After two weeks in Tokyo, we went to Osaka and Kyoto for the final week of the trip. There were no games during the week, but as I checked the schedule, I saw that FC Osaka, a J3 club, had a home game on Friday night. For some reason, the game was being played in Kyoto, just a few minutes from my hotel. Typhoon Shanshan was supposed to hit the area, so there was a chance that the game would be postponed, but as the typhoon slowed and veered away, the game ended up being played after all, with the final decision made at 10 a.m. that morning.
I made my way to Takebishi Stadium, which used to host Kyoto Purple Sanga, the city's J1 League team until 2019. Built in 1942, the venue holds 20,588, but for this match, a mere 766 made the effort. I picked up a ticket for 2,000 yen and made my way in to the general admission section. Not hard to find a seat here.
The stadium is quite basic, with the more expensive seats across the way. With a track surrounding the field, seats higher up are better. I did not see any concessions whatsoever, and imagine that if you wanted food, you would have to buy some at the 7-11 by the station.
The visitors were Zweigen Kanazawa, which is about 2 hours away and surprisingly, they had considerably more fans on hand than Osaka did.
Midway through the first half, it began to rain and I went to the top to open my umbrella, only to be told that no umbrellas were allowed. This is where Japan can be extremely annoying; the general reason to ban umbrellas is to prevent fans from blocking the view of others; when you are at the top of a nearly empty stadium, this should not be an issue. But Japanese struggle to think outside the box and so at halftime, I wandered back to the station to pick up a poncho and a drink (you can generally leave stadiums and return in Japan). As soon as I left the convenience store, the rain stopped. Oh well, the poncho made the trip back home and will be worn at some rainy sporting event in the future.
The match was what you would expect from this level of soccer. Little sustained possession and few good chances, though Osaka did score a pretty goal early in the first half, when Daigo Furukawa volleyed home a perfect cross from Shunji Masuda.
Just four minutes into the second half, and Zweigen tied things up when Yuki Kajiura headed a high volley that hit the post and snuck in. Little happened the rest of the way and the game ended 1-1, a fair result as these teams are evenly matched, being separated by just five points in the table. The highlights of both goals are
here.
Notes
This was my 100th soccer venue lifetime and 17th in Japan.
This was the only professional soccer game being played in the world at the time (using Livescore's 'Live' feature), something I had never seen before.
I had planned to see Kyoto Purple Sanga the following night, but that game had been postponed due to the typhoon, which never hit Kyoto anyway. It was a slow moving storm and obviously for a larger match, the decision to postpone has to be made before game day, but in the end, Saturday was a beautiful day in Kyoto and I enjoyed a wonderful meal with my family instead.
Best,
Sean
No comments:
Post a Comment