Wednesday 28 June 2017

Vs Gamba Osaka (away) 25/6/17, J-League match 16

Gamba Osaka 1 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale

This seems to be the season of inconveniently scheduled away games. A 7pm Sunday night game in Osaka is not exactly the most convenient of trips, with only a slim chance of getting a Shinkansen back afterwards. Consequently, the away end wasn't full, but we took a decent amount of fans to what I still think is probably the best stadium in the J League (at least the best I've been to anyway). Both Gamba and us would probably hope to be up and around the top of the table come the end of the season, and both haven't exactly set the world on fire in the league yet this year. Also, this game marked the first time our new goal scoring hero Abe returned to his former club. I think I said last week that this game would give us a better idea of where we are likely to finish this season. I'm not sure it actually did. We played pretty well but were plagued by our usual problem of not being very good at scoring. I'm sure it's mainly a matter of confidence, but in spite of managing to turn on the goals a bit recently in the ACL, we still haven't really got them going in the league. Judging by the free paper that Gamba were handing out (see picture below), it seems that our major problem is that we don't ever tackle. It is one of the strangest looking diagrams that I've seen. Unsurprisingly though. the passing part of the diagram is maxed out! Approaching the halfway stage of the season, and with Vissel and Urawa up next, let's hope we can sort out that goal scoring thing soon.


The team line up was probably how we would have been expected it to be, returning to normal after a few changes in the emperors cup game. Sung-Ryong was back in goal and the back four included Elsinho on the right for the first time this year. Edu and Taniguchi were in the middle and Kurumaya was on the left. Ahead of them were Neto and Oshima and up front in a variety of positions and combinations were Kobayashi, Kengo, Nobori and Abe. On the bench we're Arai, Nara, Tasaka, Miyoshi, Hasegawa, Moriya and Ienaga. My pre-game enthusiasm was significantly squashed by the news that the ref was Tojo. It's weird that I dread hearing his name as he refereed our great 3-0 victory at Kashima, but he was so incompetent on that occasion and so easily swayed by the crowd and the players that I can never be pleased to see he is officiating one of our games. And once again he had a bit of a dodgy game. He missed a clear handball in the box by a Gamba defender in the second half and gave any number of baffling decisions throughout the game. Not having seen the replay yet and it being at completely the wrong end of the ground, I can say that he definitely got the decision where they appealed for a penalty right though! This game was our first and last opportunity to see Gamba's 'wonder kid' Doan, who is about to join Groningen on loan. After playing an amazing 15 games for them (yes, I know, what a legend!) he was apparently seen off with a big farewell ceremony at the final whistle. I say apparently, as we used the opportunity of plenty of Gamba fans staying behind after the game to make a swift exit, hoping the monorail would be a bit quieter. If Groningen fans were tuning in to see what their new signing will be bringing them, I guess they now know it will be a significant amount of whinging and diving. Before the game I was willing to give him a clap, (good luck etc.), but when he was substituted halfway through the second half my opinion of him had changed. He looked pretty handy on the ball, but I could never get behind a player who goes to ground so easily, sometimes even without an contact. Anyway, this is supposed to be about Frontale! Before the game the stadium PA seemed to be turned up to eleven, possibly to make up for the lack of enthusiasm from the Gamba fans. I guess when they banned all the people with the Nazi flags they lost a significant amount of their vocal support. The remaining  fans did give us a good old boo as we came out and our team were announced. Not sure exactly what we did to them. Abe got a mixed reception. Pretty much a mixture of boos and applause, which is quite a confusing combination to the ear. So, I guess I'd better talk about the actual game...

We started as we have been prone to doing recently, pretty badly. There was a lot of early pressure from them and it took us a while to find our feet. Usually, if I'm not moaning about refs, I'm moaning about the opposition fouling us a lot. Pleasingly for me I can moan about both of these things in this game as we were getting kicked all over the pitch in the early stages and the ref was doing nothing. These officials really do have the ability to make going to games an absolute nightmare. I can't remember the time we last had a ref who was at least half way competent. They always seem to have their own agenda. The pitch seemed to be pretty slippery and early on we were struggling to find our feet both metaphorically and literally. But we did settle down after 10 minutes or so and started to create some decent chances. But as we have come to expect recently, we weren't putting them away. We had eight shots in the first half. Gamba had three. Although if you believe what you read on twitter they were totally dominating and we were lucky to still be in the game. Once again, the opposition's main form of attack seemed to be us sloppily giving them the ball in a dangerous position. They had a few chances but we had dominated. Although not according to twitter...


The second half started the same way as the first did for us. We were a bit hopeless, but managed to survive a shaky first five minutes. This has probably been the case a bit too often for us recently to be honest. But I guess as long as we don't concede during these dodgy moments we shouldn't complain too much. I know it takes me a while to get going in the morning so maybe the same kind of thing is going on with the players at the start of the two halves. Once we'd woken up though we started playing some nice stuff again. And then we scored. It was a weird goal and one which probably sums up our performances this season quite neatly. With options to shoot we seemed to instead be more interested in constantly crossing the ball across the goalmouth from one side to the other. Thankfully we wore down the patience of the Gamba defence and, in an effort to break up the constant crossing, one of them decided to knee the ball into their own net. It was a lovely finish, and whilst the goal was initially credited to Kengo, it was an absolutely nailed on own goal. Cheers! In response to going behind, Gamba seemed to decide to start playing horribly ponderous stuff, apparently trying to run down the clock passing the ball across their back four. I'd expect this from us, but it was a bit of a surprise for them to do it when they really needed a goal. When they finally made it out of their own half they did manage to make a couple of chances but we were hanging on. There was a heart in the mouth moment where they claimed, and were denied, a penalty. It looked like a close thing from the other end and twitter exploded in fury at how we had cheated them, but I've heard it was a dive. On 68 minutes they were equal though. It seemed to be a pretty soft goal to concede and I reckon that maybe Sung-Ryong could have done a bit better, but I guess he was having a kind of quiet game so might have lost concentration a little. Apparently they only had two shots on target in the whole game, so it's a little disappointing that we only stopped half of them. They did cause us a few problems after the goal though, and we responded with a double substitution. Ienaga and Hasegawa came on for Kengo and Nobori. Was it to be the day Ienaga finally got his first goal for the club? Sadly no, but things did get a little crazy from here on. The last 15-20 minutes of the game were insanely open with the game swinging from end to end. We had a cracking chance made from a lovely build up, but Kobayashi failed to slot the ball home. It was a stinker of a miss to be honest and probably summed up our form recently. Nice but not quite there. Our final sub, (Miyoshi on for Abe), came on 90 minutes. A bit too late to make any difference really, unless we were just running down the clock. So it finished 1-1 and I had mixed feelings at the final whistle. We'd dominated on possession, goal attempts and shots on target but there was definitely a feeling that we were living on the edge a little. If we were putting chances away, our defensive wobbles wouldn't be so worrying, but the fact that we're not scoring so many at the moment, means that any slip up could be a crucial one.


