Review: Cerezo Osaka vs Kashiwa Reysol (J1 MD5)

Cerezo Osaka beat league leaders Kashiwa Reysol 2-0, with Solomon Sakuragawa scoring twice and goalkeeper Kosuke Nakamura leading a strong defensive effort.

Three days after their 0-1 loss to Vissel Kobe, Cerezo Osaka returned home to face Kashiwa Reysol in Matchweek 5 of the Meiji Yasuda J1 League. There were three changes to the starting XI from the Kobe game, with Shinji Kagawa returning after two matches and Thiago Andrade and Hayato Okuda making their first league starts of the season.



Kashiwa attacked down Cerezo’s left side early in the first half, but Cerezo began to take control of possession around the 10-minute mark. They created their first chance in the 15th minute. After a throw-in, Rikito Inoue won the ball high up the field and drove forward before shooting from Thiago’s cross after Thiago broke through down the left. They had worked the defense open, but the shot was blocked by a Kashiwa defender. Cerezo then took the lead from a free kick in the 20th minute. Hayato Okuda took the kick. “I was given the responsibility of taking the free kicks today, so I wanted to make a difference there,” he said. His perfectly delivered ball found the far side, where Solomon Sakuragawa won his duel with the opposing center back and met it with a powerful header. “If the ball comes there, I can make the most of my strength. Hayato (Okuda) really delivered a great ball,” Sakuragawa said as he calmly sent his header into the bottom-left corner to give Cerezo the long-awaited opening goal. Cerezo continued to pin Kashiwa back with their possession, and in the 25th minute, four Cerezo players surged into the box to meet Thiago’s cross after he received a pass from Ayumu Ohata and got in behind. It was a big chance, but they could not finish it, despite showing plenty of attacking threat. Kashiwa regained possession after the water break, but in the 32nd minute, Kosuke Nakamura made a good save with his left hand to keep out Daiki Sugioka’s powerful shot from distance. He kept the ball out of the net. Cerezo then began to regain control toward the end of the half and created another clear chance in stoppage time. They combined quickly down the left before Thiago finished the move with a shot, but Taiyo Koga blocked the effort. Cerezo could not add a second goal, but they had an excellent first half, outperforming Kashiwa at both ends of the field to take a 1-0 lead into halftime.





Kashiwa made three substitutions at once at halftime. With their opponents turning up the pressure and launching wave after wave of attacks, Cerezo faced a series of dangerous situations early in the second half as Kashiwa repeatedly broke down the sides. Cerezo held firm with desperate defensive efforts, including a determined recovery run from Dion Cools. In the 57th minute, manager Pablo Machin made his first substitutions, bringing on Kosei Okazawa and Yumeki Yokoyama for Kagawa and Thiago. Looking to push back through their attack, Cerezo showed their intent in the 61st minute when Yokoyama received a pass from Okazawa, drove forward and delivered a cross. The game had the feel of a battle over the next goal: would Kashiwa finally break through, or would Cerezo catch them on the counter and add another? In the 62nd minute, Kashiwa created a clear chance. A misplaced pass in Cerezo’s own half allowed Kashiwa to break down the side, and Mao Hosoya had a great opportunity from Tojiro Kubo’s cross. But Nakamura blocked the close-range shot with his face, making a huge save to keep Cerezo from conceding. Then, in the 66th minute, Jackson Irvine intercepted a pass and launched a counterattack. Yokoyama drove forward and played a through ball, and Sakuragawa sprinted in from behind before being brought down by the Kashiwa goalkeeper to win a penalty. Sakuragawa converted it himself in the 68th minute to give Cerezo a two-goal lead. That sequence gave Cerezo a major boost, and they remained focused defensively to shut down Kashiwa’s attack for the remainder of the game. Cerezo held on for a 2-0 victory, defeating Kashiwa, who had been sitting atop the standings after winning their first four games.





It was a hard-fought victory that saw several players collapse to the field as soon as the final whistle sounded. “In a word, it was a battle, a fierce struggle,” manager Pablo Machin said immediately after the match. “We came into the game focused on whether we could win the duels and the one-on-one battles, and I think we were able to show that today. Winning those duels was a big part of it,” he said in his assessment of the match. Goalkeeper Kosuke Nakamura, who made a series of excellent saves against his former club, also reflected on the game: “Reysol had won four straight coming into this match, and it wasn’t easy to deal with a team like that, but I think we were able to handle them well today.” Carrying the frustration of the loss to Kobe in the previous match, Cerezo came together as a team to defeat the league leaders. They will look to build even greater team strength from here and aim for a place near the top of the standings.