Sunday 23 February 2020

Vs Sagan Tosu (home) 22/2/20 - J League match 1

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 0 Sagan Tosu


So we’re off and running in the J League for 2020. Although with us failing to beat Sagan Tosu at our place in this game, you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s still 2019. Or 2018… Or 2017... We have a brand spanking new formation! Brand new tactics (apparently)! Brand new exciting young players! And another draw filled with loads of limp shots, most of which were off target. So, another season starting with a whimper rather than a bang. I’m not going to moan too much yet as I get a bit fed up with hearing myself do it to be honest. And it’s still early days, but it would be nice to get a reasonable start for once. Let’s get this post out of the way quickly and then move on to our next potential disappointment next weekend at home against Consadole. Here’s what we might have learned from this game.


New tactics, same problems -
We were lulled into a false sense of excitement earlier this year by the talk of us playing attacking football and bringing some excitement back. Last week’s game against Shimizu might have reinforced this positivity, but even last week it seemed that we spent most of the game doing the same ponderous passing with no intent as we did for most of last year. Somehow we ended up scoring five times. Not even a hint of such excitement in this game though, which saw us create loads of ‘chances’ but fail to put the majority of them on target. When we did ‘challenge’ their keeper it was only a mental challenge, as he tried to work out why we might be tamely rolling the ball to him rather than trying to score. We did alright down the wings in this game. Well, right up until the point where we had to cross the ball. I still feel that the midfield three isn’t completely working. Taniguchi and Jesiel yesterday seemed to be trying to outdo each other with increasingly comical blunders, which thankfully Sagan Tosu failed to capitalise on. To be honest though, we really should have had enough to get the job done. Although it did seem that Sagan Tosu seemed to be playing a back seven. Consequently, there was no space for us at all, but it’s not like we haven’t experienced that last year. Seems we still don’t have a solution though. And perhaps a preseason filled with goals against amateur teams has lulled us into a false sense of security that we will be able to easily win every game. Got to get those shots on target though if you want to score.


Best 11? -
Last week we couldn’t be exactly sure who our preferred starting line up would be. Kobayashi on the bench seemed to be because Miyashiro had to start due to the Levain cup’s young player requirements. I imagined that Kobayashi would slot in on the right in this game. Instead he was still on the bench with Ienaga taking that spot. I wonder if this is because Kobayashi still doesn’t want to play on the right, even if it is as one of a front three. If this is the case, it’s surely only a matter of time till Oniki ditches Leandro Damiao again. I didn’t think Ienaga was as bad there as some people have said. Hatate did well when he came on… well right up until shooting, but you can say that about plenty of others too. But if Kobayashi isn’t going to play on the right, I imagine this is going to be a difficult spot for us. You can’t really argue with the midfield three, but at the same time, you can’t really say that any of them covered themselves in glory in this game. Wouldn’t change them though. The goal keeper situation remains confusing. Well confusing behind Sung-Ryong who seems to be first choice. Last week Ando was on the bench and this week it was Tanno. Perhaps Oniki is going to rotate the substitute goalkeeper every game this year. But anyway, all of this is kind of immaterial as the team selected should easily have got us over the line against a Sagan Tosu team who look like they’re going to spend most of the season with 80% of their players packed into their own box.

VARse -
It’s a bad and unoriginal pun, I know, but I think I’ll be saying it a lot this year. No complaints about the goal being disallowed. At the time I thought I’d spotted a handball, so I was expecting something (not an offside, but some disappointment certainly). But it’s just rubbish isn’t it? There was a total lack of clarity in the ground. We were lined up for the kick off after the ‘goal’ before anyone really noticed it was being reviewed. I hate celebrating and then not getting a goal. I guess celebrating, pausing and the celebrating mutedly again is probably weirder though. It just all seems so random. Perhaps it will take us all some time to get used to it, but given that it’s been a total disaster in the Premier League, I’m surprised any other league is keen to adopt it. And as we’ve come to expect, the general standard of refereeing is so bad that even with the benefit of a video replay I’m not totally confident they’d get decisions right. I’m not particularly sure about the new more lenient refereeing regarding tackles. I certainly think that it’s not going to help us. Kimura seemed to let Tosu get away with a lot yesterday and I don’t really understand why we need less yellow cards in the game. Perhaps though it might be a benefit for us to not get so many free kicks considering what we do with them.


Weird walls -
Yes, this year, we’re doing that weird wall in front of the wall thing. No idea what this is supposed to achieve. And no idea why Noborizato is lining everything up and then running over the ball. I don’t think anyone expects him to take one. Perhaps in a few weeks time he’ll run over the ball past the wall and get a pass from the free kick taker. Seems like a lot of preparation for something that we can only do once though. Both of the free kicks we did this lengthy preparation for, (one of which was the last kick of the game, so we were effectively wasting our own time), went into the wall I think. So clearly some work to be done there. Admittedly the extremely windy conditions probably weren’t helping things where the ball had to leave the ground so maybe it was just easier all round to blast the ball aimlessly into the wall.