Positives and negatives. Let's start positive. A draw at Gamba is a decent result and we didn't lose (although I guess we should maybe be hoping for a bit more if we want to mount a challenge in the league). The midfield played pretty well and it's good to see Neto and Oshima playing a few games together. We are making chances. But to turn to the negatives, were not putting the chances away. Our goal seemed to come in spite of our efforts rather than because of them. Whilst things are ticking along ok, we need to start winning games and we've got some tricky ones coming up. From game to game we go from our front four working great, to not really working. I don't know if it's still a lack of familiarity with the system or if the system is wrong, but we've got to sort it soon. Maybe some shooting practice wouldn't go amiss. Or maybe we still need to find something a bit more effective.

Next up, we're at home to Vissel Kobe on Saturday. They thumped us at their place last season in what was one of my most depressing J League experiences. There weren't even that many good bars to go to afterwards either. Then Urawa visit us to play the game that was postponed earlier in the season due to our ACL commitments. They are in rotten form at the moment, but they do tend to beat us, presumably just to really annoy me. So it's not exactly the easiest of runs for us at the moment, but hopefully big games mean big Frontale performances. Let's hope so anyway! Go Frontale!


Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 18. ELSINHO
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 23. EDUARDO
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki

Subs
 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji (on for ABE 90')
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for NOBORIZATO 72')
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for NAKAMURA 72')


My Frontale Man Of The Match

It was a bit of a crazy game, especially in the second half, so this is a bit difficult. Was going to give it to Neto, but recently he has tended to give the ball away a bit when he's doing a flashy pass. I love these when they work, but they are a bit painful when they don't. So, today it goes to...

OSHIMA Ryota - makes a real difference when he plays and did a good job attacking and defending in this match. Long may he stay injury free please!


Goals  

NAKAMURA (Frontale) 52' 0-1 (a few sites have given this to Kengo but it was clearly an own goal)
NAGASAWA (Gamba) 68' 1-1

Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want.

Friday 23 June 2017

Vs Tochigi UVA (home) 21/6/17 - Emperor's Cup 2nd round

 

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 0 Tochigi UVA

Ah! The magic of the Emperors cup! I can safely say that now we're through to the next round. This year's second round saw quite a few upsets and whilst we were facing a team from way down the leagues and we were expected to win, its always nice to actually get the job done. I had great hopes that this might be the game we finally got to see Tabinas do his stuff for the first time and Chinen score his first professional goal for us. Sadly neither happened, but Tabinas made it on to the bench and Chinen tried his hardest as a second half sub, but he'll have to wait a little longer to open his account. The weather looked like it wanted to have a say in the game. The rain and wind were horrible right up to a couple of hours before kick off. The rain stopped, but the wind still reared its head from time to time during the game and on occasion looked like it could make things interesting. Thankfully we avoided any meteorological mishaps.

The starting line up was understandably shuffled, but the it actually looked unexpectedly strong. Admittedly a number of first team regulars were rested (Sung-Ryong, Taniguchi, Edu, Kurumaya, Neto, Kengo, Kobayashi, Abe), but I guess it's a sign of the amount of injuries we've had this season, or the fact that we're still in search of our best eleven, that most of our first team to face Tochigi UVA had already played a fair bit this season. In goal Arai got a rare chance to start. In front of him it seemed we were playing a back three of Tasaka, Nara and Itakura. The defensive midfield spots were taken by Kano and Moriya. On the wings we had Rhayner and Hasegawa. And then up front were Otsuka, Ienaga and Miyoshi. On the bench were Ando, Tabinas and Chinen, and a few regulars, presumably to be brought on in case of emergency (Taniguchi, Kurumaya, Elsinho and Kobayashi). From the start of the game a few things became apparent. Firstly, our 3-2-4-1 was actually more like a 1-4-4-1. Nara stayed in defence but Tasaka (captain for the night) and Itakura spent most of the time pushing forward. Tasaka seemed to almost be playing his usual right back role. This was an interesting, if slightly unnerving tactic, especially given that our defensive midfielders weren't exactly naturals in that position, being more attacking minded themselves. Also, it seemed that most of the team were keen to get Ienaga his first goal. Recently, Ienaga hasn't been looking too happy and I wonder if the fact that he still hasn't scored is playing on his mind. Sadly that goalless run continued in this game, despite our players apparently trying to set him up all the time. Ienaga certainly looked up for it, but I wonder if the fact that he was the big name on show meant that he was getting a lot of attention from the UVA defenders. A few times he looked like he was going to break through on goal only to be denied by either the linesman's flag or a foul from a defender. A bit of a frustrating night for him again. Miyoshi also seemed to be in the mood and was getting involved. Otsuka now seems to have moved on from the run-around-like-crazy role he had last season to be playing deeper, coming to collect the ball and make things happen. You could see this was a relatively untested line-up as whilst we were doing ok, things weren't really clicking. The willingness of the defenders to attack caused us a few worrying moments in the first half and it looked like we were in for a tougher game than we might have expected. Then we scored! After our usual passing the ball around the midfield, Ienaga set up Tasaka who powered the ball into the corner of the net from just outside the box. It was good to see someone have a shot for a change! A nice goal, and very pleased to see Tasaka score as captain. Not a lot else happened in the first half apart from a bit more chaotic defending. Yes, they are three leagues below us, but we probably couldn't really expect Nara to deal with everything and let everyone else attack. We weren't passing particularly well either and plenty of players were having quiet games. When we did create chances we inevitably overplayed things, always favouring another pass over having a shot. It's telling that the goal came when we didn't try to pass the ball into the back of the net, but instead gave it a whack. All in all, it was a pretty sloppy first half. I can't particularly say they troubled us too much, but at the same time I couldn't say we particularly deserved to be any further ahead.


