It was a fantastic deer hunting last Saturday for Urawa Reds!!
Shinzo Koroki gave the home side a 78th-minute lead after Daisuke Nasu had canceled out Takuya Nozawa's opener, before substitute Tsukasa Umesaki made the game safe with a third in the 89th minute.
(Actually Koroki was offside for his goal, but the referee validated.)
The game was chosen to commemorate the J-League's 20th anniversary celebrations.
*An actress Chiaki Ozaki, who was born on the same day as J-League started, made a short speech
Two legendary players from each team's history, Robson Ponte and Alcindo, was in attendance to mark the occasion.
Shinji Ono also watched the game near my seat.
We sang "We are Diamonds" with Ponte after the game.
The date, 5/5, has the same numbers as Hideki Matsui's uniform when he played for the Yomiuri Giants, and New York Yankees and other MLB teams.
After an elaborate retirement ceremony, Matsui and his former manager Shigeo Nagashima received Peopl's Honor Award and golden bats from Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo Dome.
Former baseball players and People's Honor Award recipients, Sadaharu Oh and Sachio Kinugasa, gave flowers to Nagashima and Matsui.
Matsui tossed the first pitch of the game that followed the ceremony.
Nagashima in a Giant's uniform with his old number 3 swung his bat in the box.
J-League celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, and our 37-year-old tough guy Nobuhisa Yamada of Urawa Reds has reached his 20th season in the same one club.
Of course, this is the first in J-League history.
Nobuhisa made a debut on April 27th, 1994, in the match against Shimizu S-Pulse when he was 18.
Incidentally, Urawa fought over Shimizu on the same day of this year.
I don't want to talk about the game because it was such terrible.
Before the game, I visited a special exhibition in front of the ticket gate.
Now you can see these exhibition in Red Voltage.
The announcement of starting line-up was also special.
All Urawa players wore #6 T-shirt at the warming-up.
Manchester United won its record 20th English Premier League title on Monday night, beating Aston Villa 3-0, on Robin van Persie's first-half hat trick.
United clinched the championship with four games to spare in this season.
Van Persie's second goal will be the best of the season, a volley out of the air from the edge of the penalty area as the ball dropped over his shoulder from Rooney's perfectly weighted pass.
Shinji Kagawa missed an easy opportunity to score in the second-half, while his performance has been improving gradually.
I'm looking forward to seeing his goal in the left four games.
Anyway, Patrice Evra celebrated by biting into a fake arm, the day after his nemesis Liverpool's striker Luis Suárez sank his teeth into Chelsea's defender Branislav Ivanovic's arm. (^o^;)
Thousands of fans packed Tokyo Disneyland yesterday to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
A performance featuring Disney's signature characters including Mickey Mouse took place in front of the Cinderella Castle before a speech by Toshio Kagami, chairman of Oriental Land Co., the operator of the theme park which opened to the public on April 15, 1983.
While some theme parks built over the past 30 years, including Universal Studios Japan in Osaka and Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki Prefecture, have struggled to make a profit, Oriental Land has dominated the industry and aims to attract even more visitors this year. Industry observers attribute the Disney success to instilling in visitors a sense that they are in dreamland — a place they will seek to return to again and again. This must be a Disney's magic.
