Sunday 29 September 2019

Vs Vissel Kobe (home) 28/9/19 - J League match 27

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 2 Vissel Kobe

Still we continue to plough this furrow of utter shitness, playing terribly and getting terrible results. Still Oniki is making absolutely senseless decisions. Still he doesn’t do the honorable thing and quit. But let’s look on the bright side. We now really don’t have to worry about the league title, although the teams above us continue to slip up giving us yet more reminders of what could have been if we had a proper manager in charge of our talented squad. And the kick offs are getting earlier, so now we have plenty of time to get smashed in the pub after the game in order to forget the horrors we’ve just watched. My enthusiasm about writing this blog post is low and to be honest most of the points I should make have been made in countless previous posts as the same rotten things are happening every week. I’ll be even lighter on detail than usual in relation to these aspects as I’m sure you’re fed up of hearing me moan about them. As usual, there is plenty that could be learned from this game, but as has happened in the past, it seems unlikely we will actually learn anything. In any case, here are the usual bullet points, but perhaps slightly truncated.

Team selection randomness and substitution nonsense -

See the previous ten or so blog posts for more details. Another all Japanese team, with two players playing out of position and plenty of players who’ve done next to nothing starting, and plenty of players who’ve played well being frozen out. Kurumaya has really been looking better in recent weeks playing at left back where he belongs. So cunningly Oniki decided to switch him to centre back. We have two adequate right backs in the squad, therefore Oniki decided to play Morita who has been struggling a little this season in his preferred position at right back where he has pretty much always had a dodgy game. As usual the subs were absolutely nonsensical. Oniki removed Ao, who was one of our only players who was playing well. Before this he took out Shimoda and replaced him in the defensive midfield spot with Wakizaka, one of the few players who ever shows a real attacking intent. The removal of Ao meant that we were playing Kengo and Wakizaka in those defensive midfield spots, so a further two players playing out of position. I really don’t know what Oniki’s problem is. This was his 24th different starting line up in 27 league games. He must really be going for a world record. Or perhaps his little magnetic line-up board feel on the floor, scrambling all the magnets and he thought it was a sign from above. That's about the only way I can explain the mess of decisions he's made recently.

Tactical incompetence, no, hang on, complete lack of tactics -

This could have been a welcome return of Iikura to Todoroki. He is a total liability in goal for any team who decides to use him as a sweeper keeper. It’s perhaps unfortunate that in spite of his limitations in this area, he now seems to be expected to do this. I think anyone who has paid any attention to the J League recently knows that when you have Iikura in goal for the opposition, you are always going to get some chances if you pressure him into errors. And we did… once in the entire game. The obvious selection would have been Leandro Damiao as he always does a good job of hassling the opposition keeper. However, Oniki’s aversion to playing him overrides any common sense and instead for the majority of the game, Kobayashi let Iikura do what he wanted, effectively giving Kobe an extra player. There was no support for Kobayashi in chasing Iikura down so perhaps this is why he was reluctant to commit too much to doing it, but this has all got to go down as being another Oniki blunder. Playing Morita at right back also really messed with any attempt of ours to play any kind of offside trap. As Taniguchi pushed the defensive line forwards, Morita was always a few steps behind. It’s a miracle we weren’t made to pay for this, as Kobe clearly seemed to be focussing their attacks down that side where we were clearly weakest. I am by no means a football tactics expert, but these things were leaping out at me time and time again as we huffed and puffed our way towards another defeat. If Kobe weren’t so awful we could have been absolutely battered. If both teams had been playing well and sitting great the top of the table you could probably say that this game was for the most part a great tactical battle between two teams at the top of their games. As it was, it was a slog between two awful sides, neither of whom for the most part could manage to string a whole attack together. Kobe had two shots on target and scored twice. We had plenty of shots, if you can call them that, but rarely troubled their keeper.


Here you go, a couple of goals, you're welcome -

I mean what happened for that first goal? We lost possession and the entire defence went missing. It was just a travesty. Neither Kurumaya nor Taniguchi got anywhere near making a challenge and the two full backs were nowhere to be seen. A total gift for Kobe. The second was equally generous from us. Plenty of our players complained about the goal, but I’m not sure what they were complaining about as it clearly wasn’t offside. Once again it was just a total absence of defending that did it, with loads of our players in the box but no-one actually getting anywhere near the ball. It hurts even more that one of Kobe’s biggest donkeys managed to score. But to be honest, it probably hurts more that were weren’t hardly able to get past said donkey at the other end of the pitch. The goal we did score was utterly meaningless, and I know it’s wrong, but I was delighted we didn’t manage to get an equaliser, as we really needed to lose this match. We were totally crap and a draw would once again have papered over the cracks. We are losing a lot of games and Oniki has to take responsibility for both these losses and the awful draws we are also sometimes luckily getting.

