There was no change at the top of the table on Sunday as both Zelvia and Renofa Yamaguchi scored important victories, but Nagano Parceiro dropped two points further behind as they drew at home to Grulla Morioka. However, Machida supporters shouldn’t breathe easy just yet as Parceiro have a game in hand and there are still seven more matches to play.

Zelvia had a dismal first half on Sunday as they struggled to find their feet against 10th placed Fujieda. Only ten minutes into the game MYFC staged a seige on Zelvia’s goal that we were ultimately unable to repel. Their first attempt by Tsugutoshi Oishi was stopped by a sliding tackle by Takafumi Suzuki, but Ken Hisatomi collected and resumed the attack. This time the ball hit the post and re-bounded back in front of the goal where it was once again collected by Fujieda. It was third time lucky as the subsequent shot by Ryosuke Ochi found its way to the back of the net.

Machida responded by going on the attack but Fujieda defended their lead well. We managed to threaten the penalty box on numerous occasions but MYFC had their defence in place and ready for us. On the few occasions that they managed to make it to our goal mouth they did look dangerous, looking to penetrate our defence with short, speedy passes and pressure us into making a mistake. By comparison, our play during the first half looked sluggish and indecisive, and when the whistle blew for half time it seemed as if victory would be the hosts’.

Well, it’s a tired cliche I know but Sunday’s match proved to be a game of two halves thanks to two substitutions made at half time; Junto Matsushita replaced Kentaro Shigematsu and Satoshi Kukino came on for Akira Toshima, and the difference was immediate. Kukino has been on fire of late and his fast, decisive play was exactly what we needed. We piled the pressure on with 5 corner kicks in short succession, and our persistence paid off minutes later when Kukino collected a cross from Koji Suzuki and slotted the ball nicely into the back of the net. Koji’s moment of glory came just over 15 minutes later when he was taken down inside the penalty box by a blatant foul by Fujieda’s goalkeeper Park Iru Gyu. Park was shown the door, a new goalkeeper was brought on as MYFC were reduced to ten men, and Koji converted the penalty kick into our second and winning goal. Koji had actually tried for a penalty minutes earlier when he was downed by a tackle in the box and, rather than get up and take advantage of the open goal in front of him, rolled on the ground for a while as play continued around him.

Zelvia kept up the pressure afterwards but with ten minutes to go we let up our pace and MYFC raced in to take advantage. It’s just as well for us that they were not successful but there were hearts in mouths as they launched attack after attack and we all wondered what on earth Zelvia were playing at. Our keeper, Toshiyasu Takahara, had to work harder in the last ten minutes of the second half than the previous 35 plus! The match ended 2-1 but it could have been a draw if MYFC had had a bit more luck (and a full complement) on their hands.

Apart from the main action, our first game at ECOPA was an interesting experience. This is a 50,000 capacity stadium but the attendance on Sunday was only 1,406, which made for a lot of empty seats. Luckily, the organisers had us all sat in the one side so there was, at least, some atmosphere. Just as well, as Fujieda’s small supporters’ group would have had a hard time making themselves heard from the other side of the pitch!

Here are the highlights:

And the table:

Zelvia have the weekend off next match day so our next game won’t be until the 11th October when we welcome Kataller Toyama back to our stadium. SC Sagamihara thumped them 5-1 on Sunday and we have beaten them twice already this year so this should be another victory for Zelvia. While I don’t realistically think we can catch Renofa now, we have to concentrate on winning our remaining matches on the off chance that Yamaguchi get the jitters or Nagano suddenly experience a resurgence. I’m now keeping a close eye on the bottom of J2 also as the play-offs look increasingly likely, and right now it seems like either a trip to Oita or Utsunomiya might be on the cards…

In which not much changed at the top of the table.

Matchday 29: FC Machida Zelvia 1 – 3 Renofa Yamaguchi

This was Zelvia’s big chance to establish ourselves as serious Championship contenders but Renofa travelled up to Kanto with other ideas. With only six points between us, this was a high-tension match for both the players and the supporters and Nozuta was the most packed I have seen it since the opening game with a whopping 5,191 in attendance. The tension was clear from the outset when Koji Suzuki was brought down by Yamaguchi defender Kenji Dai, earning Dai a yellow card for his troubles, then five minutes later a brief scuffle broke out on the pitch when another Zelvia player (I couldn’t see who) clashed with one of Renofa’s men. Another aggressive move by Yamaguchi followed soon after and our supporters responded with loud booing – something you don’t normally hear in J3.

