20 Nov 2008(Thu)

November 19, 2008: Six games without a win; four points from a possible 18; only one goal scored in the last three games...

A record like this surely belongs to a team in danger of relegation.

But no, it belongs to Nagoya Grampus -- still in third place in the table, two points off the pace and with three games to go.

That just about sums up this crazy J1 campaign, in which no team has been able to string together a series of wins at the critical moment and pull away from the pack. Hence the fact that Grampus are still in there with a shout.

Nagoya's manager, Dragan Stojkovic, knows his team should be out of the title race with a run as poor as that so late in the season, but has been in the game long enough to know that anything can still happen, especially in Japan..

"We'll never give up," he said, with a twinkle in his eye as he left NACK5 Stadium on Saturday after Nagoya's 2-1 victory over Omiya in the Emperor's Cup.

"The most important thing about this game was that we found the road to victory, and this will give us confidence for the last three league games, which we need a lot. Scoring two goals away is absolutely fabulous."

Grampus won it with two headers from Frode Johnsen -- the first an early gift from the Omiya defence, the second a masterful finish after a slick left-wing move involving Abe and then Magnum (really, Abe's pass up the line was a work of art, curling it round the Omiya defence and into Magnum's path as he broke up the left flank). Rumour has it that Johnsen will be playing for Gamba next season, and will be replaced by Davi from Sapporo, but Nagoya would miss the Norwegian centre forward's aerial prowess if these deals were done..

So Grampus came away with a win, and showed enough character and style to convince their manager that the J1 title is not yet out of reach.

Stojkovic also took heart from the words of his old boss, Ivica Osim, manager of the Yugoslavia team in which Stojkovic excelled at the 1990 World Cup.

"He told me he always enjoyed to watch how Grampus play, and it's really good to hear this kind of thing from him," Stojkovic said, after chatting with Osim for a few minutes after the final whistle.

I asked the Grampus manager what he had learned from Osim when they worked together, and he replied that the most important thing was that every player had to work for the team.

"A player must not be selfish, he must play for the group," Stojkovic said.

"He knew that I had extra talent as a player but I had to put this extra talent into the collective and play for the group. After all, the group wins the game. We had a great time working together in the national team and at the World Cup."

ends