Dirty Furuhashi, useless referee -

I used to like Furuhashi but recently there’s been plenty that has put me off him. Sure he’s a good player, but he’s also a terrible diver and in this game put in an absolutely horrible tackle on Taniguchi totally unnecessarily. If the same tackle had been put in by us on one of Kobe’s ‘Barcelonitos’ (or whatever people call them, which definitely not what I just wrote...), it almost certainly would have resulted in a red. I don’t know if it is because of the constant high profile whinging that Mikitani has been doing for the past few years and particularly this season, but it seemed that any tackle on a Spaniard resulted in a free kick for Kobe. On the contrary, Kobe shoved Frontale player after Frontale player to the ground from behind and I don’t think we even got a free kick. But let’s not go overboard on the ref as the real problem about this performance was us. To lose once to Kobe is pretty bad, but to lose to them two games in a row takes quite some incompetence.

Booooooooo -

This game finished with a significant section of the main supporter section booing the team as they came to us after the match. I totally understand this, but I didn’t do it myself. I will however try to boo every mention of Oniki going forward as in my opinion, and I’m sure this come as no surprise to you, I hold him fully responsible for how bad we are this year. He is out of his depth, has no ideas tactically or in terms of selection, despite having his little board with those magnets, and is in danger of doing irreparable damage to us. We have to get rid of him as soon as possible. A better man would probably have offered his resignation before now, but it seems like he’s not going to do so. He must be aware that he has no idea what he’s doing and has no chance of getting us out of this mess. If he doesn’t go soon I think we are going to lose a lot of players at the end of the season. I’m only going on my gut feeling, but I reckon Sung-Ryong, Taniguchi, Kurumaya, Jesiel, Maguinho, Ienaga and Damiao will go. There are plenty more who could also be justified in wanting to leave. We’ll be left with a lot of gaps in our squad and we all know how bad Oniki’s recruitment has been so far. If he’s still in charge next year, I really feel we could be involved in a relegation battle. Ienaga’s post match comments said something along the lines of how the manager has lots of decisions to make but the players have to do their best. Which sounds to me like he’s not particularly happy with some of Oniki's decisions and who can blame him. Ienaga, Kobayashi, Kengo, Taniguchi, Morita, Sung-Ryong and many more have been pretty average this season. When one or two players are under-performing we can point the finger at them, but when it’s so many of the squad who are below par, you’ve got to think something’s not right with the management. The team selections are mostly random it seems which can’t exactly help the players get into any form or build up any confidence. Seriously, get rid of him now. Don’t wait till we inevitably crash out of the Levain cup (can you really see us beating Kashima, the state that we’re in at the moment?). A lot of people question who we would get in to replace him, thinking that if we don’t have a replacement we can’t get rid of him. I’d say that there’s a lot more danger involved in keeping Oniki in charge than having the assistant manager take charge for a few games whilst we look for someone else. Oniki is the bright spark who let one of our few central defenders leave the club when we had two of the remaining three injured. He’s the guy who delights in trying to force square pegs into round holes playing multiple players out of position. He’s the guy who has no plan A, let alone a plan B. He’s the guy whose substitutions seem to have been planned before the match and are made with no consideration of what’s going on in front of him. He’s the guy who seems to be unable to deal with any foreign players we have or had. He’s the guy who has knocked the confidence out of some talented players to the extent that they now appear completely clueless. He’s the guy who supposedly had tightened up our defence, which has now conceded 14 goals in the last eight league games, the majority of which were against teams in the bottom half of the table. He’s the guy who has contrived to get us knocked out of the ACL in the group stages for the last two years against some very average teams and has almost certainly guaranteed that we won’t be taking part in that competition next year. He’s the guy who has to go as soon as possible, preferably right now. We don’t need to boo the players. We 100% need to boo the manager.

Next up, Shonan away, a game that we always disappoint in. After that, two games against Kashima in the Levain cup. Let’s see if we can get knocked out of another competition at the first stage of asking. I normally would try to finish with an optimistic ‘go Frontale’, but I can’t. The longer we keep getting average to shit results, the longer Oniki will remain in charge. Instead this post finishes unsurprisingly with ONIKI OUT!


Team

GK 21. ARAI Shota
DF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro 
MF 14 NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for TANAKA 75')
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for ABE 68')
DF 17. MAWATARI Kazuaki
FW 20. CHINEN Kei
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for SHIMODA 54')
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Normally I would sulk and not do one of these after a game like this, but on this occasion, without a doubt it has to go to...

TANAKA Ao  - head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch on either team, defensively and going forward.

