Vs Vissel Kobe (away) 28/4/18 - J League match 11

 

Vissel Kobe 1 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

I seem to keep mentioning the busy schedule but had no idea it would take its toll on me before it did any of the players. Due to injury (well, more illness if I’m being honest), I had to rule myself out of this fixture at the last minute and instead watched it on DAZN whilst convalescing. Typical then, that we won away at Kobe. I don’t think I’ve ever seen us win there and there is usually some kind of calamity involved with the game. Perhaps it’s me who is the unlucky Kobe away charm. If we lose there next year and I attend you can blame me. By the way, thank you Kaoru for the photo above.

I’ll just write a few thoughts about the game, as I still think that in spite of the lack of replays and camera angles, you really get a better picture of the game when you’re in the stadium, rather than watching online. Okubo took Kengo’s place in this game, and I thought he had one of his better games for us this year. He played in the Kengo role and up front at various stages of this game and I thought he looked quite canny and sharp. Our first goal was a great bit of goal poaching from Taniguchi, stabbing home as the defender dallied. Quite satisfying given our recent struggles at this ground. We were shooting a lot in the first half and once again didn’t seem afraid of going a bit more direct. We had a few decent chances from quick breaks but couldn’t extend our lead. Kobe were as usual, a nasty little fouling team, now with a whinging captain. It seems crazy for them to make Podolski their captain given the fact that he seems to swing between the two extremes of not being bothered at all, looking bored and playing like he has a personal vendetta against all of our players.

We were pretty useless for most of the second half but thankfully so were Kobe for the first part of it. They had their first shot on target on 63 minutes. They did improve though and got an equaliser from a lovely finish. This shook us awake a little and we were further helped by them going down to ten men shortly afterwards. It was a second yellow and looked fair enough to me, an off the ball elbow to the neck, but there weren’t many replays from different angles so I can’t be sure. The ref was perfectly positioned though. The late winner we snatched was a beauty, or at least the turn from Kobayashi was. He had a relatively easy finish after the lovely turn and thankfully he put it away. Nice! A fairly average performance from us, but we showed a few flashes of skill to win the game, and given the recent history of this fixture, I think we’ll take any kind of win.

Next up Urawa at home on Wednesday. Let’s hope we can make our three match winning run into a four match winning run. Presumably, Urawa will get it together sooner or later. Hopefully not next Wednesday. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki 

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

MF 4. OKUBO Yoshito

MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke (on for ABE 82')

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo (on for OKUBO 70')

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 68')
DF 17. TAKEOKA Yuto
DF 23. EDUARDO

MF 25. MORITA Hidemasa

Goals 

TANIGUCHI (Frontale) 7' 0-1

MITA (Kobe) 78' 1-1 

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 88' 1-2

Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that a previous 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 Sagan Tosu (away) 25/4/18 - J League match 10

Sagan Tosu 0 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

The busy J League schedule continues and I am getting closer and closer to not finishing a blog post before the following game. That’s my first reason for this being a bit shorter than usual. Which to be honest, is probably a good thing as when I looked back on one of the old posts on my phone it did look overly long. I guess once I get started, I find it difficult to stop. The second reason for this being shorter than usual is that I was able to take advantage of both the local Sake and Shochu before the game and therefore find myself with not a lot of notes. The servings was very generous and needless to say, I had a great time at this game. In our usual excitement over the friendliness of Sendai, it’s often forgotten that we can also walk all the way round the ground at this fixture. Everyone was very nice too. Whilst this game didn’t quite live up to the exciting level last year’s super second half comeback reached, it was a decent performance and a reasonably comfortable win with only a few worrying moments. Well worth the long journey to Saga. I take my hat off to their fans who attend away games, as we only have a couple of really long trips this season, (this game and Sapporo), but they presumably have to take a plane for the majority of their away games. The schedule has certainly taken its toll on me and tomorrow’s early start to get to Kobe is already looking like it will give me a headache. But on we go!

