Well, it had to happen some day. Shimizu S-Pulse took a giant leap towards qualification for the knock-out stages of the League Cup with a convincing 2-1 win over JEF United in front of a respectable 10,214 fans at a wet Nihondaira Stadium. For me, it was my final game in Japan.

After more than seventy games and far too many away trips to mention, I've decided to call it a day and head back to Australia. I was relieved to see the good guys in orange end with a win thanks to two goals taken with aplomb by Kazuki Hara and Akihiro Hyodo, although the Chiba underdogs gave S-Pulse a scare when captain Tomi Shimomura pulled a goal back in stoppage time.

The win moves Shimizu S-Pulse up to second behind FC Tokyo in Group B and the two sides will meet at Komazawa Stadium on Matchday 7 - by which time both will hope to have guaranteed progression to the knock-out stages.

There was no Eddy Bosnar in the United line-up - after sitting out a suspension in the 1-0 win away at Montedio Yamagata last time out, he was left on the bench this time around - with Yohei Fukumoto and one-time Shimizu S-Pulse defender Takumi Wada preferred at the back instead. United were always on the back foot against an aggressive Shimizu, however, and the hosts took the lead when Kazuki Hara fired an unerring left-foot volley across Masahiro Okamoto and into the far corner.

It wasn't until stoppage-time that Shimizu scored a second when Frode Johnsen laid off a perfect cushioned header for the influential Akihiro Hyodo to lash home from sixteen yards, although United pulled a late consolation back when Tomi Shimomura took advantage of an unconvincing Kaito Yamamoto punch to steer home a skidding finish at the death.

All in all it was a convincing win from Kenta Hasegawa's team, and they will take some confidence into their League Cup clash away at Vissel Kobe on Sunday. I'll be back in Sydney by then, no doubt reminiscing about some of the fantastic football I've seen in what must be one of the world's most underrated football leagues.

I've made plenty of friends along the way - far too many to thank individually - but I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Melanie, Yuichi, Philip and Misa in particular, without whom I'd have never watched as much football in Japan as I have. I'd also like to thank all the readers of the blog, from Sydney to Phnom Penh via Tokyo and beyond. I hope I've managed to share a little bit of the unique world that is Japanese football with you.

As the late, great Jim Morrison once said...

This is the end.

It's been mentioned elsewhere, but the worst kept secret from the "Kop-end" at Nihondaira Stadium is true - I'm going home. So hectic have attempts to organise the move back to Australia been that I almost forgot about Shimizu S-Pulse's home clash with Montedio Yamagata in the League Cup group stage on Wednesday night. That probably says something about the tournament itself.

In the end I shuffled down to Nihondaira at the last minute as part of a respectable crowd of 8,245 - and the fans on display were treated to a tolerable affair, albeit one that the tiny band of travelling Yamagata supporters were more inclined to celebrate in the end.

Having brought their physical brand of football down from the north, the mountain men left Shimizu with a well-deserved 1-0 win that puts them top of the table with two-wins-from-two in Group B.

A well-taken strike from midfielder Katsuyuki Miyazawa - who then spent the rest of the game throwing elbows in the direction of any Shimizu player with the temerity to go near him - coupled with an excellent performance from stand-in keeper Yuki Uekusa, was enough to get the visiting team over the line.

But the League Cup group stage has problems - not the least this new two-group format that the J. League has been forced to adopt because of changes to this year's Asian Champions League.

While the diehards generally tend to turn out for any competitive fixture - and the fact that League Cup group stage games are practically thrown in for free with season-ticket packages surely helps - more and more casual fans are realising that the League Cup group stage holds very little allure.

Shimizu S-Pulse and Montedio Yamagata could hardly be accused of not wanting to win this match. Both sent out strong squads, and Yamagata celebrated their goal like it had just won them a league title. But with J1 teams already facing each other on such a regular basis, surely the time to revamp a tired-looking League Cup is now.

Perhaps they'd be better utilised as drought-breakers, as for the third game in a row at "Outsourcing Stadium Nihondaira," Shimizu S-Pulse were forced to run out in the wet - although it didn't prevent them from avenging last season's League Cup final defeat as they beat Oita Trinita 3-1.

