Vs Kashiwa Reysol (away) 29/10/17, J-League match 31

Kashiwa Reysol 2 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

This year's away game at Kashiwa couldn’t have been in more different conditions to the one last year. In 2016 we visited early on in the season and cover from the elements was in short supply and high demand, given that it was dangerously sunny. This time the cover was equally desirable but for a different reason. A typhoon was passing and it was pouring down. There were some similarities though. I once again came away with a red face, but whereas last year it was due to a touch of early season sunburn, this year it was the effect of having torrential rain whipped against my face for five hours. Also, getting in to the ground is still ridiculously slow. I know it’s a small stadium, but they could probably do with getting a few more people on the bag checking if they insist on doing it. In spite of being probably around half way in the queue, it still took almost half an hour to actually get into the ground. I have to say, I quite like the view at this ground, but the match day experience definitely leaves a little to be desired. This time, a large portion of the pre-match time was spent standing in the toilets as it was one of the few places where you were away from the lashing rain. But it did finally ease off a little and we were able to take our place on the terrace. Whether we would get to actually see any football was still up in the air at this stage as the pitch was looking pretty bad. The officials took their time coming out pre-game and when they did emerge it seemed almost impossible that the game would be able to go ahead. Balls were rolled, kicked and thrown up and all momentum was absorbed with a splat into a pool of water. There seemed to be lengthy discussions going on, but no decisions being taken. I’m not a ref, so I don’t know what is taken into account in these situations, but I would think being unable to pass the ball might cause some reasons to wonder if the game should go ahead. It’s not exactly that far from Kawasaki to Kashiwa, so the inconvenience of a postponement wouldn’t have been that great. I was actually praying for that to happen, as a hugely waterlogged pitch was hardly going to suit our passing game. But when the announcement came it was that we were only going to have a delay of 30 minutes. Kind of strange as it was still raining, so things were hardly going to get better. This announcement heralded a team of pitch driers, most of them with sucky-up rollers to absorb some of the water, some with something that looked like a rake or broom to push the water off and a team of people with towels and buckets who were presumably going to give the wet pitch a good towel down. Sounds like it was all going to be perfect! It wasn’t. This first paragraph is already way too long. I’ll try to get to point soon.

Our starting line up saw many of our first team regulars back, apart from right at the back. Sung-Ryong is still injured so Arai continued in goal. In front of him were Elsinho, Nara, Edu and Kurumaya. Moriya and Taniguchi were in front of them and our front four were Ienaga, Kengo, Miyoshi and Kobayahsi. Neto couldn’t play as his ban for accumulating yellows was for two games as it was the second time he'd accumulated them this year. On the bench we had Ando, Noborizato, Morimoto, Hasegawa, Rhayner, Chinen and Itakura. By the time we finally kicked off the rain had eased off a little, but I should stress that it hadn’t stopped at all since we arrived in Kashiwa mid-morning. It still seemed that the sensible thing to do would be to call the game off. But for whatever reason, it wasn’t going to happen. As soon as the game started it was clear how much of a farce it was going to be. Long high balls would land with a splat and no bounce, passes would stop dead en route, players were just slipping over in huge puddles of water. As the ball was difficult to kick off the ground, most people were doing a kind of weird thing where they’d try to tee it up for themselves to volley the ball. The horrible condition of the pitch meant that everything was going long and high (pretty much usual Kashiwa play judging by Wednesday’s game, hehehe). Technique and touch were not required, it was merely a matter of punt it as far as you can and hope that your striker doesn’t slip over before he gets there. Of course the game was extremely scrappy and had a real stutter to it not just because the ball kept getting held up in the puddles, but also because there was no possibility of building any kind of attack. It was purely hit and hope and was horrible to watch. We had only managed two shots in the first half, but they hadn’t done much better with just three. But as the half drew to a close the rain stopped. So there was a possibility that the game might be much better in the second half. Except the pitch still resembled a swamp, so that probably wasn't going to happen.

The Kashiwa fans charitably booed us back onto the pitch. Not sure what we have done to them, other than hand them a free pass to the Emperor's Cup semi final, but it seems they don’t like us much. As has been his wont when we’re not playing well, Oniki started the half with a tactical change, bringing on Morimoto for Moriya. I always think of Morimoto as a big lump but he’s not actually that tall (177cm, fact fans). He definitely has that feel about him though. This move made sense to me as we clearly weren’t going to get anywhere playing our passing game. It would be a matter of lumping it up the pitch and hoping. However, before he had a chance to make any kind of impact we were two goals down. The first can be blamed on the rotten conditions. Nara looks like he’d make the clearance but the ball stops in a puddle and Cristiano was able to nick it of him and it was an easy finish for Lopes from the pass. Irritating. The second was less annoying in a way, as it was a pretty good move and there wasn’t that much we could do about it. Lopes did really well by the corner flag and whipped in a cross for Diego Oliveira to finish. I have to say the cross was pretty good, especially considering the conditions. Perhaps he found the one part of the pitch that wasn’t horribly waterlogged. The two players near him could probably have done a bit more to stop him putting it in, if I'm really looking for someone to blame. So, a rotten start to the half and it looked like our title challenge was over. Chinen came on for Miyoshi in response to the goals, (actually, I think he was probably already coming on before the second one went it). It really started pelting down again so maybe this was the reason this sub wasn’t done at half time. The goals and subs seemed to have awoken something in us and we started to put some attacks together, by which I mean, we were starting to be able to collect the long balls that we were pumping forward. There were a few good chances we didn’t take advantage of through weak or off-target shooting, but there was some momentum building. There was also some rain momentum building too and the puddles were reforming. To be honest the mopping up they’d done didn’t do much more than slightly fix the problem from an aesthetic point of view. There was no way they were going to be able to get rid of the amount of water that was falling. Kashiwa really put the brakes on, taking an interminable time over every set piece and at one stage deciding to have a little meeting of four or five players instead of taking a goal kick. The Kashiwa fans got on Arai’s back when he remonstrated with a ballboy who also appeared to be trying to eat up some time. Taniguchi picked up a yellow for what looked to hardly even be a foul. This does seem to be the case recently. We used to go for games without getting any bookings, (well apart from for Neto and Rhayner, who could pick up a booking walking to the changing room from the coach before the game). But now it’s us who’s getting the yellows and reds and our opponents seem to get nothing. Maybe we’ve turned nasty.