The big team news before this match was that Oshima and Kobayashi were back on the bench. And both made their mark when they came on. I don’t particularly think we were struggling without them, but in the first half, perhaps things were starting to go a little stale for us. This was a fairly atypical game for us, with Tosu having more of the possession but us just about shading it on chances. The game started with a few decent early chances for them, but we were once again defending resolutely and when we weren’t Sung-Ryong was pulling out some quality saves. Things weren’t quite working out for us, with the final ball not really getting there. Neto was dropping very deep trying to start attacks with the two centre backs ahead of him on either side. We were getting forward, but both Kengo and Chinen weren’t quite at the races in the first half. Perhaps it was a little reminiscent of last season, where we played horribly in the first half and didn’t get going till we’d made a couple of changes. I think in that game it was Ienaga and Miyoshi who started and were replaced. Seems weird to think that Ienaga was struggling a little when he first joined us now, as he’s an absolute crucial part of the team now. We only managed a couple of shots in the first half. They did a bit better, mainly hitting us with quick breaks, but we stood firm and went into the break level.

Oniki brought on Kobayashi for Chinen at half time. It always feels a bit harsh to sub someone at half time, but if the change was due to come anyway, it makes sense to do it during the break. And it certainly seemed to give both the fans and the players a boost. We started looking a lot more positive. Oniki made his second change ten minutes later, bringing on Oshima for Morita, who much like Chinen, was doing ok, but not looking quite as sharp as we’ve seen him recently. Oshima was almost immediately involved, setting up Abe for his long overdue first goal of the season. It was a weird one, as the assist from Oshima was a header but I’m not sure it was completely what he intended. At the time, the finish looked a bit lucky, but watching the replay, it’s a lovely lob from Abe, who was doing a great job of holding off the defender, clipping it over the keeper, far enough away from the defender racing back to clear it. Delighted to see him off the mark finally. Let’s hope it’s the first of many. Our second goal was also a first of the season, this time for Kobayashi. [Actually, it was his second, guess the Shonan game was pretty forgettable.] Recent hero Ienaga put a lovely ball through for Abe, whose cross was inch-perfect and it was an easy finish for Kobayashi. This gave us a fair bit of confidence and we started piling forward a bit more. But it seemed that the game had been pretty much decided, with both teams not really coming that close to adding to the goals. Not the most beautiful of games, but another win and a professional job done.

There were a few positives to take from this match. Tosu are a bit of a bogey team for us, but we managed to beat them fairly comfortably with some good finishing (!?!). Hopefully goals will build confidence and this two game winning streak can continue. The big positive has to be the first goals of the season from Abe and Kobayashi. Kobayashi in particular is a confidence player and will get better the more he scores. It was a bit strange to see him score with one of his first chances, as he normally seems to need a few to find his range. I guess it helped that it was a header rather than a shot. Another big bonus is that our Tamagawa neighbours FC Tokyo gave Sanfrecce a bit of a going over. I don’t particularly want to see FC Tokyo win, but Hiroshima were on a bit of a dangerous run and stretching their lead at the top of the table, so hopefully that result should put a check on that slightly. It did mean that FC Tokyo stayed ahead of us in the table though, making our upcoming Tamagawa derby one of the more significant ones of the past few seasons, if you consider the relative league positions of the teams. I’m not going to pick holes in the performance and look for negatives. I had a nice time and we won what can be a tough away game. Perhaps the busy schedule is taking its toll on a few players, but hopefully the wins should cancel out a bit of the fatigue.

