Six wins in a row and looking good. Presumably now our form and results will come crashing down thanks to this bit of optimism. Also, next up we’ve got a tough game against Gamba Osaka, the team right behind us in the table. But more on that later, we should probably deal with this game first. This was another socially distanced football experience. The same restrictions were in place as for our last home game so there was plenty of space between reserved seats, no singing or shouting, and acts of clapping extravagance were restricted. But once again it was fun. Perhaps more fun as once again we decided to gift the opposition a head start. Not as big a head start as against Sendai, but considering Shonan had five shots in the whole game and looked to be playing for a 0-0 it was supremely generous for us to let them score with probably their first shot. Lovely finish, but the striker was in acres of space. As I said in previous posts, if the requirement for being able to watch exciting attacking play with plenty of goals is conceding a soft goal every game, I think we’d all take it right now. Frontale football is fun again! And yes, I know this is leading up to a huge jinx so I’ll add the caveat ‘at the moment’. Fingers crossed though, eh?
Oniki made some interesting changes for this game, once again choosing to shake up the midfield with Shimoda and Morita coming in and Oshima and Ao dropping to the bench. Up front there were changes too. Hasegawa seems to still be injured as he was absent from the match day squad. Into his spot on the left came… Hatate, one of our few right footed attackers. But bearing in mind that Ienaga is left footed and has cemented his place on the right there probably was some of the same thinking behind it. Seemed slightly strange though as Mitoma has definitely caught the eye more in previous games. Perhaps he is being saved for the super sub role though. Up front in the middle there was the probably justified return of Kobayashi with Damiao dropping to the bench. You can’t really leave out a guy who has scored twice from the bench in consecutive games so I think he deserved his start. And at the back, Jesiel was back, which is a bit of relief. This meant Kurumaya dropping to the bench and Nobori continuing at left back. It does seem that Oniki has his ideas about rotation and they don’t really stretch to the whole squad or all of the positions yet but things seem to be working at the moment. I have to say, this was a bit of a hats off to Oniki game as far as I’m concerned. I think I would have made almost all the same decisions as him with regards to starting members and subs, so naturally I'm delighted. Once again, the subs changed the game and it was a brave move to bring on Miyashiro as well as Damiao but it paid off. I suspected that he would not give Damiao the same chance from the bench that he has recently given Kobayashi, but he did. There is something slightly weird going on with us recently. It seems that whoever starts the game up front has a bit of a stinker or is generally unable to get involved. I have no idea why this is, and when the same thing happened to previously prolific Kobayashi in this game it was something of a surprise. Perhaps we just don’t get space up front till the second half in games. Perhaps it is the change of personnel that causes some confusion and creates space and chances. Who knows? But right now it’s working so all credit to Oniki for this. Hopefully we won’t always have to go behind before we crank it up a gear, but it certainly makes it more exciting. I have to say there was a bit of an above-prohibited-level cheer yesterday when we equalised and then went ahead. All the goals were kind of smash and grabs with us making and putting away our chances very swiftly. It was nice to see Mitoma score his first league goal and consequently get himself a new song. When we might actually be able to sing it is another matter. Yamane has bagged another and piles forward with the enthusiasm of someone who has perhaps in the past felt sad about being a defender. He’s an interesting player and he’s not at Elsinho level yet, but the fact that he’s already got a couple of goals from right back is definitely a bonus. Certainly he seems better going forward than defending but as I mentioned above, all of our conceded goals seem to have been where everyone was in a bit of a mess so I’m not going to point the finger at any individuals. Once again, Mitoma just looks like a beast when he comes on. Perhaps we’re keeping him on the bench to preserve his super sub ability or perhaps to distract other teams’ attentions but you’ve got to think that we should just make the most of him whilst we have him as I suspect he might move on to bigger things at some stage. I’ve said that about a few other players though and that hasn’t exactly happened yet. A few final thoughts on this game before I go onto more general things. Shonan defended in numbers, nominally playing three at the back, but you could probably say it was more like eight, with a line of five and then three midfielders just in front of them. This meant that we had loads of possession as every time they cleared the ball it would inevitably come back to us due to the massive gap they had in the middle of their shape. But they did a good job of stifling us in the first half. Perhaps our openings came from the fact that they changed things at half time and attacked a bit more. Certainly the goal gave us a kick up the backside and after that it was lovely to watch. I think we had a shot cleared from behind the line and a pretty solid penalty turned down in the first half, but I’m not going to moan and I’m just going to merely mention them. If we start to struggle I’ll be right back on the backs of the officials but for the time being, it’s lovely not even mentioning them.