Goals
 
VILLA (Kobe) 44' 0-1
OSAKI (Kobe) 70' 0-2
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 90+1' 1-2

Highlights

Thursday 19 September 2019

Vs Vissel Kobe (away) 18/9/19 - Emperor's Cup 4th round

Vissel Kobe 3 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale


Out of the ACL, out of the tile race and now out of the Emperor’s Cup, all with crappy results against pretty bad teams. this is truly the season that keeps on giving. I was only able to see the last five minutes of this game, so can’t really make any kind of informed comment, (praise the lord that I couldn’t go to Kobe to watch this). I’ve seen the ‘highlights’ though. Sung-Ryong could have done nothing about the first two goals given the complete absence of marking and defence but the third was an absolute rotter which admittedly looked like it had a Kobe handball at the start of the build up. But that’s no excuse. If someone could tell me what our shape was after Hasegawa’s injury and substitution I’d like to know, but looking at the match facts, you’ve got to wonder if Oniki’s complete lack of a plan B might have created some problems for us. Let’s be honest though, the plan A isn’t really working either is it? How we can go from having one of the best defensive records in the league to conceding around two goals a game is a mystery. And you can’t blame it on Jesiel’s injury as he was around for a significant part of the start of this rotten run. Got to again point the finger at Oniki I guess. I had a feeling we’d lose this game as it was vaguely important and Kobe are a bit rubbish. Once again, we’ve showed we can rival anyone on the rubbishness stakes. So, let’s cling on to our Levain hopes whilst we can. Soon, this slow motion car crash of a season could be totally finished and to be honest, I think quite a few of us would be quite happy to be put out of our misery right now. Next up, Kobe at home in the league the weekend after next. Plenty of time for us to get back on the training ground and sort ourselves out. But as we haven’t managed that since July, I can’t really see why we will be able to do it now.

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 17. MAWATARI Kazuaki
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

Subs
GK 21. ARAI Shota
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for HASEGAWA 32')
MF 14 NAKAMURA Kengo (on for SHIMODA 46')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 76')
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

Goals
 
YAMAGUCHI (Kobe) 38' 1-0
FURUHASHI (Kobe) 45+3' 2-0
OGAWA (Kobe) 63' 3-0
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 70' 1-0
KURUMAYA (Frontale) 85' 2-0


Highlights
 

Tuesday 17 September 2019

Vs Jubilo Iwata (home) 14/9/19 - J League match 26

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 0 Jubilo Iwata

As seems to always be the case recently, I’ve left it a bit late to do this post. Hopefully I haven’t forgotten everything about the game. This was a welcome return to winning ways in the league and has perhaps got people excited again. Let’s be realistic though, this was a pretty fortunate result. Jubilo hit the post very early in the game and the bar in the second half. We scored twice, both times with the ball miraculously passing through the keeper’s hands and went on to miss a hatful of pretty easy chances. Kobayashi was the main culprit again, though Hasegawa also missed when it looked easier to score. But we won! But it was against the bottom team in the league... So, I dunno, take some optimism from the game if you want, and I suppose a win is better for morale than anything else, but I feel like this game demonstrated our shortcomings as adequately as some of the recent defeats and draws. If you want to be ultra negative, and lets be honest, I usually do, this was also a result which is going to paper over the massive cracks in our season and delay any possible change of manager. Jubilo are a horrible team of cloggers who managed to dominate possession against us at home, mainly because we kept giving them possession though absolutely rotten passing. I guess at least we are shooting a bit more recently. But when three of those shots were the absolute solid gold clangers that we dropped in this game, perhaps shooting a lot becomes pretty meaningless. Anyway, here’s what we might have learned (but probably already knew), from this game.

Da Mystery of First Teamin’-

Yeah, I know that title doesn’t really work, but never mind. Basically what I’m trying to express (repeatedly, post after post after post...), is that I don’t think anyone knows who our first team are now, least of all Oniki. It seemed like he’d done a bit of rotation for the Levain Cup but after those two games we went with a pretty similar team in this game. This was a brave selection from Oniki and I suppose you could say it paid off, but you could probably equally say that we might have won more comfortably if he hadn’t been so ‘brave’. Perhaps the biggest shock for me in this game was the fact that Arai started in goal. Sure, Sung-Ryong has been a bit wobbly recently but I thought, as had been the case for the past few years, he had a lock on the goalie spot. Perhaps Oniki was looking to stem the flow of goals recently, but to be honest Taniguchi has been at fault for most of them and he’s undroppable (previously because he was an Oniki favourite, and now for that reason also but particularly as we have zero cover in that position due to Michael James being allowed to leave and Jesiel joining Nara on the sidelines through injury. I heard that Nara is back in training so perhaps we’ll see him soon. Yamamura, the right footed attacking midfielder, did a decent enough job though I don’t think he’s suited for that position. It’s funny isn’t it, that Yamamura is another player who could probably do a job on the right of midfield, but we’re still preferring to play left wingers there? Anyone would think that the manager hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing. But anyway, back to Arai. He also did a decent job, keeping a clean sheet but not really having a great deal to do as Jubilo seemed to only either hit the woodwork or blast wide. We do definitely lose something with him not being as good on the ball as Sung-Ryong, but I guess you could say he’d kept a clean sheet so deserved to stay in the team, rather than be replaced by Sung-Ryong who has been conceding an average of two goals a game recently. Oh, that’s right, Arai also conceded twice in the last game, didn’t he? Maybe a clean sheet now gets you two games before you’re discarded. Oh, and you know that striker who came on in the last game and scored? Of course he was never going to get a starting spot. Much better to retain the guy who can only score when it’s disallowed. We were begging for Leandro Damiao in this game as the Jubilo defence were a bunch of hefty brutes kicking lumps out of our forward players. Of course he didn’t make it off the bench though. I dunno, this is all a mystery to me now. I have no idea what Oniki is thinking. I have no idea what some people have to do to get consecutive starts in this team. I have no idea what some people have to do to not get a start. With four of our top five earners in the squad on the bench, (see here for the wages), something seems a bit strange. Either we’re paying some people way too much, or we’re picking the wrong teams.