The second half starred with a substitution. Perhaps as a response to the fragility of our defence, Oniki decided to replace Kano with Kurumaya and switch to four at the back (Tasaka right, Nara and Itakura in the middle and Kurumaya on the left). Kurumaya kept his record of playing every game so far this season going. Hope that can continue for the sake of him keeping a nice run going, but I suspect he might like a rest at some stage! Otsuka took Kano's place alongside Moriya. Interesting... I felt a bit for Kano as he hadn't had a great game, but he was playing out of position. I wonder if Otsuka can be an option for us in the defensive midfield postition. I'd have to say the jury is still out on that after this game. He did ok, but I wouldn't really want him and Moriya playing there against stronger opposition. Perhaps either of them with Neto would be fine though. Without a strong tackler there we're a bit exposed I think. The second half followed a pretty similar pattern to the first really. We attacked, tried to get the ball to Ienaga to score but he was fouled. The new formation definitely seemed to give us a bit more stability at the back though. Our second goal came on 62 minutes with Moriya spreading the ball out to Kurumaya on the wing. He crossed the ball and Hasegawa was able to angle it past the keeper into the corner. A nice move but perhaps there wouldn't have been so much space against tougher opposition. Not long after the goal Miyoshi was replaced by Chinen. Was it to be his night? No... but he really tried. He made an immediate impact and added a bit more height to our forward line. I guess Ienaga's not small but Chinen definitely seemed to be carrying a bit more of a aerial threat about him. He seemed determined to score and he had a few chances, once agonisingly stumbling when going through on goal. He definitely showed the potential he has though. I was quite pleased with how he played and am optimistic about his future with us. Another player determined to score was Moriya, who put in his usual 100% performance and wasn't afraid to try to hammer one in from distance. It also wasn't to be his night. As the game entered its last ten minutes Elsinho came on for Rhayner who'd had a fairly quiet game by his standards. This gave us another boost and we looked pretty dangerous in the last ten minutes. But we didn't score again and the game finished as a slightly underwhelming 2-0 victory. Credit to UVA, who aren't having the best of seasons, for stopping us from having an easy night. I suspect we also kind of stopped ourselves a bit though, as it wasn't exactly a vintage Frontale performance. But, it was a win and we move on to face the challengingly named Thespakusatsu Gunma in the next round.


Positives and negatives. We'll start negative I guess. Not a convincing performance or result against a fairly weak side. Ienaga and Miyoshi both failed to open their accounts against probably the weakest team we'll play this year. Most of our attacking threat came from players not playing up front. Positives. We won and are through (even if the performance was a bit dodgy), unlike our neighbours FC Tokyo. Tasaka played well as captain and scored a cracker. Hasegawa continues to be in the right place at the right time too. Chinen looked like he has plenty to offer when he has the chance. Tabinas was on the bench and whilst I was sad that he didn't get an opportunity to make his debut, I'm pleased he's made it to the bench.

Next up, we're away to Gamba Osaka, a game being played inconveniently on Sunday evening... I'm praying for a better result than the last time we went to Osaka on a Sunday as the defeat to Cerezo really took the shine off the beers after the game. It will no doubt be a tough game and will show us how much chance we might have of having a go at the league this year. Whilst we're approaching the halfway stage, no one has really marked themselves out as being streets ahead yet, so victories in these kind of games are crucial to keep in touch at the top. It's a very nice stadium so hopefully our performance can be equally good. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
DF 28. ITAKURA Ko   
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
MF 25. KANO Kenta
MF 22. RHAYNER
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji
MF 27. OTSUKA Shohei
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

Subs
GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (on for KANO 46')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
MF 18. ELSINHO (on for RHAYNER 82')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for MIYOSHI 67')
DF 26. TABINAS Jefferson

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Fairly average performances from most of the team, but good work as captain and a nice goal mean that it probably has to be...

TASAKA Yusuke - leading by example!


Goals  

TASAKA (Frontale) 29'  1-0
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 62'  2-0
  
Highlights

Seems that there aren't any highlights of this game. No idea why as some other teams games are up. But anyway, here are a couple of videos taken from the crowd of the first and second goals.

Monday 19 June 2017

Vs Sanfrecce Hiroshima (home) 17/6/17, J-League match 15

 
Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 0 Sanfrecce Hiroshima 

After a two week break, football is back (international games don’t count as football as far as I’m concerned…) After our last disappointing performance against Yokohama, where we were half undone by the ref and half undone by our poor finishing, Sanfrecce were today's visitors. They’re a 'big team' but one that is having a stinker this year. This, along with us having big players finally back from injury and consequently grounds for optimism, made me think that this would probably mean that we were going to lose. We do seem to have a habit of stumbling when we should be having no problems, but I'm pleased to say we didn't this time. It was close, but we just about managed to get the three points and I guess at the end of the season we will remember that we won, rather than how close the game might have been. Not a lot has been going on since the last game. Hopefully we’ve had a chance to rest up a bit as our schedule may have been starting to catch up with us a little. The one piece of news was our signing of Wakizaka Yasuto from Hannan University. He’s actually returning to us, as he is a former Frontale youth player. Guess what? He’s a midfielder!


