The pre-season journey continues

The Reds has sinced returned from their training camp in Miyazaki and continued their season 2011 preperations with two training matches over the past few days. The first match was played on the 2Feb11 against Ryutsu Keizai University at Ohara. The match finished 1-1 with Sergio scoring in the 53min for the Reds. The Reds used a handfull of youth team players (Y) during the second half of the match.

This is how the Reds lined up for the game

First Half
GK: Yamagishi
DF: Hirakawa; Nobuhisa; Tsuboi; Noda
MF: Keita; Hamada; Umesaki; Richardes; Haraguchi
FW: Edmilson

Second Half
GK: Otani
DF: Takahashi; Keita Koide (Y); Tsutsumi; Shintaro Kosaka (Y)
MF: Naoto Kitoku (Y); Masaya Nozaki (Y); Sergio; Shinya Yazaki (Y); Hara
FW: Takasaki

The Reds second training match was against Tokai University. The match finished 5-1 in favour of the Reds. The goal scorers were Mazola (4min), Sergio (19min), Tatsuya (29min) and Richardes (38 & 44min). This is how the Reds line up for the game.

First Half
GK: Kato
DF: Hirakawa; Tsuboi; Tsutsumi; Ugajin
MF: Keita; Nobuhisa; Tatsuya (32min> Richardes); Sergio; Mazola (32min> Haraguchi)
FW: Takasaki

Second Half
GK: Otani
DF: Hirakawa (65min> Arai [Y]); Nobuhisa (65min> Shintaro Kosaka [Y]); Tsutsumi; Noda
MF: Keita (65min> Masaya Nozaki [Y]); Kojima; Sergio (65min> Umesaki); Richardes; Haraguchi (65min> Hara)
FW: Takasaki (65min> Edmilson)

So with three training matches so far the great news is that Petrovic is giving everyone a chance to prove themselves. The most interesting battle I see so far is between Haraguchi, Hara and now Mazola who are all vying for the left wing position. All three players play a fairly similar position of forward/left wing so there wouldn't be any issues of depth and it should get interesting who Petrovic goes with as we get closer to the start of the season. My preference would have to be to go with Haraguchi (being an Urawa junior and all), but to see Mazola sitting on the bench would be a waste of an international position.

Finally from the matches so far, it is pretty evident we're going to go with a 4-5-1 formation, well to be particular a 4-2-3-1 formation. I'm coining a few ideas of how the starting 11 will look like, there are several other positional battles, so keep a look out in the coming days as I bring forward my starting XI.