Gamba Osaka 0 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale
Another win is a very welcome thing. Surely sooner or later we’re going to slip up. Especially given that after having a little break we’re back into playing almost twice every week before we have one league game in two months from the start of June to early August. There will probably be some Emperor’s Cup games in there, and maybe there was some prospect at some stage of some ACL games, but this is another absurdly lopsided season. Our season has also been a bit stacked early on in favour of home games. Some might say this is an advantage for us, but I’m not so sure. I think we normally play better away. I’m just thankful that Corona has only messed up a few good away games…. so far. If it comes for my most anticipated Tokushima away and our planned Avispa Consadole away double header I will be most upset. But there are more important things in life than going to football matches. equally there are more important things in life than wiring blog posts about football matches, particularly ones that you haven’t been to, so lets get this over and done with. I’m goning back to the old three paragraph thing today. First….
Us -
Oniki shuffled the pack a bit at the back with Taniguchi and Nobori being rested and gave Hasegawa a start up front instead of Mitoma. I thought Hasegawa had his best game so far this year to be honest. The two goals we scored were pretty nice. I was about to sigh about Wakizaka’s pass but just as it looked like it was going to be a failure it became wonderful and allowed Hasegawa to scramble to ball to Damiao who had a relatively easy finish. The second was classic Mitoma. Probably don’t need to say much else. I thought Schmidt had another great game in midfield and was a bit unlucky with the yellow card he got as it didn’t look like he even touched the Gamba forward. This is from my light blue tinted glasses though. I would say we looked solid at the back, but to be honest, Gamba didn’t really do anything much so it was a bit difficult to tell.
Them -
Apparently, after a pretty disappointing and quite disrupted start to the season Gamba were going with a 4-3-3 in this game. It looked more like a 7-3-0 to me. Most of the game they had everyone behind the ball and at least seven in the box when we were attacking. Given that they have only scored twice this season it seemed like we might be ok if we got the first goal. But to be honest apart from a couple of decent saves Sung-Ryong had to make, he didn’t have to do anything. I am aware the the Gamba manager is something of a club legend, but perhaps there is a lesson for us here when petiole say that Kengo should be a future manager of Frontale. I think if he were not a club legend these kind of limp displays woud probably have seen him out of a job in a club of the size and stature of Gamba. We are flying high so perhaps they didn’t expect to win, but their performance was so lacklustre that some serious questions are probably being asked. It’s not ideal for them to face the league leaders and last year’s champions in an empty stadium, but 37% possession on their own patch. They must again be thankful to Higashiguchi who never seems to get mentioned when it comes to talking about the best keeper in the J League . He made one fewer save in this game than Langerak has made in his last five games and he pretty much single handedly kept Gamba in this match. On DAZN the lack of atmosphere was palpable but at least they didn’t do that horrible recorded chanting thing so credit to them for that. I hope that Tokyo and Osaka teams can welcome fans again soon because it’s really not the same. Oh, and I almost forgot TO GET HER A SONE! I don’t know what a sone is, but someone get her one!
Us -
Oniki shuffled the pack a bit at the back with Taniguchi and Nobori being rested and gave Hasegawa a start up front instead of Mitoma. I thought Hasegawa had his best game so far this year to be honest. The two goals we scored were pretty nice. I was about to sigh about Wakizaka’s pass but just as it looked like it was going to be a failure it became wonderful and allowed Hasegawa to scramble to ball to Damiao who had a relatively easy finish. The second was classic Mitoma. Probably don’t need to say much else. I thought Schmidt had another great game in midfield and was a bit unlucky with the yellow card he got as it didn’t look like he even touched the Gamba forward. This is from my light blue tinted glasses though. I would say we looked solid at the back, but to be honest, Gamba didn’t really do anything much so it was a bit difficult to tell.
Them -
Apparently, after a pretty disappointing and quite disrupted start to the season Gamba were going with a 4-3-3 in this game. It looked more like a 7-3-0 to me. Most of the game they had everyone behind the ball and at least seven in the box when we were attacking. Given that they have only scored twice this season it seemed like we might be ok if we got the first goal. But to be honest apart from a couple of decent saves Sung-Ryong had to make, he didn’t have to do anything. I am aware the the Gamba manager is something of a club legend, but perhaps there is a lesson for us here when petiole say that Kengo should be a future manager of Frontale. I think if he were not a club legend these kind of limp displays woud probably have seen him out of a job in a club of the size and stature of Gamba. We are flying high so perhaps they didn’t expect to win, but their performance was so lacklustre that some serious questions are probably being asked. It’s not ideal for them to face the league leaders and last year’s champions in an empty stadium, but 37% possession on their own patch. They must again be thankful to Higashiguchi who never seems to get mentioned when it comes to talking about the best keeper in the J League . He made one fewer save in this game than Langerak has made in his last five games and he pretty much single handedly kept Gamba in this match. On DAZN the lack of atmosphere was palpable but at least they didn’t do that horrible recorded chanting thing so credit to them for that. I hope that Tokyo and Osaka teams can welcome fans again soon because it’s really not the same. Oh, and I almost forgot TO GET HER A SONE! I don’t know what a sone is, but someone get her one!
The ref and VAR -
VA what? None of that today thankfully. The ref was a bit flaky I thought and inevitably we got the first yellow. J Soccer Magazine, who is as blinkered towards Gamba as I am towards Frontale thought Schmidt should have been sent off shortly after he got his yellow. I thought he got a yellow for a tackle where he barely if at all touched the Gamba player. Also him and Hatate seemed to be getting booted all over the pitch with no response from the ref. But this is all moot, as I acknowledge my bias and I’m never going to be abel to see a ref’s marginal decisions as being wrong if they go against my team. The fact that we are only tallking about marginal decisions suggests that again Tanimoto might have doen a reasonable jog I guess.
Other bits -
Hey tricked you there , saying I was going to do the usual three paragraphs. Here are some random bits. I hate it when a team does a fake kick off and then complain when the opposition player runs into their half as they ghost an attempt at connecting with the ball. In this game, the ref wasn’t bothered and just got on with it. Wakizaka’s shot which smashed off the woodwork made possibly the loudest DONG I’ve ever heard from a shot hitting a post or the bar. Guess the fat that it was a dong suggests that the woodwork is far from woody, but you know what I mean. I don’t know if other dongs have been louder but were covered up by crowd noise, but it was clearly a very special dong. And finally, I think we should introduce a bit more excitement in the subs rules. Make it so that you can only change players on three occasions, but you don’t use up one of your occasions if the other team is making one at the same time and calls it first. Would love to see rival players pretending to get ready to come, slightly removing the training gear only to sit down again and zip it back up. Assistants to hand the fourth official a note trying to trick the other team only to have the fourth official crumple it up when he finds it’s a shopping list or a note that says ‘i like you, you’re a fun guy’.
Next up, Sendai at home on Wednesday. Another potential banana skin as looking at the table you’d expect us to win it. Then the following weekend we welcome Console to Todoroki. Two more wins would be lovely! And we have tickets for both games! Rejoice! Go Frontale!
Team
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 47. HATATE Reo
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (Yellow card 40')
MF 25. TANAKA Ao
MF 8. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for JOAO SCHMIDT 70')
MF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki (on for WAKIZAKA 87')DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
FW 18. MITOMA Kaoru (on for HASEGAWA 70')
FW 19. TONO Daiya
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 87')
Goals
LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 41' 0-1
LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 41' 0-1
MITOMA (Frontale) 76' 0-2
Highlights
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