17 Nov 2005(Thu)

November 16, 2005: One of the most competitive races in the J.League this year will be to find the winner of the Manager of the Season award.

There are several candidates, alongside the manager of the championship-winning team.

One of them must surely be Shinji Kobayashi at Cerezo Osaka.

He has worked wonders with the team, and they are still in with a chance of winning the league crown with four games to play.

I saw Cerezo win 1-0 against Verdy at Ajista on Saturday afternoon, and, while their performance was nothing special, they turned this into three points, which is the mark of a good team.

Verdy, of course, should have scored at least once, maybe more. Manager Vadao pointed out after the game that they had created eight to 10 chances, but had not converted any. It would have helped if they had taken more shots, but, as so often happens with a team struggling for confidence, players did not trust themselves and tried to pass the ball, and the responsibility, to a team-mate.

Hiramoto looked sharp and hungry after coming on, but blazed wide, as did the lively Tamano after creating a wonderful chance for himself.

But all this is not Cerezo Osaka's fault. They did not have too many chances before Furuhashi scored the only goal of the game, in the 89th minute, with a well-struck free kick into the bottom corner of the net, beating Takagi at his near post.

That was enough to give Cerezo the three points, and there was no need for Bruno Quadros to feign injury near the end and almost cost his team an equaliser. There was nothing wrong with him when he went down in his own penalty area in injury time, and I applaud referee Okutani for not allowing him to return to the pitch immediately.

In fact it would have been nice to see Verdy equalise, and punish the cheating Cerezo player as he stood on the touchline waiting to come on when he should have been helping his team-mates defend the lead.

Cerezo now have 53 points, still four behind Gamba, and they won their last three points without several top players, such as Fabinho and Ze Carlos, Kudo and Nishizawa.

In the centre of midfield, Nunobe and Shimomura are real grafters, Maeda is improving all the time at the back, and Furuhashi is an intelligent and mobile forward.

Kobayashi has done a fine job, but the competition for the manager award is too close to call.

ends