Fun in the sun in Fukuroi humdinger

Shimizu S-Pulse and Urawa Reds played out a pulsating 2-2 draw in front of 30,851 fans at Ecopa Stadium in Fukuroi yesterday.

In bright sunshine on a glorious Shōwa Day public holiday, it's unlikely that too many of the fans inside Ecopa were reflecting on Japan's period of prosperity under the former Emperor, with football fans concerned by more pressing matters as two of the league's most passionately supported clubs came head-to-head.

The first surprise of the afternoon came with Kenta Hasegawa's ultra-defensive starting eleven, as veterans Teruyoshi Ito and Marcos Paulo Alves were both recalled to start alongside the similarly defensive Masaki Yamamoto, with the S-Pulse game plan apparently to bamboozle Urawa with a series of square balls and back passes.

An even bigger shock was the decision to leave out 4-goal top scorer Shinji Okazaki, as fellow youngster Kazuki Hara started in his stead alongside the recalled Frode Johnsen, with former Urawa striker Yuichiro Nagai dropping back to the bench.

It was the effervescent Hara who was causing all sort of problems for the Urawa defence in the first half, and not surprisingly it was he was who was up-ended in the penalty area some seventeen minutes in. With most S-Pulse fans expecting Frode Johnsen to step up to the spot, it was instead the redoubtable Hara who confidently sent Ryota Tsuzuki the wrong way from the spot.

Despite stringing a defensive wall in front of the back four, S-Pulse were still struggling to contain Urawa's pacy counter-attacks. Not surprisingly it was the Reds who scored next, as Robson Ponte took advantage of Urawa's superior numbers inside the box to level the scores before the break.

With two outstanding teenagers on the pitch in the form of 17-year-old Genki Haraguchi and 18-year-old Naoki Yamada, Urawa possessed plenty of pace and penetration. And didn't the S-Pulse defence feel it, as with sixteen minutes remaining the electrifying Yamada brushed off a series of attempted tackles, before bursting into the penalty area and curling an inch-perfect strike into the far corner of the goal.

Roared on by a partisan and increasingly desperate home crowd, Shimizu S-Pulse surged forward in search of an equaliser. They almost found one when substitute Nagai got his head to a cross, but somehow Ryota Tsuzuki managed to scramble back and claw the ball out before it crossed the goal-line.

Nevertheless with three minutes remaining S-Pulse eventually managed to pull a goal back, and they did so through the unlikeliest of sources, as stand-in captain and full-back Arata Kodama demonstrated his years of experience to place a precise side-footed volley between Tsuzuki and his near post, and send the massed ranks of Shimizu fans behind the goal wild with delirium.

Both teams collapsed to the turf in exhaustion at the final whistle, following a battling display in what was a bruising encounter at times. Respective coaches Kenta Hasegawa and Volker Finke will have plenty of food for thought, however, after an encounter in which both defences were beaten for pace by exciting youngsters, only to see a couple of veterans in the form of Robson Ponte and Arata Kodama chime in with priceless goals of their own.