As I said, coming into the game we were boosted by the return of Elsinho, now sporting a slicked back ponytail. Not my favourite look if I'm honest, but delighted to have him back. Unfortunately for Rhayner, the three foreigners rule meant that he didn’t make the squad. It’s nice that we have that problem now though, as injuries have plagued us all year so far. We also welcomed back Oshima to the starting line up. I guess this could be the first time all year we could name our best starting eleven. Although I suppose the best starting eleven is something that none of us, including Oniki, are really sure of still. In goal, the usually wonderful Sung-Ryong continued. In front of him were Nobori on the right, Edu and Taniguchi in the middle and Kurumaya on the left. The defensive midfielders were Neto and Oshima. And up front in the constantly shifting front four were Kengo, Kobayashi, Abe and Elsinho. Abe started off up front with Kengo behind him, Kobayashi on the left and Elsinho on the right. But as always this shape didn’t hang around for long and pretty quickly everyone was swapping positions. On the bench we had Arai, Nara, Tasaka, Miyoshi, Hasegawa, Moriya and Ienaga. The game started with Hiroshima pressing us very high up the pitch. They were giving us no time on the ball and were putting in some pretty meaty challenges. The ref was Nishimura. These are words to strike fear into the heart of any Frontale fan. We never seem to get the rub of the green when he is in charge of one of our games. And so it was to be when Aoyama, Sanfrecce’s midfield ‘battler’ or ‘enforcer’ or ‘general’ (choose your favorite cliche. I think the truth would be something close to ‘dirty fouler’), smashed into Oshima and then had another kick at him whilst he was on the ground. This brought a surprisingly forthright reaction from nice guy Oshima and started a little bit of argy-bargy during which Neto shoved Aoyama's shoulder. Aoyama dropped to the floor clutching his face (I really, really hate it when players do these kind of things), presumable trying to get Neto sent off and avoid punishment for the nasty little fouls he had put in on Oshima. As is totally predictable when you get this kind of mini fracas the referee booked one player from each team. It’s true that Neto deserved his card as you really shouldn’t just shove someone. It’s annoying though that Aoyama got away with just a yellow as he really showed himself to be a horrible little man. Shortly afterwards there was one of those horrible moments when you see a potentially very serious injury. A Sanfrecce player got his head in the way of an Oshima blaster and hit the floor very hard. The reaction of the ref and the players near to the action suggested that maybe he’d been knocked out and unsurprisingly he was unable to continue. I’m sure all Frontale fans wish him a speedy recovery. Aside from these two incidents that I seem to have written a lot about, there was also a football game taking place. Sanfrecce made some good chances and so did we, but neither team had any cutting edge. As is usual of late, our finishing wasn’t really up to scratch. Kengo was a bit out of sorts and Elsinho was maybe lacking a bit of sharpness (understandable after so long out). Kobayashi was pretty quiet. Our rotation up front seemed to leave us, more often than not, with no-one up front, which I don’t think was the intention. I guess these four haven’t played together yet though. The fact that for the majority of the game Sanfrecce had 10 players behind the ball didn’t help. They’d clearly come to soak up the pressure and hopefully hit us on the break. And they had a few chances. But thankfully when they did break Edu and Taniguchi were doing a decent job at stopping them getting through. So very far from an exciting first half. We were showing some promise, but were pretty disjointed.


The second half started with no changes for us. And we started brightly. We were making good goal scoring opportunities but as usual the finishing was weak and either straight at the keeper or off-target. But there was reason for some optimism. Hiroshima were persisting with the ‘everyone defending’ tactics that had served them pretty well in the first half, but we were starting to cut through them a bit more. Then, finally we got a shot on target with a bit of welly behind it and we were ahead. Some nice build up play from Kengo and Neto resulted in a pass which a Sanfrecce defender got a boot on. The ball fell invitingly for Abe who hammered it home into the corner with his left foot. On target and with some power! Lovely! Not much more than a minute later Abe had a chance to double his tally but we were back to the weak shots again so it was an easy save for the Hiroshima keeper. I wouldn’t say we were sitting on our lead particularly, but we definitely changed the way we were playing a little. It almost seemed like a bit of desperation was coming into our game in spite of the fact that we were winning. We started giving the ball away and gifting them opportunities. The best one was around 72 minutes when they were able to cross and find their player who was perfectly positioned between two of our defenders (who were very much not perfectly positioned). Thankfully his header hit the bar (Sung-Ryong had it covered, I'm sure…) and the rebound was bravely headed away by Oshima. This flurry of chances for them prompted a substitution from Oniki who brought on Nara for Elsinho. I think we switched to three at the back, but Nobori and Kurumaya weren’t exactly bombing forward so maybe it was more like a back line of five. As for what the change meant further up the field, well, your guess is as good as mine. True, we added a bit more strength to our defence but the gaps it left upfield meant that as soon as we did manage to break up their attacks the ball went forward to nobody and they could come straight back at us. It was pretty uncomfortable viewing to be honest and my feeling was that we were going to concede an late equaliser. On 84 minutes, Kengo was replaced by Ienaga but on the whole, not a great deal changed. We were still looking wobbly. On 90 minutes with three minutes of injury time to be played Sung-Ryong had to make a crucial save low down by the foot of the post, preserving our lead. If that had gone in, I could have seen us conceding again and losing the match to be honest, but our 2017 hero had saved us again. At the moment he has to be making a case for being player of the season, I think. I imagined we would put on another sub to waste a bit of the last few minutes but we didn’t. Possibly we were struggling enough to defend without disrupting things further with a substitution. And we hung on. But it wasn’t exactly comfortable.


Positives and negatives. Positive first. Back to winning ways and three points on the board. A nice goal from Abe keeps his goal tally ticking over nicely. Taniguchi and Edu had a reasonable game, at least in the first half. Elsinho and Oshima are back. We managed to survive a Nishimura refereed game without too many bad decisions. Negatives, a few more. For large parts of the second half we looked pretty clueless. We couldn’t keep the ball up front and were having to defend desperately (which we just about managed, so I guess that could go in the positives column). Oniki’s change of tactics didn’t seem to change anything. We are still a work in progress up front and our shots were way too easy for them to stop. A better team would have punished us I reckon. I think many of us thought that this season could be one of transition and next year we might be able to push on. This is probably true, but it seems that the league is wide open this year so we’re still in there. But there’s a few big teams that we haven’t played yet and those games are coming up soon.


Next up is Tochigi UVA in the Emperor’s Cup on Wednesday. UVA seem to be in pretty awful form at the moment, sitting second bottom of the Japan Football League (the fourth tier) with 10 points from 14 games. I guess this will be an opportunity for Oniki to give some match time to some of the players we haven’t seen much of this season. I’m hoping to see a Tabinas debut and a first professional goal from Chinen. After that we’re off to Gamba Osaka on Sunday. Not the easiest of places to go to, but it’s a nice ground and hopefully we can get something from the game. I’m sure Abe will be up for showing his old fans what he’s doing these days. Let’s hope we can put in a better performance than we did on our last trip to Osaka when we played terribly against Cerezo. Let’s stay optimistic! Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 23. EDUARDO
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO (Yellow card 17')
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 18. ELSINHO
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki

Subs
 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki (on for ELSINHO 78')
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for NAKAMURA 84')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Nice goal from Abe, but there's one guy without whom we wouldn't have won, so once again it's...