So, hopefully this is just another slow start, and in a way, what better way to start than with a game against a team we should beat but against whom we always draw? Let’s be optimistic and look at it that way, getting our annual poor home performance again Sagan Tosu out of the way early on. However, we really need to up our game as we were really lacking quality in this match. I don’t feel that there’s really so much difference in our tactics from last year. Occasionally we get the ball forwards quickly, but we relapse to our normal ‘patient’ play quite often. Our shooting was horrible in this game and that is a bigger problem at the moment than any unfamiliarity with new tactics or individual dodgy performances. We’ll probably have more space to play in next week against Consadole, but if we still can’t get a shot on target we’re not going to score. Of course, it’s still very early days, but fingers crossed we can do a bit better soon.

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 8. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 76') 
MF 18. MITOMA Kaoru (on for HASEGAWA 65')
FW 30. HATATE Reo (on for IENAGA 65')
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya


My Frontale Man Of The Match

This is a bit of an unusual one as the quality was generally poor in most areas of the pitch so I'd normally not bother. Seems weird to give it to someone who only played 25 minutes but never mind, it’s going to….

MITOMA Kaoru - Looks pretty dangerous on the ball and gave us some real drive. Cuts in from the left a lot so I wonder if he could also be used on the right.

Goals

None 

Highlights 

Wednesday 19 February 2020

Vs Shimizu S Pulse (home) 16/2/20, Levain Cup, group stage match 1

Kawasaki Frontale 5 - 1 Shimizu S Pulse


As the first post of the new season with new players and a new system this should be a detailed one. But it’s late and short. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. This year we kicked off our season with a Levain Cup group game, something distinctly different from the last two years’ season openers. There were reasons to be optimistic though. We are apparently going to give youth a chance this year. We are also going to play attacking football, changing to 4-3-3 and ripping off Yokohama's tactics. This probably has left a slightly sour taste in the mouth for some, who’d probably rather we didn’t copy our local rivals to try and catch up with them, but it seems to be a common theme this year, with FC Tokyo and Urawa also apparently giving these tactics a go. Five goals in our first game suggests that things are working though, and for the first time in a while, there was some fun at Todoroki. However, Shimizu were a bit of a mess at the back and will certainly not be our toughest opponents this year. They did give us a bit of a scare though when they pulled a goal back. We looked like we were wobbling for a bit, but in the end the shock was useful, as it knocked us out of a passage of pretty mediocre play and put us back on the front foot. 


A quick word on the new tactics. I don’t think things have gone completely Yokohama as we might have been promised. I think that’s a good thing to be honest. I’m not sure our midfield has totally got to grips with the new system yet and this was the area of the pitch where we weren’t playing so well. As far as I could see, the centre backs weren’t going as far forward as previously. Last year we often had one of our defensive midfielders playing furthest back with the two centre backs advancing slightly either side of him. This year it seems that they’ll stay back. Consequently, there’s no need for our keeper to play in the centre circle, which some people were expecting. Damiao seems much better suited to playing in the middle of a front three, and I’m sure he’d have got more goals in this game if he could have had some shots that weren’t overhead kicks. He certainly loves an overhead! I liked the look of Hasegawa and Miyashiro either side of him but I hope that when Kobayashi comes back into the team it will be on the right alongside Damiao rather than as a replacement for him. The three players in the middle seemed to be working on a basis of one staying back a little and the others going forward. I guess there are just some teething problems with this while everyone gets used to it, but we did seem to be a bit wasteful with possession there. I doubt that this was Oniki’s preferred starting (particularly as Levain rules mean that he needed to start a young player, hence Miyashiro), so I guess we’ll have to wait till next week against Sagan Tosu to get an idea of who is where in the pecking order. We still will have the problem of having loads of players to squeeze into six midfield and forward spots though. Right at the back, it seems that Sung-Ryong is still our number one keeper, but it was something of a shock to see Ando on the bench. Have really no idea if this selection was significant or whether there will be some rotation this year. 


So, of course plenty to be positive about, scoring five goals in our first game, but a few things to work on and think about too. I like the fact that we’re a bit more positive this year as 2019 was a bit of a grind to be honest. And if we can get the midfield clicking it could be a fun year. But there will certainly be tougher games than this ahead, and who knows how we’ll react to a defensive counter attacking team like Hiroshima coming to play us. Although they probably have also switched to super attacking this year too. But let’s not think about that right now and hope that we can carry this positive start into the first league game. We are always slow starters in the league, so an opening day win would make a nice change! Fingers crossed!

Team 

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo 
DF 4. JESIEL 
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 8. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
FW 20. MIYASHIRO Taisei
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

Subs 
GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa  
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 69') 
MF 18. MITOMA Kaoru (on for HASEGAWA 86') 
MF 33. HATATE Reo (on for MIYASHIRO 62')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

My Frontale Man Of The Match

I've left this post so late, that we'll just leave it till next time.

Goals

LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale)10' 1-0 
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 23' 2-0 
ISHIGE (Shimizu) 67' 2-1
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 74' 3-1 
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 83' 4-1 
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 90+5' 5-1 


Highlights