Ecopa Stadium, August 25, 2012
Attendance: 23,188

We played poorly and did not help our cause by conceding two goals in the first 20 minutes of the match. There are a lot of reasons, but in the end it was a lost opportunity to close the gap to six points to the top of the table. Urawa defended well and took advantage of our, and the officials’ errors to get maximum points. Our options were limited coming into the game, missing Jong-A-Pin and Lee due to suspension and Yoshida to injury. Without three key defenders, we had to shuffle our selection and move Muramatsu to central defense, Alex to a defensive role in midfield, and 19 year old Inuki had to start in the right back position for his J.League debut.

The first ten minutes started as predicted, with Urawa sitting back and defending with all 11 players waiting for counter attack opportunities. Omae and Takagi had chances to give us the lead, but the first and decisive goal came when Ishige was fouled in a wide position after a corner was cleared by Kato, the goalkeeper of Urawa. The referee and the linesman close to the play both ignored the foul and allowed Urawa to counter attack. A diagonal pass found Hirakawa behind our defense, and, yes, he was offside. Hirakawa’s service found a free Umesaki on the back post, beating young Inuki to the inside position. The goal rattled our players, and we lost concentration. Alex lost the ball in the back third, then his chase into our box gave an opportunity for slightest contact, a dive, and a penalty kick. Down two goals with only 20 minutes gone, we did not psychologically recover until half time.

In all fairness, we gave a great effort in the 2nd half and dominated the entire 45 minutes. We needed a break to climb back into the game, but it was not meant to be. Our wave of attacks met with a resilient Urawa defence, and Kato made the save of the game on Takagi’s superb free-kick. We should have been awarded two penalties, as an Urawa player definitely handled the ball in the early part of the 2nd half, and Kim Hyun Sung was clearly brought down in the box later. Both were waved off, and the frustrating evening ended with a costly defeat.

On a positive note, we had a wonderful month of August winning 4 out of 5 games. Hiroshima, the league leaders also lost, and this softened the blow, as the margin to the top of J1 remains 9 points. With 11 matches to play, we still are in the race and hope to cut the lead next Saturday, as we will visit Sapporo. Until then, so long.

Afshin Ghotbi