Football Leagues » J-League » Australian flavour marks sizzling J. League showdown
Australian flavour marks sizzling J. League showdown
Mike Tuckerman
Nagoya Grampus and Shimizu S-Pulse played out a thrilling 3-3 draw in front of a healthy crowd of 17,534 fans at the compact Mizuho Stadium on July 24, with the match featuring a fascinating sub-plot between some tall timber from the Land Down Under.
Lanky Socceroos striker Josh Kennedy is a cult hero for the home team, but he had his work cut out for him as he lined up against Shimizu S-Pulse's giant Australian defender Eddy Bosnar, with the latter just about shading proceedings in a rip-roaring affair.
Nagoya opened the scoring through Japan international Keiji Tamada after just nine minutes, before Shimizu equalised through their own tall striker, as ex-Nagoya front man Frode Johnsen nodded home from close range.
Just when Shimizu thought they had done enough to go into the half-time interval with the scores deadlocked at 1-1, the lively Tamada popped up to toe-poke home his second of the afternoon, as the pacy Nagoya striker proved his obvious worth to Dragan Stojkovic's side.
With a full moon casting an atmospheric pall over downtown Nagoya, it was no major surprise to see this match take a strange twist. Central defender Bosnar hauled down his Nagoya counterpart Takahiro Masukawa inside the box, but when the normally reliable Tamada stepped up to take the resultant spot-kick, he blasted his effort over the crossbar.
That miss allowed his Japan international team-mate Shinji Okazaki to equalise for Shimizu, as he crashed home a rasping drive past a stunned Seigo Narazaki to send the mass of travelling supporters into delirium.
The match took another strange turn when Nagoya resorted to hitting Shimizu on the counter-attack, and they did so to perfection when Mu Kanazaki kept his cool to beat Yohei Nishibe with a superb finish with just under a quarter of an hour remaining.
Not to be outdone, Shimizu poured forward in search of their third equaliser of the match, and they duly found it when Jungo Fujimoto swung over a cross for Eddy Bosnar to crash home with a header at the far post, as an absorbing encounter finished locked at 3-3.
While nothing could separate Nagoya and Shimizu on a sweltering summer evening, the big winners of the weekend were Kashima Antlers, as they extended their lead at the top of the standings by winning 3-2 away at Jubilo Iwata in front a capacity crowd at Yamaha Stadium.
Yokohama F. Marinos also recorded a dramatic late win as a Takeshi Amano goal deep into stoppage time saw them run out 1-0 winners over an exhausted Gamba Osaka, as just under 40,000 fans turned out at Nissan Stadium in the famous old port city.
Indeed, post-World Cup crowds in the two full rounds of J1 played since the Samurai Blue exited on penalties suggest that football is as popular as ever in Japan.
Omiya Ardija, Shimizu S-Pulse, Montedio Yamagata, Gamba Osaka and Jubilo Iwata have all seen capacity crowds turn out to watch their matches, while several other clubs have experienced their annual summer boom as big crowds continue to flock to J. League grounds.
Copyright: Mike Tuckerman & Soccerphile.com
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