Next up, Kobe away in the league. Hope they’ve sorted that pitch out. After that, we’ve got a home game on Wednesday against Urawa Reds. Fingers crossed we can avoid them taking advantage of the new manager boost that teams sometimes get. Then to round off Golden Week, FC Tokyo visit us the following Saturday. Then we get a little break. Nine more points from these three games would make a pretty damn good Golden Week. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki 

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 25. MORITA Hidemasa

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
FW 4. OKUBO Yoshito (on for EDUARDO NETO 81')
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for MORITA 55')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for CHINEN 46')
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya 
DF 17. TAKEOKA Yuto
DF 23. EDUARDO


My Frontale Man Of The Match

Plenty of options again. I was thinking about giving it jointly to Taniguchi and Nara as they were pretty solid. Sung-Ryong made a couple of excellent and crucial saves. Elsinho was a constant threat down the left and looked knackered at the end so had obviously worked hard. I think after watching the replays though, it should go to…

ABE Hiroyuki - Lovely finish for the goal and great cross for the second. Has been pretty quiet recently, working his socks off without things really clicking for him, so really deserves to get noticed for his contributions.

 
Goals 

ABE (Frontale) 56' 0-1

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 67' 0-2

Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that a previous 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 Kashima Antlers (home) 21/4/18 - J League match 9

Kawasaki Frontale 4 - 1 Kashima Antlers

Aaaaahhhhhh. What a difference a win makes! Particularly if it’s against a team that always tends to beat us in crucial games. This was a long overdue result and a very welcome one. Long overdue, not because we’ve been unlucky and deserved a break, but more that we haven’t got going this season yet, and although yesterday’s scoreline flatters us, a thumping handed out by us couldn’t have happened to a more deserving team! Admittedly, Kashima haven’t been doing particularly well this season, and they have a lot of injuries, and they outplayed us for at least half of the first half, so this might not be quite the statement of intent that some may consider it to be, but let’s just enjoy the moment and the welcome confidence boost that this should give us.

It was a nice sunny day at Todoroki and we had a full house with the game being a sell out (but still a couple of thousand under 'capacity', I guess due to the seats cordoned off to segregate the supporters. Kashima had turned up with quite a few fans and some new ridiculous ‘Spirit Of Zico’ flags. In the past I have always enjoyed these slogans as they sound a little like a tribute to a dead club legend rather than an ethos. The Brazilian flair suggested by the slogan also jars a little with Kashima’s usual fouling, counter-attacking ugly football. I enjoyed it even more this year after seeing a documentary demonstrating the wonder of the ‘spirit of zico’, when he spat on the ball after a penalty was awarded against his team and received a red card. Yeah! That’s the kind of thing we should all be celebrating, eh? Their time line-up was light on Brazilians, what with them being injured, so we were unable to see the detestable Leandro. They still had plenty of nastiness in their line-up though with the equally detestable Kanazaki and Suzuki up front and Ogasawara in midfield. They got a few boos from our fans. Their fans returned the compliment when that year recap thing we show before the team announcement rolled on to 2017 and showed us celebrating our league win. It was quite funny to be honest. I should restate, in case you hadn’t realised, and if you hadn’t, I’m surprised, that I really don’t like Kashima. As our team was announced, Fronta and Cabrera showed off some new mimes for the various players. I’ll try to get them on video next time as they were really quite entertaining.