JAPANESE ONLY! -

Up to this point I have jokingly referred to Oniki being a secret agent of Kashima trying to destroy our club but being so useless that we did well in spite of his efforts. I’ve also ‘joked’ about him having a problem with our current and former Brazilian players. I wonder perhaps if Oniki is actually being employed by Urawa fans instead as he has finally reached his
apparent goal of fielding a ‘JAPANESE ONLY!’ team. Even the subs he made were Japanese. Recently I can’t help but feel he doesn’t want Brazilian players. He certainly doesn’t cut them the same slack regarding performace as he does certain Japanese players. Perhaps he also doesn’t like Koreans. And New Zealanders. I know this is all ridiculous, but I’m pretty sure Neto left because of a bust up with Oniki, Edu was clearly an extreme last resort for him and frozen out completely most of the time, Elsinho despite being constantly one of the best right backs in the league decided to go for a new (mid-table) challenge at Shimizu as he felt undervalued by Oniki. This year, Jesiel was nowhere near the team until Oniki was left with almost no other option. Leandro Damiao and Maguinho could score double hat tricks and still get rotated out for the next few games. I don’t seriously think he’s a racist (although I suppose it could be true). But the fact that players who aren’t Japanese seem to be held to a different standard to Japanese players does seem to be almost a dictionary definition of racism. There’s a reason that there are limits to the number of foreign players in the J League, presumably to stop rich clubs naming a team of eleven foreigners brought in on big wages and running away with the league, (sorry Vissel, maybe soon they’ll change the rules for you). Foreign players provide an option for teams to supplement their team with talents and skills that they may not be able to find in the available Japanese player pool. After two big money DAZN titles, we’ve instead decided to use up our foreigner spots paying players to sit on the bench. Presumably we hired an extra translator this year because they would have a lot more work on, trying to keep our foreign signings occupied on weekends as they wouldn’t actually be needing those players to actually play football.

The usual substitutions moan -

The only explanation I can find for another set of useless changes by Oniki is that he was actually going for the Japanese only thing. Even when our left winger is subbed, Abe is still not allowed to play there, being kept on the right. Then the other two subs were pretty stupid, replacing a midfielder with a striker, therefore moving to 4-4-2. Then 13 minutes later removing a striker for a midfielder and switching back to the previous formation. I thought managers were supposed to use subs to change the game for the better. Oniki seems to use them to muddle things and give the other team a chance. Wakisaka had played pretty well, being our biggest attacking threat and being presumably full of energy given his youth. But he was still changed. The only possible reasons for bringing Kengo on in the 78th minute were either to add to his J League appearance total (actually, do sub appearances count?), or to frantically try to return us to the shape that Oniki had destroyed through making the previous change.


Songs of (exaggerated) praise -

Two weird things happened with songs in this game. The first felt pretty bad to be honest and although I am an enthusiastic song singer I couldn’t bring myself to participate. When the keepers come out for their warm up we ALWAYS do that BANG, BANG, BANG-BANG-BANG, BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG, OLE! song. BANG being used here to represent the sound of a drum and clap, not particularly accurately. Instead we greeted the keepers entrance by singing Arai’s song, presumably sending a clear message to Sung-Ryong that despite being our number one for the past three years, we were delighted to see him on the bench. it felt really weird to be honest. By all means celebrate the fact that someone else is getting a chance, but I felt that it could only be taken as a bit of a diss to Sung-Ryong. I wonder if he’ll be leaving at the end of the season. The other weird song thing was that that OOOOOOHHHHH song that is usually reserved for us when we’re leading by three or four goals was wheeled out at 2-0. I know us doing well has been a bit of a rarity recently, but have we descended so far that leading 2-0 at home against the league’s bottom team is enough for us to wheel out out beautiful football domination song? All seemed a bit weird to me and I wonder if our recent shittiness has sent everyone a bit crazy.

