Pixie Found Wanting Again

Following in the footsteps of another talented player, but unproven manager (Argentina's Maradona), Grampus manager Pixie Stojkovic was again outwitted by the manager of one of the leading J1 clubs. This time, Frontale romping to a 4-0 win to tighten the title race to a race between five teams separated by only five points.

Grampus
Seigo Narazaki
Hayuma Tanaka (Akira Takeuchi 90+2’), Tulio, Takahiro Masukawa, Shohei Abe
Danilson (Naoshi Nakamura 58’), Igor Burzanovic (Yoshizumi Ogawa 63’), Magnum (Alex Santos 67)
Mu Kanazaki, Josh Kennedy, Keiji Tamada

For once, we got off to the better start. We had the better of the opening 30 minutes, with Tulio having a good early chance. However, despite this and a couple of good chances for Tamada midway through the half, we failed to turn our superiority into any goals. Against a team like Frontale, that can be so potent on the break, this was always likely to be dangerous. This proved to be the case, as Kanazaki conceded a free kick with 10 minutes to go and the home team took full advantage with Vitor blasting home. The two teams then shared an equal portion of chances and possession for the remaining few minutes.

The home team continued to look the more likely to scores, despite us managing to hold our own in most areas of the field. Kanazaki had a couple of good chances to pull us level, but these were sandwiched by equally good opportunities for the home team. Vitor added a second after 20 minutes, after Kurotsu had done well to exploit some hesitation in our defence that allowed him to get to the byline and cut the ball back for the Brazilian. We then lost Masukawa to a second yellow, and as the heat and our lack of substitutes (all three were already on the field) took its toll, we were unable to cope with the speed of the Frontale attack. They duly added a couple of goals to pad their lead to a flattering four-goal margin.