima due to a mistaken clearance in wet weather conditions. The tentative Cerezo were suddenly two goals up against ten men: "Jeepers! We're two goals up without Kagawa and Martinez--off we go!", the transformation in confidence was almost tangible.

Cerezo had gone to great lengths to obscure news about Martinez. There was no announcement on the Cerezo official site whether Martinez had returned from Brazil or not. In the re-edited team who's who, Martinez is still present, but we have absolutely no news about him at all. Neither the team nor the scorers were announced from the two practice games against Honda FC and Fagiano Okayama on July 8 (although the scores were put up); on the Honda FC site, the Honda team and scorers were announced, but there was zero news about Cerezo, and on the Fagiano Okayama site on the calendar for July 8 was the single word, "OFF!" (Yes, indeed, they were off to Osaka!):-)

In the event, Martinez did not play. On June 1 Hiroyuki Omata (R- LMF) during training damaged the triangular bone in his left foot and is out for about 2 months from that date. On May 22 Hiroshi Kiyotake (S - CMF, OMF) in a League Cup match injured a ligament in a joint in his right leg, which was forecast to take only three weeks to heal, and on June 17 Kenji Haneda (I/R - DF, DMF) after a check-up entered hospital for an unannounced reason and left hospital on June 22; in the practice matches on July 4, they played 45 minutes and 70 minutes respectively.

Culpi was reported as having been impressed by the 19-year-old Yusuke Maruhashi in training and he unexpectedly selected him at wide left in the back four (he played 90 minutes), keeping captain Haneda up in the midfield in place of Martinez, and keeping the front two of Adriano and Ienaga. (I had expected Ienaga to be moved back to the MF to replace Kagawa.)

Team 4-4-2: Kim; Takahashi, Moniwa, Uemoto, Maruhashi; Inui (Fujimoto 80), Amaral, Haneda, Kiyotake (Komatsu 73); Adriano (Bando 73), Ienaga. So it looks as though the 20-year-old Kiyotake will replace Kagawa, and Ienaga will continue to be one of the front two.

Goals:

1 - Ienaga. We've criticized Ienaga in the past for being selfish and shooting when he should have passed, but he partly vindicated himself last night with a cracking 27-metre left-foot drive along the ground. (53)

2 - Nakajima's o.g. (73)

3 - Amaral. A cracking right-foot shot higher into the net from 14 metres. (78)

4 - Takahashi. A good header from 7 metres after a pinpoint cross from Ienaga. (82)

5 - Bando. Another cracking shot--this time a left-foot volley from 22 metres after a cross from Haneda.