Sunday 10 November 2019

Vs Kashima Antlers (away) 9/11/19 - J League match 31

Kashima Antlers 0 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

Hehehe. Well, that was fun. I think I said in a previous post that all we have to look forward to for the rest of this season is ruining other teams’ title challenges. Today we’ve probably done that for Kashima, and let’s be honest, it couldn’t have happened to a nastier team. I’ll keep this all brief as it’s not long since I did a post moaning about Kashima and this time I’d probably only be saying the same things. If you’re not interested in me repeating myself feel free to stop reading after the next sentence which I feel will sum up the rest of what I’m going to say. It was a lot of fun to beat a horrible Kashima team at their own place, particularly when they desperately needed to win. Here are a few brief bullet points and then we can all have a drink or two to celebrate this probably inconsequential win. At least as far as we’re concerned anyway. There will probably be quite a few consequences for Kashima!


Dirty, dirty Kashima -

Have said it numerous times but I’ll say it again. Kashima are a horrible team full of hackers and divers and their fans aren’t much better. Their centre back pairing of Jung and Bueno must be the most irritating of all possible J League duos; two players who individually are pretty damn irritating, but together take it to another level. It’s a sign of how much of an arsehole that Bueno is that for most of this match Jung looked fairly respectable in comparison. Bueno is a total rotter but took it to new levels getting Ienaga booked by falling down clutching his face after no contact whatsoever. To be honest, not sure what the ref was doing with that decision. Serginho seems much less arseholeish, but at the same time seems to just be a massive elbow made into a football player. The amount of extremely dubious physical challenges he put in was unbelievable. No cards of course. Sometimes not even a free kick. Fair play to him though, he did apologise after each attempted shattering of bone. And those fans... ‘Amazing atmosphere...’ if you’re really into booing of any opposition possession. I don’t know why they and Urawa bother to be honest. Can’t imagine that an away team passing the ball around would be so affected by the boos that they’d have a crisis of confidence and give the ball away. Add to this some big booing for Kashima old boy Yamamura before the game and you have quite an unlikeable set of fans. It was lovely that Yamamura scored. It was pretty good of him to not celebrate the goal. Can’t imagine I would have been able to do the same after being booed before the game. Karma, eh?


High on excitement, low on quality, but I'll take that! -

In some ways this was a bit of a smash and grab from us. In the first half we had plenty of possession and pretty much no shots whilst Kashima had little possession and plenty of shots, and missed some pretty good chances. Though, to be honest, most of those chances were gifted to them by us. The second half was a bit more even but there was still not much high quality play going on in front of goal. Kashima fluffed some more, and the one time they didn’t fluff, Kurumaya was on hand to clear off the line. We didn’t look great up front but were getting a bit closer the more Kashima tried to score. It’s weird for us to score with a header from a set piece recently so that was nice. This really forced Kashima to commit men forward and consequently gave us lots of space. We probably should have scored more. Ienaga put a first time shot pretty much out of the stadium it was so high over the bar. Chinen had a chance to hoof the ball into an empty net from near the centre circle at the end of the game but almost put it out for a throw. The game is probably best summed up by our second goal; Kobayashi has a great chance, doesn’t take it (although this time he at least managed to shoot, even if it did hit the post and Hasegawa bundled the ball into the net at the second time of asking with some help from a defender. It definitely wasn’t beautiful, and it was definitely comical and sloppy. But they all count, and when it’s your team scoring these kind of goals, sometimes they are even more fun than fantastic pieces of skill. 


Title race trundles on -

Still got no idea what’s going to happen. Still mathematically have a chance ourselves, but you’ve got to think that chance will be extinguished when the other teams catch up the extra game we’ve played. But if they happen to lose all those games...


That’ll do, I won’t mention dodgy performances from some players, I won’t mention a ref with some interesting thoughts on both yellow card offences and playing the advantage. I will mention again that this was fun!! Next up Yokohama at home. Perhaps we’ll spoil their party too. We’ll see, I guess. It’s nice to be able to enjoy the end of what has been a bit of a frustrating season. Let’s keep it going for the last couple of games. Go Frontale!


Team

GK 21. ARAI Shota
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa (Yellow card 42')
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo (Yellow card 69')
DF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 77')
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyoehi (on for ABE 90+3') 
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for WAKIZAKA 56') 
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for KOBAYASHI 81') 
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto


My Frontale Man Of The Match

I dunno, wasn't exactly the greatest match, but a few players looked good. Tanaka was great again, Arai made some important saves, Hasegawa and Kurumaya made fools of plenty of Kashima players later on in the game. But given that he hasn't really had a chance to play where he probably wants to, I'll give it to….

