Vs Jubilo Iwata (home) 25/6/22 J League match 18

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 Jubilo Iwata

Oh jeez I don’t know anymore. I’m getting a bit sick of being so negative but I am also quite sick of watching us recently. After a semi-meltdown on Twitter after this game, I woke up the following morning with a Twitter hangover, feeling quite sick when I thought of either our game or having tweet battles with strangers who probably became J League experts from watching YouTube highlights videos and reading the official J League EN Twitter account. Opinions are like arseholes it is said. Either we all have one, or the internet is full of them. Actually both are true and I’m a bit fed up with contributing to the online arsehole count. Not saying I don’t want to hear anyone’s opinion. I have been in contact with some people whose opinion I respect and found those interactions a lot more rewarding that the usual ‘he’s shit’ vs ‘no, you’re shit’ level of debate that I regrettably fell into last night. With that in mind, I think I’ll stop ranting so much on these blog posts. Either you already agree with me and therefore my moaning is pointless, or you probably disagree with me and my perspective won’t change your mind, so… my moaning is pointless. I am also aware that Oniki is actually a human being too. I don’t think I’ve ever got so rude that I have ignored this fact, but clearly there are a lot of people who know what is going on a lot more than I do who think that he’s doing a reasonable job. So, I’ll tone it down a bit, and in what will be a big break from tradition on this blog, I might stick more to the facts. I preferred it when I could avoid facts and just make jokes but there’s not much to laugh about recently. And with news coming out today that there was someone who is apparently not Japanese behind the goal who was drunk and shouting and singing whilst maskless, I think there’s not much off the field to have a laugh about either. So basically you might want to skip the next few blog posts or the next however many posts it takes till we get out of this slump. In my opinion it might be quite a while, but there are other opinions available, and those opinions are held by a lot more people than mine is. So, coming up, a few comments on the game, a Frontale Rabbit first table and then we’ll be done.

So some comments. Oniki again went with Tachibanada at left back and Chanathip on the left. I don’t think that has worked in the past and I don’t think it worked again. But others disagree. Bringing on Tsukagawa at left back seemed another way for Oniki to indirectly give him a boot in the nuts and of course people are blaming him for us conceding, given that he gave away the corner they scored from. It definitely wasn’t his fault from the corner kick though and it looked like we might have got undone by what I think looks like our zonal marking but I’m not an expert. Seems to have happened a few times recently though. I should also say that I don’t think we can be upset when a midfielder doesn’t play well at left back. Oniki’s subs meant a reorganisation, with us changing to what I thought was a more likely to succeed shape with Chanathip in the middle. I’m not sure why we couldn’t have gone with him there and Tono on the left from the start. Not sure I would have played Oshima in the anchor role either, but then Tachibanada was being used elsewhere so maybe our left back selection caused lots of other players to be moved around all over the pitch. Ho hum. We are still employing the usual recent slowly slowly slowly build ups with thousands of passes before we even leave our half and then attacks petering out before they get to the opposition’s box. It’s noticeable that our goal came from a more direct pass. Given that we didn’t do that much I guess it was not a tactic but maybe came from someone veering off the script. After we scored, we looked like we were happy enough to sit on the 1-0 lead. Of course that makes some sense, but it hasn’t worked that well in recent times has it? By the end of the match Jubilo looked far more like they wanted to win the game. We were still persevering with the slow build up. Maybe we’ll finally manage to score a second when we manage to put the perfect selection of passes together some time early next week. It was a far from engaging game. In the first half I found my eyes being drawn much more to the Rubik’s cube that the little girl in the row in front of me was doing rather than anything that was happening on the pitch. And here a wonderful comparison sails into view, as she would complete one colour, proudly show her dad and then try to complete a different colour messing up the first complete side in the process. Likewise on the pitch, we had some nice triangles passing around the back, but when it came to combining those triangles with anything else meaningful it all fell apart. Anyway, here’s a table for you:

I dunno, we don’t do very well against teams near the bottom, do we? Obviously the fact that it’s the bottom seven teams should show you that I chose that cut off to best prove my somewhat random point. We always struggle against teams who sit back and who were are ‘supposed’ to beat easily. But this year this seems to be happening more than ever. And don’t forget that the Gamba and Jubilo draws and the Vissel win were really last minute jobs without which we would be in a lot more trouble.

