It has been announced that a pre-season match between Tokai neighbours FC Gifu and Nagoya Grampus will be held at Nagara on February 24. This should be an interesting game as it pits together two legends of Nagoya Grampus during its glory days, Moriyama and Stoikovich. But this time Moriyama will come as a player for FC Gifu whereas Stoikovich will come as the newly appointed coach of Grampus.
The game should be interesting for a number of reasons:
1. The Kisogawa Derby! A new rivalry will be made between these two teams with only a half an hour train ride seperating the two J clubs.
2. This will be the first time that FC Gifu have played a J1 team in Gifu. How will they fair??
3. This will be the main warm up game before the J-league for both these teams.
4. Stoikovich's reign begins here! He promises a much more entertaining brand of football for the Grampus, but can he dig Nagoya out of hole of ordinary results from the last few years??
5. Gifu does not want to lose to Nagoya!!! Associated as the little brother to Nagoya, only a win will give them some credential and their own identity. On the other hand Nagoya won't want to lose to "minnows" FC Gifu now will they??
3 comments:
To be honest, I think Nagoya will be a way too big bun to bite for FC Gifu at this stage of their progress. I've yet to see them sign any J1 worthy players, and in the J2 they don't surpass the midtable teams based on their squad.
This'll probably be a learning experience much more than an actual rivalry contest. Although that rivalry could be a promising thing for the future.
You have to remember that this is football mate, and anything can happen on the day!
It is true that Gifu are definitely lacking any top-level players at the moment and this could definitely be exploited by Nagoya. But with a good home crowd behind them, plus a few good bounces of the ball I don`t think an upset could be ruled out altogether. In reality though, a draw would be a great effort by Gifu.
As a side note though.. FC Gifu played Nagoya Grampus in 2006 as a pre-season match before they were to begin the Tokai Division 2 league and FC-Gifu won 3-1! This was a Grampus side utilizing alot of their Satelite League players but nonetheless a victory is a victory!
At that stage though FC Gifu was riding a wave of momentum that kept going until the early stages of the JFL. Unfortunately the conifidence gained during that time has turned into a bit of doubtfulness by the players in recent times...
But anyway, fingers crossed for a good game and keeping a bit of Pride!!
Hey richy! Thanks for the comment on my blog. Good to see another foreigner with a blog in English on J League. Check out bigsoccer.com and put your blog up there on the English blog thread.
Now count how many times I said "blog". My apologies.
Point 1. Get ready for the game and scream your head off, but expect that Grampus will use it to test out a lot of their reserves as you said. You're absolutely right that anything can happen the day of...Yokohama FC 1, Urawa nil. Proof is in the pudding.
Point 2. Get ready to not be very welcomed by your neighbors. When there are a lot of fans, heads can get hot pretty quick. Watch yourself and don't walk around by yourself in your uni too much.
Point 3. Looking for them to do pretty good this year! I don't think they'll make J1, but it's tough to be as bad as Mito or Tokushima. I'd LOVE to see them beat the hell up out of Cerezo tho!!!
All in all, I hope to see you in J1 soon. Good luck!!!
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