FC Gifu came very close to claiming a much needed home win last Sunday, but a late equalizer meant Gifu and JEF United Chiba drew 2-2 at the Nagaragawa Memorial Center, by Stuart Smith.

FC Gifu took the lead very early on when Ryoichi Maeda scored from just outside the area, but JEF were level soon after when Kleber scored from close range. Early in the second half, Gifu retook the lead after a well rehearsed corner kick routine left Kota Miyamoto in space 25 yards out, and his shot made its way through the crowd and into the net. JEF poured forward looking for the leveller and it came in the 90th minute when, after a penalty area scramble, Hisato Sato deflected the ball past Jan-Ole Sievers.

After the match, coach Makoto Kitano said: I’d like to say thank you to the supporters. Lots of them cane out in this poor weather to support us. We did a lot of good things today, but we still conceded right at the finish. In the end, it is my responsibility to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again in the future. We have to look at the positive though, and we did manage to pick up one point. The atmosphere is good around the squad now, and hopefully we can pick up a positive result in our next game.

Ryoichi Maeda said: We got one point today, but we need to start picking up more. For my goal, Ryan (De Vries) gave me a nice ball and I hit it well. So far, I’ve only been scoring from headers so today it was nice to do something different.

Kota Miyamoto: My goal came from set piece practice. It was a good pass from ‘Maru’ (Mizuki Ichimaru) and the players all pulled away to the far post which left room for my shot. As we managed to get ourselves in front twice in the game, it is a regret that we couldn’t take all three points from it.

Gifu are unbeaten in the last two games, and will look to continue that form when they travel to Kagoshima United in the next game.