The pitch conditions now were worse than they were before the game, before they’d started trying to sponge the water up. But still the ref seemed determined to continue. We seemed to be working out where the areas that weren’t completely swamped were and were maybe getting to grips with the conditions a bit. Not to say that there weren’t plenty of under 5’s style losses of control of the ball whilst dribbling. Players often would set off to run a little with the ball, only to find that it wasn’t obliging and had decided to have a little rest in a puddle. Sliding tackles had the potential to be the quickest way to get back to the railway station as once you started sliding you just kept going until you hit something. But something was happening. On 70 minutes we got a goal back and it was the second ‘big man’ Chinen (also 177cm…), who again scored a crucial goal. Kurumaya was the creator again, receiving the ball from Ienaga and then dinking a lovely cross in for Chinen to head home. It was a great finish actually, getting in between two defenders and really having to twist to get to the ball. It bodes well for his future with us, I’d say. We were making some other chances as well. Morimoto had a couple that came to nothing, Kobayashi too, but the conditions were foiling us. It looked like it wasn’t going to be our day. On 90 minutes, Kurumaya put a lovely ball in again, this time given to him by Kengo and from much closer to the edge of the pitch. This time it was Kobayashi who headed home. Cue a beautiful silence from the Kashiwa fans. And finally their irritating trumpets stopped. We almost got a winner in stoppage time, which ridiculously given how much time wasting had been going on between minutes 52 and 90, was only three minutes. I guess the officials probably wanted to get the game over and done with before anybody got a serious injury or the coastguard had to be called to rescue someone. After we had a couple of shots blocked we scooped the ball agonizingly past the post. And that was that. The game was over, although it was finished as a game of football about an hour before kick off. One point each did nothing for either team. We’re still in with a remote chance, but as every games passes it gets narrower and narrower.

I’m not going to talk about positives and negatives this time as this was a totally ridiculous game. This, and Jubilo’s fixture against Yokohama (which was fine for an hour and then ended up even worse than ours), were total farces. The J League should be ashamed for letting the matches go ahead (in our case) and not be called off (in both cases). I don’t know what kind of pressure was put on the referee and where from, but no ref in their right mind could do a pitch inspection, the results of which were clear to see, and then let this game go ahead. I can’t imagine Kashiwa particularly wanted to play in these conditions either, although perhaps they might have thought they were more suited to their game than ours. This was a crucial game for both teams and ended up as a joke. It’s a miracle that four goals were scored. The puddles made it near impossible to move the ball along the ground and at the same time almost impossible to kick the ball any distance without teeing yourself up. Our draw and Kashima winning has all but decided the title race. They have three tricky games, but they’d need to lose two of them now and we’d have to win all three of our remaining fixtures. I’m not sure either will happen. I guess we’re spoilt by usually being able to watch some nice football, but this was a horror show. Ugly, ugly, ugly and hardly resembling football. And I got totally soaked. Even if we’d been able to get an unlikely win, I reckon I’d still be feeling the same way about this match. It really shouldn’t have gone ahead. If it’s possible for us to make some kind of complaint, I really hope we do. But I bet we don’t.

Next up we have the small matter of the Levin Cup final on Saturday against Cerezo. Apparently, you can mark your place in the queue the day before, but you have to return to your sheet at 07:00. Just the six hours to kill before kick off. Sometimes it feels like the J League is doing it’s best to make things as difficult as possible for the fans. It’s a massive game and gives us the opportunity to win our first ever title or screw things up in the most heartbreaking way in all competitions this year. It’s a pretty fine line between party time and total despair and it all will take place at the same venue as our current most heartbreaking moment of this season. Let's hope lightning doesn't strike twice. I’m very excited about the game, but at the same time, deeply anxious. Fingers crossed we can get over the line in magnificent style, but I’d settle for us stumbling over it too. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki (Yellow card 14')

DF 23. EDUARDO

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo (Yellow card 61')

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs 
GK 24 ANDO Shunsuke
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki (on for MORIYA 46')
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for MIYOSHI 53')
MF 22. RHAYNER
DF 28. ITAKURA Ko (on for IENAGA 88')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Well, it’s certainly wasn't the ref. It’s difficult to single anyone out for anything positive or negative in this joke of a game. Could have possibly have been either of the goalscorers but…

KURUMAYA Shintaro - Two assists for the goals sets him apart in a game that wasn’t really football so can’t really be judged as such. But I thought I’d better give it to someone.

Goals
 
LOPES (Kashiwa) 48’ 1-0

DIEGO (Kashiwa) 52’ 2-0

CHINEN (Frontale) 70’ 2-1

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 90’ 2-2

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.

Vs Kashiwa Reysol (home) 25/10/17, Emperor's Cup Quarter Final

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 1 Kashiwa Reysol

I guess I can’t put off writing about this any longer, so here we go. I’ll try to keep it brief. We’re now down to two competitions, and with a performance like last night’s, it’s no surprise. This was not an enjoyable game to watch and to describe it as a blip is understating it a bit I think. Sure, we made plenty of changes whereas Kashiwa seemed to be playing a full strength side. I’ve got no complaints about us doing this, (and to be honest I don’t think that was the problem). We really have a chance in the league now. I just hope that this hasn’t dented our confidence. In a way though, we have the perfect next game, once more against Kashiwa, this time away and in the league. Hopefully we can show them what we’re really like, instead of rolling over like we did on Wednesday.

As mentioned above, the starting line up saw some big changes. Sung-Ryong is injured so was replaced by Arai, (although I suspect that would have been the case even without the injury). In front of him were Tasaka, Nara, Edu and Kurumaya. The defensive midfielders were Neto and Moriya and the front four were Ienaga, Chinen, Rhayner and Morimoto. Don’t read too much into the order in which I have listed them. Morimoto was up front, but the other three were switching around quite a lot. I initially presumed that we’d be playing with a big man front two of Morimoto and Chinen, but Chinen found himself on the wing most of the time. Not too sure about that, but I still really don’t know much about him as a player. The bench was made up of Ando, Noborizato, Taniguchi, Kobayashi, Miyoshi, Kengo and Hasegawa, a kind of ‘break glass in case of emergency’ selection of substitutes. It was a cool rainy night, but the rain had pretty much stopped by the time the kick off came around. Kashiwa had brought quite a few fans and a few trumpets too, which was initially a bit of a novelty but soon the excitement drained away. The game started in fairly subdued fashion, with both teams having some possession but attacks breaking down due to the attacking team’s incompetence rather than any kind of wonder defending. We were doing ok right up until we got to their box where we’d lose possession weakly. Rhayner was looking lively but not quite getting there, Chinen was doing a good job of tackling back in defence, Ienaga was trying to pull some strings, but we weren’t really clicking. I don’t think this was due to the irregular line-up, just more a case of no-one particularly playing to their abilities. Arai made a couple of good saves but as we know, struggles a bit to live up to Sung-Ryong’s role as an extra defender to pass the ball around. Consequently, a lot of goal kicks and clearances were going long (which never quite seems to work, but should have had a bit better chance of success in this game given that we had Morimoto and Chinen on the pitch). Arai did occasionally go short but more often than not this got us into a bit of trouble as we didn’t seem to be expecting it. Neto wasn’t having the best of games, seeming a bit sleepy. Perhaps having a game off didn’t do him much good. I hope he’s back to speed on Sunday. Kashiwa grew into the game and had the best of the first half. Their tactic seemed to be fast breaks, pretty much always going through Cristiano. He doesn’t look the most athletic of players but was doing a good job against us, using his power and skills to get the better of our defenders. Thankfully, Kashiwa’s shooting was for the most part, reminiscent of Sanfrecce’s last weekend, so we didn’t have too many problems. Every corner they had, they were taking short so they clearly had something up their sleeves. Ienaga picked up another yellow and it seemed a bit of a harsh one, but I haven’t been able to check it. And that was about it for the first half really. A bit of huffing and puffing but not much in the way of chances.