Before I round this up I just wanted to mention a few things that I have found interesting this year so far. Recently it has really felt that we were not getting started till the second half of games. I went through and added up when we’re scoring and conceding goals and my feeling was pretty inaccurate. In the eight games we’ve played including the first Levain cup game, we’ve scored 11 in the first half and 14 in the second half. As far as conceding goes it has been three conceded in the first half and four in the second half. The Tokyo game really tipped the balance in favor of first half goals. But then the Yokohama FC game perfectly tipped it back in the other direction. So nothing really to mention here I guess but this does serve to demonstrate that we’ve scored absolutely loads of goals already. I also had a feeling that we’d really been spreading the goals around and with this my feelings proved to be a bit more accurate. We’ve scored a total of 25 goals already and they have been spread amongst 10 different players which is pretty good. If this continues it’s going to be a really fun year!
So, as previously mentioned, next up, Gamba away which will prove challenging. The league is very confusing this year, so I don’t think we’ll really know how we’re playing till quite a few more rounds of fixtures have been played. But certainly this weekend’s game will give us an idea. This is normally a fun away trip so its a shame we won’t be able to do it but never mind, there’s always next year. Let’s hope we can enjoy another good result on Saturday evening! Go Frontale!
Something of a left field selection today considering we scored three nice goals and conceded one by letting an opposition striker have loads of space, but I’m going to give it to…
JESIEL - delighted that his injury wasn’t serious. This game saw him back to his best and at heights that I haven’t seen him reach yet this year. Strong in the tackle and distributed the ball well, he’s a crucial part of our success and long may that continue.
Another strange game! But also another win. I can’t really explain what happened here as I didn’t really feel we deserved to be losing 2-0 at half time. The second half comeback was fantastic and I wonder if in a way we will get a lot more confidence from it than we did from a walkover victory like the one against FC Tokyo. We do have a tendency to give Sendai a head start at their place and we also have a tendency to concede goals to Shun Nagasawa, who some consider a donkey, but who seems to be kryptonite to our defence. Although we conceded twice in the first half I don’t think we were in much trouble aside from the goals. Both goals saw our defence look pretty dodgy despite having plenty of players around, with us lunging for tackles and getting only fresh air. The second goal came from us gifting them possession and looked like a wonder-finish but of course I’ll pour water on that and mention that it was deflected and therefore they were lucky (hehe). I think, given that we’re focused on attack we’d all be ok with us giving away one of these kind of goals per game, but to gift them two in the first half with nothing on the board for us was a bit of a blunder. I think we weren’t awful in the first half, and had loads of possession, but just couldn’t make any chances and the better chances were definitely going to Sendai and they took them. Hasegawa went off injured just before half time. Hopefully it isn’t serious as he’s been great so far this season. However he hadn’t done much in the first half (or against Yokohama to be honest), so maybe a little rest is good for him.
Perhaps this forced change made Oniki decide to bring on Kobayashi for Damiao at half time instead of the usual 55-60 minute change we’d expect. The change was a good one though. Damiao just didn’t seem to be getting a sniff in the first half and Kobayashi once again has come off the bench and scored twice, somehow getting chances that Damiao didn’t seem to. I guess we have to put this down to Kobayashi’s skills so full credit to him. Even though Damiao now seems a lot better integrated into the team, I think that if Kobayashi is fully fit it would be pretty harsh to not start with him next game as he’s really doing the business right now. Probably likewise Mitoma who really grabs the games he’s involved in by the scruff of the neck. Hasegawa seems to be able to dribble and beat players through his trickiness but Mitoma seems to just grab the ball and charge towards the goal, with it sticking to him magically, even when he loses it it seems to bounce off the defender back to him. So far he hasn’t had to do it from the start of a game, but it can surely only be a matter of time. Hatate seems to be improving and is starting to show some of the massive talent that we know he has. His cross for Kobayashi’s first was very nice. Yamane made up for gifting Sendai possession for their second goal with a nice run and finish after a one-two with Kobayashi. I think our defence is still our most likely downfall though with us being short of numbers in that area. But if we continue to score at least three goals a game we’re probably going to win most weeks even if the defence is a bit leaky. Oh, and once again an honorable mention for Ienaga, who is playing loads of minutes and is doing a magnificent job wherever he is asked to play. To be honest though, wherever he plays he seems to do his own thing quite a lot and as long as that’s working, good for him!
So next up, Shonan at home on Saturday. They’ve just picked up their first win of the season against bottom part of the table dwellers Kashima Antlers. Who bizarrely have lost every game apart the one from against Yokohama F Marinos. What a weird season this is already. Long may that continue. And fingers crossed our good form does too. Shonan home is another fixture that is occasionally a banana skin for us. Whether Oniki rings the changes for this game (by which I mean moves the usual subs into the starting line-up and subs on the usual starters at the usual intervals), or sticks with his usual plan I don’t know. Hopefully we won’t need to come back from two goals behind, but it’s undeniable that the fact we did so in this game will give us a huge confidence boost. And you’ve got to think that we were probably quite confident already. Clearly I’m building this all up and it will now be a 1-0 home defeat. Hopefully not. Go Frontale!
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa (on for IENAGA 88') FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 46')
MF 18. MITOMA Kaoru (on for HASEGAWA 45')
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto (on for OSHIMA 84') FW 30. HATATE Reo (on for WAKIZAKA 46')
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya
My Frontale Man Of The Match
I normally like to be slightly oblique with these but...
