Saturday 24 July 2021

Vs JEF United (away) 21/7/21 - Emperor's Cup 3rd round

JEF United 1 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale (AET) (3-4 on penalties) 

Another penalty shoot out victory in the Emperor’s Cup against lower league opposition. You can’t say we don’t like to keep things interesting. Although to be honest, you could say that, as this game was pretty shocking for the most part. This was my second time at the Fukuda Denshi stadium but first time watching Frontale there. I think the previous time I visited was maybe of a higher standard when JEF played Machida. This match was the victim of some classic way too hot Japanese summer weather, an absolutely knackered Frontale team who have a target on their heads that is growing game by game, which in turn inspires the opposition to up their game and have a big old swing at us. We still haven’t been beaten since Oita away last year but we’re getting closer and closer to it happening. In a way, losing in extreme circumstances to a lower league team might be the best way to end the run. I’d probably much rather it happened that way than against a rival in the league, particularly if they were an annoying team (quite a lot of them to choose from given my whinginess). As I’ve left this blog post a little late I’ll just get on with this now and try to keep it brief, (as I always say, and rarely do). I’ll go back to the old paragraph headings today I think. Starting with…

 
Us -

Pretty much a full strength line up for this game on paper. But the concept of ‘full strength’ is something of an alien concept to us right now. I think it was a player who in their post game comments said that they felt that the squad was playing on about 40% energy levels right now. This was our 30th game so far this season in just under five months which maybe doesn’t sound quite so bad but is a schedule that has been pretty punishing. Perhaps the more significant way of looking at it is that it was the eighth game in less than a month, a period which included us flying back from Uzbekistan. And due to weird quarantine rules the players have been fine to play games against other teams but have still not been able to go home so are basically living in a hotel somewhere (or something similar). All of which is a preamble to me saying we were pretty average in this game but I totally understand why. We’ve also lost two players to transfers, another to the Olympics, one to Corona, and a few more to injuries, so are light on numbers too which won’t help people get rest. I understand that the Emperor's Cup game kind of needed to be played in order to not get the fixtures of that competition into too much of a mess but I’d question whether it was a good idea or necessary to play the Shimizu game at this time. Guess the league aren’t bothered about that though. In some ways, it’s a bit of a miracle that we are still unbeaten. Two clear examples of how the schedule and the travel have taken their toll are pretty clear. First, in Oshima, perhaps being called on to play a bit too much after a long injury, getting injured again taking a corner in this game. We can only pray that it’s not too serious. He went off on a stretcher but was walking round the pitch till the stretcher belatedly came so let’s look at that as a possible good sign. The second is the COVID case we have in the playing staff. There was a bit of speculation that it was Hasegawa who was conspicuously absent against Shimizu but he was in this squad and came on in the second half so it’s clearly not him. The official line is that a player complained of a fever after the Shimizu game and then tested positive so presumably it is someone who was in that squad and not this one. So… Kozuka? You have to wonder how effective the COIVD tests are to be honest. We are pretty much basing society’s whole response and handling of this pandemic around them but it seems that whoever it was tested negative before the game and positive afterwards which is a pretty narrow window for the infection to show up. Or perhaps the tests are a bit useless. Which is something I tend to believe from anecdotal evidence from friends and acquaintances who have been sick but have had negative tests. (Anecdotal here with the meaning that you shouldn't read anything into what I’m saying). It certainly might help explain why cases have been relatively low in Japan for the duration of the pandemic. But anyway, this is veering wildly off topic and towards Conspiracy Theory Rabbit territory. (I have no interest in writing that blog so go for it if you want. I will state here that any blog or future blog by that name has no link to this one). 
 
