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Oi Futo 2, Sat 11th Feb. (Designed well by TML matchmakers to eliminate one of us early on), on a cold Sunday night 12 Hibs men showed up for tough cup quarterfinal against the old foe Swiss. Both squads seemed to have only one subs each, it was quite a difficult match at big Oifuto-2 pitch.
Intended to stop talented Swiss attack, Hibs had changed formation back to 4-4-2 from usual 3 defenders, Naoki and Jay anchoring center of defence, Mick and Tomo in front of them.
Kenji and debutante Rob had played left side, Yasu and Numa played on right, they balanced attack and defence well. KuniK and Yama started up front.
Hibs started out with a bit of nervousness, Swiss often claiming most of control initially. By result, in a few occasions Swiss came close to scoring as passes and buildups through Hibs defence created shots taken at close range. About 10 munites on Hibs striker Yama goes out with injury, kicked right below his shingard by Swiss late tackler with no card handed out. This called up Hibs only available substitute Jorgen, who decided to come out in last munite who was not expecting to play a lot..... but he ended up playing 70 munites instead.
About midway of first half, some neat passing at outside of Swiss box caused Swiss defenders to tackle KuniK from behind. Rob capitalized on this oppoturnity with his left foot by swirving over the wall from 45 degrees, like he had taken right out from a soccer instruction video on how to do just. However Swiss then had few of their chances before halftime coming close to scoring again. Hibs were lucky to go into halftime up 1-0.
Right at start of second half, nice buildup from the back had Rob advance into left side, putting low fast cross into a mixer. KuniK ran past two men in Red and tapped past Swiss keeper Peter for a goal from near post. Hibs goes up 2-0.
Most of 2nd half was controlled well by Hibs, most of time there were good passing to feet and neat exchanges. there were another oppoturnity as Tomo was given a PK but he decided to make this game interesting by kicking it back to where Peter dove.
Motivated by Peter's save, Swiss bounced back with energetic run of late, properly rewarded for a goal from 25 meter thump by their Japanese striker with 10 munites to go.
At the end, having more than a few men in leg cramps somehow Hibs fended off Swiss attack and prevailed.
Report by Hitoshi Ono
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