4 Oct 2007(Thu)

October 1, 2007: Recent victories over Reds at Saitama Stadium and now Marinos at Nissan Stadium suggests a team challenging for the championship.

But no; we are talking about Omiya Ardija, who, despite these two eye-catching results, occupy the second automatic relegation place of 17th with just 24 points from 27 games.

When asked what his target was to guarantee safety, manager Satoru Sakuma said 40 points -- meaning five wins and a draw from the last seven games.

This is a big ask of his players, but Ardija's opponents include fellow strugglers Sanfrecce at home, Yokohama FC away, Oita at home and Kofu away.

What's more, they will finally have their own home stadium at Omiya Koen back on line for the November 11 clash with Trinita, following redevelopment.

One thing is for sure, Sakuma will be glad to leave the Komaba cow field behind, and play on greener pastures.

"Many of my players are small and technical. This is why we can win at Saitama against Reds and at Nissan Stadium against Marinos, on good pitches. At Komaba you cannot play football because of the pitch. It is just a physical battle," he said.

After the previous week's 1-0 debacle at home to JEF, Omiya lifted their game and their motivation several notches to score two excellent goals and win 2-0 against Marinos.

J.League journeyman Takashi Hirano -- one of the original Nagoya Grampus Three bad boys -- was roundly jeered by the Marinos fans before kick-off, and he provided the best answer with a flying header at the far post. It was Hirano's second appearance for Ardija, whom he joined on May 21 but suffered a knee injury on his first day of training and was out for two months.

"Good personality, experienced professional, gives 100 per cent in training every day. I believe in him," was Sakuma's assessment of the former Marinos man.

Yoshihara scored the second, cracking a right-foot shot on the run past a startled Enomoto -- and continuing his run all the way to the Omiya fans behind the goal. At the vast Nissan Stadium, that is approximately two kilometres, so full credit here to the referee, Joji Kashihara. He allowed Yoshihara his moment of glory, all the time looking at his watch but not showing the yellow card. Commonsense refereeing this.

Funnily enough, in the four minutes of stoppage time, Yoshihara got himself booked anyway for pulling back Nakazawa!

Well, you can't win 'em all...

For Sakuma, five out of seven will do nicely.