 
But anyway, all this is basically saying we were knackered and consequently naturally a bit crap but I’m not blaming anyone for this. Give those guys a rest! I wonder if we might need some reinforcements though. Miyagi and Hasegawa now seem to be the choices for the Mitoma spot. And I think in general we have enough attacking players to find some combinations to fill those spots. Particularly as Yu will probably be back in contention by the time we resume. The midfield is more of an issue. The return of Oshima seemed well timed to cover the departure of Ao, but now we might have lost Oshima again for a while it might be time to find someone already in Japan to bring in to shore up that area. We have Kozuka and Tsukagawa but I’ve spoken about what might be the issue with the former and Tsukagawa still can’t play due to his second head injury since joining us. Should be back soon though. Still feel like an extra body would be useful though. Taniguchi was again tried in midfield in this match and we’re back to the normal outcome with the experiment being a failure. He spent most of the match moving across the pitch sideways as if on one of those table football handles either with his hand up asking for the ball or pointing to where someone should pass the ball to. Again, I don’t blame him, but please let’s stop with this experiment. A lack of numbers might be causing it so let’s get someone in instead of being left with the total mess of a formation that we ended up with in this game, where the only midfielder we had on the pitch at the end was Yamamura, a player who we’ve been desperately trying to convert into a centre back fro the entirety of his Frontale career. It was pretty grim, but totally understandable given the circumstances. I don’t have stats for the match, but I’d be surprised if there were more than 5 shots on target in total in the game from both teams combined. We just couldn’t do that last little bit needed to score. Thankfully, we got a penalty which I have no idea why the JEF players complained so vociferously about. Seemed a cert from where I was sitting and it was right in front of me. I don’t think we were going to score any other way.


 
 
Ref -
 
No VAR in this match and yes, I’m a hypocrite, but boy could we have done with it. I had no idea who the ref was until after the game as my normal app for stats and stuff like that wasn’t showing anything. My initial notes were ‘this guy loves a drop ball’. He probably doesn’t love a drop ball anymore. Checking my previous blog posts after finding out who the ref was, I was intrigued to see that I had written that Shimizu (for it was him), ‘was extremely fond of a drop ball’. So far so consistent. Before the match Damiao seemed to be making a joke with him about his height. In retrospect, maybe this wasn’t a good idea. But Shimizu certainly was ‘a bit mini’. He certainly let the game flow early on, not being keen to stop play for such little things as fouls and preferring instead to let the game continue for a bit before stopping the game as a player was injured, resulting in... A DROP BALL! It’s always fun to see someone so obsessed with one aspect of their life or job that they engineer every situation to work towards their thing. I think there can’t be many Frontale fans who don’t love the fact that Damiao is so in love with overheads that he sets himself up for them, and that he even does passes that way too sometimes. What is not fun is when a referee’s obsession with drop balls smashes up against him either not paying attention to the game (presumably because he’s thinking about his next delicious drop ball), or being unaware of the rules of the sport. A drop ball deep in our half (can’t remember what it was given for, probably the ref deliberately got in the way of a sideways pass to get another oh so tasty drop ball), was somewhat strangely left to JEF to boot the ball back to their keeper. Bit weird, as usually when that happens it is the opposition who do the booting back. Also not sure why the ball was going so far back to a different area of the pitch to be honest. The JEF keeper, perhaps deep in thought about why someone could be so obsessed with drop balls and consequently maybe not paying attention fully, picked the ball up. Clearly this should be an indirect free kick to us inside their penalty box. So far so obvious I would have thought. Our players seemed to know the rules. The ref didn’t. Perhaps realising he’d got himself into an ‘oh shit’ position he did the usual ref thinking time thing of putting the hand on the ear. Sadly no VAR meant that he had no-one to tell him he was an absolute idiot and what he should do. Well perhaps the linesman could, but maybe he wasn’t sure about the rules either. Ienaga starting going a bit nuts on the ref, who finger on the ear was perhaps hoping for some kind of divine intervention via radio headset. Damiao seemed to be involved too, but perhaps trying to control Ienaga who was properly 'losing his shit' with Shimizu. In a classic bit of playground tactics, Ienaga, who was holding the ball, offered it to the ref and then withdrew it as the ref went to take it. He then dropped it on the floor meaning the ref had to bend over and pick it up. A bit of a power move from Ienaga but probably justified given that Shimizu was being a total fool. At this stage Shimizu seemed to also be on the table football handle, moving sideways across the pitch with his hand on his ear and the ball now safely scooped up, consulting with the linesman, getting some advice from the JEF players. No idea what they could possibly have been complaining about and no idea why the decision took so long as it was so simple. He had dropped the ball to the JEF player. They had kicked it. The goalie picked it up. In the end, I’m pleased we did the honorable thing and just passed the ball softly back to their keeper. I am however displeased to a similar extent from the point of view that it got this useless ref off the hook for some complete incompetence. It wouldn’t have been a good look for the leaders of J1 playing against lower league opposition to power the ball home from close range after an idiotic bit of officiating gave us a chance on a plate. The whole matter made me extremely frustrated though, as it also did with Ienaga, who almost certainly would have been subbed if it were not for the distinct lack of options. The rest of the game he was playing on frustration fumes only and that never really is a good fit with our way of play and basically meant we were half a player down. The ref also seemed to be running on some kind of different fuel afterwards. Perhaps annoyed with us letting him off the hook (?! Perhaps he is masochist and wanted to be punished), he gave us absolutely nothing for the remainder of the game and consequently is right up there challenging for the worst ref in Japan title as far as I am concerned. There’s plenty of competition, but seeing the name Shimizu as ref before the game will now send me into a simultaneous slump of depression and a fit a rage. A surprising and impossible sounding combination, but what can I say, these refs just keep on showing that even the impossible sounding can be a reality. Live your drop ball dream, and screw the consequences!