The second half started with Kengo coming to try to reinvigorate us. He replaced Morimoto, who'd had a quiet half, and immediately his presence had an effect on our players. They seemed to be more involved and we looked a little dangerous for the first time in the match. Unfortunately though, he wasn’t playing particularly well, misplacing passes and having an all round off day. I guess Oniki hoped to not need to use any of the subs, but our first half was so lacklustre that something had to be done. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the Kengo effect to wear off and we were back to first half levels of performance. None of the team could pass, which wasn’t helping us play the ball out of defence. When passing isn’t working, I think we shouldn’t be dilly-dallying so much at the back. Their goal came on 61 minutes and was in part our own making. Arai rolled the ball short to Neto who had to quickly pass to Kengo. Kengo’s pass back was way off target and presented Kashiwa with a shot which we deflected out for a corner. From the corner, (a short one naturally…), Cristiano was able to bend the ball in from the edge of the box. He had plenty of time and space to shoot. In spite of every one of their corners being played short we hadn’t worked out how to defend them. A 1-2 from the corner left him in loads of space and we just watched as he set himself up and shot. Arai got his fingers on the shot, but not enough to stop it. Terrible defending from a set piece which had been trailed all the way through the game and all from a corner from our own error. Them taking the lead resulted in them sticking pretty much everyone behind the ball and time wasting for the rest of the game, as they had every right to do. They were relying even more on quick breaks now, but even though they were sitting back, somehow it felt like they were still more likely to score than we were. Rhayner was replaced by Noborizato who almost scored with his first touch of the ball, but his shot was put over the bar by the Kashiwa keeper. Not long afterwards, Chinen was off and Kobayashi on, but to be honest it didn’t change things much. We were unable to break through the banks of defenders lined up and we weren’t shooting from distance. We were second to everything and looked like we hadn’t even met before, let alone played together. At this stage, there were quite a few of our usual starting line-up on the pitch but we were far from our usual selves. The remaining game time ran away through a succession of misplaced passes from us, horrible life-threatening injuries to their players (thankfully they were all ok in the end, phew!) and confusion as to where they should be taking their free kicks and throws and who should be taking them. It was nothing more than we deserved though. I almost found myself hoping that we wouldn’t get an equaliser which would condemn us all to another 30 minutes of misery. Or probably more accurately boredom, as our play was so lethargic that it would have struggled to inspire misery. It clearly wasn’t going to be our day, so the less time we had to spend on the pitch, confidence ebbing away as pass after pass rolled to the opposition the better. Better make a clean break, forget this and get started again on Sunday.

Positives and negatives. Let’s start positive. None. Negatives. A totally lacklustre performance, sapping confidence against a team who we have a crucial league fixture against on Sunday. Three shots in the whole game. Three!! They had twice as many in the first half than we had in the whole match. Our performance had the feel of a team who had been relegated the previous week and were just fulfilling the fixtures before they could find a new club in the off-season. This was a cup game, but we didn’t seem to have any desire to win it. Way too many mediocre performances from too many players and strangely, I’d say it was probably the regular starters that were playing the worst. Perhaps it’s fatigue, and if that’s the case, I’m worried as we have five more crucial games left. Hopefully we can put this rotten game behind us on Sunday and I can put this subpar blog post behind me too. I didn’t even moan about the ref and my photos are worse than the match was. Apologies...

Next up Kashiwa away on Sunday in a crucial league game to keep the pressure on Kashima who are away at Consadole Sapporo. I seem to remember last year hoping that Jay would do us a favour and score a few for Jubilo against Urawa at a similarly tense stage of the season. He didn’t last year, but hope he’ll come good this year and smack, (or head), a hat-trick past Kashima in the Sapporo Dome. But we need to concentrate more on ourselves than anyone else after this stinker. The only way we can keep the pressure on Kashima is by keeping winning. After that, it’s the small matter of the Levain Cup final the weekend after. All these matches are crucial now, so fingers crossed and go Frontale!


Team

GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

DF 23. EDUARDO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 20. CHINEN Kei

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 40')

MF 22. RHAYNER

FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki

Subs 

GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke

MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for RHAYNER 64')

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for CHINEN 70')

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo (on for MORIMOTO 46')

FW 13. MIYOSHI Koji

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

My Frontale Man Of The Match

A bit of a struggle to come up with anyone in this game, but on reflection, there was one player who perhaps deserved it.

KURUMAYA Shintaro - Did a reasonable job when all around him were doing a less than reasonable job. Created a few decent opportunities with his runs down the left and then was foiled when there was no-one in the box to cross to. Also, the goal was on the opposite side of the pitch to his. That’s about it.

Goals 

CRISTIANO (Kashiwa) 61' 0-1

Highlights

Really?! You want to watch them?

Vs Sanfrecce Hiroshima (away) 21/10/17, J-League match 30

  Sanfrecce Hiroshima 0 - 3 Kawasaki Frontale

Barring anything that might happen in the Emperor’s cup, this was our last long distance away game this season and in spite of the weather and the distance, it was a trip well worth making. Sanfrecce Hiroshima are a team more than flirting with relegation not long after winning the league. That kind of thing does tend to happen in the J League I guess, but their lowly league position does seem slightly surprising. That was my impression before the game and remains so afterwards. This was a game where they put up a good fight against a Frontale team that was missing a few regulars, lost a very important member in the first half and has played a lot of football this year. Their good fight was in vain though, more due to their bad luck and bad finishing than anything that you might assume from our relative league positions. For some reason, the game it brings to mind for me is the disappointing away draw against Avispa Fukuoka last season. That might not make much sense given the difference in outcome, but I think it’s useful to see how far we might have come since then. Both games were long distance, at the business end of the season (or half season as it was last year), against opposition fighting for their lives, without some key players and in wet conditions. Last year we were missing Kengo and we huffed and puffed our way to a draw in a game we definitely should have won, ruining our chances of winning the first stage as Kashima won whilst we drew. This year, the scoreline suggests it was comfortable, (although it didn’t feel like for most of the game), we were without a couple of important players and this time Kashima lost. It’s easy to get carried away with comparing the two, but it’s nice to see us being able to win without Neto and Ienaga in horrible conditions and ride our luck whilst not playing great. We’re still not the finished article, as we do tend to get semi-regular games where we don’t turn up, but this was a crucial step towards banishing our reputation as chokers. Still four games left to choke in though, but Kashima can’t be feeling too good at the moment, after another defeat topped off with a clanger of an own goal, which has cut the gap to two points. It will definitely be an interesting finish to the season. I’m sticking with my pessimism and will predict us overtaking Kashima and then losing the title on the last day of the season with a defeat at home to Omiya.