JUNG Sung-Ryong - particularly for that one cracking save, but he made a couple of other good ones too.


Goals  
 
ABE (Frontale) 56' 1-0


Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want.

Tuesday 6 June 2017

Vs Yokohama F Marinos (away) 4/6/17, J-League match 14

Yokohama F Marinos 2 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale

Well that wasn't much fun was it? Sunday's game at the Nissan stadium was probably the stage where our busy schedule and our luck caught up with us. By the way, it says match 14 above but we've only played 13 games. The 13th one is the postponed one against Urawa that will now be played on July 5th. I don't necessarily think we played so badly, but we were undone by some dodgy defending and horrendous refereeing against a Yokohama team whose tactics sure weren't pretty, but were pretty effective. Thankfully, we now have almost two weeks to rethink and recover. We have been on a fantastic run of results but now we have to face the problems that these good results have helped cover over.

As has been the case for many of our games recently, our starting line up was largely unchanged, only being altered slightly by the latest injuries. Sung-Ryong continued in goal with a fantastic record of only conceding twice in six games... until now.  In front of him were Tasaka on the right, Taniguchi and Nara in the middle and Kurumaya on the left. The recently effective defensive midfield combination of Neto and Kengo was in front of them, and further forward, the rotating front four of Ienaga, Kobayashi, Abe and Hasegawa. Put them where you want. As I've mentioned recently, they seem to constantly shift positions, a tactic which was working pretty well till this game. The bench was Arai, Nobori, Edu (recovering from a recent knock so not 100% fit), Kano, Otsuka, Rhayner and Moriya. Yokohama had once again filled their stadium by enticing people to come with a free shirt with every ticket deal. The power of big money sponsorship I guess! The stadium was consequently pretty full and we did a good job bringing plenty of our own fans. The atmosphere was bouncing, there was plenty of singing and we were making quite a bit of noise. Out of our two usual openings to games (either coming racing out of the blocks or flailing around hopelessly) we selected the sloppy and disorganised latter option. We weren't so bad and our midfield was doing a decent job, but there were loads of misplaced passes and a complete lack of a final ball going forward. The defence was a little wobbly, but seemed to more or less have things under control. Yokohama's one tactic was evident from the start; sitting back and waiting for a quick counter attack where they could lump it to the fast big guy. Unfortunately we were giving them multiple opportunities to employ this tactic with our wasteful possession. We also were up against another awful ref. This time he was from Poland. Presumably FIFA is on a mission to promote the idea that shit refs can come from any part of the world. I don't know why, but he seemed to be 100% against us, giving everything to Yokohama. The same challenge made by us gave away a free kick and by them, bizarrely earned them a free kick and a few times, a booking for us. I guess in a strange way this is perfect consistency, the ref awarding the foul against us whatever the situation. It's weird that we can go for quite a few games picking up hardly any yellows and then get three in one game. It was a local derby I guess, but it wasn't a physical game and like I said, pretty much all the decisions were going in one direction. Not a great deal happened in the first half. There were a few chances either way, but nothing notable really. I felt that we were coming into the game a little more towards half time but we weren't playing our best stuff by a long way.


The second half started similarly. We were on the up and dominating possession. But it seemed that everyone had received a bit of a talking to at half time. Both sides seemed more up for it. Their first goal came on 53 minutes. Our defence was nowhere near any of their players as they were allowed time to cross. Tasaka wasn’t with their striker on the other side of the box who hit it across the goal first time. Obviously it fell to their other striker who was in loads of space and neither Nara or Sung-Ryong could get anywhere near the ball to block it. We had plenty of people back, but were like statues. Kind of reminiscent of the away game in Thailand, but can't really blame the heat this time. Cue time wasting from Yokohama. The goal was responded to with a couple of substitutions from Oniki. I guess he had these in mind before they scored, but I'm not sure why they weren't done at half time if he was considering changing things, as it was less than 10 minutes into the second half. Tasaka was replaced by Rhayner and Nobori came in for Hasegawa. It seemed like we switched to three at the back with Rhayner and Nobori being the wing backs. But Kurumaya was still bombing forward though. To be honest the formation was a bit of a mystery to me. Both subs started having a decent effect pretty quickly, getting very involved and running at the Yokohama defence. As had been the case for most of the first half though, we were too ponderous in our build up, breaking forward and then just playing it around in front of their penalty box for a while before losing the ball. When we did shoot it was either hopelessly high and wide or as powerful as you'd expect a back pass to be. Ienaga wasn't having a great time, being guilty of both of the above. Things still haven't really clicked for him yet and if he is going to be a starter, I think he probably needs to find a bit more consistency, as he's played well in bursts, but has generally not quite been with it. But our other forwards were proving equally wasteful in front of goal. Abe had a pretty quiet game up until he scored a disallowed goal. At the time I was furious with the linesman, but the replay seems to suggest it was probably offside. Not as clear cut as either me or the linesman thought though! After he'd picked the ball out of the net and curtailed his celebrations, he was replaced by Kano. Don't know where he played either to be honest, but it seemed that Kengo was playing further forward so I guess he could have been slotted in next to Neto. We were piling on the pressure but not getting anything due to our bad finishing and some bizarre decisions from the ref. We had a nailed-on penalty waved away when a Kengo cross/shot was clearly handled by the defender. The ref and lino missed it and gave a goal kick. At least give us the corner!! We also had Rhayner breaking forward at speed and being scythed down by a desperate lunge from a Yokohama player. In spite of the ball falling to one of our players who wanted to play on, the ref pulled it back for the free kick, which he then stopped us from taking quickly. Yokohama were a niggly, fouly team, leaving the boot and studs in on multiple occasions but the ref was blind to it for the most part. Of course I would say this, but I think the ref was their best player in this game. At least defensively, in that he broke up most of our attacks one way or another. We still had time to concede again and it was pretty much the story of the game for them attacking wise. Long ball, quick break, static defence. Suckered twice by a team who were sticking to their horribly negative game plan so well. There's not much else I can say or want to say about this game. We were done. Credit to them for carrying out their mission well, but jeez, if I had to watch that kind of game every week... Guess that's why they need to give away shirts to get people to come.