Them -
 

Full credit to JEF for pushing us all the way, even if we weren’t exactly at anywhere near full power. Zero credit to the arseholes in the JEF team who responded to us giving them a huge let off with our response to the ref’s idiocy by diving, whinging, hacking, moaning and time wasting for the remainder of the game. I’m looking at you Taguchi. Honestly have no idea why they would time waste as we were all over the place and there for the taking. It seems that sportsmanship only goes one way for some people. Conversely their centre back Jang, who I’d put down as ‘a bit of a git’ in the first half showed a bit of class, seemed to understand what had gone on and even applauded our fans after we helped the ref out. I put him down as a git as he did what a lot of Korean defenders in the J League do, namely defend pretty well and quite physically, which is perfectly fine if it’s your own players doing it, but utterly disgraceful if it’s the opposition. As I said above, there wasn’t a great deal of quality in this game. Their goal was from their first shot I think, and they didn’t have many others aside from that one. But the two teams were well matched in that respect. A particularly dodgy clearance from their keeper caused their fans to emit a noise I have rarely heard at a football game. Something like the impending disaster noise you might expect if you were on a plane flying with only one engine working as the functioning one burst into flames, a worry-filled ‘oooouuuuuuuhhhh’ from the crowd who were in almost perfect unison in their groaning. 
 

Stupid bits -

Seems that now the two teams are coming out separately at the start of the game. Did this happen in the previous Emperor's Cup game? I’m not sure. Once again, seems pretty pointless given that they are going to be spending a lot of time in close proximity whilst the game is going on. But perhaps a response to rising Corona numbers. But also perhaps all about visuals rather than reality. I often think the precautions people on TV programs are taking on camera are probably not replicated off screen and this feels like a similar kind of thing. Both sets of fans had big drums in this match and perhaps the limited amount of things you can do with a drum beat and clapping with no singing meant that on a few occasions the two sets of fans joined in perfectly united clapping. It stayed united for a few seconds until one team caved and slightly changed the tempo and we drifted out of sync again. Perhaps something a bit similar to a John Cage piece with tempos moving, uniting and then moving away again. But perhaps not done with two groups of drummers with sheet music in front of them and a desire to play some mid 20th century experimental classical music. JEF’s drums were impressively noisy I have to say. Maybe we should look into some bigger drums. At the same time, maybe we should instead just pay a bit more attention to the game as whilst Oshima was on the floor injured our Kazoku continued drumming waving and clapping out their song without noticing. Perhaps an Oshima injury is so common and predictable now that it doesn’t even merit a concerned stopping of the song. Felt a bit tone deaf I thought, but it was at the other end of the pitch. But I could see it and I wasn’t much closer than they were and wasn’t wearing my glasses.


That’ll do. There was so little of note regarding the football in this game that I’m shocked the post has gone on this long. at the same time, the ref was such an idiot that it comes as no surprise to see that he got as much text as was in the section about us. Now, finally we have a break. The players should be able to go home soon and I hope they can have a decent break as they need it. Next up…. uh oh… Oita away. Bet it will be Kasahara again. Or maybe the league will give us another go with Shimizu. If so, I predict an Ienaga red card for a double footed tackle on the ref before the start of the game. Totally justified. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to support the team there. Currently it looks like they will be selling tickets. I hope so as we have planes and a hotel booked. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 4. JESIEL (Yellow card 45')
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT
MF 22. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 8. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 19. TONO Daiya

Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo (on for JOAO SCHMIDT 71')
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for WAKIZAKA 71')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for TONO 46')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 90+6')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for TACHIBANADA 88')
MF 28. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for OSHIMA 99')
 
Goals   

MIKI (JEF) 53' 0-1
IENAGA (Frontale) 59' PEN 1-1

Penalties
SAKURAGAWA (JEF) 1-0
CHINEN (Frontale) 1-1
YADA (JEF) 2-1
YAMAMURA (Frontale) 2-2
IWASAKI (JEF) 2-2 (missed)
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 2-3
FUKUMITSU (JEF) 3-3
KURUMAYA (Frontale) 3-4
KUMAGAI (JEF) 3-4 (saved)


 
My Frontale Man Of The Match
 
In a game of this quality it is difficult to single out anyone. Hasegawa looked bright when he came on. I should probably give it to the medical team as they have managed to keep the squad alive in these testing circumstances. But I guess it has to go to…

Sung-Ryong JUNG - saved our bacon in another penalty shoot out. Oh, this is only the second time (since the second word of the post) that I mentioned it went to penalties. It did. We won. Sung-Ryong made another great penalty save. Bravo!
 

Highlights
 

Monday 19 July 2021

Vs Shimizu S Pulse (away) 17/7/21 J League match18

 

Shimizu S Pulse 0 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

Shimizu away is a game and a trip I always look forward to. But on Friday night I had my first Corona vaccine and on Saturday had (perhaps) my first 39.2 degree fever so in spite of having a ticket I neither attended or even watched the game. So, probably any reader could write a better post about the game than me. The only thing I want to bring up about this match is that Hasegawa's absence was curious. We have a couple of staff members who got Corona-d on the way back from Uzbekistan apparently so I wonder if he had close contact with them. But usually Corona related things are mentioned even if the players aren't named. Perhaps it was an injury. Miyagi mentioned that his inclusion was a a bit last minute in his match comments so maybe it was the latter. The other possibility could be that he is going to be transferred, but it would seem to be a bit foolish to transfer both our first and second choice on the left up front within a couple of weeks. If it is a transfer, one to overseas would be something that's difficult to turn down if you're thinking of the player's feelings. If it's within Japan, I can't understand why we'd allow it at this time. Anyway, this is a lot of words on what is probably just a minor injury and as I have nothing to say about the match let's call it a day. Next up, JEF United away on Wednesday in the Emperor's Cup.
 
Team
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 8. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten

Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (on for NOBORIZATO 81')
MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki
FW 19. TONO Daiya (on for MIYAGI 66')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 81')
MF 22. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for OSHIMA 66')
MF 28. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for WAKIZAKA 87')
 
Goals

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 17' 0-1
OSHIMA (Frontale) 50' 0-2
 
Highlights

Tuesday 13 July 2021

Vs Beijing Guoan 11/7/21 ACL Group stage game 6


Kawasaki Frontale 4 - 0 Beijing Guoan

Well the group stage is over. And to be honest it’s come at the right time as I am getting a bit fed up with writing blog posts on games I’ve watched online. And a bit fed up with the world surrounding football to be honest. Seeing some of the horrendous online and out of the stadium stuff that went on around the Euro 2020 final it’s probably natural to feel a bit of distaste with all things football right now. Honestly, it has made me despair. Not for any reasons connected to what happened on the pitch but with plenty of things that surround the game and also run through society. It seems slightly unfair to even associate an ACL game in an empty stadium with these matters as effectively the only thing they have in common is the sport that’s being played on the pitch. But at the same time, it’s hard to write anything connected to football today without mentioning the absolute disgust I have for online and offline racist abuse, and the fighting and smashing stuff up in the streets. I don’t think it’s strictly a football problem. But obviously football seems to draw idiots like moths to a flame. The only problem is that they don’t get burnt up and perish, but instead continue to sling their ignorance around the internet and in person out in society too. I guess the fact is that in daily life we are surrounded by people with nasty thoughts and tiny narrow minds who feel that a football game is a good opportunity to spout the shabby contents of their poison-filled peanut brain, most of which has been planted there by Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and the majority of the Conservative party and other right wing politicians. Guess there must be some money to be made in pushing racism as that normally seems to be the only thing that motivates them. Obviously not everyone who supports England or any football team is part of this idiotic group. However everyone is affected by it. And the fact is that even if it is a tiny minority of football fans who are racist idiots and/or thugs, there is a significant number of racist idiots and/or thugs in society who see football as a good way of spouting their toxic small mindedness. I have no idea how, or even if, it can be done, but we need to eliminate this from the game and eliminate this from society. I fear that while we have politicians in power fostering a political climate that thinks it is ok to mock and demonise the less fortunate, the different, the marginalised, the best possible outcome could be that it is just driven underground to fester rather than be eliminated. Which isn’t exactly a good outcome. Anyway, the last thing you need to hear in this post is me moaning about racist idiocy in England as there are thankfully no shortage of people doing it much more eloquently at the moment so I’ll get on with the post and get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