The horrible weather mentioned above was due to an approaching typhoon. It’s still approaching as I write this, but thankfully now I’m inside rather than standing on an uncovered terrace in the mountains in Hiroshima. I suspect the views would have been nice if they were visible. The rain prevented me from making many notes or taking many pictures, so this might be brief. But it does seem that when I say that, I normally end up writing loads. We started the game with two enforced changes. Neto was out due to accumulated yellow cards and Ienaga was out because of last week’s red. So Oniki had to shuffle the pack a little. Given Oshima is still injured we had to start the game with neither of our first choice defensive midfielders. These spots were taken by Moriya, who’s made a decent fist of playing there recently, and Taniguchi, pushed forward from his usual centre back position, who last played in midfield away against Cerezo Osaka. Not exactly one of our best performances of the season. His place in defence was taken by Edu. Elsinho, Kurumaya and Nara were the other defenders, with Sung-Ryong behind them. Further forward, Ienaga’s absence meant that we could play both of our speedy, young, (and slightly short) exciting attackers, Hasegawa (on the left) and Miyoshi (on the right). Kengo was in the middle and Kobayashi up front. The bench was Arai, Noborizato, Tasaka, Morimoto, Chinen, Rhayner and Itakura. As I hinted above, I was a little worried about Taniguchi in midfield. It’s actually his preferred position, but I certainly prefer him at the back and I think he plays better there too. So far, so worrying. And this is kind of how the game started. There was definitely a bit of disorganisation, in part due to the new positions and definitely contributed to by the weather. The rain had been pelting down for a few hours before kick off, so the surface was certainly well watered. Not exactly in the way you might hope for the ball to zip along though. The game wasn’t the fastest, tidiest or most exciting and it was Hiroshima who started better. Moriya picked up a booking early on, immediately sending me into a panic that we were going to get another two yellow red card.  It seemed a bit harsh at the time and watching it back doesn’t change my impression much. We were doing ok, but not really firing on all cylinders. Taniguchi was coping and Edu, back in the side after a while didn’t seem too rusty, occasionally misplacing a few passes, but nothing serious. Luck was on our side for once. Sanfrecce hit the bar (well Sung-Ryong just about diverted a shot onto the bar), hit the post (sure he had it covered…) and had a goal disallowed (correctly after seeing the replay, although it felt quite fortunate at the time). Not saying it was one way traffic though, as we apparently had more shots in the first half than they did. We just weren’t really causing them too many problems. A Kobayashi header that went straight at the keeper and a well-saved long distance shot from Moriya are about the only ones I can remember. On 33 minutes we were dealt a huge blow as Sung-Ryong had to be replaced by Arai. I think he pulled something taking a long goal kick, (see, I told you we shouldn’t be doing those), and after a lengthy break in play, Arai came on to replace him. It initially looked like he might be able to continue, and there certainly seemed to be some deliberation about it, but I think the decision from Oniki was that we would probably need him in games to come, and why risk making a small injury into a bad injury, so better safe than sorry. Hope that this is right and it isn’t serious. I’m guessing it will probably be Arai starting on Wednesday against Kashiwa in the Emperor’s Cup. So, another chance for Arai who I think is a good keeper, but definitely doesn’t have the ball skills and the presence that Sung-Ryong does. Not long afterwards we took the lead. After all the chances that both teams had missed up till this point, the finish was a pretty easy one. Kengo delivered a free kick from the edge of the pitch, the keeper caught it, then dropped it, Edu’s seized the opportunity and prodded the ball towards/across the goal and Taniguchi passed it into the net. It might have been going in anyway, but probably best to make sure. We’ve been scoring from distance a lot recently, but this one couldn’t really have been any closer to the goal line. Great reaction from Edu to make the chance. As we went into injury time we were two ahead and this time it was a bit more spectacular. After a quick break out of defence we naturally slowed things down a little and kept possession in their half. After a few passes the ball fell to Miyoshi on the edge of the box and he smashed it in. Two up at half time, a bit harsh on Sanfrecce, but they really weren’t taking their chances. I guess that’s the difference in ‘luck’ when you’re near the top or the bottom of the table.

Given the finish to the first half, it's unsurprising that the second one started quite positively for us. We had obviously been buoyed by the late and perhaps slightly fortunate goals. The rain was easing off a little but the conditions were still playing their part. There were quite a few stoppages for injuries and we weren’t able to play our best football. But we were still doing ok. Our defending was a little desperate at times, but it was effective. Arai was doing ok. One site I saw has Sanfrecce as having no shots on goal in the whole game, which I don’t think is quite right, but there’s more to goalkeeping than just saves I guess. Like assists, but I’ll come to that later. Elsinho was quite involved and was creating some problems for them down the right and Taniguchi was still there, doing his job in the middle. Kobayashi had a few chances but things weren’t quite falling for him. Hasegawa picked up a yellow card, which was fair enough as it wasn’t a very good challenge. Perhaps this contributed to him being the next player replaced. Noborizato came on for him and once again made a decent impression. Our final change came on 75 minutes when Tasaka (back in his home town and making his 150th appearance), came on for Miyoshi. Sanfrecce made some changes too, with Frontale old boy Patric playing 25 minutes or so. When he was with us, I mainly remember him being a huge lump with not a great deal of technique. I can’t really comment on his current technique, but it seems he’s still being used in the same way and after his introduction they had a few more decent chances which again were off target. There’s not much else to say about the second half apart from our third goal, which came from a huge upfield punt from Arai and which was finished beautifully by Kobayashi. Again a bit harsh on Sanfrecce, but I guess when things aren’t going for you, these kind of things happen. The scoreline definitely flattered us, but we were worth the win with apparently two thirds of our fifteen shots being on target. Strangely, for once we didn’t dominate possession, I guess because we didn’t have Neto or Oshima in the middle and whilst Taniguchi and Moriya did a decent job, it was a different kind of game that we played. It’s great to see us grind out a win in touch circumstances, although maybe you can’t really grind out a 3-0. It definitely didn’t feel like a 3-0 though, but the three points were secured and that’s all that really matters at this stage of the season.

Postives and negatives. Let’s mix them up for a change. Not the most convincing performance but the result was good. We survived what looked like was going to be a tough match and Neto and Ienaga will be available for the next game. Elsinho probably played the best I’ve seen him play recently and looked a constant threat. Miyoshi and Hasegawa both did a decent job too. And our makeshift middle pairing Moriya and Taniguchi did what was required. However, we were lucky to have not conceded, but maybe this is a sign that things are going our way at the moment. Hope that lasts, but worried there will be a blip soon. A big negative has to be a potential injury to Sung-Ryong, although I’m hoping it wasn’t as serious as it might have looked from the substitution. Let’s hope it was precautionary. Big positive has to be Kashima losing against Yokohama. They must be feeling the pressure after that result, but they are still two points ahead and we still have to keep winning to keep our chances alive. Four more league games which require no slip ups from us, the last two of which will come within three days of each other due to Urawa’s ACL victory. But, let’s look on the bright side and hope that we can keep up this momentum that seems to be building.