Positives and negatives. Let’s start positive. We have almost a couple of weeks off to regroup, recover and reorganise. We didn’t seem to pick up any fresh injuries in this game. And the big positive as I mentioned above is that I’m not a Marinos fan so don’t have to watch my team play hoof ball every week. Negatives. Maybe not as many as you might expect. Going forward, I don’t think we played terribly, it was just our finishing which was rotten. And it was really rotten. All the momentum and confidence we had built up over the last few games has gone I would imagine. Our defence couldn’t deal with the long balls and counter attacks and switched off at crucial times, which is a bit worrying. We were static and flat-footed. Last year, if we conceded two we’d score three, but we can’t rely on that this year. Our shots lack power and accuracy. Well, that’s what I’m saying now. I wasn’t saying this when we were on our good run and scoring, so guess I might be being a bit unfair and overly dramatic. But on Sunday, it was certainly true. We were toothless as an attacking force. I wonder if we also might be having some tactical problems. I think our plan A seems to work quite well (although it didn’t have any cutting edge on Sunday), but plan B gets a bit confusing. It looked like we might have switched to three at the back after the first two subs, but it didn’t really feel like we had. We certainly didn’t look like we had any more players back when we needed them. It feels somehow like people don’t really know what they are supposed to be doing at the back sometimes. But yeah, I know, this wouldn’t be mentioned if we had won. On Sunday though, the more significant problems were definitely at the other end of the pitch. Yeah, we were being hampered by the ref, but we didn’t really test their keeper much. We had more shots than them and more possession, but when you only get 50% of your shots on target, and the ones that are on target have as much venom as a back pass you have a bit of a problem. Let’s hope this is a blip and that we’ll be back on track in the next game. We’ve lost both of our local derbies so far this season without scoring a goal and put in a couple of very substandard performances. Maybe we’re tired as it’s mainly the same players who have been playing twice a week all season so far, but now we have a break from the ACL and a little rest from any kind of action, so that can’t be an excuse in our next game.

That next game is Sanfrecce Hiroshima at home. They are having a rotten season so far, but I think most people would imagine that they will turn it around at some stage. Let’s hope it’s not against us. It will be interesting to see if there is any significant change in personnel or tactics. I’m not sure there needs to be, we just need to have players performing to their potential or at least not having a stinker. Anyway, I think I am going to try to forget about football for a week or so but I still have just enough enthusiasm to muster a subdued ‘go Frontale’.

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (Yellow card 34')
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo (Yellow card 27')
MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (Yellow card 79')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki


Subs
 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for TASAKA 54')
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
MF 22. RHAYNER (on for HASEGAWA 54')
DF 23. EDUARDO
MF 25. KANO Kenta (on for ABE 81')
FW 27. OTSUKA Shohei


My Frontale Man Of The Match

Let's forget about this for this game...


Goals  

HUGO VIERA (Yokohama) 53' 1-0
TOGASHI (Yokohama) 84' 2-0

Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want.

Saturday 3 June 2017

Frontale Songs Part 4, Team Songs

This is the fourth and final of a few posts with romanized lyrics of Frontale songs. You can see all of the parts here. Hopefully this is of some use to somebody other than me! Oh, and apologies for my unique way of writing some of the Japanese words in English. My method makes sense to me as it kind of seems a bit confusing to write words like 'goal' as 'goru' so I've stuck with the English spelling.

Kawasaki City Song (sung before the players come out)

Tamagawa no akeru sora kara,
Kikoeru yasashii tori no uta,
Hohoemi wa hikari no shower,
Sawayakani kokoro arauyo,
Atarashii asa wa umarete,
Hitobito no karui ashidori,
Sukidesu hikari no niau machi,
Sukidesu Kawasaki ai no machi



Ashitamo (Shishamo song)

Allez, allez Kawasaki, allez, allez oh,
Allez, allez Kawasaki Frontale,
Donna toki mo zutto,
Dareyori mo tsuyoku,
Tatakau hero ni kimochi komete

 

Number One Yaro

Katsu tame ni,
Sakebu no sa,
Oretachi wa,
Koko ni iru,
Ao kuro no,
Tamashii o,
Ima koko ni,
Misetsukero



Frontale Rabbit

Saayuke Frontale,
Allez oh-o,
Allez oh-o-o!
Kawasaki Frontale,
Allez oh-o,
Allez oh!

 

Believe In Tomorrow

Oretachi to tomo ni,
Tatakae Kawasaki,
Ao to kuro no,
Yushatachi!
Oretachi no heart,
Kyomo atsuku sasero,
Kawasaki goal o nerae



Frontale 2000

Oh, oh oh!
Let’s go Kawasaki!
Oh, oh oh!
Frontale



Frontale 20000

Oooooh Frontale!
Oooooh Kawasaki Oh Oh!
Oooooh Frontale!
Oooh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh

 

Forza Frontale

Ooh oh, oh oh oh ooh,
Forza Frontale



Allez! Frontale

Allez, allez,
Allez Frontale!
Allez, allez, allez
Allez Frontale

 

Basket Case (sung after a goal)

Ooh, oh oh oh,
Love Kawasaki!
Oretachi to tomomi yukoze,
Ooh, oh oh oh,
Love Kawasaki!
La la la la la la la la la la la,
Oretachi no omoi wa,
Dareyorimo atsuku,
Aokuro ni hikaru hoshi to tomoni,
Football together Kawasaki!



Avante

Avante, oh oh Kawasaki,
La la la la la la laaaa la



2003 ★ ★

Frontale Frontale oh oh oh oh oh oh!
Oretachi to tatakao tomo ni



Vai La De Frontale

Vala Vala Va-a
Vala ji corason
Vamo Frontale,
Vamo Frontale
Vamo se campion



Top Of The World

Oh Frontale oh Frontale,
Oretachi no hokori,
Susume susume ifudodo,
Aotokuro no senshitachi



Vamo Vamos Kawasaki

Vamo vamos Kawasa
Vamo vamos Kawasa
Vamos Kawasa
Vamos Kawasa



Frontale Of Passion

Oh oh,
Frontale!
Frontale!
Oh oh oh oh!