Yet again thousands of ticket holders failed to turn out in steady rain lashing the Nihondaira foothills, meaning that the near-16,500 tickets sold before the match counted for little when only 13,141 fans braved the conditions... not that the club loses a great deal of money from those ticket holders who don't show.

At any rate, the result on the pitch was surely a foregone conclusion in this one.

Taikai Uemoto. Yuki Fukaya. Roberto. Edmilson. Ueslei. Daiki Takamatsu. Yasuhito Morishima. Shunsuke Maeda. Those were just the Oita players who MISSED the game through suspension or injury (seven of whom are first team regulars).

So it was that Oita ran out with a team featuring squad numbers 25, 28, 32, 33 and 34, with a new-look formation and two midfielders playing up front. They didn't have much hope.

Shimizu defender Keisuke Iwashita got the scoring under way with a routine header from a corner on the quarter-hour mark, but what Iwashita brings to the team in terms of aerial ability and defensive positioning is surely wasted when the fragile defender goes down at every single opportunity. I've seen wet paper bags with a stronger disposition than the delicate Iwashita - not surprisingly he limped off after the hour mark with another mysterious injury.

Iwashita was just one of several Shimizu players to be targeted by irate S-Pulse fans in this game, but the hosts hit Oita with a classic one-two punch as Frode Johnsen fashioned a half-chance just three minutes after Iwashita's goal, with the big Norwegian volleying a finish between the luckless Shusaku Nishikawa's legs.

Shimizu looked like they could win this game at a canter, but Oita found a way back when the tireless Daisuke Takahashi cushioned an expert header in off the post just before the break, to ensure that the two teams still had plenty to play for in the second half.

With the rain increasing and the hosts content to sit back and try and hit Oita on the break in the second half, it was no surprise that the bounce of the ball played a pivotal role in settling this encounter. Midway through the half Frode Johnsen's speculative twenty-five yard strike took a late deflection to wrong-foot Shusaku Nishikawa in the Oita goal and skid into the corner to end the scoring.

Johnsen was named Man of the Match for his efforts, although the former Nagoya striker received little supporter from fellow front-man Kazuki Hara - who struggled to impose himself on this game. Indeed, the decision to play Japan international Shinji Okazaki as a wide-lying midfielder appeared to backfire, with neither Hara, nor Okazaki influencing the outcome of this relatively one-sided affair. 

A win is a win, as they say, but there was a palpably hostile atmosphere on the terraces. Perhaps Shimizu fans are simply tired of turning out in the rain, although the catcalls aimed at coach Kenta Hasegawa would suggest otherwise. Hasegawa may be living on borrowed time, and he will need to work diligently to win back the trust of Shimizu's frustrated fans - with two-thirds of the season still to contest.

They may have waited ten rounds to see it, but Frode Johnsen's first ever goal for Shimizu S-Pulse was a vital one, as the Norwegian struck a critical reply in Shimizu's 2-2 draw at home to JEF United.

Some 15,129 fans braved driving rain in Shimizu and the home fans among them will have left the happier, after substitute Johnsen pulled a goal back with ten minutes remaining. The former Norwegian international also played a role in Shimizu's equaliser just two minutes from time, as Takuma Edamura slid home on the rebound after Masahiro Okamoto could only parry a point-blank strike from another substitute in Kazuki Hara.

Before that the Chiba Dogs had taken a two goal lead, as first Daisuke Saito took advantage of a lucky richochet off Shimizu defender Naoaki Aoyama, before lashing home on the volley just after the half hour mark.

JEF United then doubled their advantage some nine minutes after the half-time break, as a swirling Tatsuya Yazawa cross was headed home in textbook fashion by slightly-built Brazilian midfielder Michael.

United were in control of this game, but they will rue missed chances in front of goal as the hosts roared back to life late on in this match, thanks mainly to the contribution of substitutes Hara and Johnsen.

Johnsen's goal was a well-taken one in slippery conditions, although a deflection off United talisman Seiichiro Maki seemed to wrong-foot Okamoto in the United goal.

