Vs Shanghai SIPG (away) 6/3/19 - ACL Group Stage Match 1

Shanghai SIPG 1 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale

A disappointing night away in Shanghai for us. I didn’t go to the game and only saw it on a tiny, blurry screen so I’m not going to go into any kind of detail about this. Hasegawa starting was a surprise, but perhaps Oniki had done his homework as he caused them all kinds of problems in the first half. Not sure why our ACL challenge special signing Leandro Damiao wasn’t on the pitch until the final two minutes though. Presumably some will use this as a stick to beat us with about not putting out our strongest team. This accusation would be quite frankly ridiculous. It was an unfortunate way to lose a game that we’d dominated possession in. You can’t blame Morita and you can’t blame the ref. It was the right decision. Just all a bit of a shame. One other dark cloud is the injury to Mawatari. Hopefully it's not serious. The necessary tactical shuffle due to his removal didn't help, but wasn't why we lost so let's not dwell on it. Looking on the bright side, that’s probably our toughest group game out of the way and Ulsan and Sydney drew. Looking on the dark side, neither team really deserved to win, and Shanghai didn't look that good, but we managed to lose. Discounting the Super Cup, that’s three games, two draws and one loss. One goal scored, two conceded. Not the most thrilling of openings to the season, it has to be said. Hopefully, sooner of later, we might remember how to score from open play. Fingers crossed it’s Sunday, which now is looking like, (and I know it’s ridiculously early in the season to say this), a must win game. Forget this match, it wasn’t to be, and let’s concentrate on paying a bit better and getting a better result against Yokohama.


Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 17. MAWATARI Kazuaki
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki (Yellow card 69')
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 7 KURUMAYA Shintaro (Yellow card 43')
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (Yellow card 26')
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs
GK 21. ARAI Shota
MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for MAWATARI 51')
FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki (on for HASEGAWA 79')
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for MORITA 89')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei
DF 29. MICHAEL JAMES
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya

Goals  

HULK (Shanghai) 89' (PEN) 1-0  

Highlights