Next up Cerezo Osaka away on Saturday. Non-reserved visitor seating returning means that we’ll be back to the old horrific lengthy two-stage queueing process. We never do that well against Cerezo so maybe they are the kind of opponent we need to shake us up a bit. But most likely it will be another dull draw or a defeat. At least we have a nice day out planned on Sunday so I have something to look forward to!

 

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

MF 19. TONO Daiya

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

FW 18. CHANATHIP

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki (on for CHANATHIP 71')

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (on for YAMANE 82')

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for KOBAYASHI 82')

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for WAKIZAKA 71')

FW 23. MARCINHO (on for TONO 61')

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

No

Goals

 

YAMANE (Frontale) 33' 1-0

ITO (Jubilo) 85' 1-1

Highlights  

Vs Tokyo Verdy (home) 22/6/22 Emperor's Cup 3rd round

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 1 Tokyo Verdy 

Another game, another truly awful performance. Some are saying this was a shock, but if that’s the case I’d say it was one of the most predictable shocks you could imagine. I certainly thought we were going to lose and Oniki still being in charge of the team increased that likelihood massively. There were a few giant killings in this round of the cup but I don’t think you can all this a giant killing. It’s more like something that would take place in a Swiss clinic, and we’re hardly giants this year. So perhaps more like a slightly taller than average man self-euthanisation. To be honest, whoever Oniki started with I think we would have struggled given his apparent complete lack of tactical inventiveness and dearth of inspirational qualities. He’s running us into the ground. At least we know that whoever takes over when he leaves at the end of the season won’t have an ACL campaign to trouble them and instead will be able to use the Levain group games to work on some things. Maybe that’s why Oniki has been struggling recently. He’s a victim of his own success! Constantly qualifying for the ACL has meant that he only has Emperor’s Cup games available to tinker with things. Oh… but he pretty much usually plays a full strength team in those games too… On this occasion he rotated slightly but I don’t think that was necessarily completely to do with giving people a chance. More to do with his sincere belief that the best rotation involves the same limited group of players with at least two out of position and no changes in tactics. We’re on a horrible run. The only teams we seem to be able to beat are ones who are students or have a pathological desire to self harm. I really feel for Seko and Matsui who messed up for the goal, but Matsui was playing out of position in one of his first games for us. Seko has shown some kind of sensitivity over his position in the squad and his performances but I hope he’s not being too hard on himself. Idiots online going for them certainly isn’t going to help matters. Especially when it seems that Oniki is not going to be held to the same standards. A tweet by a well followed Japanese language Frontale blog stated that the defeat was making them keener than ever to get back to the stadium on Saturday and get back to winning ways. Personally, it has had the absolute opposite effect on me. I don’t particularly want to go, (but I will), and I think we’ll almost certainly lose. We had a change in personnel for this game but no change in approach. It was still horribly ponderous and utterly predictable. I think it took us 32 minutes to have our first shot. Players seem scared to shoot or take chances and this can only come from pressure from above. Sasaki looked like a shell of his former self, perhaps noticing that he was dropped in favour of a midfielder playing way out of position for what was probably the preferred first choice line up against Consadole last week (don’t forget how useless we were in that game!). With that in mind, you’ve got to think that Damiao is now also not a first choice. So we had players starting who really had nothing much to gain and everything to lose. But the players haven’t all turned into bad players in the course of a month or two. It has to be the tactics. It’s all safe, safe, safe… oh we’ve conceded, better carry on doing the same thing… oh we’ve lost. Loads of possession playing triangles of passes around the back. A midfielder at right back, a midfielder in central defence, a left back in central defence, a left winger playing on the right. All wonderful stuff isn’t it? I guess Oniki thinks he eventually come up with the dream combination of players out of position to make his dull tactics work. I don’t have the same confidence. And if he does finally solve the problem, it will no doubt be too late by then. I think it probably already is too late actually. Verdy defended solidly in numbers and then hit us on the counter attack. The same thing that every team Oniki has struggled against has done. Every team for the last three or four years. But still he hasn’t even hinted that he’s noticed it happening, let alone found a solution. Instead, it’s those triangles and lots of lovely possession and none of those horrible goals scored.

