week 26 recap of J-League

By: 21 | September 24th, 2008

Mid-week action of week 26 of the J-League completed, excluding Urawa, Gamba and Kashima participating in the AFC Champions League with the enormous table-quaking upset of Nagoya Grampus Eight by JEF United Ichihara-Chiba. This has massive implications on the race and should the Red Diamonds win their upcoming match, the top of the J-League table will be a three-way tie.

JEF United Ichihara-Chiba – 2
Nagoya Grampus Eight -1
This was the shocker of the matches and it opens the door for Oita Trinita and Urawa Red Diamonds to make up critical points. Nagoya was having a troubling match getting their attack forward when Yoshizumi Ogawa gave them the lead eight minutes before the break. At the half Chiba manager, Alex Miller lit a fire with a club and within minutes Tatsuya Yazawa and Masaki Fukai scored to give them the lead. Throughout the match Nagoya barely threatened Chiba ‘keeper Masahiro Okamoto as they locked up the midfield in 4-5-1.

JEF United Ichihara-Chiba
GK Masahiro Okamoto,
DF Masataka Sakamoto, Shohei Ikeda, Eddy Bosnar, Ryota Aoki
MF Tatsuya Yazawa, Kohei Kudo, Tomi Shimomura, Masaki Fukai ( Seiichiro Maki 79′), Michael (Kazuyuki Toda 72′)
S Reinaldo

Nagoya Grampus Eight
GK Seigo Narazaki
DF Sho Hanai, Miloš Bajalica,Takahiro Masukawa (Kei Yamaguchi 76′), Shohei Abe
MF Keita Sugimoto (Yuki Maki 63′), Naoshi Nakamura (Toshiya Fujita 80′), Keiji Yoshimura,Yoshizumi Ogawa
S Keiji Tamada, Frode Johnsen

Oita Trinita – 3
Consadole Sapporo – 2
This match looked to be headed for a 1-1 draw when Ōita’s Ueslei and Edmilson each scored as time was running out. Consa’s Daigo Nishi drew one back in their valiant effort to level the match but it was not to be.

FC Tokyo – 5
Jubilo Iwata – 1
After being defeating Kawasaki Frontale, FC Tokyo certainly is making a run up the table. The Gas Men errupted for five goals starting with Cabore early at strike at the fourteen minute and a late strike by Japan ‘capped Naohiro Ishikawa .

Yokohama F. Marinos – 1
Kawasaki Frontale – 1

Albirex Niigata – 3
Vissel Kobe – 2

Shimizu S-Pulse – 1
Tokyo Verdy 1969 – 0