Next up, we have a couple of games against Kashiwa. The first is at home on Wednesday in the Emperor’s Cup. Then we go to their place on Sunday for a tough league fixture. We did well there last year and they were doing pretty well this season but have stumbled a little in the last few games. The battle for third place is pretty tight and they are involved, so they will definitely have something to play for. These two games should be decent, but I’d quite happily settle for a couple of wins from underwhelming performances if that’s what it takes. Next up for Kashima is an away game at Consadole Sapporo which isn’t exactly a fixture you’d fancy when you’re wobbling. For this game, GO CONSADOLE! and of course, it goes without saying, go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 23. EDUARDO

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro (Yellow card 9')

MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (Yellow card 50')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota (on for JUNG 33')
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for HASEGAWA 60')
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke (on for MIYOSHI 75')
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki
FW 20. CHINEN Kei
MF 22. RHAYNER
DF 28. ITAKURA Ko


My Frontale Man Of The Match

As I said above, this wasn't the most convincing performance, but was a decent result. People did what they had to do. Elsinho stood out for me and there were some good finishes in the game as well as the lovely assist from Arai. But for the circumstances of the performance, I'll give it to...

TANIGUCHI Shogo - Did a decent job in a position that has not exactly been familiar for him recently. Solid in the defensive aspects of his job but also looked good going forward. Amazing finish for the goal too.


Goals
 
TANIGUCHI (Frontale) 40’ 0-1
MIYOSHI (Frontale) 45+1’ 0-2
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 85’ 0-3

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. And we have that extra footage video again at the bottom.

Vs Vegalta Sendai (home) 14/10/17, J-League match 29

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 2 Vegalta Sendai

Finally, our seemingly endless run of games against Sendai is over and I’m pretty sure we will come away from these games feeling pretty pleased with what we achieved. Once again this was a game with some strong similarities and some big differences to the other Sendai games. The big similarity is another two yellow red card with some controversy attached to it, (but maybe not so much with this one). Also, as in the first game, we had them taking a good lead and then a comeback. But significantly, the comeback this time was a complete one, rather than us just regaining some foothold in the tie. I don’t think I have seen scenes at Todoroki like we saw yesterday since the injury time Yokohama comeback last year. It was a pretty exhilarating experience and has done my voice no good at all. The fact that they also hit the bar near the end has made me consider whether this might be our year for the title. It certainly seemed to be a good omen, but I still think we won’t quite get there.

I guess Levain cup games are a different matter to league games, but there was quite a lot of continuity in the teams over the three games. For Sendai, the one noticeable change was Crislan dropping to the bench. I’m not a fan of him as I’m sure I mentioned a few times in the last couple of posts, so seeing him not starting was  quite pleasing in a few ways. This did mean though that Ishihara, (Sendai’s danger man according to Kobayashi), was back in the starting line up. With regards to our line up, Nobori is injured again. It seems likely that he had to be rushed back when he wasn’t quite ready. I salute him for his sacrifice in that respect as his presence when he played made a big difference. Kurumaya was back from international duty so reclaimed his usual place at left back. The rest of the defence was unchanged. Nara’s red card in the last game will mean he misses the Levain final rather than a league game. Neto and Moriya continued in the defensive midfield positions and the front four were Miyoshi, Kengo (playing his 400th J League game, quite an achievement!), Ienaga and Kobayashi. Miyoshi started on the right and Ienaga on the left, but they were changing wings occasionally during the game. On the bench were Arai, Tasaka, Morimoto, Hasegawa, Chinen, Rhayner and Itakura. So, quite an attacking bench, but I think this probably has something to do with the make up of our squad and the players available. I was pleased to see the ref was Ikeuchi, who I thought was a new official for me. Perhaps I’ve encountered him before, but he didn’t leave the usual shocking memories burned into the brain that most refs do. He definitely remedied that in this game though. The opening of the game was all action. Initially we were looking pretty good, attacking well, with plenty of possession and chances, but sadly little in the way of actual shots on target. Our attacks ended with us losing the ball to a packed Sendai defence or blasting it over the bar. It seemed that everyone wanted Kengo to score on his 400th appearance and were consequently trying to tee him up. His shooting was way off though. After our first ten minutes of attacking danger they really came into the game. Sendai were looking good, much better than in their last two games and much better than their league position would suggest. In the first half of the first leg of the Levain game they scored three times against us, but it was our terrible play rather than their brilliance which was affecting the game. In this game they were playing a lot better and forced Sung-Ryong into a crucial save early on. But for the most part we were resolute and prevented them from scoring. A few serious blips aside, our defence does seem to be much more solid this year. Taniguchi and Nara have a good partnership, the defensive midfield players in front of them have been doing a great job and Sung-Ryong has put in some world class performances. The ref seemed to be blowing up for everything, almost the anti ‘play-on’ Nishimura. There were plenty of free kicks and most of them were going to Sendai. I had no idea at the time but it became increasingly obvious as the game progressed, that Ikeuchi is a ref that statistically always favours the away team. I guess in his head he’s aware that the home team tend to get the balance of the decisions and is trying to even that up. He seems to have gone way too far the other way though, managing to provoke loud jeering and booing from the usually placid Frontale fans. He perhaps made a rod for his own back by starting to book people early on. On 22 minutes he booked a Sendai player for shoving Ienaga in the back and then pulling his shirt. I was initially worried as it looked a little like Ienaga might have trod on him as he tried to get away, but there was no reaction from the player or the ref. From the resulting free kick we got our first booking and it looked like we were set to have a game full of yellow cards. Ienaga got a yellow for a dive in the box. I think I was complaining recently that refs never seem to book players for these kind of things anymore. Well, I guess now they do. There’s no question it was a dive though, so fair enough. Not particularly pleased to see a Frontale player diving and it’s a really stupid way to pick up a card from a ref that seemed to be giving plenty of decisions against us.

We were starting to come back into the game a bit though. Aside from the dive Ienaga was playing pretty well. He’s definitely got to grips with how we play now and is an important part of our team. Which makes what happened on 41 minutes all the more unfortunate. After stopping a clearance with his guts, and challenging for the ball against the Sendai defender who was shielding it, Ienaga nudges him with his arm, the defender goes down and Ienaga gets his second yellow and an early bath. I think it looks worse than it was and with this ref it was always going to be given. Not sure he needs to make the challenge in that way. Ienaga seemed bemused by the decision but it was inevitable really. So, once again up against it, having to play a long period with just 10 men. The ref was starting to lose it a little. No-one on the pitch or in the stands seemed to know the thinking behind his decisions. Kengo even had a go at him for failing to give a clear free kick as he was running back to defend. Oniki looked pretty cheesed off. It was pretty weird. And then Neto gets a yellow as well, ruling him out of the next game. No complaints about this either, he swings at the ball way after it has gone and catches the player. Watching the highlights he looks pretty tired and maybe this was a tired challenge. Things weren't really going our way, but at least we weren’t behind. And then we were. It’s not the best goal, a nice pass initially, but Frontale loanee Nakano totally fluffs his shot and it ends up being a perfect ball to their onrushing attacker. I think the fluffed shot deceived Sung-Ryong but we probably should have defended a bit better. I get the impression that maybe we were trying to get to half time and then reorganise after the sending off. Sadly we didn’t make it.