KOBAYASHI Yu - scored twice, assisted on the other goal, made chances that somehow Damiao didn't. Hats off to Kobayashi, he's really doing the business right now. Class!
Hmmm, where to start with this one? This was another match I watched on DAZN so I’m not going to go into too much detail about it. 5-1 though! But it was never really a 5-1 and Yokohama can feel a bit aggrieved to have lost by that scoreline I think. They were by no means the worst team we’ve played so far this year. For large parts of the game they totally bossed us. Their young striker Saito made our defense look pretty bad, but somehow we ended up winning by four clear goals. Football is weird! They had more possession than us. We looked like we couldn’t pass, especially in the midfield. (Normally we complain about the length of the grass when this happens, but I didn’t hear anything like that mentioned this time). Particularly at the start of the second half, they were swarming all over us. But the shot count probably tells a different story. Apparently, we had 24 shots to their 10. But yeah, they were still really unlucky I thought. Our second goal to retake the lead was a penalty that looked a bit soft to say the least. Our third was another penalty which I think was undeniable. And then after that they seemed to go to pieces at the back, the rapid collapse of the strength of their position in the match perhaps has a serious effect on the confidence of such a young team. But, you know, in the four games since the league restarted we have scored 2, 3, 4 and now 5 goals in a game, so clearly something is going right for us on the pitch. Normally this kind of game would be a banana skin for us, and it so nearly could have been. But the two penalties and our first two substitutions really changed the momentum of the game. The subsequent substitutions probably changed things too. They certainly changed our understanding of where people were playing but we got away with them. Alternatively, maybe Yokohama’s hard pressing for the first two thirds of the game caused them to eventually run out of steam. Whichever way you look at it, this result would have been unbelievable after they equalised and we really dodged a bullet and by doing so fell into a pot of gold, to totally fabricate a new proverb.
Everything was so confusing about this game that I’m just going to briefly mention a few players and then that will do with this post. Kobayashi made his comeback and I almost predicted perfectly on twitter beforehand the timing of him replacing Damiao as our first sub. Damiao did alright I thought, and I wasn’t really sure he should have been the first change, but Oniki clearly loves Kobayashi and doesn’t want to play him on the right so it wasn’t so much of a surprise. And Kobayashi did pretty well considering he hasn’t played recently. Thankfully he put away the penalty as that is not always a given and a miss could have really changed the way his game went. His second goal hit the defender twice, one on the hand, on its way in, but I reckon it was on target anyway. It really seems that he gives the team a mental lift when he comes on and although I wish Oniki would play him on the right, I can’t deny that when he comes on for Damiao in the middle he does quite often really do the business in a way that our number 9 still isn’t quite able to. Hasegawa perhaps ran out of puff a little in this game and the difference when Mitoma came on was pretty noticeable. Mitoma immediately grabbed the ball and drove right at the Yokohama goal. And then proceeded to continue doing so. There seemed to be some real power and goal focus in his play and whilst it might not be the way we normally play, it did stir up some excitement. The midfield three seemed once again to not be doing that great and Yamane again didn’t seem to be at his best showing flashes of good play but flashes with plenty of average or worse play around them. We are still clearly short of numbers at the back, but it doesn’t seem to be a worry for Oniki. I think perhaps that his solution to the problem of us having way too many midfielders in our squad is to just play some of them in defence. The goal we conceded once again seemed to be because our defence was in a bit of a mess, but the fact that our goal difference after five games is +11 means that it’s a bit churlish of me to complain about defending. In spite of the score though, this surprisingly wasn’t that much fun to watch for long periods. We were lucky to get this result, and it took a lot of sloppiness before we managed to click. But click we did and on we go. Next up, Sendai away on Wednesday. I always like that fixture but it will probably not be the same sitting at home on my sofa watching it. Hopefully we can continue this nice run of results though. Go Frontale!
MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa (on for YAMANE 84') FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 60')
MF 18. MITOMA Kaoru (on for HASEGAWA 60')
MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto (on for OSHIMA 84') FW 30. HATATE Reo
MF 34. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for NOBORIZATO 90+6') My Frontale Man Of The Match
Was a bit confused over who to give this too, but then the clouds cleared and it became obvious it should be…
IENAGA Akihiro - looked full of energy for the whole ninety minutes in spite of his advancing years and was one player who seemed to not be messing things up when we were having our dodgy spell not making the basic errors that others were. And this maybe also makes up for me not giving it to him when he scored twice against Kashima.