I appreciate that I’m in the minority when it comes to these kind of things. Plenty of people have confidence in him and think he can turn things round. I don’t particularly want him to be fired. Ideally, I’d like him to come to his senses and come up with some kind of route to us regaining some kind of form. If he doesn’t do that, and I don’t think he can, I think he should have a look at what might be the real reason for our slump, recognise that it’s pretty much down to him and that he has no solution and then do the honorable thing and resign. I don’t think the fact that we have no-one ready to take over is a problem. I think that he has come up with nothing original to get us out of the slump is a far bigger problem than getting someone in urgently to shake things up a bit. Terada could probably do a better job right now. I base this on nothing other than there’s not much chance of anyone doing a worse job than Oniki at the moment. Our squad is monstrously unbalanced and as he’s been in charge for years during which time that unbalance has worsened he has to be blamed for that. Perhaps it’s unbalanced because Oniki has a belief that midfielders can play anywhere. Recent performances suggest that this might not be true. I don’t know why our once pin point destructive strike attack has been turned into a foam hammer. Yes, I know we have lost some good players, but we still have about three quarters of the same starting members that we had last year. Definitely lots of people are out of form and as I always say, this does happen sometimes, but when it happens to so many players at the same time, you’ve got to think that there might be some other reason for it to be happening.

Next up Jubilo at home on Saturday. Remember that away game, where we were utterly shite and struggled to make any decent chances till we had conceded and then just about managed to fluke a goal and a draw? They knew how to play against us on that occasion and you’ve got to imagine that they will know how to do it again. Oniki is being tactually outthought by pretty much everyone he comes up against at the moment. And then occasionally gets a result to slightly ease the pressure on him, even if that result when examined looks very, very lucky and highly undeserved. He’s always been a lucky manager but now it seems that the luck when it comes to the team has run out and it’s only working when it comes to saving his own skin. We looked awful at the start of the season but compared to how we’re playing now, we can look back on those games with some kind of beautiful nostalgic joy. Sure we were shite then, but now we’re really shite. On Saturday we’ll probably go with the same system and tactics, Tachibanada at left back again, will not do much, then concede from a fast break from a Jubilo attack who will have been sitting back in numbers. Then Oniki will make lots of subs, nothing will change and we’ll concede again late on in the game for another utterly frustrating defeat. Oniki will say he takes responsibility for the defeat, but stop short of actually taking any responsibility, another midfielder will start getting trained up to play in goal or at centre back and we’ll move on to our next defeat in Osaka next weekend. At the end of the season, we’ll call it a transition season and use that to explain why we’ve finished seventh. Oniki will have tarnished his reputation so much that he won’t have any job offers so will sign a new contract for a fresh period of demolition of our team, reputation and my sanity. Blimey, this has all turned a bit bleak. But I suppose that’s not a great surprise, is it? At least by the time I arrive at the game on Saturday, I should be have consumed quite a lot of drinks on the way as I have an event to go to first. Therefore, the crushing disappointment will be dulled slightly. Cheers! 

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 25. MATSUI Renji

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for SEKO 46')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for MARCINHO 71')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for KOZUKA 46')

FW 19. TONO Daiya (on for MIYAGI 46')

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for JOAO SCHMIDT 60')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

You've got to be kidding!

Goals

 

SATO (Verdy) 39' 0-1

Highlights

 

Vs Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo (home) 18/6/22 J League match 17

