Vs Venforet Kofu (home) 6/8/16 - 2nd stage match 7

 Kawasaki Frontale 4 - 0 Ventforet Kofu

This was the first of three games that I'm going to miss, so there obviously won't be as much that I can say about it, other than what I can find from the youtube video and the game statistics. The score is pretty satisfying though. Thanks to Kaoru for sending me photos and answering some questions I had. I feel a little for Kofu as we gave them a bit of a pasting at their place earlier in the season. We've put eight goals past them this year so you could say that we probably quite enjoy playing them and they don't much like playing us. A quick look at the statistics proves that they probably got what they deserved though. We had three times as many shots as them and they didn't manage to hit the target. Pretty quiet game for Sung-Ryong I guess! We also very much dominated possession (63% to 37%, although never sure how accurate these figures are).

So, once again it was the same starting line up. As much as I have been moaning about performances I guess we have been winning so something must be right. Also I guess we have limited options right now. Noborizato has had an operation so won't be featuring for a while. Oshima and Harakawa are still at the Olympics, although after one loss and a draw so far they might be home quite soon. Moriya and Tasaka have disappeared from the bench. Watching the highlights it seems that we had quite a few chances in the first half but they weren't quite going in. At least not until just before half time when Yoshito connected with a Hashimoto corner. They must have imagined, much as I would, that it was going to go to Taniguchi like our corners normally do. Happy to see Yoshito chalk up another goal. The more he scores the better I think he'll play.

At half time Hashimoto was replaced by Miyoshi. This was apparently due to him picking up an early yellow card. I guess given that he would probably be replaced half way through the second half it doesn't matter if you do it a bit earlier in order to avoid a red. Seems that Miyoshi had a pretty fast impact as on 48 minutes we went two up. He brilliantly managed to grab the ball of the Kofu defender who was trying to shepherd it out for a goal kick, skipped away from him and his powerful cross was deflected into his own net by a Kofu defender. It's a shame he won't get to claim the goal, but well done to him anyway! On 56 minutes it was three with Kobayashi finishing nicely from a Kengo throughball. 7 goals in 7 consecutive games for him now, a Frontale record. Hope that continues. The fourth came on 69 minutes with Miyoshi intercepting a Kofu pass out from the back, and Okubo passing to Elsinho who smacked it coolly into the corner. Nice to see him score again as he's been a little off the boil recently. The last two significant (or possibly not so significant) events were an injury to Neto who was stretchered off and replaced by Itakura (his first league appearance) and a red card for Kofu's Davi after he shoved Okubo a couple of times. The game was already well over by then really though. Apparently Neto was back sitting on the bench with an ice pack before the end of the game so hopefully it's not serious.

Little difficult to talk about positives and negatives without being at the game, but... Positives, still top, lots of goals being scored again, clean sheet, Okubo and Kobayashi keeping their scoring runs going, some good stuff from Miyoshi. Negatives, dunno really, maybe none. It's much easier to find things to moan about when you see more of the game than just the highlights. Maybe the constantly long injury list. Next up, we have a long away trip to Sagan Tosu, who are playing well at the moment. Will definitely be a different kind of game to this one, but hopefully we can keep things going and get another three points.

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 18. ELSINHO
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 4. IGAWA Yusuke
DF 20. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 27. OTSUKA Shohei
MF 7. HASHIMOTO Koji (Yellow card 5')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (Yellow card 72')
FW 13. OKUBO Yoshito

Subs
GK 30. ARAI Shota

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

DF 17. TAKEOKA Yuto (on for OTSUKA 57')

MF 22. NAKANO Yoshihiro
DF 23. EDUARDO 
MF 26. MIYOSHI Koji (on for HASHIMOTO 46')

DF 28. ITAKURA Ko (on for NETO 80') (Yellow card 90+1')

Goals

OKUBO (Frontale) 44'  1-0

TSUCHIYA (Kofu) OWN GOAL 48' 2-0

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 56'  3-0

ELSINHO (Frontale) 69' 4-0

Highlights