The games are coming thick and fast at the moment but obviously anything that happened in this fixture against Kashiwa was always going to be overshadowed by the fact that this was the first J1 game with fans back in the stadium, albeit in limited numbers. Kobe and Oita also played at the same time, but for some reason (possibly the fact that there is no Wednesday game next week), the majority of the fourth round of fixtures were moved to Sunday. This has given me a great platform to trumpet myself as an early experiencer of limited attendance social distancing football. I’m not sure what the situation is like in every other country that has restarted football but it seems that most leagues that have resumed have done it without any spectators. Whether getting 5000 people to come to a game of football in the middle of a pandemic is a good idea, I don’t know. I’ll leave that issue to people who write blogs solely about the administration side of the J League. Can’t recall there being any of them off hand but I’m sure the tales of plenty of meetings and fax machine hi-jinks are fascinating! To be honest, I’d probably say that the train journey to the ground (or any train journey at the moment) would have been potentially more hazardous than anything that could happen in the stadium as everything seemed to be pretty well organized. I guess the majority of this post will be reflecting on this side of yesterday’s experience, so I’d better get the limited stuff I write about the game out of the way first and then we can concentrate on the admin and organization side of things.
On the pitch Oniki rang the changes! Well to the midfield anyway. Shimoda and Morita came in for Oshima and Ao which was a bit of a surprise to be honest even though both had done well in their limited time on the pitch against FC Tokyo. Kurumaya replaced Nobori at left back too which, no offense to Nobori, was the change I might have made first. The changes in the starting line up were directly reflected on the bench with the players missing out moving to the spots the new starters had vacated on the bench. Oniki’s real rotation passion seems to be with the substitute keeper though as once again Ando and Tanno swapped for that crucial sub keeper spot. Whether Fujishima will also get involved in the rotation at some stage I’m not sure, but I’m sure it is one of the most eagerly awaited bits of team news for everyone. I thought Shimoda’s inclusion would mean he would be taking the set pieces, but they seemed to be being shared between him and the usual and slightly disappointing (in this respect) Wakizaka. As soon as I had written my confusion at this in my notes Leandro Damiao scored a beauty of a goal from a Wakizaka corner. It was almost a mirror image of his own goal against Kashima and I think it was even at the same end. During the FC Tokyo game I commented that Yamane had yet to impress fully and then he made a wondrous dribble and pass to set up Damiao. As I am a sucker for any kind of football related superstition I’d say this definitely means that next game I need to say something slightly negative about someone and magic them into laying on a goal for Damiao. It’s a great responsibility, so I’ll be sure not to use it without consideration.
I’ve jumped ahead somewhat to the Damiao goal as once again he has scored in a game but has been denied the hero interview by a teammate scoring twice. Ienaga took his two goals with the aplomb and elan that you’d expect from someone of his experience and coolness, the header from the corner being assisted by a Kashiwa defender and then having Damiao clear some space for him to smack a shot in from outside the box for his second. This second goal caused me to accidentally grind my teeth as I tried to suppress a ‘YESSSSS!!!’ with Corona etiquette in mind. All in all, this was a pretty comfortable win for us. We missed a few more pretty straightforward chances, which would be a worry if we weren’t already scoring quite a few goals. We also conceded something of a soft goal, but it felt that it was a bit unlucky rather than anyone being particularly culpable. Since the restart we’ve scored an average of three goals per game, which is pretty satisfying, and shows that we are looking forward a bit more than we were last year. The little midfield shuffle seems to be working now, but once again, I can’t praise us too highly without feeling the need to slag off the opposition. Kashiwa were pretty ordinary, and that opening day smashing of Sapporo now looks more like a freak result than the sign that they were going to cruise to the title that some people interpreted it as. I hope I get to keep going though the season saying the opposition were poor. If this is the case, perhaps at some stage I might have to admit that we were quite good perhaps. But as far as I can see so far, we haven’t yet been made to regret our numerous missed opportunities and at the back have even had to score half of the oppositions goals ourselves. Definitely reasons to be optimistic. A reason to be pessimistic, and perhaps some people might imagine the reason I write this blog is to interminably point this out, is the ongoing appalling refereeing. My gripe today, and please skip this bit if you don’t like whinging, is the amount of cards we are getting compared to the opposition. My conspiratorial mind would say that there has been a meeting at J League HQ mentioning the fact that our fans expressed a fondness for a certain referee and now we have to be punished by all of the others. There haven’t really been any clangers yet, but it’s sometimes weird what we get yellows for and it’s even weirder what the opposition don’t get booked for. This and the FC Tokyo games saw a referee similarly unwilling to give a card to our opposition (or us on Wednesday), but in this match Ueda seemed to be deciding on when to hand out the yellows by using a magic 8 ball. All these yellows might come back to haunt us later in the season through suspensions if they continue at the same rate. Especially as if the early injury to Jesiel is serious and he missed some games, it means we’re now down to two central defenders in the squad and one of them is Kamiya who is a youngster who has never even made the bench. Of course Kurumaya and Yamamura can fill in there, but I can’t help think we’re a bit light in that department.
