Tianjin Teda 0 at Nagoya Grampus 0 (AFC Champions League Matchday 4) - April 18, 2012

After watching F.C. Tokyo dismantle Beijing Guoan on Tuesday night, I took the Shinkansen to Nagoya on Wednesday to see another Chinese team visiting Japan in AFC Champions League action. This time it was Nagoya Grampus hosting Tianjin Teda in what was expected to be another win for a J.League side.

Mizuho Athletic Stadium

Grampus plays half of their games at Toyota Stadium, a very cool and modern venue located in Toyota City, which is where the famous car maker also happens to be. Built in 1997, it has a retractable roof and seats 45,000, but unfortunately for local fans, it is nearly an hour from Nagoya. To keep them happy, the club plays the other half of their games as well as their ACL matches at Mizuho Athletic Stadium, which is in Nagoya proper.



This is a much older venue that was built in 1941 and holds 27,000 fans. It is separated into a main stand and a back stand and you cannot move from one to the other. I prefer the cheaper back stand but all seats here are just benches (below), so if you want to sit in relative comfort, it will cost you. My ticket was 3,000 yen, while those in the main stand ran either 5,000 or 6,500 with another small advantage of being covered.



The food is mostly in front of the main gate (below) and there's quite a nice selection as well, with about 8 trucks serving a variety of Japanese dishes. My favourite is the miso kushi katsu, breaded pork dipped in miso sauce (a Nagoya staple). At 3 sticks for 400 yen, it is very reasonable, but you have to eat it quickly before the bread gets too soggy from the miso.



Before halftime, you can exit the seating area and wander outside, so I would recommend that you find a seat in the back stand and then mosey on over to the main gate to get your food.



There is nothing else here really. The Nagoya fans, like all in Japan, are pretty serious and despite a small attendance of 6,006, they made noise all game long. It's too bad they had little to cheer about.



The Game

The two teams met in the previous match in Tianjin and Nagoya won easily 3-0, so I expected another waltz in the park. Nope. Nagoya was missing three top players, including Australian national Joshua Kennedy and Japanese defender Tulio, so they had their work cut out for them. The first half was rather slow and neither team could build any momentum, with the best chance falling to Teda who lobbed one over Grampus goalie Seigo Narazaki (Japan's #1 keeper) only to see it bounce off the top of the bar.



The second half saw Nagoya start to take control and they were rewarded with a penalty in the 13th minute. The Tianjin players surrounded the referee from Hong Kong to protest but it was to no avail. Keiji Tamada lined up the spot kick and sent it wide left (below), much to the chagrin of the locals.



Tianjin used the miss to start their attack and they had a couple of strong shots that Narazaki handled well. As the clock wound down, Nagoya pressed for the winner, spending most of the last 10 minutes attacking the Teda net, but they could not manage to score, wasting two fantastic  chances when their shots missed badly. When the final whistle blew to end the 0-0 draw, the disgruntled fans moaned noticeably but still politely applauded the players when they came to the sideline to bow.



I've never seen a scoreless draw before in all the games I've gone to and I hope that is the last one I have to endure.



Next Up

Tonight I will be at the Nagoya Dome to see the hated Giants and the Chunichi Dragons in Central League action. Tomorrow I'll see the Dragons' minor league team taking on Fukuoka in an Western League match.. These are my last two games in Japan, at least while I live here, so I hope they are more memorable than tonight's snoozefest.

Best,

Sean

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Trip to Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya planned

While I am still based in Japan, I want to see as many sports venues as possible. With the J League schedule finally being released on February 3rd, I've put together a short 1-week trip to Osaka, Hiroshima, and Nagoya at the end of March. Each city is home to at least one pro baseball team and one J League team, so there's a good range of games to choose from. Here's the schedule:

Mar 26 Yokohama at Hanshin (Central League season opener)
Mar 27 Urawa Reds at Cerezo Osaka (J League)
Mar 28 Vegalta Sendai at Gamba Osaka (J League)
Mar 30 Adelaide United at Sanfrecce Hiroshima (AFC Champions League)
Mar 31 Hanshin at Hiroshima (Central League)
Apr  1 Hanshin at Hiroshima (Central League)
Apr  2 Hanshin at Chunichi (Central League)
Apr  3 Vissel Kobe at Nagoya Grampus (J League)
Apr  4 Consodale Sapporo at F.C. Gifu (J2)

It's just a coincidence that all the baseball games involve the Hanshin Tigers. The main point of this trip is to see games at Mazda Stadium in Hiroshima; it was opened last year but I didn't get down there, which is unacceptable for a sports road tripper. It's also interesting that I'll get a rematch of the Emperor's Cup semi-final between Vegalta Sendai and Gamba Osaka. Two of the games are being played in venues that are not the teams usual home: the first game is at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka rather than Koshien, and the Nagoya Grampus game is in nearby Toyota city.

This trip won't involve a car; it will be done entirely on public transit. It should be a fun week, so check back for posts on each game.

Update (March 22nd): Due to unforeseen circumstances (namely the girlfriend getting a new job) I'll be taking a trip to Singapore and Malaysia during this time so this trip has been cancelled, but should be replaced with a short jaunt to Hiroshima sometime in the summer.

Best,

Sean

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Gamba Osaka wins the Emperor's Cup

The Japanese soccer season officially ended today with the Emperor's Cup Final at National Stadium in Tokyo. The game pitted defending champs Gamba Osaka against Nagoya Grampus. The winner would make the AFC Champions League, but Osaka were already in by virtue of their 3rd place J1 finish, which gave Nagoya a bit of extra incentive as if they lost, they would not make the Champions League.