Despite this somewhat scrappy start, the match settled into the best I have seen this season with both teams battling for supremacy. Zelvia have had problems breaking down the defences of weaker teams this year but the stronger teams such as Renofa and Parceiro really bring out the best in us. I wasn’t there to see it so I can’t say for sure, but this may be the reason we managed our surprise defeat of Nagoya Grampus a couple of weeks ago in the Emperor’s Cup, although they also didn’t field a full strength team. Alas, Renofa scored the first goal of the match thanks to the poor judgement of our goalkeeper Toshiyasu Takahara, who left the goal empty when he ventured out in an ill-fated attempt to grab the ball from under the feet of ex-Zelvia player Kazuhito Kishida. He should have stayed where he was.

Still, Zelvia didn’t give up. The momentum was all ours in the final ten minutes of the first half and we went into the second half all guns blazing, as is our custom. The first five minutes alone saw a corner kick, a free kick and a header on goal that went wide. Our persistence paid off with a goal from an excellent shot right on target by Takafumi Suzuki only minutes later. However, Renofa earned themselves some more jeers from the crowd when they brought down Koji Suzuki on a run toward the goal less than ten minutes later. We got a free kick for that but it was deflected over the crossbar by Yamaguchi’s defence. The subsequent corner kick looked, to those of us in the cheap seats, like it had gone in after a header by Kentaro Shigematsu, but the angle was playing tricks on us and the ball had come to rest on the wrong side of the net.

Our luck took a turn for the worse when Yamaguchi were awarded a penalty after Kishida was brought down by Kota Fukatsu with a very soft foul in the penalty box. It was a daft maneouver by Fukatsu but it didn’t warrant a penalty. Our fate was then well and truly sealed in the thirty fifth minute when Kiyohiro Hirabayashi sent the ball slicing through Zelvia’s defence and into the corner of the net. Dear oh dear. It was a good goal, though, so full credit to Mr. Hirabayashi.

Sadly, Yamaguchi resorted to diving and time-wasting as soon as they got their penalty. The stretcher had to be called out for one man who really was injured, but a second decided a minute or two later to stop play to have a go on it himself. There were four minutes of additional time, but Renofa succeeded in falling to the ground in seeming agony three times during that period. They recovered quickly enough to do a victory dance in front of their supporters, though. Funny that.

One ray of sunshine for us was that fans of the Ri Han Jae Long Shot™ were finally rewarded for weeks of patience, when he lobbed the ball over (or maybe it went wide, I can’t remember) the net in additional time. Magnificent.

Here are the highlights:

Matchday 30: FC Machida Zelvia 1 – 0 J League Under 22 Selection

We went into Matchday 30 in a weaker position thanks to our loss against Yamaguchi, and Nagano Parceiro didn’t help ease our pain by winning against Fujieda MYFC thereby closing the gap between us to 3 points. Thankfully, we had a ‘guaranteed’ three points on Wednesday as our opponents were the ever-changing Under 22 team. I’m not going to say much about this team as there’s no point. The Under 22s played a decent first half during which they made some threatening moves on our goal. Their number 9, the aptly-named Gakuto Nozuta of Sanfreche Hiroshima, impressed with a couple of attempts and, overall, they looked as if they might be capable of sneaking in a lucky goal if Zelvia were to lose concentration. However, they spent most of the second half playing a more defensive game and it seemed they were content with stopping Zelvia from creating any chances than doing any work of their own. Once Akira Toshima finally scored our winning goal in the 27th minute of the second half there was a feeling that this would be the finishing score, and so it was.

Interestingly, our attendance on Wednesday was 5,873, even higher than that for the Renofa game. Perhaps it was the pleasant weather or the fact that it was a national holiday, but the Under 22s brought not a few supporters with them!

Here are the highlights:

And the league table:

As you can see, we are back in the same position we were back in Matchday 28. Renofa suffered another surprise defeat at the hands of Fukushima United on Wednesday so there is still hope for us to win the Championship, but with only eight more games to play stress levels are starting to rise. In addition, Parceiro had a bye on Wednesday so they have a game in hand, which could complicate things further for us.

Our next game is against Fujieda MYFC which is being played at the ECOPA stadium for the first time. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this is, but our average attendance away to Fujieda over the past three years has been 1,744 so watching this match in a 50,000 capacity stadium should be an interesting experience. As for the game itself, we beat them 4-0 last time and I don’t see why we can’t repeat that feat again on Sunday.

Grulla snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat in the final Morioka-Machida clash of the season with a long-threatened goal in the 44th minute of the second half. It was, of course, a disappointing result for us Zelvia supporters but in all fairness I have to say that Morioka deserved their point from Sunday’s game.

Grulla is one of these teams that we struggle against. We have now played them four times this year and only one of these has resulted in a win for us. That was in the first round of the Emperor’s Cup a few weeks ago and we beat them then by a convincing three goals to none, but our results in the league matches are all less than stellar. Morioka isn’t exactly round the corner from Machida so Sunday was the first time for me to travel up north to their home ground and the second game overall I’ve seen against them this season, so I have only these and the highlights to go on when commenting on Grulla’s form.