So now, on to the socially distanced football talk. Frontale seems to always be a pretty organized club as far as I can tell and they had clearly spent a long time preparing for this. The capacity for this game was limited to 5000, so around one fifth of our normal attendance. Clearly this meant that plenty of people had to miss out. This is particularly tough for some as although I don’t know the numbers, I believe that a significant proportion of our match day attendance is made up of season ticket holders. The area of the ground that I sit in (SG) is probably 75% season tickets judging by the relative length of the queues to get in before the game. Season ticket holders, (although that is kind of strange as all season tickets have been canceled this year, but when I say season ticket holders I mean people who had a season ticket), have priority when it comes to ticket sales and given how quickly the tickets sold out I guess that everyone who attended was one of these people, even if some were not able to be accommodated in their usual area of the ground. All seats were allocated and I don’t think there was any difference in ticket price to a normal game. The fact that the seats were allocated meant that there was no need to queue hours in advance to rush in and grab a good seat which immediately removed one potential source of contagion. Two free seats were kept in between every allocated seat and the rows were alternately occupied and unoccupied. The standing areas behind the goal also numbered and allocated spots and as far as I could see, everyone kept to their allocated seat or position. One benefit of this was that the support was spread out right round the stadium and if you blurred your eyes a bit you could imagine that there were more people there than there actually were. We were also encouraged to bring shirts or towels to put on the unoccupied seats so we could do our usual ‘paint it blue’ thing. Given the limited capacity, queues for toilets weren’t really much of a problem, but there were clearly marked gaps between toilet queue spots to deal with the half time rush. The fact that there were no alcohol sales perhaps helped ease that half time rush too. On our way in we had our temperature checked by someone standing behind a plastic screen. There were no bag checks (I’m not saying you should smuggle things in though, I’m just saying that’s another way to possibly prevent infection). I’m not sure if any paper tickets were in use. There definitely seemed more scanners than usual though, so that was another interaction which was able to be done at a distance. Of course there was loads of hand gel around too and everybody had to wear a mask, but they probably would have been doing so anyway even if this rule had not been in place. Probably the only large gatherings of people I saw were in the main stand where the queues for the club shop and the food stand snaked around further than I’d normally expect. There seemed to be some self-enforced distancing in these queues too though. The majority of Frontale fans are quite well behaved!
There were some guidelines in place from the J League about what we could and couldn’t do in the game and this was probably the point where the strangeness of the situation were most noticeable. Towels could be held aloft but could not be twirled. Hands could be clapped, but not rhythmically to replace songs we would normally sing. This seemed a bit strange to me, but I guess the reasoning was that if we’re doing the normal ‘LET’S GO, LET’S GO *CLAP CLAP*’ some people might not be able to control themselves and have to sing along. Of course, singing and shouting were not allowed. This obviously made the biggest difference as instead of the almost constant singing we had ripples of applause which became gradually more insistent as we got closer to the goal. I think it definitely helped punctuate the game as normally we’d expect some cheers and groans as players do good or not so good stuff and the contrast between the polite applause and silence did the job in the absence of anything vocal. I was pleased that even when the stadium was empty we didn’t pipe in fake crowd noise as it’s so random and I’d imagine very difficult to make it appear anything other than completely false. We had a recording of fans singing the Kawasaki city song played before the game (towels up as usual everyone), but on this occasion they cut it off pretty abruptly, as normally it would launch into another song. We also had our goal song played after we scored. With no big celebrations with the crowd after goals it was even more evident than usual that our goal song is a bit too long. On every occasion the game had kicked off again whilst the song was still playing. Seemed a bit weird and reminded me of the very strange sensation when at a Leyton Orient game someone forgot to turn the PA off after half time and we had a brief and surreal musical accompaniment to the game. I guess all of this makes it sound like it was a bit of a sterile atmosphere. Certainly, before going to this game I thought that we’d probably only be trying to go once to a match in these weird circumstances, mainly to see how weird it was and then decide afterwards that it was probably more enjoyable to watch at home. However, I actually quite enjoyed it. Perhaps this is because we’ve all been starved of live football, but I’d definitely like to go to another match like this. To be honest if you sit in the main stand, the atmosphere was probably not so different from normal (ho ho ho). I was a little worried about being able to control myself and not shout but it was relatively easy to restrict myself to a masked and closed mouth YES! after goals and the occasional ‘oooooooh’ as exciting things happened. It was definitely interesting to hear the players talking to each other and I think I could hear Oniki shouting instructions to Hatate from the other side of the stadium. All of this makes the fact that Olunga, after being flagged offside and continuing to play on, putting the ball in the back of the net, seemed to be saying he couldn’t hear the whistle pretty funny. There was really nothing to hear except for the whistle. If he couldn’t hear it, I think he’d better book a trip to the audiologist soon.