Kawasaki Frontale 5 - 2 Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo

Football is back! J League is back! Busy work schedule is back!! With three games in eight days and a lot more classes than usual, something has to give, and that something is the length of these blog posts. Some might welcome the brevity though I guess. Not sure how I would approach this post if I was going the usual flabby way though, as this game was a real mess of contradictions. So I’ll keep it brief and be done with it. We scored five for the second time in a row! But once again it was mainly due to the opposition’s shortcomings rather than anything from us. We won in spite of Oniki not thanks to him. The long international break gave him plenty of time to think about our last two awful league defeats. And what did he come up with? Playing a midfielder way out of position at left back and put Chanathip back in the position in which he was totally ineffective in at the start of the season. The line up looked like we might be going with three at the back, but of course, super conservative Oniki wouldn’t actually try something new, would he? It’s telling that every dangerous Consadole attack and both of their goals came from moves down our left. It’s almost as if we were trying to give ourselves a handicap. And who knows what the tactics were supposed to be? But whatever they were, they resulted in some possession for us in our own penalty box and lots of lovely passing around the defence. Don’t be under any illusions. If we hadn’t been playing a team who are also a bit of a shambles at the moment, we would have lost. All three of the goals that won us the game came gift wrapped from Hokkaido defenders with a card expressing their desire for Oniki not to resign or get fired. Of course, some credit should go to the players who nicked the ball after some sloppiness at the back from Consadole. It should also be noted that most of those players didn’t start the game. Marcinho, the only player who has looked even slightly threatening for us recently got dropped to the bench. If Chinen hadn’t got injured we probably wouldn’t have seen Kobayashi till the 85th minute. At the start of the second half, Tono played better than Chanathip on the left, which is something anyone who had seen any of our games this year would have known but is something that has eluded Oniki’s attention. Perhaps he felt he needed to try something new to get us out of our dodgy run, but the fact is that all he did was play some different players out of position which caused us problems and created nothing for us. Nice work Oniki! At half time with us just about hanging on against a team who most managers love playing because their tactics are so wild and often insane, we were facing the reality that once again Oniki had been tactically outwitted. We shouldn’t have been surprised though as Oniki has only one set of tactics and all he does is try random combinations of players in the same shape with the same instructions to pass it backwards at every opportunity. Oniki is like a chef who tries to include all of his favourite ingredients into his dinner regardless of the outcome and serves up a steak with ice cream and natto, with a refreshing orange juice and mint drink on the side. Although I suppose at least those combinations might be unpredictable and slightly interesting in their originality whereas we’re just left with the same results from every apparently random option. If we’d lost, I don’t think we would have sacked Oniki and I don’t think he would have resigned. But with every passing week he further tarnishes his reputation and him getting another job offer becomes increasingly unlikely. I guess though that the JFL in its support for Moriyasu has form for doing absolutely stupid things so maybe he’ll still be able to get the national team job. Fingers crossed. If they could give it to him sooner rather than later that would be lovely thanks. The title is gone. We’re only one point behind but there’s no way this mess will consistently get results and there’s no way both YFM and Kashima will mess up enough to let us get past them.

This all seems a bit contrary considering we won 5-2, but if you’d watched the whole game I think you’d understand what I’m saying. Yeah, the goals were nice, but don’t kid yourself to say that we made them and weren’t gifted them. And don’t forget the fact that three weeks of contemplation and some important players finally coming back from injury and available brought Oniki to this starting line up and tactics. With Kazama in charge we were exciting. With Oniki in charge we become duller with every passing week. I’m not a tactician so I can’t tell you why we’re so boring but I am in the stadium watching the tedium so I can vouch for its intensity. We were so bad in this match that it even took the spotlight off Kasahara, a ref who is consistently awful, but who looked like a paragon of officiating in comparison with our tactical competence. I can’t remember a single time this year where we’ve played well and been unlucky. Actually some might say I could have stopped that previous sentence at ‘well’. I can remember countless times when we’ve played awfully and got very lucky. And a few times where we played terribly and got what we deserved. I can’t see it changing either, if even on the back of our worst run for years this is all he can come up with. And given that we fluked another win, (ignoring the fact that Oniki’s original plan for the game was so disastrously wrong but somehow a win was presented to him), he’ll probably take it as some kind of ringing endorsement of his master plan. People will probably find this post intensely annoying. Our biggest win of the season and perhaps my biggest moan. I know. But this performance was utterly shite for the most part. Some nice goals though, eh? That should help kick the can down the road for another week or so until the next time we fail to get extremely lucky. Maybe Wednesday? If not, next Saturday.

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

MF 19. TONO Daiya

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

FW 18. CHANATHIP

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (on for WAKIZAKA 82')

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for TONO 82')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for CHINEN 58')

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi

FW 23. MARCINHO (on for CHANATHIP 74')

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

I feel like this probably should go to one person, but given that another proved his point well I’m going to predictably split it two ways…

IENAGA Akihiro and KOBAYASHI Yu - Ienaga was really enjoyable in this game doing his usual swat the opposition away thing. He'd obviously really benefited from a bit of a rest. And Kobayashi, who has tried his best to take advantage of his limited opportunities, mainly on the wing, showed that if he’s given a bit of time in the middle he’ll score. Which we probably all knew, but Oniki apparently didn’t.