The second half started with a change for us. Neto was replaced by Hasegawa with Kengo dropping back into Neto’s position. It was one of these brave substitutions that Oniki seems to be making a habit of. So far it's probably about a 50/50 success rate with them. I think Oniki’s subs are better than Kazama’s were though. That was a big weakness of ours last season for me. But yeah, definitely a brave change to remove our one remaining natural defensive midfielder and replace him with a winger. Sure, we needed to get a couple of goals, but we were risking exposing ourselves and Kengo hasn’t been the best in this position in the past. I think Neto’s yellow was definitely part of the reason for the change. We couldn’t expect him to get through the second half without Ikeuchi giving him another and we’d really be sunk with 9 against 12. We didn’t start particularly well, perhaps still reeling from the red card and goal conceded. The ref was really starting to come in for some abuse as he gave decision after decision to Sendai. The stats show a fairly even number of fouls, but I think there were plenty we should have got that were waved away. Elsinho got a hand in the face, nothing from the ref and so on. Sendai were back on the time wasting thing again. We were pretty ragtag up front. I can’t tell you who was playing where. I’m not entirely sure anyone knew. Aside from our disorganisation, we seemed to be having a pretty unlucky day. Every bounce or deflection seemed to be falling to them, but naturally this is only the opinion of someone wearing not rose-tinted, but probably more like rose-saturated spectacles. It really didn’t seem like it was going to be our day. And things got worse on 60 minutes when they doubled their lead. The move started deep in their half and three long passes later the ball was in the back of the net. It was a quick break, we had plenty of players back, but were flat-footed when the cross came in and it was an easy finish. Possibly Nara should have been a bit tighter on the striker and Sung-Ryong definitely could have got a bit closer to the shot. Another sucker punch and it looked like our league title aspirations were over. It really seemed it wasn’t going to be our day. We were trying, but too many players weren’t quite there and a few were pretty anonymous.

On 71 minutes Oniki made another surprising substitution, Moriya off and Rhayner on, bringing on another attacking player and removing another defensive midfielder. This really put a lot of pressure on Kengo who was now having to do the job of Neto and Moriya. I was very surprised by the sub and my only interpretation was that we were going all or nothing, kill or cure, shit or bust or any other combination of two words that doesn’t quite properly express what I am really trying to say. Rhayner seemed to be playing a fairly free role in the middle of the pitch. Five minutes later we upped the ante. Chinen came on for Miyoshi, who’d had a fairly quiet game. So now we had a big man up front to help Kobayashi. Once again, no idea where anyone else was playing apart from Kengo in the Neto role. Even Nara and Taniguchi were venturing forward. We were making chances but were very vulnerable to counter attacks. Rhayner was worrying the opposition with his possession and dribbling. We were starting to knock on the door, but still not really very close to getting it open. In spite of the inordinate amount of time their keeper was taking with his goal kicks no booking was forthcoming. The ref seemed to have given up a little. Maybe he was getting tired too. On 82 minutes the tide turned. Elsinho, received the ball on the edge of the box, took a touch and bent the ball into the top corner. A beautiful goal which slightly worryingly left him holding his back a little. Hope that’s not a new injury. Suddenly we were back in the game and were looking dangerous. Sendai, perhaps aware of their recent capitulations were wobbling. The noise in the stadium was pretty immense. I’ve rarely heard it so loud. We all seemed to believe we could get something. The goal brought Crislan on to the pitch, presumably to try to get some more of our players sent off. This substitution was met with a charging run down the left from Kurumaya, whose cross was nicely dummied by Rhayner, who then drew a couple of defenders out of the way of Kobayashi who beat another with a lovely little touch and curled the ball into the bottom left from pretty much the same position Elsinho scored from. Great stuff! The atmosphere cranked up another step. We were level, but a draw probably wasn’t going to be enough for us. But the onslaught continued. We were playing some great dynamic stuff and we scored a third, Kobayashi again, from distance again, but this time with his right foot after Hasegawa cut out a Vegalta clearance and passed to him. It’s weird that we have at times seemed reluctant to shoot from distance, but for 7 minutes of this game, everything we hit sailed into the net. It was a wonderful few minutes of football and the celebrations in the stands were great. High fives all round! We’d smacked our fair share of shots high over the bar earlier in this game, but the momentum of Elsinho’s goal aligned the stars and everything was suddenly perfect. Let’s hope we can recapture this in our remaining games this year. The comeback was perfect but was almost undone when Sendai broke and hit the bar. I’m not particularly a believer in omens, but as I said above, it would be nice to think that this is a sign of our luck over the coming weeks. Every game now is crucial and the injuries and bans are starting to pile up. Both Neto and Ienaga will be absent in our next game, serving bans for accumulated yellow cards and the red. Moriya will be crucial and I’d guess Itakura will be back in midfield. Not our first choice pairing in those positions, but two players who will hopefully rise to the occasion. We won’t have as much trouble replacing Ienaga as we’ve got a never ending supply of attacking midfielders it seems. It’s a shame though, as aside from his dive, he’s been doing pretty well recently. Fingers crossed. The final thing of note in the game was Sung-Ryong picking up a yellow for time wasting at the end. No surprises about that from this ref I guess. We won, at some cost, but we keep going, waiting for another Kashima slip up, but running out of games. Fingers crossed about that too.

Positives and negatives. Let’s start negative. Couple of stupid yellows for Ienaga mean that we’ll play the next game without someone who’s been getting better and better over recent weeks. I don’t like diving and this was a clear dive. Hope it discourages him in the future. Also, Neto finally received the yellow that has been hanging over his head which means he’ll also miss the next game. We conceded another couple of goals which isn’t ideal. The first I guess was in part due to the sending off after which we were still a bit disorganised. The second was a bit of a clanger though. We had numbers back and were undone by a deep cross. However, it’s good that these negatives are from a game that we still won. As long as we’re collecting the wins we shouldn’t moan too much about the way we’re getting them, I guess. I’m not sure where Oniki’s substitutions fit into the picture. It’s clear that before the last two subs we were losing and afterwards we were winning so that’s got to go down as a good thing. Did feel a bit like we were throwing on attacker after attacker till we scored though. If this keeps working, bravo! But I wonder how often we’ll get away with it if we keep trying it in the future. The big positive has to be the amazing comeback. Sure we did a similar one against Sagan Tosu away, but this time it was with only 10 men. Must say something about the determination and team spirit and possibly it’s these kind of backs against the wall performances that could give us the grit we need to get over the finishing line. I think Ienaga owes his team mates a drink or two anyway. It’s great to see us scoring goals like we did. Whilst it’s fun to watch our patient passing build ups resulting in great team goals, it’s often a lot more fun to see someone leather the ball into the back of the net from a way out. It speaks volumes that our goals were numbers 1, 2 and 3 of the J League’s best 5 goals of the weekend. It’s probably also a positive that we managed to get 3 points from a game refereed by an official whose games result in an average of zero points for the home team. Seriously, this was apparently the actual statistic! Let’s hope he’s got a couple of Kashima home games before the season finishes. One final positive has to be the entertaining sight of a flock of pigeons who were determined to feast on something on the pitch. Every time the ball came near them, they'd scatter, reform and then settle on a new part of the pitch. Early on, they were providing as much of a spectacle as the game was. Maybe I should take up bird-watching.

