Sorry about the delay of about 3 days or something, i've been busy.
Anyway, very disspointed at the score more than anything else, it just goes to show that this could well be another season showing Gamba's defensive problems. Again we let in 3 goals, same old story, exept we didn't score much in return. Alot was made of the fact that we are without Oguro and Araujo in the pre-game and in-game analysis. But i saw just enough in this game to show some hope for the coming season. The performences for Endo, Fernandinho, Myojin, and even old gamba boy Bando and Kaji coming of the bench were enough i think to say, with enough work we could yet again be challenging for the glory of the J1 crown.
We were on the backfoot almost as soon as the referee blew kick-off, Shinji Ono showing his skills to win a corner. Oh and i forgot to mention that although on paper this is a neutral venue most of the stadium were full of Urawa supporters. Every time a Gamba player touched the ball boos would ring out from almost every side of the stadium.
Gamba won a corner straight after this, Fernandinho sent in the usuall dangerous ball but Tsuboi made a mistake and sent the ball in his own net, putting Gamba 1-0 ahead just minuites into the match, the rest of the first half was almost complete dominance by Urawa with our players trying as hard as possible to stay in with a shout, Horinouchi scored a header not long after Gamba's goal and just a few minuties after that Urawa scored 2-1 after Sideclei deflected a pass right to Washington and he went and scored. Ono and Hasebe were dominating the midfield for the whole first half.
In the second half we began to string more fluent passes together but Urawa then went and made it 3-1, Ponte was left wide open as our defenders went awol again. God Nishino decided to bring on Bando and Kaji for the unimpressive duo of Terada and Futagawa. This changed the game quite a bit in Gamba's favour as the speed of Kaji and Bando finally brought some rapid attacking play that were so used to seeing in Osaka. Bando looked very, very good creating many good chances. After they came on Gamba dominated most of the second half up to the last few minuites. urawa decided to go Defensive and we just passed the ball about trying to find an opening, it was found 3 or 4 times usually thanks to Bando but there was no finish due to urawa's relentless defending.
At the end of the game i was very depressed about how when Urawa did play they dominated Gamba. But on reflection i have started to pick out possitives such as Ienaga's crisp passing, the usuall high class performances of Endo and Fernandinho (I think he's better in attacking midfield rather than an actuall striker) Myojin also looked quite impressive and obvoisly so did Kaji and Bando, and possibly Hashimoto.
Terada connot be blamed for his performance as he is young and inexperienced.
In the next match i would like to see a partnership of Bando and Magno Alves up front with Fernandinho behind, i think this could work very well.
Magno Alves was someone i didn't talk about much, because,well, There was nothing to talk about, he did almost next to nothing against urawa, we have been promised goals by him and i guess we will have to give him time and wait and see if he can gel with this Gamba side.
This is what Akira Nishino said after the game.
"It's disappointing that we didn't make the most our chances but our front line has changed since last year and there are things that we need to work on and it's going to take a bit of time. I am very disappointed, but we played better football than I expected. Overall, I think we controlled over half the game."
