FC Gifu travelled to Machida Zelvia on Sunday October 27 and came away with a very hard-earned 0-0 draw, by Stuart Smith.

 

 

FC Gifu starting XI: Back (from left) Kentaro Kai, Takumi Fujitani, Takefumi Toma, Ryoichi Maeda, Jan-Ole Sievers, Masanori Abe (c); Front (from left) Kenji Baba, Kouki Tsukagawa, Kou Yanagisawa, Shota Kawanishi, Tadashi Takeda.

 

 

After a first half that was relatively short on chances, in the second half the game tried to open up. Goalkeeper Jan Ole Sievers had to be alert on several occasions, making an especially good reflex save to deny Machida forward Yuki Nakashima, and Tadashi Takeda put his body on the line to deny Machida a late goal. The end result was a hard fought 0-0 draw and a second consecutive clean sheet.

 

After the game, manager Makoto Kitano said: “There was a really good atmosphere in the stadium, and we really wanted to get three points, but I think getting a point is a decent outcome. We tried to play a bit narrower in the first half to counter their tendency for long passes down the channels.

 

How many shots did Machida have? I think the majority of them were from outside the area, and I have confidence in our goalkeeper and so I wasn’t worried. As the second half went on, there were gaps that we tried to exploit by bringing on our faster players, but the connection between defence and attack wasn’t so good today. We have a short turnaround, but I’ll do my best to get the players ready for the next game.”

 

 

Defender Tadashi Takeda told reporters: “Of course it was a game in which both teams were really searching for the win. Machida attacked quite a lot, but in the second half it seemed things were opening up for us a little bit, and I felt we might be able to get a chance to win the game.

 

In the second half, they began to take a few more risks and there were a few instances where we became stretched or got ourselves into trouble, but it was really important for us to keep that clean sheet. We always feel we are in the game when it is scoreless and and we have to take this positive into our next game.”