Wednesday, April 13

New Nabisco Cup Schedule

A new reduced format for the Yamazaki Nabisco Cup has been announced by the J.League.
As expected, the overall number of games has been reduced by abandoning the group stage system and returning to the old tournament format. The 4 ACL teams (Cerezo, Gamaba, Grampus and Kashima) will enter at the quarter final stage, while the other 14 teams will play 2 legs home and away in the first and second rounds. Due to the format, two teams (Omiya and Niigata) were also lucky enough to get a bye in the first round. Vissel will play Yokohama F. Marinos on June 5 (away) and July 27 (home).
It's understandable that the competition has returned to the tournament format, but I find the spacing between games rather odd. There are 52 days between the first and second legs in the first round, but only 4 days between the quarter-finals and semi-finals.

2011 J.League Yamazaki Nabisco Cup (post-earthquake format)
Rd Date Venue Against Result Report
1 Jun 5 (Sun) 15:00 Nissan Yokohama F. Marinos
1 Jul 27 (Wed) 19:00 Home's Yokohama F. Marinos
2 Sep 14 (Wed)
2 Sep 28 (Wed)
QF Oct 5 (Wed)
SF Oct 9 (Sun)
F Nov 3 (Thu)

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