Challenge Away Games with Confidence!

　League match after 2 days from the Nabisco Cup Kashiwa match. In the 5th round, we will play against Kashima Antlers away. Today marks the 1/3 milestone of the 1st stage. In addition to the consecutive matches under high temperature and humidity, Kashima has a high winning percentage at home. Tokyo's past record against them is 2 wins, 1 draw, and 3 losses, but we have never won away. Despite the tough conditions, Coach Hara is determined to "play sharp soccer especially in the hot and humid weather. Switch quickly between offense and defense, play confidently away, and win with our own style of soccer."

　Tokyo's starting lineup is the same as the previous Nabisco Cup match. Kashima has forward Yanagisawa and midfielder Motoyama returning to the bench after being sidelined due to injury. The game started with Tokyo's kickoff.

Allowing an early lead

　From the start, both teams maintained a compact formation, denying each other space to counterattack. Tokyo earned a direct free kick in the 1st minute and a corner kick in the 2nd minute, but failed to convert either opportunity into a goal due to Miyazawa's kick. In the 5th minute, Ishikawa attacked from the right side after Abe's cross, but lost the ball in front of the goal and faced a counterattack from Kashima. Kashima connected the ball and midfielder Fernando passed it to the right side. Midfielder Aoki took a powerful shot from outside the penalty area, but Doi made a save. Jahn cleared the loose ball, but it rolled just outside the penalty arc, allowing Fernando to take a free shot. Fernando calmly placed the ball into the bottom left corner, resulting in an early opening goal.

　This opening goal weighed heavily on Tokyo. Against the fast-starting Kashima, they were unable to defend and press, allowing their passes to be intercepted and pushed back. In the 8th minute, Kashima's DF Narahashi took a middle shot. In the 11th minute, FW Hirase, who had run behind Tokyo's DF, took a shot from a cross from the left side. Doi closed in and made a fine play, but the loose ball was picked up and swung left and right in front of the goal, and MF Ogasawara, who had run in from behind, took a shot. Doi saved it, finally escaping with a corner kick.

　However, Tokyo also had chances. In the 22nd minute, Abe passed to Asari, who then passed to Kelly in the center and entrusted the ball to Amaral as he charged towards the goal. Amaral briefly swung to the right side, then ran towards the goal and headed down Ishikawa's cross. Kelly, who received the ball with his back to the goal, shot with a heel kick from a close distance to goalkeeper Sogahata, but unfortunately hit it straight at him. In the 24th minute, Kelly dribbled through the opponent's defense in the penalty area. He faced the goalkeeper one-on-one, but the goalkeeper's footwork was a step faster and caught the ball.

Unable to score a goal with scoring opportunities

　The first half was difficult to create a rhythm, but we attacked towards the end. In the 42nd minute, Asari passed from Amaral to the right side. However, Kelly's shot was weak and the goalkeeper caught it. In injury time, Amaral competed for a cross from the left, and Ishikawa went around from the left side and took a shot, but it went wide to the right. We went into the second half trailing by one goal.

　The halftime instructions from Coach Hara were "Abe, try to compete more forward. There are opportunities, so let's attack without wasting time in front of the goal." Following those instructions, in the 49th minute, Abe tried to break through behind the defense and received a pass from Miyazawa, but it was offside. On the other hand, Kashima couldn't win the ball from a high position, and even when they sent a long ball to the front line, they couldn't pick up the second ball, falling into a vicious cycle.

　In the 60th minute, Kanazawa invaded the penalty area from the left side and evaded the defender to shoot with his right foot, but it went to the left of the goal. In the 61st minute, it seemed that Abe broke through to the front line with Kaji's cross, but the ball was cleared by Kashima Narahashi. In the 64th minute, Bamba was substituted for Abe. Tokyo gradually grasps the rhythm, but in front of Kashima's persistent defense.

I can't bring it to a finish easily. In the 71st minute, Satoru ASARI was replaced by Miura. We tried to regroup, but Kashima also brought in Dai HIRASE for MF Honda at the same time and strengthened their defense.

Exploited the gap and defeated by a skilled player

　In the 72nd minute, Miyazawa received a throw-in from the right side and shot while circling towards the center. He quickly earned two consecutive corner kicks, but Ishikawa's shot went over the goal. In the 76th minute, Miyazawa, who had been injured by a kick to his left ankle during the previous shot, was replaced by Toda. Amaral, Ishikawa, and Toda were positioned in the front line, with Kelly and Baba in the midfield, and Miura as the lone defensive midfielder, aiming to score a goal. In the 77th minute, Baba took a shot from a counterattack after Toda competed for the ball in the front line, but it missed the target. In the 78th minute, Toda broke through the defense and received a pass from Kanazawa with excellent timing, but was stopped by the fast and tenacious defense of DF Ooiwa. In the 79th minute, Toda broke through again on a through pass from Amaral on the left side, but it was offside. The game continued in Kashima's territory, but they struggled to create decisive opportunities against Kashima's defensive play.

　Kashima made a substitution, replacing Ogasawara with FW Yanagisawa and Fernando with DF Ishikawa with 5 minutes remaining. In the 87th minute, Tokyo launched a quick counter-attack, but their shot was blocked by a strong defensive effort. Then, in the 89th minute, Yanagisawa dribbled past the defense. Although Akaji initially intercepted the ball in the center, it fell to Honda on the left side. Honda then passed the ball to the right side along the ground. Ewerton, who had rushed up, received the ball and scored a goal. Kashima, who had been skillful throughout the game, scored their second goal, sealing the victory.

[Player Comments]《Shigenobu》"We were overwhelmed by the voices and atmosphere of the stands, and our own voices couldn't be heard. Since then, we have been trying to take action in terms of coordination..."《Jo Kanazawa》"We were trying to focus and get into the game, but we couldn't establish a rhythm after the first goal against us. We were well defended in the second half. It would have been better if we could have attacked more from the sides..."

[Summary of the press conference by Coach Hara] "We failed in the start of the game. Kashima pressed more than expected and we lost possession of the second ball most of the time. They scored in the first 5 minutes and disrupted our rhythm. We endured and created several chances, but the problem is that we couldn't convert them into goals. However, I don't think the overall performance of the game was bad. It's just that we were beaten at the beginning and the end. I don't think Kashima's performance was really good, but they can hold on if they score one goal. That's my honest impression right now. Since we have the next game coming up soon, we need to switch our mindset and prepare for it."

[Summary of Kashima and Cerezo's coach press conference] "In the first half, we had the initiative and created chances, so we should have scored 2 or 3 goals. We expected the opponent to aim for a draw away, but in the second half, maybe due to the players' fatigue, we gave the opponent space. Tokyo cleverly changed the game by switching sides and their fullbacks were pushing up. We gave time to players like Kelly who moved to the side and exploited the space, and our build-up play became less focused. The opponent started making substitutions around the 20th minute of the second half, and honestly, I thought Tokyo had some good young players coming up. They started using the space in front of our center-backs, so I instructed the team to focus on the center and switched to a back four to prevent the opponent's fullbacks from pushing up."