2009-07-19 Sanfrecce 4-1 JEF United Ichihara Chiba

SATO Hisato: grabbed the first goal (photo from June) - stefanole

Sanfrecce successfully avenged their 2-1 defeat earlier in the season by putting JEF down at home by four goals to one, and in doing so broke their season-record three game losing streak.

2009-07-11 Urawa Reds 2-1 Sanfrecce

The Moo Boys at the Big Arch in March - stefanole

There was bitter disappointment for the Purple Archers at the Saitama Stadium as they were sent home to Hiroshima with nothing after concluding a match they should have had sewn up at half-time. The game marks three straight defeats for Sanfrecce, their worst run this season, and certainly worse than the 2008 season in J2 where we only lost four games all season.

2009-07-05 Sanfrecce 0-1 Jubilo Iwata

Matchday Programme - Mihael Mikić

Maeda (18') scores for Jubilo

The return of the Mak ended in disappointment for Sanfrecce against a Jubilo side who are quickly becoming their bogey team this year. After dumping them out of the Nabisco Cup, Jubilo have consigned Sanfrecce to their second straight defeat, a record only equalled at the start of the season.

The performance was not deserving of a defeat, with Sanfrecce dominating the final half an hour against Jubilo. The visitors were content to try to kill the game and were punished accordingly by the referee, mostly for persistent infringement I suspect. Jubilo made a habit of pushing players as they were heading the ball, something for which their captain for the day Komano should have conceded a penalty to Hisato early in the game, and for repeated infringements against Makino a Jubilo player was booked in the second half. The referee should have been wiser to this poor habit sooner, which was so endemic in Jubilo’s play that I can only surmise that they have been coached to do it, and as such the more alert of the J-League’s referees should already be aware of it. Komano was made the captain for the day in place of Nakayama, presumably in celebration of his heroic desertion from Sanfrecce at the end of the 2007 season after having helped us through the J2 trapdoor.

2009-06-27 Kyoto Sanga 2-0 Sanfrecce

Sanfrecce were unable to avenge their 2007 playdown defeat after they lost to a physical Kyoto side.

Just from these highlights, I count a free-kick from within 25 yards out, and two penalties not given to Sanfrecce. Kyoto’s first goal came about because the Sanga player had too much space, but that was because the Sanga players had kicked Kashiwagi around so much that he was limping and couldn’t keep up. Nice to see the spirit of fair play still alive and well. The second goal seems to have come from bad marking by Morita.