I guess it was an experience a little like a cricket or tennis match crossed with a firework display. When we were playing well one round of applause for a nice pass merged into the next and there was something of a blanket of claps going on. Some people even clapped when Kashiwa scored. Some might suggest this was a sign of our great sportsmanship, but I suspect it was more of an attempt to gee up the defenders who’d just conceded. That did feel a bit strange though. I heard that ‘some people online’ (a phrase that should strike fear into the hearts of anyone who doesn’t want to feel the need to smash their face into the nearest hard surface), have complained that our fans broke the rules with some semi-rhythmic clapping. I’d suggest that these people get a life and I’d expect that they aren’t really neutral if I had to guess. It does seem strange though that gradually increasing in speed and volume clapping in the style of an audience trying to get an encore at a concert is ok, but clapping in our usual let’s go style is not ok, but I appreciate that they have to make some kind of rule and there are almost certainly reasons behind it that we might not be aware of. All in all though, I think we did pretty well. I heard no singing, I saw only minimal towel movement, the rhythmic clapping was for the most part arhythmic and I enjoyed the fact that I was probably the only person in the stadium to clap one particular pass. Normally I shout handball and no-one else does, but on this occasion instead of being slightly embarrassed it actually felt quite fun to be on a compete different wavelength to everyone else around me. The one thing I really missed was being able to give the ref some abuse. Or rather I missed the fact that the referee doing his usual useless job was not made aware of how badly he was doing. Although I wouldn’t like it if Ueda came to one of my English lessons and shouted at me, I feel like this does bear some resemblance to my relationship with my ex-boss, so perhaps I have some experience of this after all.
I hope I haven’t let down anyone who was hoping for great insight in socially distanced football. I’d be happy to answer any questions if you want to email me or leave comments. As you can probably tell from what I’ve written, it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be. Given the circumstances in other countries, (and who knows, maybe Japan will get there in the future), I feel lucky that we can get any opportunity to experience something even slightly close to a normal match day experience. When you consider how much had to be changed from how things usually operate, I’d say this was a pretty successful first attempt and there’s not anything that I can think that would need to be changed. Of course the atmosphere is different, but if it prevents even one person from getting even slightly sick that’s a good thing. I don’t know if anyone was turned away due to their temperature being too high. I’m pretty useless with Japanese summer so I was worried that I might break the thermometer but it seems that even sweaty old me is fine. I guess the big challenge is scaling this up to the next level when we are allowed a higher attendance in a few weeks. The Corona numbers have been rising in Japan recently so maybe that date should be reviewed, but as I said above, when you consider what commuters are doing every day and the fact that plenty of people are living their lives as they were before Coronavirus, going to restaurants and bars, shopping etc., I’d say that this is probably one of the safer possible activities to do. Fingers crossed this proves to be true and that we’re not rapidly backpedaling in a few weeks time. If you want a massively sweeping conclusion about this experience here we go… It was different, it was obviously not as good, but it was much better than I expected, and it seems like it was the right way to do things.
Oh, next up Yokohama FC away next weekend. Back to DAZN for me and probably moaning at the ref via the computer. Go Frontale!
Subs GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for JESIEL 16') MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for WAKIZAKA 61') MF 19. SAITO Manabu (on for HASEGAWA 86') FW 20. MIYASHIRO Taisei (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 86') MF 25. TANAKA Ao FW 30. HATATE Reo (on for IENAGA 61') My Frontale Man Of The Match
Hey man, we're all the man of the match as we are trying to stop Coronavirus, eh? But actually in something of a slightly unfair move as I gave it to a two goal scorer last time but am not this time, I'll give it to...
SHIMODA Hokuto - something of a surprise that he's still with us as plenty of midfielders have moved on since he's been here because they have been totally blocked out of the team by undroppables but Shimoda has plugged away, got a start yesterday and looked much better slightly further forward than I think he ever has for us. His set piece delivery is a real asset!
What a delightful match that was! Every year it seems we get one extra goal against FC Chofu at their place. In 2018 it was 0-2, 2019, 0-3. But this year it would be different. The lads from Chofu have started the year with sparkling new tactics. Like us they have ripped off the Marinos plan. Not sure how they feel about that idea now. I can’t see a great deal of difference between us this year and last year apart from us being a bit more willing to shoot and maybe having one midfielder in front of the defence and two further forward rather than the other way round. I haven’t seen either of Tokyo FC’s previous games but judging on this performance it seems that they have interpreted the tactics slightly differently and are ripping off the whinging and fouling part of Angeball, as I believe some are calling it, whilst discarding the attacking play. But it seems cruel to be too mean to our chums from way out there on the Keio line as I’m sure they are hurting a bit after this. And let’s not get too carried away as one swallow doesn’t make a summer. Let’s remember what happened after we smashed them in this fixture last year. There was an initial hope that we were turning the corner which was then bludgeoned to death with some ultra average home performances. So, hooray 4-0. But careful now…
Oniki once again went with the same starting line up and chose to only change one of the bench (replacing Ando with Tanno). We always trusted you and your selections great leader! It seems a bit early to start rotating but I suspect that the great hopes we had of always changing starting lineups with goals spread right through the squad might not be happen for a while yet. Oniki is a man with a plan. Note the singular. Hopefully he’ll come up with another plan or a slight modification of the current plan for when people need a rest. But forget all that, I’m not going to say bad things when he’s just masterminded another Tamagawa Classico away victory (the world’s most anticipated Classico). After a fairly lacklustre performance against Kashima, plenty of people stepped up today. Hasegawa was a menace right from the start and was unlucky not to get at least a hattrick. Damiao was great, scored in the right net this time and was unselfish and made the right decision on many occasions. A minute or so after I commented that Yamane had yet to impress me he set up Damiao’s goal with some lovely work. Oshima was pretty great too. The subs all looked hungry and caused problems. It’s a shame we didn’t score in the second half, but it was great to see some youngsters getting some time on the pitch. And Manabu too! We need all of these players to step up when called on. This time Shimoda got the opportunity to put in some lovely set pieces which makes a nice change from the usual dodgy ones we get from a plethora of players. And Sung-Ryong did great again. All bright and rosy!