 

Frontale U.M.A

Oh oh oh oh, Frontale,
Shori o mezashi ikoze,
Sakebo kimochi komete,
Kawasaki Frontale

Friday 2 June 2017

Frontale Songs Part 3, Squad numbers 23-41

This is the third of a few posts with romanized lyrics of Frontale songs. You can see all of the parts here. I'll start with the player songs by squad number. For some of them there are videos to give you the tune if you don't know it. For the others, well, I guess you'll have to just do your best to work it out by listening out for the players name. There is a video at the end of this post collecting quite a few of the songs in a kind of mega-mix that might cover some that I don't have videos for. [Actually, I seem to have found all of them in some form or another now, but I'll leave the other video there] Hopefully this is of some use to somebody other than me! Oh, and apologies for my unique way of writing some of the Japanese words in English. My method makes sense to me as it kind of seems a bit confusing to write words like 'goal' as 'goru' so I've stuck with the English spelling.

23. Edu

E-du-oo,
Edu-oo,
E-du-oo



24. Ando Shunsuke

Ando, Ando, imakoso, tachi agaru toki,
Ando, Ando, shori shinji mamore,
Ando Shunsukue, Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh



25. Kano Kenta

Kano Kenta, Kagayakeyo kokode,
Kano Kenta la la la la la



26. Tabinas Jefferson

No song yet as he's new and young. For now he has the regular new/young players song that will hopefully be on a later post.


27. Otsuka Shohei

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh,
Otsuka, Shohei



28. Itakura Ko

Itakura Ko,
Muteki no power,
Kawasaki Tamashii,
Zekkocho,
Motto yuko,
Itakura Saiko



29. Michael James

Go Michael James,
Go Michael James



30. Arai Shota

Misetsukero Shota,
Mamori kire Shota,
Arai Arai Arai Shota!
Tobikkiri no Shota,
Play daze Shota,
Arai Arai Arai Shota!
Arai Arai Arai Shota!
Sho-ta!

 

31. Popp William

No song yet as he's new and young. For now he has the regular new/young players song that will hopefully be on a later post.

32. Tanaka Ao

Ao ki hono,
Mune ni idaite,
Atsuku Tatakae,
Tanaka Ao



41. Ienaga Akihiro

Ienaga Akihiro La La La La La,
Darenimo Aki o tomerarenai,
Ienaga Akihiro La La La La La,
Orera to tomo ni tatakao-o



Frontale song collection

Thursday 1 June 2017

Vs Muangthong United (home) 30/5/17, ACL Round of 16

Kawasaki Frontale 4 -1 Muangthong United (7-2 on agg.) 

This was a bit of a funny game to be honest. We went into it with the knowledge that if we didn’t concede three goals we would be assured of going through. So I should have been full of confidence but couldn’t quite help feel that I should be aware that anything is possible with our inconsistent performances (which to be honest have been much less inconsistent recently, but you never know, eh?). Would we turn up and play like we did in the first leg or would we put in an away at FC Tokyo performance and bow out against all the odds? Judging by the coverage we were getting before the game, our progression to the next round was a done deal. No-one was talking about us before and no-one seemed to be afterwards, choosing to focus instead on ‘brave heroes’ Kashima Antlers who won but went out on away goals. After the game the fact that in both legs we had walloped a team that had beaten Kashima was glossed over. But I’m not going to whinge too much as I think I might prefer things this way.


Even though the scoreline suggested we had pretty much already done the job, we started with the majority of the usual line up. Sung-Ryong continued in goal but the defence was shuffled slightly due to Taniguchi not being 100% fit and Edu not being available for the ACL. Tasaka started at right back, Nara was joined by Kurumaya in the middle and Nobori took Kurumaya’s place at left back. The defensive midfielders were Neto and Kengo (who proved again that I know nothing by having a great game after I said last time that he always plays better further forward). The front four were Abe, Ienaga, Kobayashi and Hasegawa. Put them where you want as we seem to be sticking with the plan of them changing their positions throughout the match. The Frontale website has Kobayashi as being up front, Ienaga right, Hasegawa in the middle and Abe on the left. But I thought it looked like we started with Hasegawa up front, Abe on the left, Kobayashi on the right and Ienaga in the middle. In any case, this whole rotation thing seems to be working. The bench was Arai, Taniguchi, Morimoto, Moriya, Rhayner, Kano and Otsuka. Muangthong had brought a decent amount of fans with them. Full credit to them as the situation didn’t look that positive for them. I should also say that their fans seemed like thoroughly decent folks too. For the second ACL game in a row there has been some really nice interactions between opposing fans which I really like. After the game the Muangthong fans were apparently chanting ‘Frontale!’ too which is really nice of them. I hope we are going some way to mending any damage recent events might have caused our reputation. I should also say that Muangthong’s Japanese defender Aoyama got a round of applause from our fans which was pretty nice too. But it wasn’t all a big love-in, there was a football game too so I suppose I should mention that.