Next up, we’re away to Sanfrecce Hiroshima which will complete my set of all the current J League away grounds. It sounds a right pain to get to though. Sanfrecce are fighting for their lives at the moment and have dropped into the relegation zone. It’s pretty tight down the bottom for that final relegation spot, but maybe the fact that they need a win could work in our favour. By the way, Kashima are away to Yokohama. Hopefully our neighbours could do us a favor. After that we’re back at home and in the Emperor’s Cup again. This will be the first of two games in a row against Kashiwa which won’t be easy. After that it’s the Levain Cup final. Busy times for us. Hopefully we can keep the wins coming. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG (Yellow card 90+1')

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO (Yellow card 45+1')

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 23', second yellow/red card 42')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for NETO 46')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for MIYOSHI 76')
MF 22. RHAYNER (on for MORIYA 71')
DF 28. ITAKURA Ko


My Frontale Man Of The Match

This week, I'm going to go against what seems to be popular opinion. Whilst it's true that Kobayashi's goals were great and his second was a more than worthy winner, I think our first goal was the turning point where we started to dare to dream of a comeback. So, with that in mind it's going to...

ELSINHO - For the simple fact that his willingness to shoot from distance led to a great goal that turned the tide in a game that had drifted away. It was almost like he flicked a switch and our team really came alive. The momentum it created won us the game.

Goals
 
NOTSUDA (Sendai) 45+4’ 0-1
ISHIHARA (Sendai) 60’ 0-2
ELSINHO (Frontale) 82’ 1-2
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 84’ 2-2
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 87’ 3-2

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. And we have that extra footage video again at the bottom.

Vs Vegalta Sendai (home) 8/10/17, Levain Cup, semi final 2nd leg

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Vegalta Sendai (5-4 on agg.)

This was a pretty uncomfortable afternoon at the Todoroki, but at least one with a pleasing outcome. The first and second legs of this tie were at the same time polar opposites and very similar, if that even makes sense. Polar opposites in the sense that Wednesday was a loss that felt like a win, and this match was a win that at times felt quite like a loss. Similar in the way that both games featured the home side dominating the first half and then getting battered in the second half. Both games featured some dubious refereeing with a home player being sent off for two yellows which had a big effect on the game. I guess the significant difference is that we managed to defend a little better when we were under the cosh. But don’t be under any illusions, it was far from comfortable. But yes! We’re there in the final and we’ll play Cerezo Osaka so there will be a new name on the trophy this year. Perhaps contrary to most people’s wishes, I wanted to play Gamba in the final. When the semi-finals were announced and we had just smacked Cerezo in the league, I predicted that it would be a Frontale Cerezo final with the recent 5-1 victory giving them a real desire to win the game. It does seem to be the case that after we give someone a pasting at our place we don’t do so well against them the next time we play them, particularly when it's away. We hammered Kobe at home and then could only manage a probably disastrous (for our title hopes), 0-0 away. We beat Urawa 4-1 and then 3-1 before throwing away our ACL campaign at the Saitama Stadium. I guess at least this game will be on neutral ground, but it’s back to the Saitama Stadium that we’ll be going. I hope that memories of our recent capitulation there won’t play on our minds too much. Anyway, enough of the predictions of doom and gloom and on to the game in hand.

Unsurprisingly, after the first half on Wednesday, Oniki decided to go with a back four from the start. Kurumaya is still away with the national team. Hopefully he’ll get a chance in the next Japan game as it will be pretty annoying if he’s been taken away from us when we have a couple of crucial games to just sit on the national team bench and be patted on the head by Halilhodzic. Nobori was in from the start this time, with Nara and Taniguchi in the middle and Elsinho on the right. Itakura was dropped to the bench. Because of this, Miyoshi found himself starting on the right, (the rules of this competition stipulate that one under 21 player has to be in the starting line-up). He’s been a bit of a mystery recently, not even getting on the bench, but he seems to be back, and back with a bit of a bang judging by his performance in this game. To his left, in the middle of the pitch, was Kengo and Ienaga was on the left. Kobayashi was up front and the defensive midfielders were Neto and Moriya. Morimoto made it back to the bench and he was joined there by Wednesday’s goal scoring hero Chinen, and Arai, Tasaka, Hasegawa, Rhayner and Itakura. Unlike Wednesday we started fairly well. Sendai seemed to be playing a similar game to us, passing the ball around and building things up slowly. Perhaps they were trying to protect their lead a little, with every minute taken up without us scoring meaning they were one step closer to going through. The referee roulette this time gave us Iemoto, who of course is on my referee blacklist (who isn’t?). His main contribution to the game seemed to be a desire to play on all the time, in almost any situation, with very few fouls being penalised with a free kick (although looking at the stats, there did seem to be a fair few given in the first half, so that shows how much I know). We received two yellows in the first half, both of which were given from a surprisingly long distance and very quickly. I can’t comment on the challenges as I saw them from even further away than the ref did. Of course the only reason I am mentioning these is because of Nara picking up a yellow in both halves. I was slightly concerned that one of our centre backs got a yellow in the 14th minute. A booking so early in the game does put you at risk, especially when you’re playing against the despicable Crislan (of course, I’d say this, but his penalty run up and general fouliness is still irking me). We were making some good chances but a combination of poor finishing and decent goalkeeping was keeping us at bay. But we made the breakthrough on 28 minutes and it was through Miyoshi. He picked up the ball on the wing, laid it off to Moriya, who passed to Kengo. Kengo put Miyoshi through with a lovely backheel and Miyoshi finished neatly at the near post. It was a nice goal and put us ahead in the game and overall. Whilst the tie was still even, we were in front on away goals. Things were still precarious though as any Sendai goal would put us behind again. Whilst we were still singing the definitely overlong goal celebration song, Sendai went up the other end and put the ball in the net. It was Frontale loan player Nakano who scored, but the goal was ruled out for a foul Crislan made on Sung-Ryong. No booking for him though. Given that this is the Levain cup, we have those extra goal line officials. Not sure if they spotted the infringement, but I think pretty much any off the ball contact on the keeper counts as a foul. It was a big relief certainly and a bit of a let off. The game was end to end at this stage. Neither team wanted the scoreline to stay the way it was. They needed a goal to win and we needed a goal to give ourselves some breathing space. As end to end suggests, the game was a little ragged with both teams being stretched and not playing their best football in defence. The half finished with an equal amount of shots for both teams, but I think we’d had the better of it. We were certainly in for an interesting second half. Sure we had the advantage, but it was a slim one, and we also have a history and some recent experience of choking. Fingers were crossed.

