The Emperor's Cup - Round 2

FC Gifu 1 - 0 Tochigi SC (ht 0-0)

Gifu managed to come out with a hard-fought 1-0 win over rivals Tochigi SC and set up a date with not Urawa Reds, but Matsumoto Yamaga FC, in Akita on October 31st.
I did not see the game itself, but from what I hear it wasn't the best game to watch. Gifu's game came from Koichi Satou in the 55th minute. Tochigi's Leonardo got sent off in the 61st minute, and Tochigi came pretty close to equalising in the dying stages but Gifu held on.
The crowd was about 2300, which isn't too bad for The Emperor's Cup (Tokushima had about 900 at home!), but it will be interesting to see if over 1000 will turn up for the 3rd Round in Akita.
With Matsumoto knocking out Urawa 2-0 at home, this means that Gifu will have a good chance at advancing to the 4th Round, as Matsumoto are by no means as strong as Urawa. Still, any team who can beat Urawa by 2 goals has to be shown alot of respect, and if Gifu aren't careful, they could follow a similar fate as the Reds.
Win that game, and the next game will either be Oita Trinita or JEF Chiba in Saitama. Which would both be very winnable games. Still, shouldn't get ahead of myself, it's not as if Gifu are playing on fire at the moment. Better concentrate on this weekends J2 vs Thespa Kusatsu, which will be a very tough game as Kusatsu are in pretty good form at the moment.