J2bilo -

Bit of a cheap shot, and one which works much better when spoken rather than read, but there’s really only one place that Jubilo are going to be playing next year and it’s in J2. They were rubbish. When they weren’t booting us all over the pitch they were booting the ball off the side of the pitch. There was a real lack of quality on show from both teams, to be honest. I know they could have scored twice when they hit the bar, and that they looked a bit better in the second half, thanks to Oniki’s tactical tinkering, but the fact that they were bad against us, a team some rotten form at the moment shows just how bad they are this year. Moriya must be really regretting his decision to move there. He won’t get picked because he’s not a tall guy who kicks people. Hopefully he can find a new club next year, even if it is another J2 team as I wouldn’t wish Jubilo on anyone, even my worst enemy. I feel for their fans!

Oh, and goals -

Oh yeah, we scored and it was another one for Wakizaka (drop him immediately!) and a first goal for Yamamura, with a finish that, surprise surprise suggested that maybe he isn’t best suited to playing at centre back or in defensive midfield. There’s no point telling Oniki though, as hardly anyone gets to play where they want to in this team.


Next up, an away Emperor’s cup tie at Kobe. Possibly the least enticing draw possible, apart from maybe another trip to Kashima. I wanted to go, but the fact that it would involve an overnight stay, plenty of expense and I would be doing the trip by myself put me off. Also the dynamic pricing probably means that we’ll be charged ¥10000 per ticket in order to recoup some of the outlay for their latest ex-Barcelona player. Kobe are rubbish, but let’s not forget that we also are rubbish. Can’t say I’m that confident, but it would be lovely if we could effectively end their season. Although I suppose they are still in a relegation dogfight. After that, it’s… Kobe at home in the league the weekend after next. If we could only win one of these two matches, I guess the cup would be better, as the league is over and done with, barring a miracle. Two wins would be a lovely slap in the face for Mikitani tough, so let’s all hope for that. Go Frontale!
 


Team

GK 21. ARAI Shota
DF 17. MAWATARI Kazuaki
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo (Yellow card 21')
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for HASEGAWA 65')
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
MF 14 NAKAMURA Kengo (on for KOBAYASHI 78')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for WAKIZAKA 65')
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

My Frontale Man Of The Match
As said above, not exactly a great performance, but given that he’s keeping Kengo and Ienaga out of the side in that central midfield spot, (although who knows what Oniki’s really thinking. Perhaps they’re being rested for when we have nothing to play for in any competition…), it has to go to...

WAKIZAKA Yasuto - still quite raw, gives the ball away at times, but does it in a way that makes me think, ‘ooooh, that was a good idea that didn’t quite come off’, rather than ‘what on earth are you doing?’ Seems to want us to score goals! He even shoots! Keep it up Yasuto!
 

Goals
 
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 22' 1-0
YAMAMURA (Frontale) 35' 2-0


Highlights

Sunday 8 September 2019

Vs Nagoya Grampus (away) 8/9/19 - Levain Cup, quarter final 2nd leg

Nagoya Grampus 2 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale (2-4 on agg.)

No messing around with this blog post. Thanks to the fact that the Shinkansen service from Nagoya was curtailed due to an incoming Typhoon, we had to cancel our trip to Nagoya. Which is a shame, as I was looking forward to this match. It was annoying as the previous day there had been some talk of them bringing the kick off forward due to the weather. But presumably as the typhoon changed course and wasn’t going to hit Nagoya, they changed their mind. Screw the away fans who won’t be able to get home. Instead, I watched it on a dodgy stream which kept cutting out and finally gave up shortly before our second goal. I’m not going to say much as I don’t think watching the game like this qualifies me to do so. I was surprised that Oniki made so many changes after the first leg, our first win in seven games. Although let’s be honest, it wasn’t that surprising. If it had been another manager, maybe I would have been surprised. In any case, we got the job done. After Hokuto scored an absolute beauty it left Nagoya needing four unanswered goals so things were pretty much wrapped up. Needless to say though, we went on to concede a couple of goals, making the final score this season’s most common scoreline (I reckon), 2-2. The big talking point will probably be VAR ruling out Kobayashi’s goal. As I’m not 100% sure of the rules regarding VAR, I’m not going to go into much detail, but I wonder just how far they can go back when using VAR to verify a goal. From the replays it looked like Nishimura had made a typically Nishimura-esque decision, and perhaps he did, as it will almost certainly get people talking about him and his decision. The attack that Kobayashi was ruled offside from was probably at least 5 seconds before he received he ball for the second time, clearly onside, and put it away. It’s a shame for him, as he had the ball in the back of the net twice in this game, both ruled-out, as he never seems to be so clinical when they aren’t ruled out. But anyway, job done, and we’re on to the next round, even if it wasn’t exactly convincing again. Oh, and Damiao scored again. Almost certainly won’t start the next game as a punishment for doing that!