We’re through with a perfect record and have been rewarded with a one leg away tie against last year’s champions who also finished the group stages with a perfect record. Seems a bit of a rough draw and perhaps suggested that we shouldn’t have tried so hard. Any competition where to understand the draw you need a table of possible and impossible options seems like it might perhaps be a bit overcomplicated. But the fact that there were five groups and four games in the next round makes it inevitable that two group winners will have to play each other. If you want to win the competition you have to beat the best teams though, so I suppose in that respect it doesn’t really matter if you play the defending champions in the first knockout round or the final but it’s a bit disappointing to not have even got a home draw.

This was quite an exciting game as far as I can remember. The big changes in the starting line up were enough to get me quite enthusiastic about this match. First starts for Kamiya and Miyagi, and first pitch time for Tanabe from the bench. Kamiya had a go at left back and at centre back and looked pretty good in both spots I thought. I must admit that there are three factors which might be skewing this slightly. Namely, first that I had consumed a few beers before the game, second, that I’m biased towards Kamiya as I have his towel, and thirdly, that perhaps the opposition weren’t up to much. I also thought Kozuka looked pretty good in midfield and his two goals and general performance would have been a good confidence boost for him as he’s so far had a few wobbly performances at the start of his Frontale career. Zain also had a good game I thought and looked a real danger going forward. I was surprised to see Tanabe at left back rather than centre back, but I guess Oniki gave Kamiya his first taste of the action in a similar way, perhaps feeling that there is less pressure there than in the middle. I had no idea both players were quite so attacking though. But I guess that makes sense as most of the players we seem to sign are. Miyagi marked his first start with his first goal and was pretty bright I thought. I’m hoping some of Mitoma’s magic will have rubbed off on him. In recent years we’ve been absolutely overflowing with attacking left sided players but now we seem to only have Hasegawa whose can count that as his preferred position. Miyagi played this game on the right, but his previous appearance was on the left so I guess he will be providing back up for both spots. I guess Hatate can play on the left too. I wonder if we will spend any of the money we have got for Mitoma on any kind of reinforcements. I’m inclined to say we don’t particularly need to, but it only takes a couple of injuries and things could start looking a bit shaky. It’s unfortunate to lose two of your best players within a few weeks of each other but I guess we knew it was going to happen, so hopefully Oniki has something planned.

Few stupid observations to round this off. Not only do the 1 and 7 look the same in the ACL kit font but also the 5 and 6 do. I’d suggest that if four out of the ten digits are easily confused it might suggest that the font is a failure. It was nice to finally see the Lokomotiv stadium in daylight. They seemed to have changed the camera angle slightly though as I remember in previous games being enthralled by the fact that the different areas of the stadium had SEKTOR __ emblazoned on them. There’s something slightly intoxicating about a word spelt slightly different from the English version, particularly if it has been Eastern European/Eurasian-ed up with a K where you’d expect a C. Guess the same applies to the stadium name. Kan you get the KonZept that I’m trying to Kreate as a piKtur in your Kranium? Hmmmmm….. Oh, and it was nice to see Chinen score again, particularly given that he made the assist too by passing the ball to himself via both posts before he put it away. Skill shot!