It just wouldnt be a post on here without some moaning so here we go. The ref was absolute dog dirt. The YNWAers come out with a game plan to kick lumps out of any of our players who had the ball. There were some horrible little tackles on Hasegawa, Damiao and Oshima. We got a few free kicks but the ref had forgotten his cards. The world’s number one twinkle-toed penalty dancer grabbed the ball to stop it from rolling off the pitch and to try to convince the ref that he’d been fouled. No yellow. That dirtbag who didn’t give us the ball back after we put it out for an injury but we then grabbed it back and we then got immediate revenge by scoring against his then team Kashima Antlers grabbed it too to stop a Frontale attack. The ref spotted it gave the free kick but once again couldn’t find the card, even after he was subjected to some high level arseholery as he was waved away by the strangely bearded one. Thank god though that he pulled out the yellow when Tanaka attempted a tackle just outside the box and inadvertently wafted way too much air towards the bearded fellow causing him to completely lose his footing. Of course this is all biased and exaggerated, but it’s totally ridiculous that only one player got booked in that game and that it was one of ours. I would be delighted if they keep up the same dirty tactics next weekend when they play that lot from Yokohama. I’d love to see a few reds flying around. We can only hope that it’s a card-happy attention-seeking ref at that game!
All fun though, isn’t it? At least till Saturday. Three games down and comparing the results against teams we’ve played it looks like we’re going to be battling with Sagan Tosu at the top this year, with this game’s opponents and Zico’s boys down the bottom, sighing with relief that there is no relegation this year. Once again, THIS IS A JOKE! I’m not saying I really think this will happen. I’m trying to say something funny. But let’s be honest, that outcome would be quite amusing wouldn’t it? Next up are Kashiwa at home. They lost to Tokyo so they must be terrible. But they thrashed Sapporo. But Sapporo beat Yokohama who are playing Tokyo next weekend. Does that mean Tokyo will win? Or does it mean that this is going to be a enjoyably unpredictable season this year? I dunno. But it’s fun right now and hopefully still will be on Saturday night. Go Frontale!
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(Yellow card 56') 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 (on for OSHIMA 69') DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro MF 19. SAITO Manabu (on for HASEGAWA 69') FW 20. MIYASHIRO Taisei (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 84') MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto (on for WAKIZAKA 60') FW 30. HATATE Reo (on for IENAGA 60') My Frontale Man Of The Match
Big improvements in performance from many players mentioned above. I’d love to give it to Damiao as he had a great game but in spite of missing a couple of easier chances than the ones he scored, it’s probably got to go to….
HASEGAWA Tatsuya - constant threat right from the start. Surprisingly sturdy for someone his size and two nicely taken goals. Lovely stuff!
Football is back!! Sorry… J League is back!! Oh sorry… J1 is back!!! Back on DAZN but not back in the stadium, although apparently it will be ok by next weekend. This season is going to prove challenging for this meandering blog as I normally struggle to squeeze out the blog posts before the following game and now we’re going Saturday/Wednesday for the foreseeable future. Consequently, I’m going to cut back on the effort. I figure that as everybody has probably been able to watch the game online somehow there is not so much point in me boring on to such lengths. Furthermore, I find it quite hard to watch the match with the same enthusiasm and focus when it’s on DAZN. Although perhaps this was exacerbated by the pretty average fare on display in this game. Anyway, this is all just a preamble to say that these posts are hopefully going to be a bit more succinct for a while. At least that’s the plan. I’ll just write a paragraph or two, probably mostly moaning, and that’ll do. You’ll almost certainly be able to glean more information from watching the 3 minute highlight video.