Our team was as expected, with the only really changes to what we would consider our first eleven being Morita in for the once again injured Oshima, and Chinen in for the still injured Kobayashi. Oshima really is quite unlucky with injuries. Hope he recovers soon. Sung-Ryong was wearing his red keeper’s kit for the first time. I’m not sure if this prevented Kashima from wearing their normal red. I hope so! Within the first couple of minutes, we were treated to a couple of nasty fouls from Kashima, who clearly were going to start as they intended to continue. Plenty of opportunities for me to have a good grumble and boo and shout at the ref, who on this occasion was Araki. Since I’ve started tagging the refs on these posts, it’s easy to look back and see what blunders a particular ref was responsible for in his last appearance in one of our games. On scanning the post I was heartened to see that in our previous encounter with Araki, (Shonan at home earlier this season), I didn’t seem to have mentioned the ref much at all. And to be honest, apart from letting Kashima get away without bookings for some dodgy fouls and a slightly baffling yellow for Taniguchi (haven’t watched it back though, so I may be remembering inaccurately), he wasn’t actually so bad. I thought he was giving them everything, but I think the Kashima fans thought he was giving us everything so I suppose that evens out. Anyway, he at least appeared to know the rules of the game. Satisfyingly, we were a goal ahead not long into the game. I’d like Ienaga to be able to claim it, but he clearly was crossing the ball. It was a lovely finish from the Kashima defender who stuck out a leg and powered the ball past his own keeper. Justice! Much like the game last year when the dastardly Leandro didn’t give us the ball back after we put it out of play for their injury, we won the ball back and went and scored. Lovely! We were in complete control. Chinen was causing them problems, Kengo was masterfully spreading the ball around and Neto was dealing with anything that was coming at us. After recent games though, it did feel like we really needed another goal to settle ourselves a bit. Sadly, instead of getting this extra cushion after 15 minutes of trying, either we took our foot off the gas or they started actually trying to play football instead of kick lumps out of us. For the rest of the first half, it was more a matter of not conceding than scoring again. The momentum had totally swung in their favour, and if it wasn’t for some resolute defending from Nara and Tanuguchi we could have thrown away another lead. There was a bit of a ruckus around the half hour mark with nasty little Yuma Suzuki shoving over Ienaga. Nara got ‘up in his face’ as I believe the phrase goes and Suzuki bleated to the ref before Ienaga kind of flicked his shoulder at him, getting a yellow card. Seems that some Frontale fans on the internet are mad at Nara for doing this, although presumably not at Ienaga. Suzuki completely escaped punishment for the shove, which might explain the disbelieving expression on his face, but I think that was more as a reaction to the fact that the ref hadn’t sent off the entire Frontale team. He’s clearly the kind of player that opposition fans hate, but sometimes in those cases, you’d like to have him on your own team. With Suzuki, I’d be very unhappy to have him on our team. Keep well away please! Their front two of Suzuki and Kanazaki have got to be right up there if you’re looking for the most irritating attacking units in the J League. Somewhat bizarrely, in spite of the ball running off the pitch for a goal kick and Suzuki clearly fouling Ienaga, the ref restarted play with a drop ball. No idea why. They were clearly in the ascendancy and we needed to see things out till half time. Which we did thankfully. Their attacks kept coming and we were clearing the ball, but clearing it straight back to them and then back to step one and repeat. Would have loved a bit of possession to slow things down a little but we weren’t able to hang on to the ball for very long. Goal kicks were being sent long rather than us building from the back. Perhaps it saved us from making a blunder and presenting them with a chance, but it did mean that more often than not, we were just returning possession to them. In any case, we made it through to half time and could have a little sit down and hopefully avoid a half time team talk like the one against Ulsan.