The second half started with no changes and Miyoshi sending a shot whistling past the post. Miyoshi does definitely seem to offer us something that our other strikers don’t. I’m not saying he’s greedy, but he definitely has a sharp focus on scoring. He made up for his miss a few minutes later when we went two up. This time it was a Kobayashi dummy that sent us through on goal. Elsinho’s shot was saved by the keeper but Miyoshi was there to turn the rebound home. All was good in the world. They now needed two goals, as one would have us still ahead on away goals. Little were we to know that the whole feel of the match would turn soon afterwards. Nakano, who seemed determined to make his mark on the match, and apparently rule out any chance of returning to us after his loan, received the ball and went past Nara. There was the slightest of contact and he went down. Nara’s immediate reaction suggested that he knew what was coming, and plenty of Sendai players were on hand to help the ref make his decision. The second yellow came out and then the red, brandished with a slight smirk by Iemoto. Not sure about that. I wish I could remember the first yellow better. The second seemed a little harsh, but I guess if contact was made it was probably going to be given. Nakano certainly seemed to go down easily though. He’d previously fallen over running towards goal earlier in the game, so maybe he had a problem with his boots… But anyway, the situation was pretty reminiscent of the first leg where Sendai lost a player to a couple of yellows. This was a defender rather than a striker though, was a lot earlier in the game and meant that Itakura would be coming on in the centre of the defence. Moriya was sacrificed which meant Kengo dropped back a little. So, down to ten men for almost half a game in the second leg of a cup competition. Recent memories were way too prominent in my mind, so I guess the players were thinking the same thing. We started sending the ball long again from goal kicks and free kicks. I know we had one less player, but this has failed to be an effective tactic time and time again this season, so I don’t know why we are persisting with it. As has been the case pretty much every time we've done it, the ball was being won by them and coming straight back at us. Our defending was starting to get a bit desperate. Ienaga was doing a great job at both ends of the pitch, helping out in defence but also using his strength to try to hold on to the ball. We were still making chances, but we were having to stop a lot more of their chances. Crislan was making his presence felt in the way he knows best, crashing in late on Sung-Ryong, “challenging for the ball” but conveniently leaving a boot in. He really is a nasty piece of work. I think it’s fair to say that we were doing a little time wasting though, so perhaps the result of some of his challenges weren’t quite as bad as it might have looked. Hasegawa came on for Miyoshi. A good idea I think, as although they are similar players, it made sense to freshen things up a little and give the defenders a new challenge on our occasional breakaways. But it was mainly one way traffic. Oniki made our final change on 83 minutes, bringing Rhayner on for Kobayashi. Rhayner, like Neto, is very good on the ball but doesn’t seem to be that good at shooting, but his arrival definitely released a bit of pressure. We were giving them something to worry about as we had a bit of pace and guile about our breakaways. Slightly against the run of play, we scored again. With only four players up against seven defenders Neto threaded a pass to Hasegawa, who took a touch and then bent the ball into the top corner. Cue wild celebrations, but it wasn’t over. A goal for them would send us to extra time and we still had six minutes of injury time to deal with. But we hung on and we were through to the final against Cerezo Osaka in a few weeks.

Positives and negatives. Let’s start negative. This was not a great performance. Sure, the sending off changed the game, and we dealt better with it this time, compared to the Urawa disaster, but it was still hearts in the mouth stuff for almost 45 minutes. Certainly, if we hadn’t given ourselves such a mountain to climb from the first half of the first leg, things would have been easier. Nara’s red card means he’ll be banned for the final, which is horrible for him and not great for us. He’s been playing well recently and will be a big miss. I guess this means that Edu will come in, and that in turn probably means Rhayner won’t be taking part. Although the performance wasn’t the best, I think I’ll leave it there for negatives as we won and we’re through. Positives. Great reaction from Miyoshi, coming in after a long time without playing. His goals weren’t spectacular, but it’s nice that he put two away, boosting his confidence and giving Oniki something to think about. Another good performance from Sung-Ryong, keeping us alive on a few occasions. Ienaga was great, particularly when we were up against it towards the end. Lovely goal from Hasegawa and good work from him and Rhayner to ease the pressure a little at the end. The biggest positive has to be that we’re though to the final. It was nowhere near as smooth a ride as we had against FC Tokyo and we looked pretty awful at times in this tie, but we made it. It was for the most part a thoroughly uncomfortable game to watch in the stands, but we did our job and we have a chance to win our first trophy. As I said above, I’m a little worried about playing Cerezo, as they’ll have revenge on their mind and our apparently innate high level of chokability means that we can’t take anything for granted. The final is not too far away, (November 4th) and who knows what will happen in between now and then. Perhaps Abe will be back. We should have Kurumaya too. But also we could lose some others. Whilst the games aren’t coming quite so rapidly as they were a couple of months ago, we still have four matches in between now and then.

Next up, we play Sendai again, at home again, but this time in the league. It’s another must win for us to keep the pressure on Kashima. Let’s hopefully keep the momentum going and avoid any slip ups. This season could still be a huge success or another year of painful second place, (or worse), finishes. The treble is on, but so is another trophyless season. Fingers crossed it’s the former! Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki  (Yellow card 14', second yellow/red card 52')

DF 2. NOBORIZATI Kyohei
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji (Yellow card 27')

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for MIYOSHI 66')

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

MF 22. RHAYNER (on for KOBAYASHI 83')

DF 28. ITAKURA Ko (on for MORIYA 56')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

A few players in contention for this in this game. It was a bit of a backs against the wall effort, particularly in the second half but we stood up much better than we did in the first half of the first leg. Sung-Ryong made some important saves and had to deal with some rough treatment. Hasegawa scored a beauty and his combination with Rhayner eased the pressure late on. I’m having real trouble deciding between two players though, so I think I’m going to cop out and give it to both of them. After all, I’ve given it to the whole team before and also to no one before, so I guess I can do what I want.

MIYOSHI Koji & IENAGA Akihiro - Two goals after ages out of the squad from Miyoshi is a real statement of intent. He has a real desire to score and a willingness to shoot which we sometimes lack. Ienaga had a understated but dominant game. Did everything he was supposed to do, gave us options up front on and off the ball and tackled back fantastically in the second half. Really looks like he’s enjoying his football with us too now. Long may that continue!

Goals  

MIYOSHI (Frontale) 29' 1-0
MIYOSHI (Frontale) 49' 2-0
NAKANO (Sendai) 59' 2-1
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 90' 3-1

Highlights