no “Miracle in Miami” for Gamba Osaka
By: 21 | December 18th, 2008
With thoughts of Japan’s 1-0 victory over Brazil in 1996 Olympics, dubbed the “Miracle of Miami” in the backdrop of today’s Club World Cup final between Gamba Osaka and Manchester United, hope were strong for the J-League side pulling off an upset. However those hopes died as Gamba lost 5-3 in a shocking goal-fest. Former Crvena zvezda man Nemanja Vidić opened the scoring as he headed in veteran Ryan Giggs’ corner at the twenty-eighth minute. However this came after Tomokazu Myojin and Ryūji Bando pushed Man Utd goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar into making brilliant saves. After a number of back and forth efforts, the lead was doubled in added time as Cristiano Ronaldo re-directed the Welsh veteran Giggs corner in. Returning from the break, things looked bleak for Gamba before Masato Yamazaki brought the match within one, striking from just inside twenty meters with sixteen minutes later. Following that goal, Man Utd erupted with three goals in the next few minutes with Wayne Rooney scoring a brace at the seventy-fifth, adding his second three minutes later with Darren Fletcher nodding in Patrice Evra’s cross a minute before. With the score now 5-1, Gamba fought back as Blue Samurai Yasuhito Endo scored from the spot with five minutes remaining. Gamba continued to hunt for goals and into added time Hideo Hashimoto scored the final goal to bring the match to 5-3.
Category: J League News
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share
      |
Comments
-
I thought that they played a good match, but shot themselves in the foot with the two headers on the set plays in the first half. Especially the one right before the half. I was glad to see them make an impress counter on the 2-1 goal, but then they should have told themselves, just hold them for five minutes and we’ll push until the end. Instead Rooney got free and showed what he could do in such little space. Endo should look to move abroad, he has taken Gamba as far as he can take them and the display today was like Nakata’s against Juventus when he went to Serie A.
Posted from
United States
Comments are closed
Home 