YAMAMURA Kazuya - scored a goal, kept a clean sheet, got the best possible revenge for his prematch booing and then trumped it by not even celebrating. Classy!


Goals

YAMAMURA (Frontale) 62' 0-1
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 71' 0-2
 

Highlights

Wednesday 6 November 2019

Vs Urawa Reds (away) 5/11/19 - J League match 32

Urawa Reds 0 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

I couldn't go to this game due to work. It was moved to a Tuesday night with a 18:30 kick off to try to help Urawa win the ACL. We'll see how that works out. It's helped us pile the pressure on the top three. We're coming for you! Hmmmm... Yeah right. But it's always nice to beat Urawa and nice to get another win on the board. All I know about this game is what I have gleaned from looking at the match stats and the highlights videos, so I'm not going to bore on about it. But I wanted to get this post done as soon as possible as I won't really be gaining any more insight as the days pass. Next up, Kashima away on Saturday. The bus journey is almost certainly going to be a nightmare. This is the first opportunity that we have to ruin someone's title chase. I'm still torn as to who I would prefer to win the league. Actually, completely bewildered would be more accurate. We'll see, I guess. Let's hope we can keep the wins coming. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 21. ARAI Shota
DF 26. MAGUINHO
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 19. SAITO Manabu
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (Yellow card 67')


Subs
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki (on for WAKIZAKA 89')   
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for MAGUINHO 46')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 67')
MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto

Goals

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 35' 0-1
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 78' 0-2
 

Highlights

Monday 4 November 2019

Vs Sanfrecce Hiroshima (home) 2/11/19 - J League match 30

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 1 Sanfrecce Hiroshima

As the season nears an end, and with our Levain Cup victory still fresh in our minds, we were back at home and playing again in the league. Mathematically, we still have a chance of taking a third league title, but giving that this was another match day where Kashima, FC Tokyo and Yokohama all won, it is only the maths that we have to hang on to. But we’ve still got to play out these last few games and perhaps mess up some teams’ title chances. It was nice to win a game in the league though as that is something of a rarity recently. I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but it’s a bit of a miracle, given our recent form, that we’re anywhere close to the title race this year. This blog post is going to be more useless than these normally are, as I was lucky enough to get some VIP tickets to this game. Consequently, I very much enjoyed the free food and alcohol before the game and watched from the side of the pitch near the centre line in the main stand. Very nice seats, fantastic view, pretty lousy atmosphere as you’d probably expect. These things combined with the general pointlessness of the match meant that I didn’t put much effort into writing notes. So, I’ll do my best, but it’s going to be a bit shabby, I think.


Suspensions and now injuries -

This game saw us without Taniguchi (suspended for the red in the Levain final), Kurumaya and Ienaga (suspended for picking up five yellow cards). We narrowly averted a defensive disaster through Nara’s return and he looked well up for the game after missing a lot of games. Jesiel also made it back to the bench so we should be spoilt for choice in that department soon. Wonder who will get picked. The combination of Nara and Yamamura looked pretty solid I thought and the goal we conceded only came from a bit of an unfortunate blunder from Maguinho. Arai did have to make a few saves though and some of them were pretty good so I can’t see us seeing Sung-Ryong again this season if Arai continues like that. Up front we once again seem to be struck by the curse that if a player scores as a sub, they start the next game and then fail to do anything too exciting. Can we start our future games with no strikers and use Kobayashi, Leandro Damiao and Chinen all as super subs please? Although to be fair to Kobayashi, he did have a legitimate goal ruled out for offside in the first half. (Some abuse for the officials further down in this post). Thankfully we have midfielders who want to shoot and it was nice to see Ao get another goal. Whether he is allowed to claim it is another matter as it is clearly an own goal, the ball bouncing off the post onto the keeper and back into the net. I suspect that Ao would like it and the keeper doesn’t want it though, so we’ll see. This was not the only thing Ao contributed though. I think he was pretty good all over the pitch to be honest. Wakizaka also had another good game I thought. I was delighted for Maguinho to get a goal on the day his kids were at the game. He really hasn’t had a decent crack of the whip this year and looked delighted when he smashed the ball home confidently. The fact that it came shortly after his mistake gave Hiroshima their goal will hopefully go some way to canceling out the mistake. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him make way in the next match though as we’ll have bigger names available. It’s a shame for him though. Just as we get some players back from injury we lose another couple though. It will come as no surprise to hear that Oshima is one of the injuries, although he walked off the pitch so it’s hopefully not too serious. It’s not really worth risking him though as the remaining games are pretty pointless. The worrying injury came to Kengo and it was immediately apparent that it was a serious injury from the way he reacted. Apparently it’s an ACL injury so that will see him definitely out till the start of next season at the earliest. We just have to hope it’s not too bad as these injuries can sometimes be pretty nasty. Fingers crossed he’s back next year. Very classy of the Hiroshima fans to boo him as he lie injured…


