"With the ball, I saw [goalkeeper] Jacob Spoonley was in front of me and not the goal so I just shoot the ball without thinking," says Matsumoto, of a game that was billed as a repeat of last season's grand final that City won 2-1 in Auckland. "I had a little bit of time."
Needless to say, his only other goal he has ever scored came for Auckland City last summer when he latched on to a parried ball from a keeper to drill it home from point-blank range.
He doesn't anticipate much difference in the way they played in the opening round to tomorrow's second game of the season at Bluewater Stadium, Park Island.
"It's the first game for us at home and my debut, too," says Matsumoto who is mindful the space-invading, deft-passing Auckland brand will give way to coming to terms with intense physicality from the Southerners.
Patience, he stresses, is the key as it had been with Auckland. He sees the irony in scoring a goal against an outfit in which he helped put up the shutters last season.
"They had the ball but didn't do much with it," he says accepting Micah Lea'alafa is a handful but he didn't have to contain him on his right back position.
City striker Ryan De Vries, of South Africa, is equally dangerous and someone the Bay United defender can put on a leash.
But Matsumoto had a scary experience in New York during his May-June trials that kept him sleepless and robbed him of his debut in the MLS.
"I woke up with a swollen right foot. I still don't know what it was - maybe insect bite - but I had surgery so couldn't walk," says the player who was out for four months.
His other regret is leaving New York before the arrival of veteran professional midfielders Frank Lampard (England) and Andrea Pirlo (Italy).
A right footer who has no qualms about playing at left back, Matsumoto says the berths for foreigner places in Auckland City were saturated when he returned this year.
His friend, fellow Japanese Hiroshi Miyazama, who coaches Onehunga City, has affiliations with Angell so the rest is history.
"After this season I'd like to go back to New York or Japan but I don't know right now," says the defender who has a penchant for roaming the flanks to offer width to midfielders in the mould of a wing defence.
Growing up in Osaka, football was pretty much a natural progression for Matsumoto, who played the beautiful game when his mother, Kimie, took him to kindergarten.
"I enjoyed it but it's very technical in Japan," says the man who at 12 secured trials with Cerevo Osaka Youth team and three years later graduated to the mighty Gamba Osaka Club, the biggest in his country.
The former JEF United player, who plied his trade for the Ichihara club in Chiba, also played in an exhibition match for Auckland City against his national team in Sydney early this year.
Japan won 2-0 but Matsumoto harbours dreams of playing for his national team some day.
His mother, a nutritionist, and father Toshihiro, a home renovator, are his biggest influence.
"Mum advises me on what to eat," he says. "She says eat everything but not too much [processed] sugar and oils."
The visitors tomorrow will be eager to post a victory in their summer league campaign after coming off a 2-0 defeat to Waitakere United last Sunday in Dunedin.
Former Bay United winger Harley Rodeka returns to his franchise of birth tomorrow after playing at Forrest Hill Milford United in Auckland for the past couple of years.
Waitakere are a shadow of their powerhouse status of yesteryear and, despite recalling last summer's Bay United captain Ross Haviland and striker Sean Lovemore, they have been exposed so far.
On Thursday night, they succumbed to a 5-1 defeat at home to premiership upstarts WaiBOP United.
For Bay United, it'll be a case of methodically stacking victories to make the cut for the Oceania Foot League (OFC) with Auckland City at the end of the season.
Team Wellington took that honour last season despite not making the grand final.
It is something Angell will be mindful of despite having recruited predominantly fresh faces this summer.
Wellington had a heart-in-the-mouth 3-2 win over WaiBOP last week at Gower Park with TSB Bank Napier City Rovers players Andy Bevin and Saul Halpin scoring for the victors while two other English imports Ryan Tinsley and Stephen Hoyle featured for WaiBOP United.
MATCH DETAILS
WHO: Hawke's Bay United v Southern United.
WHEN: Tomorrow, 1pm kick off.
WHERE: Bluewater Stadium, Park Island, Napier.
REFEREE: Anthony Riley.
REF ASSISTANTS: Mark Rule and Gareth Sheehan.
4TH OFFICIAL: Ashton Davenport.
Hawke's Bay Utd: 1. Joshua Hill (Stop Out AFC), 2. Sean Liddicoat (Palmerston North Boys High), 3. Kohei Matsumoto (Auckland City FC), 4. Finlay Milne (captain, Napier City Rovers), 5. Harrison Nash (Three Kings Utd), 7. Cory Chettleburgh (Wairarapa Utd), 8. Tom Biss (Napier City Rovers), 11. Khair Jones (Palmerston North Marist), 12. Cheauxyan Maukau McPhee (Western Springs), 13. Godwin Addai (Lansing, USA), 14. Jade Mesias (Evergreen Diplomats, USA), 15. Samuel Mason Smith (Wairarapa Utd), 16. Hamish Watson (Wairarapa Utd), 18. Martin Ramos Canales, 21 Fabien Kurimata (Onehunga Sports), 22. Daniel Wilson (Napier City Rovers), Jarrod Hastings (RGK, Havelock North Wanderers).
Coach: Brett Angell.
Southern Utd: 1. Tom Batty (GK), 3. Craig Ferguson, 4. Benjudah Fitzpatrick, 6. Rhys Ruka, 7. Seamus Ryder (c), 8. Andrew Ridden, 9. Samuel French, 10. Andrew Mobberley, 12. Zane Green, 14. Stuart Kelly, 15 Thomas Connor, 16. Harley Rodeka, 20. Thomas McBride, 21. Michael Hogan, 25. Sam Redwood.
Coach: Mike Fridge.