Next up Shimizu away which is something of a blessing as it’s probably one of the closer away games we could have got to follow up our central Asian odyssey. Tanaka’s gone, Mitoma’s gone. Hatate will probably be with the Olympic team. Kobayashi is injured. And we’ll probably be running on fumes after a busy schedule on the pitch and on airplanes. YFM have sadly not slipped up in any of their games they’ve had to make up so the gap has been cut a bit. There’s not really any reason why we should be worried… yet. A dodgy game or two could soon change that feeling though, so hopefully we’ll be back and firing this weekend. It’s always a fun away trip and thankfully we haven’t been denied it in what is another weird Corona ravaged season. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 27. TANNO Kenta
DF 15. ISSAKA Zain
DF 28. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 26. KAMIYA Kaito
MF 22. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki
MF 19. TONO Daiya
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten 
FW 20. CHINEN Kei
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

Subs
GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
MF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo (on for TACHIBANADA 89')
MF 8. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for CHINEN 82')
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
FW 18. MITOMA Kaoru
DF 30. TANABE Shuto (on for KURUMAYA 46')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for HASEGAWA 89')
 
 
Goals   

CHINEN (Frontale) 21' 1-0
KOZUKA (Frontale) 37' 2-0
MIYAGI (Frontale) 56' 3-0
KOZUKA (Frontale) 69' 4-0
 
 
Highlights
 

Friday 9 July 2021

Vs Daegu FC 8/7/21 ACL Group stage game 5

Daegu FC 1 - 3 Kawasaki Frontale

We’re almost there! 5 games done out of 6 and we’ve got a perfect record so far. With these late night ACL kick offs and the Euros being on at the same time, it is fair to say that my sleep patterns are a bit disrupted recently so I’ll be quite pleased come Monday morning when both the Euros and our ACL group stage are finished. Sunday night/Monday morning is a double header with a bit of sleeping time in between but to be honest I’ve never been great at sleeping on demand when I really need to, so I am slightly worried about working on Monday. Anyway, you’re not interested in my sleep issues so I’ll get on with wrapping this post up in my usual half-arsed didn’t attend the game ACL style.

We were back to the first eleven (kind of) for this crucial game. It seems unlikely that Beijing Guoan who have one point from five games so far will take anything from us in the final game so we could be looking at a perfect record. But I guess we’ll ring that changes for that game and give some of the less used players a run out. Maybe Oniki will even change the keeper. Kobayashi is still injured and it seems that Tsukagawa has joined that list, although his absence might be just a precaution after picking up a head injury. Nobori didn’t play this game which I guess is because he wasn’t being risked after picking up an injury in a previous game. There’s not a great deal else to say personnel wise about this match. Joao Schmidt picked up a yellow which means he misses the next game, which presumably he wouldn’t have played anyway, so this suggests that it was quite a sensible yellow card to pick up. I don’t know if yellow card records are expunged after the group stage but my guess is that they aren’t. Perhaps the big shock in this match was Schmidt’s replacement Yamamura. Having Yamamura, Jesiel ,Kurumaya, and Taniguchi on the pitch at the same time really hints at Taniguchi in the anchor role in midfield but perhaps after he finally had a decent spell there in the last match, Oniki went with the midfielder Yamamura in midfield. Very surprising! And makes the Taniguchi in midfield experiments even more confusing. Basically we kept relentlessly trying it till it eventually worked and when it finally did we’ve given up with it. I would rather he didn’t play there but it’s weird that Oniki has given up on the idea now. Or perhaps he is still looking at these games as opportunities to try things out, which is pretty adventurous as he doesn’t even try to do these kind of things in games against the lowliest of J League opposition. Although I guess playing Yamamura in midfield is not so much of an experiment historically, it just feels like it is given how often it has been done since he joined us. A quick word on Damiao who picked up a hat trick in this game. Weird that against ‘weaker’ opposition he was only able to score once and then he bags a crucial hat trick in our tough game. Six goals for him in the ACL so far so it’s not only Tachibanda that Olunga needs to be keeping a golden boot eye on. Nice work Damiao! He’s been in a position to get a hat trick before but I don’t think he has quite got there. Oniki does tend to usually make more changes than he has been doing in these games and more often than not Damiao would be withdrawn before being able to get his third.