Next up, Jubilo Iwata at home in the league. Back to our full strength team, I guess, whoever that might be! Maybe we might actually win in the league! Or maybe not. Fingers crossed we do. 


Team

GK 21. ARAI Shota
DF 17. MAWATARI Kazuaki
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for KOBAYASHI 74')
MF 14 NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for WAKIZAKA 65')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei
DF 26. MAGUINHO
MF 32. MITOMA Kaoru (on for ABE 86')

Goals
 
SHIMODA (Frontale) 53' 0-1
HASEGAWA (Nagoya) 73' 1-1
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 81' 1-2
JO (Nagoya) 89' 2-2


Highlights

Friday 6 September 2019

Vs Nagoya Grampus (home) 4/9/19 - Levain Cup, quarter final 1st leg

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 0 Nagoya Grampus

I’m going to keep this post relatively brief as the games are coming thick and fast at the moment, and recently I’ve spent too much time whinging. Although there’s not much to whinge about regarding this game. Sure, we weren’t back to our best, and whilst there were periods we were well on top of this game, Nagoya could say the same. I think that neither side had their first choice teams out though, and whilst it seems fine for me to get totally carried away about our bad results, I’m not going to do the same after one cup victory. But it was nice to get a clean sheet, and nice to score a couple of goals, and nice to not go away from a game wanting to smash something up. Here are a couple of notable things about this match


VAR worked well - still hate it -

VAR is here and Chinen had the ‘honour’ of being the first player in Japan to score a VAR assisted goal. I’m not really sure what the rules behind the application of VAR are. I didn’t see a flag when Chinen scored (and looking at the highlights, there wasn't one), so I’m not sure why the decision was referred. Before this decision we had another VAR moment when Hasegawa was through on goal and got fouled by the last man on the edge of the box. I think pretty much everyone thought it was probably outside the box but the decision was checked. I was expecting it to be either a penalty or a red card, but in the end we got neither. I’m sure the free kick was the right decision, but I’m a bit confused as to why the defender escaped with only a yellow. Perhaps my red card knowledge is out of date though. It was a little unsettling to hear that the VAR ref was Tojo as he’s got a bit of a reputation for bad decisions, but perhaps he’s actually a decent ref when he’s watching it on TV rather than actually on the pitch. Sadly, we didn’t get to see the ref run over and have a look himself at the screen at the side of the pitch. However that was probably a blessing, as even with the decision being reviewed by someone already in front of a screen, (hopefully wearing full referee's kit!), it still seemed to take quite a long time. Quite how two VAR referrals, a goal, and a substitution added up to only 2 minutes of injury time, I’m not sure. I will say that during the review period, the atmosphere was pretty weird and understandably flat. I’ve come away from my first VAR experience feeling the same about it as I did before. I don’t like it and I think technology could be far better used in different ways. The biggest worry for me will be the fact that it seems we will never be able to actually enjoy a proper goal celebration again, as the initial excitement is tempered by the VAR review, and only after the wait, celebrations are able to resume. But it all feels a bit weird. Chinen commented on the fact that he and Hasegawa were celebrating, looked round to see everyone else just standing there and felt a bit stupid. It’s a bit of a stretch to compare that to the experience of being in the crowd, but it did feel a bit like that.


The usual point about the team and how they played but a little more positive for once -

I’m going to round up the team selection and performances in one brief point. This was probably a hybrid team selection with some first-teamers and some who are usually subs. But I guess we don’t really know who is a first-teamer recently as there has been so much chopping and changing. We were back to 4-4-2 and the front combination of Chinen and Leandro Damiao which has pretty much always failed in this formation actually worked pretty well. In the first half we were having a lot of fun playing balls in behind the high defensive line of Nagoya and Hasegawa was looking very dangerous. We did go a bit off the boil later on in the half, probably after Kazama adjusted the tactics. Yamamura did a creditable job in the back four, Taniguchi only had a couple of wobbles, the middle two of Shimoda and Morita had a decent game, although Morita is still giving the ball away a bit carelessly sometimes. Wakizaka looked good. He too gave the ball away on occasion, but you could see that he was well up for the game and that with a bit more time he is going to be a very important player for us. I’ve far less problem with him trying a clever through pass that gets cut out compared to us just passing the ball to the opposition under no pressure in the middle of the pitch. Wakizaka's goal was well taken and the pass from Leandro Damiao was fantastic. Damiao was full of running all night and whilst his finishing wasn’t quite in tune, he made a very good contribution to the game, I thought. Let’s see if it’s enough to see him retain his spot on Sunday.  Chinen looked hungry after his long absence and he too was well up for the game, taking his goal well and being a little unlucky on a couple of occasions. Whether this is all a great rebirth for us and our fortunes and a tactical coup from Oniki or just a good performance that we stumbled upon among a load of rubbish, only time will tell I guess. But I’ll take it and enjoy it while it lasts!