With two minutes remaining and the visitors pouring forward at every opportunity, Johnsen then did well to hold the ball up on the edge of the area and lure former Shimizu defender Takumi Wada into a mis-timed challenge, before intelligently laying the ball off for captain Akihiro Hyodo to send a skidding pass across the six yard box. Kazuki Hara was the quickest to react, but after seeing his shot well-saved by Okamoto, the ball looped in the air and allowed Takuma Edamura to pounce and slide home on the half-volley.

This may have been a morale-boosting comeback for Shimizu S-Pulse, but questions will once again be asked of how the league's second-from-bottom team could outplay the hosts for large stretches of this match.

The wet weather made conditions tough for both sides, and having faced four gruelling clashes in Golden Week so far, it remains to be seen how Kenta Hasegawa's team holds up when they make the trip to Kashima Stadium to face defending champions Kashima Antlers on Sunday afternoon. 

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.

With due credit to influential 90's scenesters Jawbreaker for the title, it was one of those days in Shimizu yesterday as mother nature and a rookie referee conspired to make it a painful day out for Shimizu S-Pulse fans, with the Shizuoka side held to a 1-1 draw at home by bottom club Kashiwa Reysol.

A pre-match trip to the dentist made it an even more eye-watering outing for your correspondent, and the mini-typhoon that swept in off the Pacific to lash the Nihondaira foothills made it one of the most uncomfortable afternoons of football I can remember.

So apocalyptic were the conditions in the hours before kick-off that I eschewed my usual bicycle ride to the ground in favour of hitching a ride with my friend Yuichi. As we drove to the ground in tumbling rain, the picturesque country lanes and back alleys that wind their way around the Nihondaira foothills were soon enveloped by a ghostly fog, so much so that I half expected a pipe-smoking Sherlock Holmes to emerge from the mist with the trusty Watson by his side.

Talk about English weather - these weren't so much April showers as an April monsoon, and to make matters worse, the temperature dropped alarmingly, guaranteeing a bone-chilling reception for both teams and the hardy (or foolish?) souls who ventured out in the less than welcoming conditions. 

My first mistake was taking up my place on the terraces some forty minutes before kick-off, ensuring that by the time debutant referee Jumpei Iida blew his whistle for kick-off (ironically it was the only decision he got right all day), I was already soaked. Then when I whipped out the camera in a vain attempt to capture just how inhospitable the conditions were, I realised at an unhelpfully inconvenient moment that the battery was dead.

Given the treacherous conditions, the game was unsurprisingly nothing to write home about - although any attempt to blame the litany of misplaced passes and elementary mistakes on the conditions overlooks the fact that these are two of the most out-of-form sides in the league.

Former S-Pulse midfielder Kota Sugiyama earned warm applause from the home fans, and he was at the heart of Kashiwa's best moves, as the combative midfielder urged his side forward. Nevertheless neither keeper was really tested in a first half in which the most interesting aspect was Kashiwa striker Popo's set-pieces - three times the Brazilian fired in crosses that sailed over the heads of team-mates and out of play.

"We believed" was the quip at half-time from a less than impressed Yuichi - Shimizu S-Pulse's 2009 slogan is We Believe - and it turned out to be more accurate than my suggestion that Popo was "the worst foreign player in the league" and "unlikely to contribute anything of note in the second half."

For a match in which relatively little occurred, there was certainly several talking points - not the least the performance of rookie referee Jumpei Iida. Most young referees earning their taste of top flight experience would be satisfied to fly under the radar and simply let the game flow. Not so our Iida!

Instead he infuriated both teams with a series of bafflingly pedantic decisions, the best of which saw him order Takuma Edamura from the field for a seemingly indeterminate period of time - which I've since learned from The Rising Sun News was an order for Edamura to change his boots.

It's hard to argue with Iida's decision to award Reysol a free-kick on the edge of the area for Jumpei Takaki's cynical foul just before the hour mark, but the fact that Reysol players would go down if they felt so much as a gust of wind made the decision harder to bear. 

Cue Popo firing in a virtually unstoppable free-kick that Yohei Nishibe somehow conspired to claw out, only to watch in disbelief as Masahiro Koga simply headed home the rebound into an unguarded net.

By now things were looking dire - at least for the S-Pulse fans amongst the crowd of 9,756 that chose to brave the conditions - and the goal saw S-Pulse maraude forward in an increasingly desperate fashion.

