Nagoya Grampus 2 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale
Once again, what an awful performance. And an awful performance merits an awful blog post, so here we go. After we squeaked a 1-1 in a game which really should have been a 0-0 last week at Urawa, we seemed to approach this game in the same way, hoping and hanging on for a 0-0, not wanting to trouble the opposition keeper unless absolutely necessary. After a monstrous fuck up last week when he gave Urawa a goal, Oniki defended Kamifukumoto, saying that he’d saved us more times than he’d made clangers. To be honest, I can’t really remember him doing that very often, but the fuck ups remain unsurprisingly clear in the mind. This week Kamifukumoto made another horrendous one and gave the opposition a goal, dropping a regulation save under only the slightest of pressure and rolling the ball to the best possible position to give the striker a shot at the gaping open goal. Wonder what Oniki will say this week? Even the biggest Kamifukumoto fan would have to agree that this game tipped the fuck ups/saved us balance much further towards the fuck up side. Mercifully, their second goal was at the other end so we didn’t get to see that one. We just got the horrendous clanger in front of us. If he starts the next game, there is really no justice. But we are in an Oniki wonderland, so him continuing is more than likely I would have thought. One things for sure, we almost certainly won’t be playing some genuinely attacking football and making more than a couple to dangerous chances per game. I’m not saying that none of our 25 shots caused them any trouble. I remember Langerak having to make a couple of saves. (Would be nice if we had a goalie who could do that). But hang on, don’t forget Kamifukumoto is a whizz on the ball and starts our attacks, eh? I don’t want to keep moaning about him though. I will however keep moaning about Oniki. He makes the decisions who plays. (Apparently seems he uses different criteria to those which most people might use though). He chooses the tactics (not a massive choice, as it’s the same every week, the only tweak being how little emphasis we’ll put on trying to score, instead focusing on racking up those defensive third passes. I still don’t think we’ll fire him mid season. But I’m astonished that more people aren’t talking about that possibility. Sure, he’s won us titles and no one else has. Sure, he seems a nice guy. And sure as sure can be, we’re going to continue rotting as long as he remains in charge. We’re not a shit team. But we’re really playing like a shit team at the moment. As usual Oniki’s influence on the game brought nothing but trouble. We conceded our second shortly after Oniki made a sub. His response to going two down was to change the left and right back. I have to admit it was a shock to see Yamane get subbed. But it absolutely wasn’t a shock to see the tactical god Oniki’s changes have no influence. I’m pretty sure that we had more formation changes in the second half than we did shots on target, going from a back four to a three and then apparently back to a four, with a bit of fucking around with the attackers thrown in between the defensive change and reversion back to what we had before. All with the same effect, lots of lovely passing and then either losing the ball or blasting it over the bar. If our striker was in the position that Junker was after Kamifukumoto deposited the ball in front of him with the open goal gaping I’m sure we’d pass it back to our keeper to try to build something from the back. It’s the Oniki way after all.
How many games have we got left this year? Hopefully not many, as every week a little bit more of my sanity gets chipped away by having to watch the same old shit. It feels a bit like finding the person that irritates you the most on Twitter and blocking everyone else in the world aside from them, basically giving them a funnel to pour a torrent of horror directly into your brain without relief. It can’t be good for our health to watch these games. I’d have no problem if we just weren’t that good, but it’s just that the clown in charge keeps making the same stupid decisions apparently unaware of any detrimental effect they might be having. And he seems to have played his hand, by sending Einaga out in loan, and selling Chanathip. (And possibly also Kozuka soon). He’s going to stick with what hasn’t worked so far thank you very much. Who needs fun and entertainment when you can have misery and frustration instead. Mercifully, soon my 100% record of attending games will come to an end as I can’t go to the rearranged Kobe away game. Perhaps this will give me the wake up call that I need. Watching this crap isn’t good for me. Getting annoyed about the magnet man isn’t good for me. Desperately trying to work out what Sung-Ryong has done to get dropped isn’t good for me. Watching hundreds of sideways passes isn’t good for me. At least two or three Kamifukumoto fuck ups a game isn’t good for me. Free me from this utter shite!
Next up, Yokohama FC at home. They were awful in the away fixture but we were even more awful so they got a fully deserved three points. Surely if we lose that game he’ll resign, won’t he? Or maybe he won’t go till he’s gifted most of the bottom half a league double against us. Half the season is gone now and we’ve got 25 points from 18 games a goal difference of zero and have only scored 21 goals. That means on average we score more than once one time every six games. It’s really turgid stuff. —- I wrote all of the above on the train back from the rural wasteland that is Toyota, which I should once again add is absolutely not Nagoya. Since then, in my usual way, I’ve calmed down a bit and had some time to reflect. The fact that after reading it back I’ve changed so little is quite refreshing. I don’t think I said anything above that isn’t to me true and perfectly obvious. I’m not particularly enjoying all this frustration though. So perhaps I’m going to go back to not really giving a shit anymore, which worked quite well for me for the second half of last season. We’re going to get nothing but disappointment from 2023 so I might as well not bother getting too wound up by the disappointment. Consequently, if the next game goes badly as expected, don’t expect too much bitterness and ranting in the blog post. If we somehow manage to win, perhaps the joy will also be turned down. Although it is YFC, whose fans I have found quite annoying recently, so we’ll see I guess. But anyway, my advice for fans who are getting angry about our uselessness, (advice which I am yet to take myself), is to just not care for the rest of the year. It’s better for you! Let’s just look on the game as if it were some kind of allegory showing the futility of stubbornness. If you’re going to the stadium, have some nice food and a drink before the game. If you’re watching from somewhere else, have a nice lunch, or a long bath or something. Don’t let the 90 minutes ruin what has the potential to be a good day. It’s better that way!
Team
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 29. TAKAI Kota
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei
FW 17. TONO Daiya
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-RyongDF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for YAMANE 70')
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for NOBORIZATO 70')
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for OSHIMA 77')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for TONO 61')
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for MIYASHIRO 70')
My Frontale Man Of The Match
An awful game again but you can’t fault at least one player for all the uselessness that was going on around them.
JOAO SCHMIDT - good performance against his old club, only let down by pretty much everyone else, but most of all by his manager.
Goals
JUNKER (Nagoya) 41' 1-0
IZUMI (Nagoya) 64' 1-0
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