Next up Nagoya away on Sunday in the cup again and I guess we'll see where we are. I can’t see any reason to change the team or tactics to be honest but it will interesting to discover if Oniki the Japanese tinkerman will resist the temptation to ‘rotate’. After that, it’s home against Jubilo Iwata the following Saturday. Even though the league is over for us, I’d still say it’s a must win from the point of view of our morale. Fingers crossed.


Team

GK 21. ARAI Shota
DF 17. MAWATARI Kazuaki
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 20. CHINEN Kei

Subs
GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke
DF 4. JESIEL
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki (on for WAKIZAKA 78')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for CHINEN 78')
DF 26. MAGUINHO
MF 32. MITOMA Kaoru
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for HASEGAWA 90+2')


Goals
 
CHINEN (Frontale) 15' 1-0
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 61' 2-0


Highlights

(Three lots of highlights this time, probably pretty much all the same!)

Wednesday 4 September 2019

Vs Cerezo Osaka (away) 1/9/19 - J League match 25

 
Cerezo Osaka 2 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale

I mean, there’s not much I can say about this game without repeating what I’ve said numerous times already on this blog this season. This was another low point in a season of total disappointment. Sure Cerezo are our perennial bogey team, but its a shame that in a season where we are defying all logic and going against everything we’ve come to expect over the last couple of years that we couldn’t turn expectations on their head one more time and actually beat them for once. We were rubbish again, although we weren’t helped by another opposition team who defend in numbers with the hope of being able to pump a long ball forward and score on a counter attack. The crazy thing is that in most of our recent games against these teams, we give them an early goal and something to hang on to. I shouldn’t focus on bashing Cerezo though, as their system is effective and it’s a legitimate if boring way of playing football. And they did nothing wrong. As for us... Anyway, as I said above, there’s very few new things we’ve learned from this game, so please excuse me for banging on about these same things in the following paragraphs that have now been rebranded from ‘things we might have learned from this game’ to ‘the usual awful things about this game'. Let the torrent of misery begin to flow!

Even when they're right, they're wrong -

Normally I would be pleased that a ref got a decision right. It’s even better that he consults with a linesman and changes his initial opinion if he discovers he is wrong. When they consult mainly with one team's players though.... Such is the abject standard of J League referees, that even when they get a big and potentially contentious decision right they get it right for the wrong reasons. Their first goal was an absolute disaster for us. Potentially offside if you want to clutch at straws, non existent defending, a goalkeeper’s hand that a ball is able to magically pass through. All of these things irritate and frustrate, but the thing that really stuck in the throat, more so than our awful defending was the fact that in classic J League ref style, the referee made a complete hash of the decision, not giving the goal. The linesman, in classic J League linesman style, also made a hash of it, also not giving the goal. Cue huge and justified complaints from the Cerezo players. The referee stops the game after initially waving for play to continue and consults with his linesman, who let’s remember has also not given the goal. Quite how their conversation which effectively should have just been ‘was it over the line?’, ‘yes/no/I didn’t see’ took so long, I don’t know. Also I’m not sure how two ‘no’s made a ‘yes’. You’ve got to think that the Cerezo complaints had something to do with it. You have got to wonder if there was some kind of outside interference/information from another official involved too. I think there were accusations of this in a previous game (Shonan vs Urawa, wasn’t it?). I’m all in favour of goal line technology. Screw VAR, it’s making a mockery of the sport recently and we're going to see quite how bad it is in our cup game with Nagoya tonight. But a simple and definitive yes or no in response to whether the ball crossed the line or not seems like something it’s utterly stupid not to implement. Instead, we’ll probably get full scale VAR, where officials who don’t seem to know the rules of the game have multiple replays to look at and then still make mistakes over judgements and calls. So, whilst it might seem like I’m just in a bad mood about this, it’s not for the fact that the goal was given, it’s for the fact that J League referees are crap, are getting crapper by the week, and even when they make the right call they are only able to make it in completely the wrong way. Quite a skill set!


Game over -

That’s it. We’re done in the league. There’s no point hanging on to any thin threads. There will be no ‘sanrenpa’. We’re eleven points off top and fourteen points off the relegation places and the way that we’re playing right now, you’ve go to think that we’ll end up closer to the latter than the former. We’re third bottom of the form table too, which confirms exactly what we all know - we’re awful right now. Our last six league games have seen us come away with a grand total of three points. We’ve scored seven goals, which last year probably would have had us getting a significantly bigger return of points given that we used to be able to defend. The real killer stat is the goals conceded which is twelve. Letting in an average of two goals a game is never going to result in anything like title form. Half of our total goals conceded this season have come in the last six games and one of those games finished 0-0! So, what’s the problem? Thankfully, I’m not the manager so I don’t have to deal with it, but you got to think it’s the defence we have to look at. Which leads me nicely on to...

