R49 vs Consadole Sapporo

FC Gifu 2 - 4 Consadole Sapporo (ht 1-3)

After a great defensive display against Chiba last week, Gifu were knocked back down to earth conceding 3 goals to be down 3-0 after just 21 minutes. The first goal was the result of bad defense, the second a horrible miss by keeper Noda, and the third was the result of a sublime strike by Danielson. Gifu scored one goal to Satou to place the score at 3-1 going into the second half, and give Gifu a faint chance at catching up to Sapporo, but Sapporo struck back early in the second half, and although Satou struck again for his second, it was not enough. Sapporo never looked like losing and played the better football, whereas Gifu looked disinterested, maybe still hungover from their victory celebrations of last week.
There were some positives to come out of the match though. First was that Gifu scored their first goals against Sapporo. Second was that Satou scored the 100th J2 goal for FC Gifu and in the process moved his total up to 15 for the season - 9th overall in the J2. The last point was that Gifu attracted their 100.000th spectator of the season, with 7,800 spectators turning up in the cold rain.

Next week is a trip to Osaka to play Cerezo. Gifu's past results at Nagai are two hard-fought 1-0 losses, and they are going to have to pull something special out of the bag if they are going to win this one. A loss will see them most likely plummet down the rankings to 13th or 14th...