May 26, 2012 – Outsourcing Stadium Nihondaira, Attendance 16,556

From http://www.afshinghotbi.com

Stalemate!

There was so much to play for this afternoon, an opportunity to continue our undefeated run at home and reach within two points of the top.

I had to reshuffle our selection, as our Olympic hopefuls (Muramatsu and Yoshida) were called up for national team duty, Alex (Brosque) was serving his red card suspension, and Ono, Iwashita and Edamura are recovering from injuries.

Kang, Kota, Kobayashi, and Nabeta got their first starts of the season in the J.League competition. It was important to have the right balance in the selection, and the triangle of Kang, Kobayashi and Kota (Sugiyama) was going to be the key to our success. We faced an experienced and defensively organized Marinos. The stat that really stood out was our starting members average age compared to the Marinos (S-Pulse average age 23.82 as opposed to Marinos 30.27).

Marinos defended well, and we did not help our cause with poor ball circulation in the first half. The low tempo favored Marinos, and they looked dangerous on several counter attacks and set-piece situations. Hayashi, Calvin (Jong-a-Pin) and Hiraoka did well to keep a clean sheet all afternoon. Takagi, who came close twice, and Kawai, had the best chances of the first half for our orange men.

There were good discussions at half time, and we improved a great deal in the second half. With every minute passing we improved, as we increased the speed of play and started to have longer meaningful possessions. The last 30 minutes was the best period of the game, and we created enough chances to win the game. Kobayashi and Sho (Ito) had the best chances to give us maximum points.

A frustrating result, but we are in good position after 13 matches, trailing the top by only four points. Encouraging fact, we have beaten all three teams above us in the table. (Sendai, Hiroshima and Iwata). With our team leading the league with the least goals conceded, (11) we have to improve our efficiency, creativity, precision and decisiveness in the final third of the field to challenge for the J.League trophy. The three weeks league break for the World Cup 2014 Qualifiers is timely, as we will utilize this period to get our players healthy and improve individually and collectively in our attacking part of the game.

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