The race for fourth -

Realistically, this is the best we can hope for. Eight points off top and second and seven points off third with four games to go. Two of these games will be against two of the teams above us, but even if we win them both we’ll still need more slip ups from those teams. Fourth place could get us into the ACL if Kashima win the Emperor’s Cup, (I think, but this could well be just my imagination). This could be somewhat useful for us when it comes to attracting and retaining players. Possibly… I don’t really know how much of a big thing the ACL is for J League players to be honest. It’s a shame we stunk the place up so badly in the middle of the season. We now have three wins in our last eleven league games. You could spin that a little differently though and say three wins a draw and a loss in our last five. Either way you look at it, it hasn’t been good enough. We’ll be scrapping for fourth with Sanfrecce and Cerezo as there’s only one point between the three of us. So it looks like a final league position of anywhere from 4th to 6th. I don’t know how this will be perceived by the board and the fans. Apparently Oniki has been offered a new contract but I haven’t heard that he’s accepted it yet. Mysterious… The Levain Cup win has taken the edge a little of a disappointing league campaign I guess, but as I’ve said numerous times, us not winning the league this year has to go down as a huge missed opportunity as the other contenders have been pretty rotten at times.


Oniki reconsidered -

On last week’s J Talk podcast I said that I have once again called a truce with Oniki, mainly as I’m tired of moaning about him, but also I have to give him some credit for getting us another trophy. I still have my doubts about a lot of his team selections and his tactics leave me cold at times. However, sitting just behind him in the fancy seats gave me a whole new impression of him. He was constantly giving the fourth official and the ref grief about some dodgy decisions, so I have a newfound respect for him. If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s the fact that the officials are often pretty useless. People bore on about Rugby and the respect that the players show the ref, but seriously, the way some of the J League officials officiate, I think it would be ridiculous to afford them any kind of respect. Yeah, it’s a tough job etc. but in the way that most people who want to be politicians are exactly the kind of people who shouldn’t be politicians, you could probably say the same about refs. If you are in any way religious, why not have a little pray for some new refs and linesmen who aren’t insane and can actually do the job for next season.


So, yeah, nice to beat Hiroshima. These little victories are probably all we have to take from this season now, so I suppose we should try to make the most of them. Next up, Urawa away on Tuesday with a ridiculous 18:30 kick off, perhaps arranged to ensure the smallest possible crowd. I won’t be able to go to this game and the crazy early kick off means that the game will be all but over by the time I finish work. Would be quite fun to add to their league worries, wouldn’t it? Guess the line up will be of some interest and to be honest, it’s a game we really should win. Therefore, we’ll probably lose. After that, it’s another hellish trip to Kashima next weekend. Or more accurately, a hellish bus trip back from Kashima. Pressure’s off so let’s just have some fun for the last few games. Go Frontale!


Team

GK 21. ARAI Shota
DF 26. MAGUINHO
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
DF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (Yellow card 90')
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 28. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 4. JESIEL
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
MF 19. SAITO Manabu (on for NAKAMURA 66')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for KOBAYASHI 90+3')
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto (on for OSHIMA 60')
MF 35. ISSAKA Zain

My Frontale Man Of The Match

This was a reasonable performance, with not a great deal of possession and significantly fewer goal attempts than the opposition but it didn’t feel like a smash and grab. Perhaps it was a strangely efficient performance. All in all, quite average, but one player stood out and that was….

TANAKA Ao - all over the pitch, wearing a phantom of the opera mask, getting involved with a broken nose and even trolling their keeper by forcing him to score an own goal with his back. His star continues to rise, and deservedly so.


Goals
OWN GOAL (Sanfrecce) 21' 1-0
LEANDRO DAMIAO (Sanfrecce) 82' 1-1
MAGUINHO (Frontale) 84' 2-1


Highlights