A quick word on Daegu. I feel quite sorry for their keeper who kept them in the game. We had significantly more possession and shots than them in this match and it seems a shame for him that he ended up conceding three times. (Also, I quite liked the design of his shirt). However maybe we needed him to do this, as we did let in a really soft goal with Taniguchi and Schmidt tackling each other and basically letting the ball drop to their striker to put it away from close range. Previous to that goal, our first came from similarly calamitous defending. And actually so did our second. It wasn’t a great night for defences I guess. Pleasingly our third was a nice move though. There were maybe a couple of contributing factors to the general sloppiness though which I’ll mention later. Daegu were a pretty physical team again and honestly it was a bit of a joke that it took the ref so long to book their number 30 who was basically fouling every attack we made. When he finally did get booked it looked like he was feigning injury to avoid a yellow but it seemed that due to all that hacking he had actually pulled a muscle and had to be subbed. Which made a change from the pulling of shirts that he’d been doing for most of the game (ho ho ho, what a great bit of wordplay that was). I feel like in both games we have been on top against Daegu and I guess the results show this but they were definitely our toughest group opponents. They do apparently have some important players missing though. To be fair though, so do we. The K League seems quite tight at the moment, and Daegu are four points off the top spot in 4th, so if we get another K League team in the next round I wonder if they will prove to be similarly challenging.

This was far from a classic game. The mitigating factors I mentioned above were probably the heat and the pitch. At kick off it was 37 degrees and this actually was a later than usual kick off. Parts of the game were played at walking pace and given that the first two goals were basically gifts from the two defences two strikers I wondered if it was going to peter out into a pass-a-thon with neither team exerting themselves too much and a mutually beneficial draw being the outcome. I’m never really sure how these things come about though, and perhaps Oniki wanted to make a real statement in the group stage. Let’s be honest though, if, (as it looks like we will), we finish with a perfect record we’ll still be told that we had it easy. Basically there’s no way that we could come out of the group stage untouched by moans. On to the awful pitch. This was our first game in the other bigger stadium. Apparently at the start of the tournament the Lokomotiv stadium pitch was much worse. But if that is still the case I’m not looking forward to seeing it for our last game. It’s a bit of cliche to compare a pitch to an unploughed farmer’s field but the comparison was pretty spot on in this match I think. From a distance it looked a bit dodgy but maybe looked like it had at least been painted green. Close up it looked horrible. Lots of players ended up covered in mud and I guess this came from a lot of pre-match watering to try and soften and hose down some of the solid pitch bumps that apparently were a mini recreation of Uzbekistan’s Hissar range of mountains. Culturally, it was a nice touch to introduce some of the wide range of geographical features of the Uzbek countryside. To make it even clearer that I’m googling a lot for these comparisons, I would also like to say that other areas of the pitch resembled the Kyzylkum desert. Basically, it was a rubbish pitch and I’m pleased that we seemed to come away from the match relatively unscathed injury-wise. One final point is that after 4 games the TV coverage seems to be getting a bit better. Or maybe it was just because we were in the bigger stadium. At one stage it seemed they were doing a kind of fade to blur thing on the introduction of the people walking in with the ACL flag. Or maybe I’m being generous and it was a happy accident. Still the commentators seem to be having some trouble identifying our players but again I’ll give them the excuse that they have the same slightly dodgy pictures to go from. And the fact that the number 7 in the font we use for our ACL shirts looks quite like a number 1. I was confused to see Kobayashi on the pitch in the last match but it turned out to be Kozuka. And although Ienaga and Hatate don’t exactly look that similar, their 41 and 47 certainly do.

 
Like I said above, we’re almost there. One more game and then we can come back to Japan and to a 4 day 2 match period of games and then a month off. It seems that these games might be our last opportunity to see Mitoma play as he is being strongly linked with a move to Brighton after the Olympics, which personally speaking is horrible for me as I don’t like them much due to rivalries with my team back in England. However I do like the fact the he’ll probably immediately be loaned to St Gilloise in Belgium, (who I do like for unconnected to football reasons), due to work permit issues. Presumably I will never have to opportunity to actually see him play for them whilst drinking beautiful sour beer though given that we are still lurching from one period of feckless corona response to another over here at the moment. Anyway, enough of that and enough of this. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (Yellow card 65')
MF 8. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 47. HATATE Reo
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 18. MITOMA Kaoru

Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for WAKIZAKA 70')
DF 15. ISSAKA Zain
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki
FW 19. TONO Daiya
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for MITOMA 90+2')
MF 22. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for HATATE 86')
MF 28. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for JOAO SCHMIDT 71')
 
Goals    
 
LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 34' 0-1
EDGAR (Daegu) 43' 1-1
LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 64' 1-2
LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 87' 1-3 
 
Highlights