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By Jeremy Walker
TOKYO (May 18)--The stage is set for a J.League heavyweight
title bout at the Mitsuzawa Stadium in Yokohama on Saturday night.
In the blue corner are the Yokohama F Marinos, who lead the
standings in the first stage of the championship with 27 points
from 13 games.
In the white corner are Cerezo Osaka, second on 26 points from
the same number of matches.
With only two rounds to play, Saturday's game between the two
top teams could well determine the first-stage championship.
In the 13th round of games on Wednesday night, the Marinos mastered
Kawasaki Frontale 4-1 at the 2002 World Cup final venue of Yokohama
International Stadium.
Cerezo were also among the goals, beating Avispa Fukuoka 4-2
at home thanks to two more goals from inspirational captain Hiroaki
Morishima, taking his season's tally to 12 in 13 outings.
FC Tokyo jumped into third place on 23 points from 13 games
by winning 3-1 away to JEF United.
But the winners of last season's two stages, Jubilo Iwata and
Shimizu S-Pulse, both lost to hand the initiative to the Marinos
and Cerezo.
S-Pulse went down 2-0 away to Vissel Kobe in a match delayed
for 27 minutes when the floodlights failed 37 minutes into the
first half. S-Pulse trailed 1-0 at the time and the break couldn't
help them get back into the game.
Jubilo slipped to a third consecutive defeat, 4-3 at home to
Sanfrecce Hiroshima after an extra-time winner from Japanese international
striker Tatsuhiko Kubo.
S-Pulse are fourth with 22 points from 12 games, and Jubilo
are fifth with 20, also from 12 games. These two teams have a
match in hand on the leaders because they missed a round due to
Asian club competition commitments.
At Yokohama, the Marinos fell behind to an early goal from Frontale's
Brazilian midfielder Pedrinho, who fired a left-foot shot into
the bottom corner of the net when a corner kick was only half-cleared
to him outside the box.
But Marinos' own Brazilian player, Matias Edmilson, struck twice
before the break, giving him five goals in seven games since joining
the club in the middle of last month.
Marinos finished off the job in the second half with further
goals from Daisuke Tonoike and Kunio Nagayama, but Frontale remained
dangerous throughout and came close on several occasions.
After the game, Marinos' Argentine manager Ossie Ardiles admitted:
"Matches like this are going to hurt my health!
"My players are starting to get a bit nervous because we've
reached a critical stage of the season, so I told them to relax
and keep playing positive, attacking football.
"But this game was very difficult in certain periods, so it's
nice to win 4-1 without playing particularly well. "Saturday's
game against Cerezo is now the key to the first stage." Cerezo
had to come from behind on two occasions at home to Avispa, as
they trailed 1-0 and 2-1 early in the game.
Morishima (2), Akinori Nishizawa and South Korean Noh Jung-yoon
saw Cerezo home in style.
Elsewhere, Nagoya Grampus Eight lost 2-0 at home to Kashiwa
Reysol in a match which marked the first red card of the campaign
for Nagoya's fiery Yugoslav schemer Dragan Stojkovic.
The 35-year-old World Cup captain was returning from a one-match
ban for accumulating three yellow cards, but was sent off for
his second bookable offence after 67 minutes.
At the bottom, Kyoto Purple Sanga picked up another point from
a 1-1 draw away to Verdy but remain a point adrift of Frontale.
Kyoto (seven points) and Frontale (eight) have a lot to do in
the second stage to avoid relegation, as there is a gap developing
to the "safe" 14th position.
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