Bizarrely, none of their subs were out at half time. I guess there were some kind of strategic talks going on in their changing room. Not sure if it did much good though, as we scored within two minutes of the restart and it came from the slightly unlikely right boot of Neto. It was some lovely work from him and shows that when he shoots a bit closer to the goal he’s a lot more accurate. He’s now our joint top scorer this season, along with a couple of other goal scorers from this game. This goal really knocked the stuffing out of Kashima. I guess a lot of their half time plans were left in tatters by conceding again so early on. Their defence started to look really shaky. They weren’t doing much better up front. Suzuki committed a horrible foul against Nara, clearly ‘revenge’ for the first half, elbowing him in the back of the neck and knocking him to the floor with no attempt to play the ball. Still no yellow. Seems he is some kind of protected species. We were still coasting on the confidence we’d gained from the goal and playing some nice stuff, but were missing a few good chances. And it looked like we might be made to pay for it as they got a goal back from a free kick. It was a little unfortunate as it took a big deflection of the wall, wrong footing Sung-Ryong, but I suppose they did give us a goal in the first half, so we shouldn’t grumble. So it looked like we might wobble again, but thankfully we restored our lead almost immediately, with a horror show back pass being seized on by Kengo and calmly finished through the keeper’s legs. Cue Kengo’s BKB celebration and Neto spraying him with water. Judging by this and his shoe-shine celebration in a previous match, Neto seems to have been watching a youtube compilation of humourous and memorable goal celebrations recently and is now attempting to try out some of his favourites. He reprised the spraying water one when Okubo scored too. This third goal was the most crucial of the game, as it must have totally deflated Kashima. I’m really pleased we could respond so quickly as more often than not, it’s us who concedes immediately after scoring. So, a hammer blow to Kashima’s hopes of getting anything from the game and another nice little confidence boost for us. I’m not sure the game was totally over at this stage, but gave us a huge lift. Ten minutes later, Okubo was on for Chinen. If ever a game was made for Okubo, this was the one; against big name opposition who had come with a bit of a physical game plan and were in a bit of a state at the back. One of his first actions on the pitch was to be fouled by Kashima’s international centre back Shoji, who picked up his second yellow and was consequently sent off. The first yellow was picked up in the first half for a high boot on Ienaga who was racing past him. The second was a big body check as  Okubo was about to pass him and run through on goal. He can’t complain about either really. But if there was any doubt about how the game was going to end, this really extinguished it.  And then Okubo added to the lead to put the game either further beyond doubt. It was a lovely team move with us stretching play right across the pitch. Okubo appeared to be fouled, went down clutching his face and then made a 'quick recovery' and a great run to be able to finish nicely from a clever pass from Ienaga. And Neto did his soaking thing again. The final ten minutes saw Ienaga get a well deserved rest after being replaced by Saito and Kengo get a rest after being replaced somewhat bizarrely by Takeoka. The outcome of these subs was that Elsinho pushed up into midfield and Abe was playing in the Kengo role and seemed to be doing a great job of it, although you have to remember that we were playing ten men and their spirit was somewhat broken, to say the least. There were still chances coming and it seemed that everyone was trying to set up either Abe or Saito, who are both still to get their first goal and probably need one soon to really get going. Sadly neither of them managed to, and sadly we were unable to pile any more humiliation on Kashima. But, all in all, a pretty good day at the office.

It seems churlish to talk of negatives when you beat Kashima 4-1 so I’ll stick to some more general comments. This was a great result and one which we needed much more for our confidence (which looked to be rock bottom), rather than for the points and the league position. I feel pretty positive now that we might be able to finally get something going this season. Hopefully this positivity will carry on for a while, preferably for the rest of the season, but maybe that’s too much to ask. I’d say that Oniki has tweaked things a little tactically. We looked a lot more willing to go more directly for goal, at least on occasions anyway. In the previous few games it seemed that this was to be avoided at all costs, but now of there’s a chance there to have a shot, people are giving it a go. Of course, goals breed confidence and also if we’re winning, the opposition need to actually try to play a bit, giving us further chances to score. I just wish we’d got an early goal against Cerezo and Hiroshima. And Sendai. And Yokohama. Although the first two were the ones where we could have done with the opposition trying to attack more rather than defending doggedly in numbers. This scoreline clearly flattered us. We were having a lot of trouble stopping them for a lot of the first half. But to our credit, we did stop them. Their goal was unfortunate, but we shouldn’t worry too much about it as these things happen. It was the least they deserved for the sustained pressure they put us under in the first half. Naturally, I’d rather they hadn’t got it, but at least we can say it was an unlucky one to concede. There were some big performances put in by quite a few players and everyone played their part. We should remember though, that not everyone is going to play like Kashima did against us, and that we still probably need to come up with a way to beat teams who might be more interested in defending in numbers and hoping for a draw or to sneak a win with a goal on a fast breakaway. So, yeah, it was great to beat Kashima 4-1, but let’s not get carried away as this was clearly a day when things were going well for us and we rode our luck at times. We had a lot of shots. Lots of them were on target. We scored a lot of goals. I’m all in favour of that! Let’s keep the confidence up and keep on with these kind of performances.

