(JEF United Chiba rose one place in the table and strengthened their hopes of a play-off place as they defeated Thespa Kusatsu 2-0 at the Fukuda Denshi Arena. Akihiro Hyodo and Tatsuya Yazawa’s fine work saw Yazawa’s shot meet with a good save by Kazuma Kita, Tomoyuki Arata followed up to net the rebound to give the home side the lead on twenty minutes. Yazawa was again inolved in JEF’s second of the match, driving at the Thespa defence before laying the ball off to defender Keiji Watanabe, whose cross square across goal was converted by Yusuke Tanaka)
(JEF United Chiba appeared to be heading for victory in their clash with Tokyo Verdy when Tatsuya Yazawa connected with Tomoyuki Arata’s low cross inside the six yard box to put his side 2-1 ahead with four minutes of normal time to play. However, a stunning first-time volleyed return ball by substitute Ryosuke Tone, only introduced in the 89th minute, allowed Takuma Abe to control and clip his shot past Masahiro Okamoto in the third minute of added time for a share of the points. JEF and Verdy are two of three teams on 58 points in the fight for a minimum of a play-off berth, joining Oita Trinita who slipped to a 1-0 home defeat against Tochigi SC, the latter only two points further afield)