Gamba Osaka won the game 4-1 in a mildly entertaining affair which i enjoyed from the comforts of home. After Lucas gave Gamba the lead just 6 minutes in, Nagoya pressured and drew even just before the half on a header from Naoshi Nakamura. In the second stanza, the teams had few chances until the 32nd minute. Yasuhito Endo stole the ball, evaded two defenders as he moved across the box and then drove the ball to the opposite corner of the net, beating fellow Japan National Team member Seigo Narazaki. It was a great goal and demonstrated why Endo was the 2009 Asian Footballer of the Year.

With time running out, Nagoya was forced to press, and they had a chance off a corner, but when the ball fell to Osaka, Nagoya couldn't react to the counter attack. It was a 3 on 2 and Endo brought the ball deep into the box before passing back to Takahiro Futagawa who had an empty net to seal the win. Endo added a second marker in injury time to thoroughly piss off Narazaki. I'll look for highlights and try to post them here in the next day or two.

With the loss, Nagoya doesn't make the AFC Champions League. Instead, Sanfrecce Hiroshima, who finished 4th in the J League, will take the spot. It's their first appearance in the continental tournament and I'm already planning a trip to Hiroshima to see them as well as the Central League's Carp. Once the schedules are posted, I'll let you know.

Congratulations to Gamba Osaka and their fans. Now the teams get a month off before the 2010 season starts.

All the best in 2010 to everyone!

Sean

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Kawasaki knocked out of the AFC Champions League

With a 2-1 victory at home in the first leg, Kawasaki Frontale travelled to Nagoya needing only a draw to advance to the semifinals in AFC Champions League action. Unfortunately, they weren't up to the task, giving up 2 first-half goals to fall behind 3-2 in the aggregate. Chong Tese got one back before the end of the half.

With no goals for most of the second half, it looked like extra time would decide things, but Joshua Kennedy scored a late marker to give Grampus a 3-1 victory and the 4-3 aggregate to send them on to the next round. They will play Saudi side Al Ittihad in the semifinals. The other match features Korean club Pohang Steelers against Umm-Salal. The semi-finals are played on October 21st and 28th.

I'm a bit disappointed that Frontale is out; I was hoping to see a semi-final game down in Todoroki but it's not going to happen. I'll still go to the championship game regardless of who is playing, but certainly having Nagoya in the final will make it more interesting for Japanese soccer fans.

Best,

Sean

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Giants clinch, Frontale wins the first leg, NRL playoffs

Giants win their 3rd consecutive title behind Obispo

A few weeks ago, I watched Wifrin Obispo pitch in a minor league game for the Giants against Yakult. While I was in Hawaii, he was recalled to the big club and has been pitching well. Today, he started against Chunichi and pitched 7 good innings, giving up only 5 hits and a walk. Unfortunately, one of the hits was a 3-run homer from veteran catcher Motonobu Tanishige, but this was the only blemish. The offense managed to put together 5 runs and the bullpen held the lead, giving Obispo 5 wins against only 1 loss, with a tidy 2.66 ERA.

Sadly, this victory gave the Giants their third straight Central League title. Their celebration was an orgy of beer spraying as the players tried to soak each other with bottles of Asahi. Such a waste! I am not a fan of the Giants, who dominate Japanese baseball in much the same way the Yankees and Red Sox do in MLB, so 3 titles in a row is particularly bothersome. And with the Yankees clinching their playoff berth on the same day (in Japan at least), it's doubly depressing. But I'm glad to see Obispo succeed, and I know that I lucked out watching this kid pitch from 100 feet away for free just three weeks before he started a critical game.

I should note that Chunichi is solidly in second place in the CL and will host Hanshin, Yakult, or Hiroshima in the first round of the Climax series. These 3 teams are all within 1.5 games of each other but are about 8 games below .500. So it's a rather ugly race and I'd expect Chunichi to dispose of whichever team takes 3rd place and challenge the Giants for the CL title.

In the Pacific League, the Nippon Ham Fighters are choking away their lead and now have only a 3.5 game cushion on the Softbank Hawks . The Rakuten Golden Eagles stand 3rd with a 2-game lead on 4th-place Seibu. It's certainly a much more interesting race than anything happening in MLB. But the bad news is that the only Tokyo-area team to host games in the playoffs will be the Giants and I don't know if I can stomach a game there.

Frontale knocks off Nagoya

Today was the first leg of the Asian Champions League quarter-finals. Kawasaki Frontale hosted Nagoya Grampus in an afternoon tilt. A first-half goal from Aussie national Joshua Kennedy gave Grampus a 1-0 lead, but Frontale replied with two in the second half from Kengo Nakamura and Juninho to win 2-1. They travel to Nagoya next week for the second leg, and if Frontale can hold on, they'd advance to the semi-finals against either an Uzebekistan or Saudi Arabian team. They'd play the first leg on the road in one of those two countries - now there's a road trip worth thinking about!

NRL semi-finals this weekend

Back in May I saw Brisbane defeat the Gold Coast in National Rugby League action in Australia. Well, it's a long season there, and the playoffs are finally underway. In the first round, the Broncos, who finished 6th, visited the 3rd place Titans in a rematch of the game I saw, and won 40-32. Due to the odd playoff system, both teams advanced to round 2, where Gold Coast lost to 8th-place Parramatta Eels, while Brisbane beat the 1st place Dragons (who were upset by the Eels the week before).

This weekend sees Brisbane travel to Melbourne while the surprising Eels take on the Canterbury Bulldogs. The two winners meet in the Grand Final on October 4th. I'll be cheering for Brisbane, but they are heavy underdogs. I'll let you all know what happened next week.

Best,

Sean

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