The late introduction of strikers Kazuki Hara and Frode Johnsen saw both play an important role in the S-Pulse equaliser, as a series of one-touch passes opened up the Reysol defence and allowed Shinji Okazaki to burst through and slide home the equaliser.

S-Pulse had the bit between their teeth in a frantic finale, and they were desperately unlucky not to win the game when Hara smashed an effort that looked goal-bound for all money, until Takanori Sugeno stuck out a lunging hand to claw the ball onto the post and out for a corner.

There was no applause from either side come the full-time whistle as fans made a beeline for the exits, with the weather somehow conspiring to get even worse in the second half. Indeed, so abysmal were the conditions that for the first time in three years I experienced something almost unthinkable in the J. League - total silence on the terraces.

It's not like Shimizu S-Pulse gave their fans much to shout about. They did just enough to earn a point in this game, but they certainly didn't do anything to convince fans that they can finish in the top half of the table come the end of the season, following this painful outing in the wet for fans from the orange half of Shizuoka.

Talk about a thumping!

The less said about the Shizuoka derby, the better - at least from a Shimizu S-Pulse point of view - as bottom club Jubilo Iwata dished out an embarrassing 3-0 thumping of Kenta Hasegawa's side in front of a dismal crowd of just 22,152 fans at Ecopa Stadium. 

Korean striker Lee Keun-Ho made his debut off the bench for Jubilo Iwata and promptly scored twice, while Ryoichi Maeda also got on the scoresheet for a Jubilo side missing top scorer Gilsinho through suspension. 

This was a dreadful performance from S-Pulse and questions must be asked of Kenta Hasegawa's inability to motivate his team for their biggest game of the season.

Shimizu were non-existent going forward and even worse at the back, and the club is now likely to lose millions of yen by hosting Urawa Reds at Ecopa Stadium in their holiday blockbuster on April 29.  

No excuses for what happened on the pitch, though. Jubilo Iwata simply wanted this more and they out-manouevered their nervy looking opponents in brilliant sunshine in Fukuroi.

Just when S-Pulse fans thought their team was on the up and up, they come crashing back down to earth with a humiliating defeat.

Dark days indeed in Shimizu, and there'll be plenty of wounds to lick following this humiliating loss. 

Are Shimizu S-Pulse the best team in the J. League? Is Marcos Paulo Alves the best player in Japan?  

The answer to both questions is, of course, "no." But it's hard not to arrive at that theory after S-Pulse saw off Kawasaki Frontale 1-0 in front of 17,256 fans at Outsourcing Stadium Nihondaira - particularly after Kawasaki dished out a humiliating 5-0 thrashing of Central Coast Mariners in the Asian Champions League in midweek. 

Maybe it was their midweek trip to Australia that took the wind out of Kawasaki sails, but they struggled against an S-Pulse side that defended conscientiously in this game, even if the Shizuoka outfit didn't always look the better of the two teams.

Marcos Paulo came off the bench for a seven-minute cameo in this game, and once again the former Brazil international was a calming influence on his team. Along with Jungo Fujimoto - himself a half-time substitute - both men came off the bench to prove a decisive influence on this game, if only to break up the increasingly desperate Frontale attacks that continued to surge towards Yohei Nishibe's goal.

Fortunately for Nishibe, his team had gone one goal up thanks to a fantastic header from Shinji Okazaki after just sixteen minutes. Anyone who claims that Japanese players struggle to score goals has clearly never seen a J. League game, after Japan international Okazaki powered a stupendous header past international team-mate Eiji Kawashima to hand the home team the lead. 

Up until that point the hosts had struggled to contain Frontale's free-floating virtuoso Vitor Junior, but despite several nice touches on the ball, the former Santos man failed to feed a killer ball to an isolated Chong Tese up front for the visitors.

Shimizu S-Pulse could even have gone two ahead but for a terrible miss from Jumpei Takaki, with the full-back failing to repeat his finish in the League Cup a fortnight ago when he smashed an effort straight at Eiji Kawashima - who did well to stand tall and parry Takaki's thunderous point-blank strike.

Takaki will be relieved that his counterpart Yusuke Mori produced a similar save from Yohei Nishibe in the second half, but other than that Frontale struggled to break down a well-marshalled S-Pulse defence.

