It was one of the least entertaining games of the year.
Yamagata played concervatively to the point of crowd apathy, and especially after scoring the first point, shut the offense down and pulled everyone back for a defensive wall. It's the strategy that worked well for the team in the first half of the year, and while more effective than Mito's defensive based catenaccio style practiced previously, it leaves a lot of room for danger should the other team still sneak a goal in. Unfortunately for Mito, that goal couldn't come, and Yamagata took a win similar to those in its initial run months ago.
*Mito seemed to have tied the game, though... The second half saw a Kanazawa corner kick headed into the goal, just barely past the line, before slapped out by the keeper. The referees and TV cameras were at an angle, but a good number of Mito supporters including myself sat on that line and could see the ball entirely enter the goal before being batted out.
Other notes...
It was Biju's 100th game in J2 and he was given a flower bouquet. Unfortunately, in this game, he had two difficult events. On a free kick attempt, he clearly wanted to take it, obviously having a plan to score, but coach Maeda chose to put someone else at the ball and Biju was visibly upset. Near the end of the game, midfielder Ogura was about to take a free kick and Biju dashed to the front for a fast break, but the kick couldn't come before he would be offside and his dissatisfaction was shown to the crowd.
The crowd was slightly higher than Ehime's crowd at the same time, marking a rare time that Mito did not have the smallest attendance in the league.
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1 comment:
It was a heated moment and I got confused... The ball was kicked out by a defender and not by the keeper after crossing the score line.
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