Rotten performances, rotten selections, rotten subs -

It’s never nice to point fingers at individual players, but.... Taniguchi, sorry, you’ve been rubbish recently. He’s been involved in almost all of the goals we’ve conceded and was nowhere near any opposition player or nowhere near blocking the cross for the second goal. No idea what’s happened to him. If there were any justice, Nara who is getting back to fitness would replace him in the team, but as much as Oniki likes shuffling over and over and over again, I don’t think he’ll make that change. Sung-Ryong has looked a bit off form too. In this game he deflected a shot into his own net for the second game in a row. I fact both of their goals went through his hands. He still makes some crucial saves at times, but he’s far from blameless, even given the state of the defending in front of him. The ridiculous right back situation where almost everyone in the squad has now had a go can’t have helped either. It’s not only at the back that there are problems though. We’re toothless going forward and in this game we weren’t even really making chances for Kobayashi to pass back to their keeper. We were gifted our goal thanks to a clanger from the Cerezo keeper and aside from that only managed to hit the target on a couple of other occasions. Ienaga is ghosting about the pitch, Kengo blows hot and cold, most of the left wingers spend more time on the right wing where they surprisingly don’t play as well (who’d have thought it?!). The players in this squad haven’t become useless overnight, so I guess it has to go down to other things. Such as...


Where's the confidence gone? And the skills... -

Rock bottom confidence. Which is not surprising given the run were on and the ease with which we are conceding goals. We are always giving ourselves a mountain to climb by letting in soft goals. Even if we manage to get a lead, we magically turn it into a losing position, sometimes just about ending up grabbing a draw, but never really looking likely to get a win. Definitely there are individual errors that are costing us dearly. The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone around to get us back into shape. Perhaps we’ll regain some composure and maybe even sneak a goal, but more often than not, our comfort zone seems to be passing the ball across the midfield around the centre circle with the opposition sitting deep. If you got points for possession and passes we’d be bossing the league. The chopping and changing of some players has got to be playing a part. Earlier in the season Chinen got an extended run in the side while he was scoring goals. He hasn’t been near the pitch for a while now. Leandro Damiao scores almost every time he starts, but still always gets dropped for Kobayashi the next game. I hate to bang on about it, but I think most of these things rest at the feet of Oniki. He should be the one organising us in training after we’ve conceded shocking goals. He should be able to re-instil some confidence. He should pick a team with players not playing out of position. He should come up with some tactical changes that affect the game, rather than persisting with the same old thing constantly. He should not throw on apparently random substitutions in a panic. These things are all his job, aren’t they? I know I have often criticised his pointless subs, but in a way they are probably better than those we saw in this game, where after the second and third subs no one seemed to have any idea of where they were playing and we our formation seeemed to have gone from 4-2-3-1 to D-U-N-N-O. Maguinho was removed again and Morita went in at right back. Later on in the game Oniki switched Shimoda there. Not bad! Three different right backs in one game, only one of whom is actually a right back! And if you consder the fact that Abe was playing on the right after Ienaga went off, the whole of the right side of our team were players playing out of position. No surprise that everything was going down the left at that stage. I’m fully aware that we are in the fortunate position of being able to moan about whatever Oniki does if it goes wrong. It would be nice to not have to moan from time to time though. However all of us supporters who are going to games are in the equally unfortunate position of having to spend lots of time and money going to these games and then having to watch some of the most hopeless and frustrating football we’ve played in years. Many clubs would have changed their manager by now. I have no joy in seeing anyone lose their job, but surely, sooner or later, Oniki’s time must be up.


And perhaps that time will be after our next couple of games, after which we most likely will be out of another competition. Home and away legs in the Levain against Nagoya, who let’s not forget recently hammered us, are up next. It’s a real shame that we’re pinning our hopes on the Levain at this stage of the season and to be honest, I think they’ll knock us out anyway. Then we’ll be left with the Emperor’s Cup only and that will be away at Kobe who are absolutely rubbish, but I think will also beat us. Dark times. We seem to be heading towards a totally disappointing mid-table finish if we’re lucky, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t end up in the bottom half. When the board will decide that enough is enough, I don’t know, but I think it will be too late to salvage anything from this year, (probably as it won’t be till 2025!). I’m not exactly full of excitement about attending the rest of this season’s games, but I’ll be there till the bitter end. There are some specks of brightness though. Maybe they’ll be less people trying to get away tickets next year so that will make things easier. And I’m really looking forward to the Levain Cup group games in 2020. And hopefully a new manager...

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 26. MAGUINHO
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto (Yellow card 30')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 42')
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs
GK 21. ARAI Shota
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for NAKAMURA 66')
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 59')
DF 17. MAWATARI Kazuaki
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for MAGUINHO 73')
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya

Goals
 
SEKO (Cerezo) 2' 1-0
ABE (Frontale) 13' 1-1
SUZUKI (Cerezo) 54' 2-1


Highlights