Goals

 

AOKI (Consadole) 28' 0-1

IENAGA (Frontale) 42' 1-1

ARANO (Consadole) 66' 1-2

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 69' 2-2

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 86' 3-2

IENAGA (Frontale) 89' 4-2

MARCINHO (Frontale) 90+6' 5-2

Highlights  

Vs Sapporo University (home) 1/6/22 Emperor's Cup 2nd round

Kawasaki Frontale 5 - 0 Sapporo University

I’m sure avid readers of this blog if there are any will have been excitedly waiting to see quite how I could get all moany about this game. Given our form leading into the game, it had potential banana skin written all over it. We’ve been awful recently and we have a habit of toiling against lower league opposition in the Emperor’s Cup. What a surprise it was then when we took the lead early on and didn’t look back. The fact that it was so comfortable probably says something about quite how out of the ordinary this season is compared to recent years. The first couple of minutes of the match made it look like we might be in for a tough evening as Sapporo came racing out of the traps and it was a bit end to end. But that turned out to be the extent of their powers and after we’d taken the lead they faded and it became a real mismatch. It’s quite difficult to write anything meaningful about this game as it was so one-sided. Because of this, I’ll just go with some comments on a few players and that’ll do. I thought I’d have to describe the goals as the JFA are notoriously slow to put up the Emperor’s Cup highlights, but I’m shocked to see they’ve done it already. So that’s saved me some work.

Matsui started at right back and did really well I thought. He looked very comfortable on the ball and I noticed him a lot more than I did when he was playing on the left (I think) in the ACL. Whether Oniki thinks he’s a good stand in for Yamane who as I’ve said plenty of times needs a rest, I’m not sure, but I think he could definitely do a job. Seko and Kozuka did well in the midfield. I’m happy to see them both in a bit more of an attacking role as previously both of them have had to play the anchor role. Seko’s goal was lovely and shows what we miss if he plays further back. Kozuka’s finish was nice too, but the best thing about the goal was that it indirectly came from a great cross from Yamamura who was charging down the right wing, even though he was playing at centre back. I’m slightly surprised that Oniki didn’t give Chinen 45 minutes in the middle and then give Kobayashi 45 minutes in the middle in the second half. In fact, Kobayashi didn’t even make it onto the pitch. Also surprising was that Oniki has finally trusted Tanno to play a game. Think he had one save to make so it wasn’t that different from standing around on the touchline but I’m pleased he could get a start. Tono in the Ienaga position was good to see too. He’s done well in midfield but again I can’t really understand why he hasn’t played more in a position that he is more suited for. Einaga was probably the story of the evening, coming on for Marcinho at half time and looking very bright on both the left and the right. It was great to see him get a goal. But it was even greater to see him so at ease on the ball and willing to take people on. He was on my list of potential towel purchases but I think that this performance has made that potential selection a lot less left field than I normally like to make so maybe it won’t be him that I go for. He looks very exciting though. And a quick word for Tanabe, who has been quite forgotten it seems. He came on to replace Sasaki for about a third of the match. I thought he did pretty well but I’m not sure if Oniki will bring him in to give Sasaki a rest, given that everyone is getting a rest at the moment. We’ll see though.

So that will do really. Apart from a quick mention that as usual the JFA’s desire to take over every aspect of the matchday experience in the Emperor’s Cup as usual makes the whole thing feel weird and significantly less slick. And of course you want me to say the music is awful. It was but the transition from acoustic guitar flamenco picking to a Top Gear approved cock-rock guitar solo in a matter of seconds in the same signature Emperor’s Cup theme song was this year’s lowlight. At least it gave me something to write about, I suppose. Next up, a two week break! And then we’ll play another Sapporo team at home but this time it will be Consadole in the league. Hopefully the break will do us some good and this win will give us some kind of probably not wholly deserved morale boost. Fingers crossed. Now, a chance for me to catch up with all of the stuff that I’ve ben neglecting in order to write these blog posts and travel to all these away games. Phew!

 

Team 

 
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
DF 25. MATSUI Renji

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

FW 19. TONO Daiya

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

FW 26. EINAGA Takatora (on for MARCINHO 46')

DF 30. TANABE Shuto (on for SASAKI 75')

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for TONO 85')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

I probably could on this occasion but it was such a mismatch that it doesn't feel right.

Goals

 

KOZUKA (Frontale) 13' 1-0

JOAO SCHMIDT (Frontale) 16' 2-0

CHINEN (Frontale) 21' 3-0

SEKO (Frontale) 26' 4-0

EINAGA (Frontale) 65' 5-0

Highlights