About the only disappointing aspect for S-Pulse coach Kenta Hasegawa was the fact that giant Norwegian striker Frode Johnsen failed to open his account for his new team.

Nevertheless this was a morale-boosting win for the Shizuoka side, and they will go into their upcoming Shizuoka derby with local rivals Jubilo Iwata next week bristling with a new-found confidence.

After last weekend's disappointing 3-1 defeat to Nagoya Grampus, it was nice to see Shimizu S-Pulse turn things around with a comprehensive 2-0 victory over Kyoto Sanga in the Shizuoka side's League Cup opener.

Unlike Kyoto - who were hammered 3-1 in the snow by Montedio Yamagata in midweek - last season's League Cup finalists Shimizu S-Pulse were afforded a bye in the opening round of fixtures, meaning that Kenta Hasegawa's side were always likely to be fresher than a Kyoto side playing its second away game in the space of four days. 

To rub salt into Kyoto wounds, Japan international Shinji Okazaki returned from his five-minute cameo against Bahrain in a World Cup qualifier the previous evening, to further bolster former striker Hasegawa's attacking options - albeit from the bench.

As it was, the hosts opened the scoring through the unlikeliest of sources, as stand-in full-back Jumpei Takaki found himself one-on-one with Kyoto keeper Yuichi Mizutani, before keeping his cool and producing the most composed of finishes... to the astonishment of the the 11,281 fans who turned out at Nihondaira, and no doubt Takaki himself. 

The hosts always looked likely to double their advantage against an off-colour "Purple" Sanga, but try as the S-Pulse midfield could to set up Frode Johnsen for his first goal in an orange jersey, the big Norwegian simply could not find a way to open his account for his new club.

Johnsen directed one free header straight at Mizutani midway through the second half, and it was left to the reliable Takuma Edamura to sweep home Shimizu's second and send the home fans off with a spring in their step. 

I watched the game with Gora - blogmeister of Kyoto Sanga fansite Oretachi no Kyoto - and he assures me that Kyoto fans won't be heartbroken by their second consecutive League Cup defeat, since avoiding relegation is very much the modus operandi for the Kansai club.

But with S-Pulse fans still sporting a bitter taste from last season's League Cup final defeat at the hands of Oita Trinita, they'll be hoping to go one better this time around and pick up a long-awaited piece of silverware, as Kenta Hasegawa looks to sate the trophy thirst of the Shimizu faithful.

180 minutes, no goals.

It's been a spluttering start to the new season for Shimizu S-Pulse, and the long-ball football on display as the Shizuoka side ground to a second successive scoreless draw at home to Yokohama F. Marinos didn't exactly impress the home fans.

A crowd of 19,172 turned out at the newly renamed "Outsourcing Stadium Nihondaira," but many of them left disgruntled following a display in which S-Pulse spent much of the game on the back foot.

Stand-in keeper Yohei Nishibe pulled off a string of first half saves, the most impressive of which saw him claw a thunderous drive from Marinos playmaker Koji Yamase out of the top corner. 

It wasn't until the second half introduction of Brazilian midfielder Marcos Paulo that S-Pulse started to push forward, but the team's penchant for knocking long balls toward lanky new striker Frode Johnsen failed to pay off, as the Norwegian spent a frustrating afternoon failing to connect with strike partner Shinji Okazaki.

Okazaki and captain Akihiro Hyodo looked the most dangerous players on display for the hosts, but it was talisman Jungo Fujimoto - who made his long-awaited return as a substitute having recovered from a broken leg - who almost snatched a late winner. He saw his dinked effort cleared off the line with less than three minutes remaining.

Marinos, for their part, were far more resolute than the team that conceded four goals in going down 4-2 to newly promoted Sanfrecce Hiroshima at home last weekend. 

Nevertheless the Tricolore looked bereft of a goal-scorer, with youngster Kazuma Watanabe toiling tirelessly without ever really looking likely to hit the back of the net.

All in all a disappointing start for both teams, and with the popular Frode Johnsen no doubt desperate to open his account for the new campaign, he will hope to do so when he takes on the club he left in January as S-Pulse travel to Mizuho Stadium to take on Nagoya Grampus next Sunday afternoon.