Next up we have the potential banana skin of Sagan Tosu away on Wednesday evening. Cheers J League for that wonderful piece of fixture scheduling. They’re a team that we do tend to have trouble against, and at the moment they are near the bottom of the table, (another common ingredient for a bad performance from us). Last year’s away game against them was the scene of an amazing comeback and was maybe my game of the season. At least from the point of view of excitement. This year, I have decided to try one of the many shochus they have available. Makes a change from the usual pre-game beer I guess. Presumably, I will have even less notes than usual after that. And then, another potentially difficult away trip, Kobe on Saturday. Apparently, they’ve sorted out their horrible pitch, but I’ll believe it when I see it. So we’re going to be spending quite some time on planes and trains in the next week. I hope we can also spend quite some time celebrating some goals and victories and get a little run going. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo (Yellow card 51')

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki 

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 25. MORITA Hidemasa

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 29')

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
FW 4. OKUBO Yoshito (on for CHINEN 75')
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya 
DF 17. TAKEOKA Yuto (on for NAKAMURA 89')
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
DF 23. EDUARDO
MF 37. SAITO Manabu (on for IENAGA 84')


My Frontale Man Of The Match

No shortage of potential candidates in this match. The defence did well, Neto was his usual match controlling self and got a nice goal, Kengo is still defying his age but at the risk of starting to repeat myself it’s really got to go to…

IENAGA Akihiro - another storming performance with a nice assist for the fourth goal and made the first one too. A constant danger for us and gets back to defend as well. Nice powerful shoulder flick on that rotter Yuma Suzuki too!

 
Goals 

MISAO (Kashima) OWN GOAL 5' 1-0

EDUARDO NETO (Frontale) 47' 2-0

NAGAKI (Kashima) 64' 2-1  

NAKAMURA (Frontale) 65' 3-1

OKUBO (Frontale) 81' 4-1

 
Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that a previous 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 Ulsan Hyundai (home) 18/4/18 - ACL Group Stage Match 6

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 2 Ulsan Hyundai

Finally, our ACL campaign is officially over. Although it was effectively over after the first three games and mathematically over before we kicked off in the fifth game, it’s good to know that we won’t be ‘distracted’ anymore by our continental exertions. The extent of this distraction is slightly debatable to be honest. We approached this season with a bigger squad so that we could apparently challenge on multiple fronts. Although as it turned out, Oniki picked pretty much the same team for the league and first few ACL games. And instead of challenging on multiple fronts it was more a case of flopping in both competitions. Personally speaking, I am much more interested in the league than the ACL. Not saying I’m pleased it’s over of course, but if it were a case of progressing in the ACL and languishing in the bottom half of the table, or doing well in the league and having a disappointing ACL campaign, I’d much rather go for the latter. As it is, we’ve gone for neither. And whilst we’re not in the bottom half yet, if we keep playing like we are at the moment, we could be soon. But anyway, enough of the league woes and let’s talk about this game, a total dead rubber with us already out and Ulsan already through. This gave us the opportunity to play a hugely changed team. And I’m pleased to say that’s exactly what Oniki did. I can’t have any complaints about his team selection for this game. There was absolutely no point in us playing anyone who would be expected to start our next league game. And we didn’t. We used this as an opportunity to give some players their debut and some who don’t often get much pitch time got a full 90 minutes. I won’t waste your time running down the line up, but will just note that this saw debuts for Shimoda and Suzuki (and Wakizaka as a sub) and first starts for Manabu and Akasaki. It also saw the return of Michael James. I think he last played in the second ACL game last year away in Hong Kong. That’s quite some break! He was apparently injured for some of that time, but as injury news is never particularly forthcoming from the club, I’m not sure for how long. Oh, and we also had a new captain for the night, Moriya!

