Omiya Ardija vs FC Ryukyu #FC琉球

Intro

Ouch. This one is going to sting for a long time. Ryukyu failed to continue their climb out of the relegation zone by dropping three (3) crucial points at Omiya Ardija last night. Ryukyu controlled nearly every aspect of this game but were not able to convert a single shot, despite the nearly 70% possession. They simply allowed Omiya to hang around all game and grab the win in the second half. The loss drops Ryukyu back into the relegation zone with now a 3-point gap between them and Omiya. This was a must win game for Ryukyu last night and they simply couldn’t get over the line. It is not good and with the season nearly half over, there probably isn’t enough time to recover if the point gap gets even slightly wider.

Match Highlights

Review of the Keys to Victory for FC Ryukyu

The Scale: 5- An almost certainty it will occur 4-Fairly-Certain it will happen 3-Somewhat Certain it could happen 2-Very Unlikely that it happens 1- Requires a Miracle for it to happen

1. Win the set piece battle. Likelihood 2. Ryukyu did not, and as predicted, this match came down to a set piece goal where Omiya found the breakthrough. Ryukyu finally won some corner kicks and free kicks in dangerous areas but couldn’t convert a single one.

Matchday 18 Takeaways

1. The attack really missed Kusano. As expected, Kusano was not in the lineup following his injury from the previous match. Without him, Ryukyu looked limp in the attack. Despite some great build up play, shots were sent high, wide or weakly hit directly at the Omiya GK. Omiya, even with such limited chances, looked far more dangerous in the attack and with their shots. Omiya were asking questions of Taguchi whereas Ryukyu seemed genuinely disinterested in scoring at all last night even with Omiya struggling with goalkeeping as we did nothing to test the Omiya GK. The stat sheet says we had eight (8) shots on net but I’m hard pressed to believe it was anymore than two (2). Ren Ikeda and Kiyotake had decent games, nearly scored in the opening half, but it should’ve been Kiyotake receiving the pass from Ren on the fast break, and not Nakano, as Kiyotake scores from that part of the box nearly every time. How can we be so bad at finishing?

2. No room to complain on the blatant missed handball call at the end. The fact is Ryukyu should’ve taken care of business a lot sooner and not merely relying on the luck of a handball deep into the match. Sure, it would’ve been great to see Ryukyu get back into the game with a PK, but it didn’t happen. I believe there was a couple of these no calls on handballs from the referee, Toru Kakinuma, last night. And he really should of sought some assistance from the linesman that was right there when Tanaka took the shot that the Omiya defender raised his hand and deflected out of bounds. But, such is life sometimes when there are some bad no calls that go against your team.

3. 70% possession with over 700 passes and only 2 shots on net. Do we have eleven (11) good players to start each week? Is it coaching or effort at this point? Perhaps the yearly talent drain at Ryukyu has finally caught up to us. Nearly impossible to make wholesale changes with injuries, but Ryukyu need to find a spark from somewhere and it should start with giving some run outs to unproven players who have a desire to crack the starting lineup, play, play well, and succeed.

Round 18 in J2

Tochigi executed another shocker when they defeated Zelvia 1-0 to increase their cushion over the relegation sides to seven (7) points. If Omiya pulls any further away from Ryukyu then it is all but over as there aren’t too many winnable games coming up in that Ryukyu schedule. Also, it seems the best thing that teams can look forward too these days if they suffer a surprise loss to Ryukyu is, you almost go on a little bit of winning streak right after (see Kumamoto and Tochigi). Sendai remained top with their draw but allowed Niigata and Yokohama to inch a little closer with both of their 3-goal performances last night. Kanazawa also had a nice win in which they netted three (3) goals against Tokyo Verdy on the J-League International YouTube channel.