1. draw 2. draw 3. Beleza 4. Cerezo 5. Regina 6. draw 7. Manchester City 8. Tottenham 9. Liverpool 10. Everton 11. draw 12. Arsenal 13. Yui Narumiya (INAC), Mami Ueno (Regina), Yuzuho Shokoshi (Beleza), Remina Chiba (Eintracht Frankfurt), Yuka Momiki (Everton) 14. Aoba Fujino (Manchester City) 15. Remina Chiba (Eintracht Frankfurt)
1 Jef 2 Chifure 3 Beleza 4 Ohmiya 5 Urawa 6 Inac 7 Manchester City 8 Aston Villa 9 Chelsea 10 Everton 11 Manchester United 12 Brighton 13 Tanikawa, Chiba, Seike, Hasegawa, Yoshida, 14 Nobody 15 Nobody
My answer: 1 Jef 2 Chifure 3 Beleza 4 Cerezo 5 draw 6 Inac 7 Manchester City 8 Tottenham 9 Chelsea 10 Everton 11 Manchester United 12 Arsenal 13 Tsuda, Shimada Mei, Tanikawa, Hiwatari, Tago 14 nobody 15 nobody
Is there still no replacement for Kumagai? Is Saki is still needed to keep things together or is she a nostalgia pick for those in need of a 2011 veteran to watch the games? Nagano: Is she the strong anchor that we otherwise don't see? I somehow cannot remember that she left an impression in the latest games.....
1 draw 2 Chifure 3 draw 4 Omiya 5 Regina 6 Inac 7 too late 8 Tottenham 9 Chelsea 10 Everton 11 Man U 12 Arsenal 13 Yoshida (Inac), Iwasaki (Feyenoord), Chinatsu (Hera United), Momiki (Everton), Tago (Cerezo) 14 Yoshida 15 nobody
Ayaka Yamashita and Yui Hasegawa (goal and assist) played whole match, Aoba Fujino (goal) since 58th minute for ManCity against Leicester.
Ouch: I have erased Yui Hasegawa at the last moment to write a different name and I had correctly predicted that Aoba Fujno was going to score, but I had credited her with a brace!
Jef (Yamaguchi, Ogawa) 2-2 Nojima (Nagashima, Sasai Chinari) Beleza (Aoki, Shiokoshi) 2-0 Mynavi Chifure (Ikuta 2, Setoguchi, Uemura) 4-0 Nagano
I will take the draw against JEF. As a Nojima fan I watched the first-half thinking Nojima were incredibly lucky to be only one goal down. I thought JEF were the much better team and seemed to be winning in most areas on the pitch. JEF just looked more skillful and were playing the better football. Having said that, JEF do give opposition teams a chance with the way they play out from the back. The first Nojima goal came from a nice dive from Ohtake but the lead up play was completely due to JEF being unable to move the ball out of their own penalty box. It happened on numerous occasions, which gives teams hope. Nojima decided to start Chinari Sasai who is their most dangerous attacking player on the bench. Maybe she is coming back from an injury, but why would you not start her if she is fully fit? She scored an exceptional goal in the second-half. Nojima played a lot better in the second-half. Nojima started a new player from the junior team, which is good to see. Her name is Shiori Akira and she played pretty well, but the JEF midfield is not the strongest. Nojima bring their junior team players quite gently, so she might not play again for the rest of the season. Chihiro Yamaguchi was good again for JEF. She is having a good season.
I thought the same. I wondered why they would kick the long ball far away in the final 20 minutes, even though it was apparant that Nojima aimed to recover the ball with their high pressure. Even if it was their tactics, they should've played in more flexible way.
By the way, with today's win, they finally left the last positon in the rankings of WE League, by passing their opponents of today of AC Nagano Parceiro Ladies.
This was a pretty good game to watch. It was played open and at a fast pace, which led to quite a few mistakes in midfield. I am not sure how only one goal was scored. Ohimya got a bit lucky with the win, because Cerezo should have got a penalty in the second-half. But Cerezo have a had a lot of decisions go there way this season, so it is probably fair they have a decision go against them. The goal Ohmiiya scored was really well worked and Nishio once again finished nicely. People are starting to take notice of Nishio. Minami Munakata played very well for Ohmiya on the right. Seriously, Ohmiya are stacked on the wings. For Cerezo Miyuka Momona and Natsumi Tago were excellent. I know Tago is an Osaka girl, but I could see her moving to a bigger club or out of Japan. She just seems to get better every time I watch her. Cerezo play an interesting brand of football, but sometimes I wonder if their manager is over thinking things a bit too much. I do not want to get into the details, but there were some intresting tactics played today. I could only watch the last 30 minutes of this game. I have no idea what happened in the first-half, but from what I saw Regina were dominating play. That Funa Yanase is a really good player. She could play in any league in the world. Urawa now seem to only play their young players. It is quite interesting to watch. Again the last 30 minutes. INAC did not seem to have any answers for Niigata's defence. They also should have been down 2 nil at half-time but Takikawa missed an absolute sitter in front of goal. I did say that I thought INAC would struggle in the second half of the season due to the loss of Aikawa and this result has strengthened my belief. If anything was to happen to Narumiya then INAC would be in serious trouble. We will see how it goes and they probably will not struggle against the bottom half of the table.
The both scorers, Ezaki and Kamiya, are from Nadeshiko League. So many new players of each club are changing such teams' impressions. About Urawa's game, I wonder if Hori thought they could easily win the game after Shibata's goal. While Urawa's young subs seem not to be effective so much to get their win, Regina's subs increased their threat.
You'll remember what I had written after I knew about Chiina Kamiya's transfer back in January. In the end, this week-end was a good one for Beleza, who caught up with Urawa at 2nd place and got closer to INAC (today's one is only the 2nd loss in the league for the leaders of the rankings ). It was a good week-end for Albirex and Regina also, but they were so far behind that they couldn't even close the gap with Sendai, who remain alone at 4th place. Then, of course, Nojima Stella managed to get even with Cerezo . (And we reminded yesterday of the fact that Chifure have passed Nagano at the bottom of the chart).
Everton (Hayashi) 1-0 West Ham Chelsea 2-0 Liverpool Aston Villa 3-7 Totten Ham (Hamano) Manchester United 2-1 London City Lionesses Den Haag 1-1 Feyenoord
Nakashima Express at full throttle! No disrespect, but sometimes she looks like Usain Bolt in a park full of joggers in these matches. Her inability to implement her athleticism into national team's play is so depressing.