FC Gifu made the long trip to Kagoshima on Wednesday night to play their game in hand, but were to leave empty handed as Kagoshima United snatched a last second win, by Stuart Smith.

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


In the first half, Gifu attacked with purpose and Shota Kawanishi and Kenji Baba both came close to giving Gifu the lead as both had efforts well saved by Kagoshima ‘keeper Ahn Joon-soo. 

In the second half, both teams pushed for the win with Masanori Abe and Kou Yanagisawa going close for Gifu, and Nildo & Ushinohama threatening Gifu’s goal. Just as it looked like Gifu would come away with a third consecutive clean sheet, Kagoshima substitute Lucao broke into the penalty area, and his shot took a deflection which diverted the ball past Sievers in the Gifu goal and condemned Gifu to a 1-0 defeat. 

Manager Makoto Kitano said: “It is a very disappointing result. I didn’t feel there was any difference between the teams and it is just disappointing. It doesn’t matter about creating chances if you don’t score them - the result was everything tonight. Maybe we took a little too long to choose our attacking options - to pass or to shoot - and we made Kagoshima defend much more. But they took their chance with the last shot of the game, and ultimately that was difference.”

Captain Masanori Abe said “We knew coming into this game that we couldn’t really afford to lose it, but we did. However, we won’t give up and we have to look at the next game as an opportunity to get three points. The gap is six points (to safety) and so we can’t aim for draws, we must win games and in order to do that we need to improve our attacking play. 

I’ve been here a long time and so I know the history of what is happening now. All I want to do, and all I can do, is give my all for the remaining games.”

Those remaining games start with a match against in-form Tokushima Vortis at the Nagaragawa Memorial Center on Saturday November 2nd.