Football: Hiroshima keep title bid alive with 5-1 win over Sapporo

HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) — Pieros Sotiriou scored a brace off the bench Sunday as Sanfrecce Hiroshima extended their J-League championship bid into next weekend’s final round of the season with an emphatic 5-1 victory over relegated Consadole Sapporo.

The result at Edion Peace Wing Hiroshima put Michael Skibbe’s Sanfrecce in second place on 68 points, one point adrift of defending champions Vissel Kobe with a game left to play.

Mutsuki Kato finished calmly to give Hiroshima the lead after eight minutes of their home finale against a Sapporo side whose drop to the second division was determined by results elsewhere on Saturday.

Musashi Suzuki tapped home to bring the visitors level in the 42nd minute, but Shunki Higashi quickly restored Hiroshima’s lead in first-half stoppage time with a free kick that curled over his leaping teammates and bounced inside the far post.

Tolgay Arslan made it 3-1 with his 55th-minute penalty before Sotiriou, who entered from the start of the second half, extended the margin with his first goal on a lighting counterattack in the 79th minute.

Cyprus international Sotiriou headed in his second from a corner kick in the 87th minute.

Hiroshima travel to face Gamba Osaka next Sunday, when Kobe will host Shonan Bellmare. Third-place Machida Zelvia, the other team still alive in the race on 66 points, will play away to Kashima Antlers.

“It all comes down to this last game for the championship,” Kato said. “The encouragement from all of our supporters has really lifted all of us, and we’re really going to need it one more time.”

Sapporo manager Mihailo Petrovic announced after the match that he will depart at the end of the season, his seventh with the club he joined in 2018.

“There’s a 95 percent chance my career as a manager may be over. I’m still 5 percent unsure,” said the 67-year-old Serbian, who previously managed Sanfrecce and Urawa Reds.