Kitty chan v Tulio?? Endo v Cinamon?? How about Yanagisawa?? Verdy 3- 2 Toyama!!

Shibasaki mobbed at the end!! 94th minute!!

So in a hamburger eating tabehodai (all you can eat) battle, would a team of Sanrio characters or a team of past and present Japan internationals prevail?? A tough question indeed and one of many questions put to myself and my two friends by an absolutely bark raving insane lady on the bus on the way back to the station from Toyama Stadium yesterday. You know how it is, somebody says "hello" and not wanting to be rude you say "hello" back and then when the person starts talking, you quickly realise the person is actually mad. There are two ways to react in this situation; humour the mentalist or move away slowly. On a packed bus, option two was unavailable. So for 25 minutes the four of us weighed up the pros and cons of Yanagisawa`s meat consuming aptitude (not good as he is older so eats less hamburgers these days). Kitty-chan is young so of course eats more but then is female so eats less. She was actually very knowledgeable about the stats side of things, knowing all the heights and weights of the players, but to be honest her hamburger eating ability judgements were clearly subjective....This truly bizzare bus ride was just another part of a superb trip which came with a fantastic game, glorious sunshine, a brush with the "stars" a few beers and a stay in a what turned out to be a decent, cheap ryokan.
The ride out into the countryside was pleasent as it always is when you get out of the city, buildings and factories soon giving way to rice fields and unconcreted rivers. Toyama is a beautiful, mountainous part of the country and is currently spectacular with the forest leaves changing colour. We arrived at a stadium bathed in sunshine and were pleased to find that three sides of the ground had a grass bank to sit on which on a day like yesterday was superb and even better with little kids in tow. The Toyama supporters were in good voice after celebrating their first win in eleven games last weekend over the uber-shite that is Giravanz.
The game kicked off and Verdy were to absolutely dominate the opening twenty minutes with Doi hardly touching the ball. Yoshiaki Takagi and Kawano had been put in as strikers with Goal Machine dropping to the bench. The attack was VERY lightweight in the first half as even though  Verdy had all the possesion it was Toyama who took the lead slicing through the Verdy rearguard all too easily on a breakaway. Ex Japan forward Kurobe made it two with another breakaway goal and great finish to leave Verdy with a mountain to climb.  Verdy were to pull one back on the stroke of half time through an own goal which I couldn`t see as it was miles away...Right so half time and Kawakatsu brought on Goal Machine to add a bit of weight to the forward line and his introduction had the desired effect. Hiramoto offers a target to the midfielders, he can hold the ball up and when he gets the ball it sticks.
Unfortunately, Kurobe then scored another breakaway goal to make it 3-1 Toyama.......or so I thought for about 15 minutes. He had the ball in the net, the stadium announcer did his GOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLL!!! shout and when I looked again the ball was back around the centre circle. Iio got another back with a short range finish in the box and I thought maybe we have a chance here at 3-2, get back to 3-3 maybe. Kikuoka also "scored" but had it rightly called for offside. Anyway the confusion ended when my friends came back from the bar and said the Toyama "goal" had been called for offside.....Nice one!! Felt like I`d found a tenner in my pocket that I didn`t know was there. For the last 25 minutes Verdy pressed and pressed but couldn`t seem to find the decisive opening. Until the 94th minute when after a scramble in the box, Kosei Shibasaki poked the ball home to cap a thrilling comeback. Seconds later the ref whistled for full time, the Toyama players flopped to the ground and the Verdy travelling support went wild!! Well as wild as 50 or so middle age oddballs can go anyway.....
Sometimes J-League footballers get reputations for being ponces, stuck up arrogant toss pots,  unworthy of anything aside from derision from amateur, arm chair supporters (like me...) who reckon they could do better with their eyes closed. Sometimes this is absolutely deserved but usually probably not. When we were on the train on the way back last night it turned out that the Verdy squad was on the same train. I was with my son and thought I`d go and ask very politely if it would be OK if I could get his picture taken with them. I`m sure they`ll never read this but I`d like to say thankyou to Iio, "Goal Machine" Hiramoto and Tsuchiya for making the effort and being so friendly. Nice one boys!!

Get stuck in Kitty!!

Post game celebrations...

An absolutely superb weekend of entertainment and something that will be done again next season!! Gotta love football in Japan!!