Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Kashiwa: Coach Tatsuma Yoshida was a relieved man as Japan’s Kashiwa Reysol secured a place in the quarter-finals of the AFC Champions League despite losing Tuesday’s Round of 16 second leg 2-1 at home to Korea Republic’s Suwon Samsung.
Yusuke Kobayashi scored the crucial goal just after the hour mark as 2013 semi-finalists Kashiwa prevailed on away goals following a 4-4 draw on aggregate after Jong Tae-se and Ku Ja-ryong had scored in either half to wipe out Suwon’s 3-2 deficit from last week’s first leg.
Play-off qualifiers Kashiwa will now take their place in June 18 quarter-final draw have fallen in the Round of 16 in 2012 before reaching the semi-finals two years ago.
Match report: Kashiwa 1-2 Suwon (agg 4-4: Kashiwa win on away goals)
“I am feeling relieved and happy as we have got through this round. We were feeling the pressure from Suwon over 90 minutes, but there were some moments that we managed to fix the positioning of our players and the defence worked well to move the ball around to use time and to develop the game,” said Yoshida, with his side currently 14th in the J.League.
“While we are not winning a lot in the league, the ACL is a big backbone to our team and we can keep ourselves up.
“By winning through this tournament, we can give our players and our team and our club extra power to get us moving forward.”
Kashiwa had been handed a boost after Suwon captain Yeom Ki-hun was forced off through injury, although the visitors were able to recover and netted in either half through a brilliant strike from DPR Korea international Jong and Ku.
“It was lucky for us when Yeom Ki-hun had to leave early in the game due to injury as he is such a big weapon for Suwon. However, they brought on an attacking player as his replacement and he broke us on the side many times, which was something we had not thought about,” added Yoshida.
“But we knew we would be under pressure like this and our players played very patiently and threatened their goal on counterattacks. I can give a credit to our players’ hard work. They fought very hard and ran very well.”
And even after Kobayashi followed up from inside the area after Leandro had initially been denied twice by the Suwon defence, Kashiwa had to survive later pressure from Suwon to secure their progress.
“Kobayashi is one of our developing players. He hasn’t got much experience, but he has good abilities in winning the ball and carrying the ball,” said Yoshida.
“He has the spirit as a fighting player. He can get better by fixing details of his game to go one step up.”
Photo: WSG