Intro
Not an unexpected result. Unless you felt, and rightly so, that we’d lose by more than 2 goals. Yokohama FC busted out to an early 3-0 lead before Ryukyu sprung to life. Some fans are encouraged about how Ryukyu finished the match. That is up for debate as Yokohama FC had already administered the knockout blow by the 20th minute of the game and needed to do little else. It was great to see the return of Keita Tanaka to lineup and hopefully that can spark some future results.
Match Highlights
Match Day 08 Takeaways
- I was a little concerned for how Kiyotake would perform after watching his pre-match warm ups. You could tell by the expressions on his face, as well as wearing the full baclava during warm ups, that Kiyotake was not digging the weather in Yokohama. I thought that he would be mentally checked out for this game, but to his credit, he put in the best performance of any of the Ryukyu players on Sunday. The same can be said about Keita Tanaka who made his return to the lineup after a lengthy 7-month rehab from a multitude of injuries suffered in late 2021. His crosses were crisp and well placed into dangerous areas. We just didn’t have anyone to run onto them.
- 3 goals inside of 15 minutes. Prior to Ryukyu’s only goal of the match, they had conceded a total of 8 goals in succession stemming from the last match. Some of the bounces were a bit lucky for Yokohama, but they did what needed to be done and put those shots away. The first goal was probably a massive blow to the psyche of Ryukyu which directly contributed to the following face shot and ultimate knock our blow at the 20-minute mark. Ryukyu were completely dusted down their left side as Yokohama were able to easily move past the Ryukyu defense and into positions to put passes and shots on net. I think Ryukyu will wear every goal in the subsequent matches extremely hard until they can get a win to break this 4-game losing streak.
- I truly don’t think it is a matter of effort on the part of the players, just the system in place is not working. Perhaps we have a bunch of players better suited for a 4-2-3-1 formation than the 4-4-2 we’ve rolled out the first 8-matches. It cannot hurt to try something new at this point.
Round 8 in J2
Akita stormed out of the gates to a 2-0 lead before surrendering a goal to Iwate. But an early goal in the second half secured the 3-1 victory for Akita. Kumamoto also grabbed the early lead against Niigata before the visitors equalized, and then won, thanks to a Koji Suzuki goal in stoppage time. Okayama and Montedio will replay their match following an overturning of the results stemming from a controversial sending off for the Montedio GK. Zweigen made it easy on themselves this week by scoring a goal in each half and shutting out Tochigi SC in their own stadium.
Gunma rescued all three points following a PK that tied the game against Mito. Zelvia finally edged out in front of JEF UTD Chiba but the visitors leveled the match just 3 minutes later. Kofu couldn’t complete the comeback at home to Sendai and fell 2-3. It took Renofa 71 minutes to get out in front of Omiya, who like Ryukyu, are struggling mightily for results. Verdy scored the winner just before halftime to keep all three, loosely based, Tokyo teams at the top of the table.
Conclusion
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