Unusually, we changed ends before kick off, so in the first half were kicking towards our home end. I’m not sure whose decision this was. I guess it could make sense from either captain as I suspect both would have welcomed an early goal; them to get back into the tie and us to kill off the tie. We started well with plenty of possession and a few decent chances. As I mentioned above, Kengo was doing a great job in the middle and the combination of him and Neto meant that we were pretty much dominating there. Any attacks that Muangthong had which came through this area were thwarted by them and we were looking pretty comfortable. Possibly up front things weren’t clicking completely with Hasegawa and Ienaga not being quite on the same wavelength. I guess they haven’t played together much yet. Not saying things weren’t working, as we were doing pretty well, but more that a couple of times their runs and passes were totally at odds with one another. A bigger problem was the ref (here I go again). He seemed to be giving us absolutely nothing with pretty much every decision going to them. A few times I was left totally bewildered by him. It felt like he had some kind of interest in evening up the game a bit. We had a definite penalty turned down when they player clearly handled a cross but the more confusing decisions were when he not only didn’t give us the foul but gave the foul against us. I know I’m partizan but it was really weird. I can’t remember exactly, but I seem to think that Abe got booked for getting fouled. If the game had been closer these decisions could really have cost us, but for once it’s nice to be able to moan, but for things not to matter so much. On 31 minutes the game looked to be sealed as we scored the opening goal. They’d now need to score four times. It was another nice goal for Kobayashi. A pass from Nobori was kind of dummied by Abe which seemed to put the defender off. Kobayashi received the ball, turned the other defender and slotted it home from the edge of the box. It seems that the sliding defender got something on it which diverted the ball from its path into the corner but it still had enough power to sneak under the keepers dive. On 32 minutes we scored again but I guess the situation didn’t change so much. Due to away goals they’d still need four, but the kick in the guts you’d get from conceding twice in two minutes must have deflated their confidence further. This time Kobayashi was the provider, collecting a forward pass from Tasaka and driving a cross across the box. Ienaga was inches away from scoring his first goal for us but luckily Hasegawa was lining up behind him to smash the ball home into the top of the net. On 40 minutes it was three and it was now almost certainly over for Muangthong barring a historic collapse. From the penalty appeal that we weren’t given that I mentioned above we won a corner. Kengo took it short to Tasaka who returned the ball. Kengo then looped over a lovely first-time left-footed cross which Neto headed into the corner. Haven’t seen him score like that before and it was also the first time I have been taking a picture and we've scored (see below). I can still make it as a sports photographer! And it seems that we actually pose a threat from corners now which is a bit of a turn up. So, 3-0 at half time, 6-1 on aggregate.


Understandably, the second half wasn’t as exciting. Rhayner came on for Abe after the break, meaning that Abe wasn’t able to keep his goalscoring run going which was a shame for him, but it was a good opportunity to give him a bit of a rest. Muangthong came into the game a little bit as maybe we’d taken our foot off the gas, but I think pretty much everyone, players and fans knew that the game was over and that they were looking for a consolation goal at best. Chances were half-heartedly made at either end of the pitch without a great deal of conviction and it looked like things were petering out a bit. There was a surprise substitution on 62 minutes when Kengo was replaced by Kano Kenta. The crowd was very happy to see him coming on and he got a great reception. I think he can still offer something and hasn’t really had much of a chance this season yet and he did a decent job during the 30 minutes he was on the pitch. We’re playing one of his old clubs at the weekend, so maybe he’ll feature again and do one of the those ‘curse of the former player’ things. He’s an option I hadn’t really considered for the defensive midfield role, but maybe he’s worth a go there. Muangthong had a couple of good chances and I guess showed some of their attacking capabilities. They actually hit the post and had the follow up cleared off the line by Nara. Astonishingly the ref didn’t decide to overrule the linesman and give the goal. I’m not sure if this is the real Muangthong we were seeing. People raved about them in the group stages but we seemed to have dealt with them pretty comfortably for the most part. Maybe we were defending well and breaking up attacks early or perhaps they had expended all their efforts in the group stage. On 79 minutes we scored again. Kano put in a lovely cross which slightly got away from Kobayashi, but he was able to stop the ball leaving the pitch and backheeled for Rhayner to smash home. Based on the second half at least, it felt a bit harsh on Muangthong and their fans, but I’m always delighted to see us score. There was time for a couple more incidents. Morimoto came on for Nobori on 88 minutes. Not sure why. And then a minute later Muangthong got something they could take home with them. A deep cross was headed home past Sung-Ryong with maybe a suspicion of a foul on Kano from the scorer. He certainly seemed to jump quite easily and Kano seemed to be being held down. But anyway, I’m not going to moan about it. And that was it. We were comfortably through to the next round and are now officially one of the eight best teams in Asia (that’s how it works, isn’t it?).


Positives and negatives. Let’s start negative. Actually, maybe there aren’t any this time. The game was a weird one but I can’t remember anything other than the referee that worried or upset me. Positives, plenty of them! Through to the last eight of the competition convincingly against a team that have had some good results against apparently good sides. Another goal from Kobayashi which is hopefully another step towards great confidence and great form for him. Another game where we scored quite a few goals and didn’t concede many. No new injuries! The return of Kano Kenta was nice too. He seems to be well liked by fans and his fellow players and hope he can make a few more appearances. Could he be another back up option for the position next to Neto? Also, our schedule is going to ease off a bit soon so we can get a bit of a rest. I think playing twice a week with predominantly the same players has greatly helped our understanding and communication in the team, but can’t really have helped our energy levels and our propensity for injuries. And as I said above, the good relations between the opposing fans was great. There were two good videos and a nice picture  on twitter which show how things should ideally be. Whilst we rarely have problems with other fans, there is sometimes some ill feeling but we should remember that wherever the other fans are from, they are human beings like us. After all, it’s only a game and often we can’t really choose who we support, it kind of chooses us. Wow…. Peace maaaaannnnn.

Next up is the short away trip to Yokohama to play Marinos. Its a nice stadium and always a good atmosphere. It would be nice to keep our good run going against one of our local rivals, although I’m sure they probably would be delighted to bring us back down to earth. After that, it’s almost two weeks till our next game, at home in the league to a currently wobbling, but almost certainly going to come into some great form when they play us, Sanfrecce Hiroshima. The next ACL match will not be until August, so we have a significant break till we resume in that competition. I guess we will find out our next opponent fairly soon though, although I don’t know exactly when the draw is yet. In any case, we can put the ACL to one side for a bit now and concentrate on hopefully moving up the league table. Go Frontale!


Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (Yellow card 53')
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki (Yellow card 29')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya 

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki (on for NOBORIZATO 88')
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
MF 22. RHAYNER (on for ABE 46')
MF 25. KANO Kenta (on for NAKAMURA 62')
FW 27. OTSUKA Shohei

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Once again, it could have been a few players and I thought Neto and Kengo did a great job in the middle, but one goal and two assists means that one person stood out.

KOBAYASHI Yu  - Another nice goal, two nice assists and a feeling that his confidence is coming back. Long may that continue!

Goals  

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 31' 1-0
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 32' 2-0
NETO (Frontale) 40' 3-0 
RHAYNER (Frontale) 79' 4-0
DANGDA (Muangthong) 89' 4-1


Highlights