When Grulla visited Machida back on Matchday 23 Zelvia were the dominant team but failed to capitalise on their superior strength by being either over-elaborate when simplicity would have done the trick, or by hoofing the ball wide of the goal on contact when there was enough time to set up a decent shot (something that we do all too often, I’m afraid). Grulla, for their part, seemed content to play out much of the first half of the game in midfield before switching to a more defensive strategy in the second with the hope of sneaking in a lucky chance. That did indeed happen with only two minutes to go before going into additional time and we were left desperately fighting for an equaliser that never materialised.

This time round, Grulla looked genuinely threatening. Maybe they were out for revenge after being knocked out of the Emperor’s Cup but they went on the attack from the outset. Zelvia were once again the superior team but our defence had its work cut out. Grulla were awarded a corner kick and a free kick within the first five minutes, but generally they found it hard to get the ball into the penalty box in order to take a decent shot on goal. Zelvia, on the other hand, regularly attacked but failed to score until the 24th minute when Kentaro Shigematsu headed the ball into the corner of the net after collecting a pass from Takafumi Suzuki. A few minutes later Satoshi Kukino narrowly missed collecting a couple of passes aimed in his direction that could have widened our lead and possibly punctured Morioka’s fighting spirit. But on they pushed and goalkeeper Toshiyasu Takahara, who had had an easy time of it for much of Matchday 23, found himself forced into action more than he would have liked, at one point angrily remonstrating with our defence for not doing their job.

This being J3, there was the usual amount of losing and then regaining possession of the ball from both teams. Morioka were pretty adept at taking advantage of our mistakes but, then again, we were adept at making amends for these. Being a Zelvia supporter, it pains me to admit that the level of play for both us and our fellow J3-ers at this level is not as good as that of other third-tier teams in some countries. However, Morioka came out with an ambitious set play that, had it come off, would have resulted in a very impressive (for J3) goal indeed. I hadn’t seen anything like it (again, in J3). I almost wish they had succeeded, if only to encourage the other teams to add a few more moves to their own repertoires. Check it out from 1m30:

They did, of course, get their goal in the end, one which looked eerily similar to our own earlier that day.

Zelvia’s players were naturally disheartened by this and exited in a subdued fashion after the customary thanking of the supporters. Kota Fukatsu, as is his custom, gave a brief bow by way of apology and only a few others could muster up a wave. And who could blame them?

Here’s the table:

Back to business. Renofa Yamaguchi lost again on Sunday, this time to Kataller Toyama, whereas Nagano Parceiro gained three points thanks to their victory over Fukushima United. This puts us slap bang between them with a six point margin on either side, so there’s no way of telling which way things will swing. However, with Yamaguchi’s recent stutter I’m now starting to hope that we could catch them up. We host them on Sunday and this is one match that anyone in the Kanto area with an interest in J3 shouldn’t miss: a possible 6-pointer with an indication on which way the championship could go. Renofa have failed to beat us both times we have played this season and, naturally, I’m hoping for a third victory for Zelvia.

We’ve been more prolific with the goals recently, what with our 4-0 thumping of Fujieda MYFC in the last league game, the 3-0 victory over Morioka in the first round of the Emperor’s Cup, and now Saturday’s win in Yokohama. Granted, one of the evening’s goals was an own goal by YSCC’s Masaya Yamamoto but we not only managed to hold onto our lead but widen it despite being down to ten men after Koji Suzuki was sent off after receiving two yellow cards.

That doesn’t mean that we played particularly well on Saturday evening. In fact, there were plenty of missed opportunities as we gave the ball away while trying to pass it on without checking if anyone was in place to receive it, or leaving vital areas empty while more men than necessary jockeyed for possession. Koji managed to get himself sent off after bringing down Yoshiki Yoshino with a pointless rough tackle after having already been on the receiving end of a yellow card not so many minutes earlier. YSCC played their usual game, trying to steal the ball by pressuring their opponents into making mistakes, or committing numerous niggling fouls. I wish I had counted the number of times I had seen a Zelvia player downed – it certainly seemed more numerous than normal. Just like previous matches against YSCC, the atmosphere became increasingly ill-tempered and at one point YSCC’s Norimasa Nakanishi was given a yellow card after deliberately hitting Shigeto Masuda, and the game paused for remonstrations all round.

Here are the highlights:

And the league table:

So, with Nagano’s draw in Toyama they are falling further behind us. Yamaguchi’s surprise defeat also means we have narrowed the gap to them. Next week we play away to Morioka, who recently ended our unbeaten streak. Revenge was sweet when we knocked them out of the Emperor’s cup! Here’s hoping for more of the same next week!