Given that this was a match with effectively two reserve sides playing with nothing at stake, I won’t spend too long dissecting the game. Its fair to say that this was a game of two halves, at least in terms of goals, with us 2-0 up at half time and then the final score being 2-2. Both halves started with early goals. We went ahead after two minutes when a Manabu shot was parried to Suzuki on the edge of the box who slotted home nicely. These shots on target were double the total of shots on target we had in 90 minutes at Sendai. So, a bright start I guess. I’m particularly pleased for Suzuki, who looked quite sharp all night in the Kengo role. He was always keen to get forward, shoot and get involved. He’s also much taller and much younger than I thought which could be useful! Obviously as this was an unfamiliar team, there were occasional misunderstandings and losses of possession in various areas of the pitch. We didn’t look as comfortable playing the ball out from the back, but we persevered with it and over the course of the game things started to gel a little. There was a bit more directness to our play at times. I like our patient build ups but sometimes we fail to go for goal when we have a good opportunity, so it was nice to see us looking to get forward and shoot. Whether this is due to a change in tactics or personnel, I don’t know and we’ll see on Saturday whether it translates to the presumably hugely different starting line up against Kashima. Shimoda was doing a decent job next to Moriya in the Neto position and when he did occasionally lose the ball, was working hard to win it back. Apparently, we were playing with two up front, Akasaki and Suzuki, although it didn’t feel that different from our usual one up front and one behind. Hasegawa was on the right, a relatively unusual position for him. It was nice to see two wingers both willing to run at the opposition with the ball and whilst it wasn’t always effective, it did create some chances for us. We had eight shots in the first half, the majority of which were actually on target! I hope the first team was watching! It wasn’t the highest quality game, but we were doing pretty well and scored a second through Hasegawa. Akasaki played a nice ball to him on the edge of the box and although his finish was deflected past the keeper off a defender’s arm, it was still a well worked goal. Wow! Goals! Even though it was a dead rubber there were a few meaty challenges going in from Ulsan, not least from Toyoda, who bizarrely got a round of applause from the Frontale fans before the game, I guess just for being Japanese. (He probably would have been booed if he was still playing for Sagan Tosu). Toyoda totally took out Arai who was attempting to catch the ball, and was lucky to escape a booking, I thought. Thankfully, Arai could continue. They did pick up a couple of yellows though and we remained booking free. So, a fairly positive first half, with us on top and scoring and shooting. Wonders will never cease!

Actually, the wonders ceased pretty early on in the second half with us conceding after two minutes. That must have been quite a team talk from Oniki! The goal was pretty soft, with Michael James being out-jumped by an Ulsan player whose header at goal was deflected by another Ulsan player who Takeoka had lost, past Arai. Guess we can blame an unfamiliar back four for this if we’re looking for excuses, but it’s a bit worrying that they only had four players in the box and we had pretty much double but they were still able to find so much space. Three minutes later they were level and we were back to square one. This one wasn’t much better with the scorer finding himself in acres of space and the shot going it without anyone doing much to stop it. Conceding two goals so quickly could have signaled a total collapse but we steadied the ship a little, at least in the sense that we didn’t concede a third. The back line had looked a bit of a mess with loads of space for them, but after this costly wobble we started trying to play again. But it wasn’t really happening like it had been in the first half. We weren’t shooting so much and our newly rediscovered confidence had been knocked back to square one. Staying on their feet seemed to be a bit of problem for a few players, Akasaki in particular. It didn’t particularly seem to be happening for Ulsan, so I’m not sure if we’d forgot to put our studs on or something. A few potential nice opportunities were spurned due to us slipping either before of after we received the ball. With the scores level, things started to peter out a little. We probably shared the second half fairly equally for possession and chances. Sadly they took two of theirs and we took none. A familiar story! The first of our changes saw the debut of Wakisaka, who looked very out of place initially, but settled fairly quickly into playing some nice stuff. Oniki also brought on Morita (naturally…) for Shimoda, and Chinen on late in the game for Akasaki, who looked like he was suffering a little from his exertions. He’d done an alright job I felt, but probably hadn’t quite had the opportunities he might have hoped for. Unfortunately, as all our subs had been used, we didn’t get to see Ao come off the bench. I think out of the debutants, Suzuki was most impressive, but perhaps I’m just being swayed by the goal. All in all, nice to be able to watch a game, not worry too much about whether we were going to win or not and see some new faces. For some reason, I’ve had Shimoda’s song stuck in my head since the game. Not sure if this is a comment on his performance or just the quality of his song.