So, unlike last year we have managed an early season home win against Kashima. Perhaps this is a positive. But if we’re being brutally honest, Kashima have been pretty terrible so far this year. I would say that this was a game of two halves but that would suggest a bit more excitement than what was on show. Hasegawa’s goal was nice. Taniguchi’s goal was offside. Kashima’s goal was a clanger of an own goal from us. In the first half, I’d say we were the better team and Kashima didn’t really have many chances, in spite of them pushing loads of players forwards. We also were doing that so it should have been exciting, but in reality, it was all a bit mediocre. Kashima totally bossed us for the last 20 mins, when we hardly touched the ball. So much for the swashbuckling attacking play we’d been promised. But we held on, despite Kashima whinging away at the ref and claiming for a penalty as their player was touched after he’d totally lost the ball and already started his dive. I’m pleased it wasn’t given (particularly as we’d had a much clearer penalty turned down in the first half I thought, (but of course I’d think that….) ), but couldn’t really have complained if they had got an equaliser as it was backs to wall stuff from us for large periods of the second half. But we hung on and now have a win to go with our opening day draw against Tosu. Not sure which performance was more lacklustre but at least this one, aside from the fact that we had to witness it remotely, was much more enjoyable. Here are some quickly thrown out opinions with little evidence supplied to back them up. We are starting slowly again. Cricket score wins in training matches really don’t matter if when it comes to real games we seize up. Kashima looked pretty average. I can see them finishing in the bottom half if they don’t sort themselves out soon. I’m sure they wouldn’t have conceded twice if they’d played Nara…. I’m glad they didn’t. We didn’t change the starting line up from the first disappointing draw against Tosu in February but I suppose it’s been so long since that game that you can’t really read too much into it. I have to say we looked pretty disjointed in midfield and up front and Taniguchi and Jesiel looked bit shaky. I’m also not convinced that Nobori and Yamane did particularly well. Guess that only leaves Sung-Ryong… I don’t feel that the system has changed that much and even if Oniki was apparently telling the players to shoot more through his instructions, I guess old sideways passing habits are hard to break. But it’s still early days so I'm not going to have a go. I would say though it would be nice if we didn’t always start every season so slowly. Credit to Oniki for leaving Damiao on for 90 minutes. He’s clearly not going to get into the swing of things if he is getting hooked early on in the second half every game. It’s really unfortunate that he scored the own goal as I feel like he’s a confidence player and that’s not exactly going to push his confidence in the right direction. Perhaps there was a lack of communication between him and Sung-Ryong for the goal, but which ever way you look at it, it was a pretty poor goal to concede. Thankfully it wasn’t terminal though. Not sure about the substitutions again. You can’t say that we improved after the changes. In fact we got a lot more disorganized after them, but if the starting eleven aren't gelling it would be a bit harsh to expect the subs to come on, fit right in and sort things out. Substitutions are going to be interesting this year. Given that we can now change five players but only on a maximum of three occasions, it is probably going to take us a while to work out how best to utilise this. It's still weird that we seemed to do the old favourite 'tactical change over the course of two separate subs' thing though. Hatate coming on to replace Wakizaka but having to wait twelve minutes playing out of position till the next set of subs where he could take up Ienaga's position on the right. We’ve had plenty of time to work on our ‘new tactics’ but it seems that we still are not too sure about them. We need to make more of our set pieces. Neither Wakizaka or Oshima seemed to do much from them and after Shimoda (someone who is much better at taking them) came on, I don’t think we had any set pieces. I think we barely had the ball to be honest. As I said on Twitter and I will reprise here, we were a bit shit, so were they, we won. That’s about all there is to say. Oh apart from the fact that it was nice that we didn't go with the fake crowd noise and only played recorded chants after the goals. Whichever way you look at it, these games are going to be weird. Playing random crowd noise doesn't exactly help them seem less weird, so I think our minimal approach was the right way to go.
So, four points on the board from two pretty poor performances is not too bad. FC Tokyo away on Wednesday, and how lovely it would be to give them a hiding. They have two wins from two games but it seems that they too are not exactly setting the world alight with their exciting ‘new tactics’. I won’t make any predictions as that’s not my wont, but we’ll have to play a lot better than we did against Sagan Tosu and Kashima (how fun it is to group those two clubs together as examples of poor quality teams). The following Saturday it's Kashiwa at home, who have just lost to FC Tokyo after going a bit nuts on the opening day. Of course things are still settling down, but perhaps we’ll have a bit more clarity after those two games. I will be in the stadium as my wife managed to get tickets. Whether they will still accept spectators after a few days of rapidly rising corona virus figures I don’t know. And whether it will be fun, I also don’t know. Guess it will be a unique experience, but I suppose we won’t have the usually unintentional amusing Kashiwa banners to observe. Probably for the best as I would imagine laughing is prohibited. Along with clapping, singing, shouting, and towel waving. Fingers crossed that this time next week we have 10 points from 4 games. Or given that I am resolutely negative, fingers crossed we won’t have 4 points from 4 games. Go Frontale!
Team GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG DF 13. YAMANE Miki (Yellow card 81') 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 (Yellow card 43') FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO Subs GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke MF 6. MORITA Hidemasa (on for IENAGA 74') DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (on for NOBORIZATO 83') MF 19. SAITO Manabu (on for HASEGAWA 74') FW 20. MIYASHIRO Taisei MF 22. SHIMODA Hokuto (on for OSHIMA 83') FW 30. HATATE Reo (on for WAKIZAKA 62') My Frontale Man Of The Match I dunno, it was all pretty average. How about... Sung-Ryong JUNG - Couldn't really have done anything about the expert finish for the goal. Can't say he was really expecting that to happen and aside from that, stopped everything he needed to.
Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Shonan Bellmare
