Yesterday saw Zelvia’s second defeat of the season at the hands of a team we beat 7-1 the last time we met. What on earth happened?

For me, there are two reasons. First, FC Ryuku came well-prepared. Having learned the lesson of their previous drubbing, they took no chances and came armed with a strong defensive strategy that saw Zelvia’s players frustrated almost every time they approached the goal. Time and time again Machida had the ball taken from them or kicked away to safety with the result that they had only a few good chances indeed for a clear shot on goal. While Ryukyu played a mainly defensive game, they didn’t waste the chance that they were given. After spending the first 25 minutes shutting down Zelvia’s efforts, they went on the attack with a long shot that was deflected onto Zelvia’s bar and rebounded back into the field, where it was eventually collected by Ryukyu and sent into the net. They later scored a second goal thanks to poor defending by Zelvia, but that one was ruled offside.

The second reason is that because of numerous injuries, Zelvia have not been at their best since the season resumed . In particular, we are sorely missing the tactical awareness and passing ability of our captain Ri Han Jae who, despite participating in training sessions of late, has yet to make an appearance proper since Matchday 17. Without his presence the team just can’t seem to get their act together, and gone are the days of the bold, decisive passing that characterised the first half of the season. Compounding this, other key players such as Keisuke Harada and Takafumi Suzuki were also out injured recently, and Ryuto Otake has been making irregular appearances after recovering from an injury earlier in the season. As a result, Zelvia’s style of play has been disrupted and they have lost their rhythm – when I look at the team now I am reminded of our performance in the 2013 season rather than that of earlier this year. Yesterday saw a lot of back passing, an unwelcome return to darker days for me, and Tetsuya Kijima (himself recovering from injury) is again not receiving the passes that he expects. For the first time this season, I’m starting  to wonder about Naoki Soma’s choice of players: Zelvia may well be lacking strength in depth, but our manager doesn’t yet seem to have settled on or worked out his best back-up team.

To add to our woes, our nearest rivals AC Nagano Parceiro and Zweigen Kanazawa were both victorious yesterday, which means that Zelvia’s hitherto 7-point lead has been reduced to 4. Here’s the table:

We are now two thirds of the way through the season and the championship is still Zelvia’s to lose. Next week sees us take a trip to the mountains of Nagano for our third and final clash with Parceiro, and I cannot emphasize enough how crucial this match is. While they have not been the powerhouse that they were last year, Parceiro are formidable opponents and a win over Zelvia would see them only 2 points shy of us (albeit with a whopping goal difference in our favour). If Kanazawa were also to win, that would leave us just one point clear at the top of the table. We have not had the best record against Parceiro, getting our first victory against them only this year, and I am not too confident about the outcome of this match given our current weakened state. Here’s hoping that my pessimism is misplaced.

Another victory to Zelvia, and what a victory it was! I had honestly thought the game was done and dusted but Koji Suzuki proved me wrong in the last minute of additional time, when he managed to evade not one but four Fujieda players to slide the ball just past the goalkeeper and into the corner of the net. Wonderful.

I don’t wish to rain on our parade but, in all honesty, it wasn’t the best of matches for Zelvia in terms of the actual play itself.  We have three regular members of the starting eleven – Satoru Hoshino, Takafumi Suzuki, and Ri Ban Jae – out injured, and Keisuke Endo was suspended for this game. Their loss showed. There were a number of sloppy passes going nowhere or straight to Fujieda players, and the team just didn’t look as tight as it did in the first half of the season. Indeed, Zelvia’s first goal was the result of a penalty after Fujieda’s goalkeeper Park Iru Gyu came running out of the box and violently clattered into Kota Fukatsu, laying him flat out. Although he made several good saves throughout the match, Tomohito Shugyo let in a soft goal from a free-kick just after the start of the second half that he really should have stopped. Yuuta Inagaki wasted a good chance just after the Fujieda goal to pull ahead again, when he collected the ball to the side of the goal with only the keeper to beat, but wasted too much time setting it up, thereby allowing Fujieda’s considerable defence to get into place. However, Zelvia have the bit between their teeth these days, and I have to say that they did not give up at any point – which is a mark of potential champions despite the disruption to their play at the moment.

I wasn’t too impressed with Fujieda’s style of play. I wouldn’t describe their play as overly physical, but there was far too much unnecessary roughness, as they say in American Football, and borderline-dodgy tackles designed to fell Zelvia players. The referee didn’t pick up on many of these, and even blamed Zelvia for some of Fujeda’s transgressions! To be fair, Zelvia did try a couple of their own, but nothing on the scale of Fujieda. Their number 22 midfielder Yuichiro Edamoto in particular stood out as a repeat offender. It was a shame because although they played a defensive style, they looked much better when they did get the ball and take it up Zelvia’s end. They were also good at shadowing and crowding players in order to steal the ball back and were quick to spot an opportunity to do so. I felt that they were doing themselves a good disfavour by resorting to underhand tactics on too many occasions.

Aside from that, it was good to visit Fujieda again as they have one of my favourite stadiums in the lower leagues. It is set in the hills overlooking the town itself, with a pleasant view of tea plantations from the main stand, and it even had some beer on sale this time, something I was very glad to see. However, the piece de resistance is the LACK OF RUNNING TRACK. Yes, there is NO RUNNING TRACK. There are too many running tracks in Japanese football stadiums and I can’t for the life of me understand why. They take the game further away from the spectators and put a dampener on the atmosphere. And when are they ever used?

Rant over. Here’s the table:

Overall, it was a big weekend for Zelvia. Zweigen Kanazawa lost, Nagano Parceiro could only draw, and Zelvia got a last gasp win. Zelvia have therefore widened their lead over Nagano Parceiro to 7 points, and take a look at that goal difference! With only 13 games to play, time is running out for the others to start applying some pressure to the leaders.

Zelvia play host to Gainare Tottori next week. I won’t be going to that one so there will be no musings over our form next week, but I am hoping for a win. I think that it’s crucial for our injured players to get back to form soon, especially as we will be away to our main rivals Nagano  at the end of August for our third and final meeting. That one will be a biggie.