It’s hard to think about real positives and negatives in what was effectively a meaningless game, but all the same, I’ll give it a go. The big positive has to be the debuts. Not sure whether any of these players will get any more opportunities in the near future, but it’s nice to give them some pitch time. I think I’ve mentioned how they did above, so won’t waste your time doing it again. Out of the more regular players, I felt Takeoka had a better game in general, especially going forward, but looking at the replays, it seems he was partially involved in both goals we conceded. Not blaming him though! Hasegawa gave a decent account of himself with a goal and some nice attacking runs. Just a shame we couldn’t take advantage of these chances. Moriya was quiet but effective, and got the official man of the match award, I’m guessing because they didn’t know which one of the four goalscorers to give it to without upsetting anyone. The style of play was a bit more positive, which is nice, but perhaps this was more to do with the nature of the match and the fact that the opposition were also fielding an unfamiliar team of reserves. And credit where credit’s due, Oniki unquestionably picked the right starting line up. To move onto more negative territory, I’m not sure Oniki saw enough from anyone to make any decisive changes to the regular starting line up. The defence was a bit of a mess at times. Manabu hasn’t seemed so dangerous since his first substitute appearance against Yokohama, but I guess it’s still early days for him. And we totally threw away a good lead in the first five minutes of the second half with what looked like a total lack of organization and concentration. And not completely related to this game, but the whole ACL campaign this year has got to go down as a pretty big negative, but we’ve just got to put that behind us and get on with getting going in the league.

Next up is the crucial home game against Kashima on Saturday. They have loads of injuries at the moment and haven’t started well in the league so presumably will totally crush us… We don’t seem to do particularly well in crunch games against them, and whilst it’s still early in the season, our stuttering start probably makes this game more significant that it should be. Please let us win… and if we could put in a decent performance that would be lovely too. After that, what has to be one of the most awkward fixtures of the season, a Wednesday evening trip to Sagan Tosu. Although perhaps Sapporo away, also on a Wednesday evening later in the season could also stake a claim for that title. Fingers, toes, legs and arms crossed we can get going in these two matches and I can stop moaning the next time I have to rush out a blog post. Go Frontale!

Team 

GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 17. TAKEOKA Yuto

DF 29. MICHAEL JAMES

DF 23. EDUARDO

DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

MF 37. SAITO Manabu

FW 27. SUZUKI Yuto
FW 9. AKASAKI Shuhei

Subs 
GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke 
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for AKASAKI 84')

MF 25. MORITA Hidemasa (on for SHIMODA 81')

MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for SAITO 69')
MF 32. TANAKA Ao

My Frontale Man Of The Match

After suggesting that the official man of the match was Moriya because they didn't know which goal scorer to give it to, and in the past suggesting that people can't see past goals and that the man of the match always goes to whoever scores the most goals or the best goal, I am going to be completely hypocritical and give it to...

HASEGAWA Tatsuya & SUZUKI Yuto - They scored goals and recently that's something we're not very good at!

Goals  

SUZUKI (Frontale) 2' 1-0  

HASEGAWA (Frontale) 43' 2-0

PARK (Ulsan) 47' 2-1   

LEE Y-J (Ulsan) 50' 2-2

Highlights