Yokohama F Marinos 0 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale
Well, well, well. If that wasn’t the best feeling we’ve had all year, I don’t know what was. Admittedly, there hasn’t been a great deal of competition for that title though. I sang a lot and therefore I didn’t take many notes. But to be honest, for long parts of the game there wasn’t much to write down. I think we didn’t have a shot on target until quite a long way into the second half. And taking the three points felt like a real smash and grab. However, looking back with a bit more clarity than I had immediately following the final whistle, we did absolutely batter them for the last 10 or 15 minutes. Not saying that we hadn’t been let off the hook multiple times during the previous 80 minutes though. It seemed like both teams were determined to inaccurately shoot their way to a 0-0. And blimey, Ienaga’s penalty was a shocker. I was wondering why Miyashiro had been given the last one given that Ienaga had previously been pretty much perfect from the spot, but maybe now we know why. Both teams had the ball in the net before that happened and both had been given offside. As both of these incidents were at the other end of the pitch, I can shed very little light on either. But on the whole, wow, what a feeling. 2023 has been a parade of misery for us really. It’s a miracle we have found our way up into 6th (on Sunday morning) and even more of a miracle that we’re only 12 points behind the leaders. How this has happened, I have no idea. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is the start of a title challenge. It might however give us a long overdue confidence boost. Although we’ve failed to capitalise on the previous possible confidence boosts we’ve had and have instead gone back to being crap quite quickly.
A few words about line ups. Kamifukumoto was in goal again and Sung-Ryong was once again absent. It’s a bit weird as there were pictures of Sung-Ryong in training online before the game. I thought Wednesday’s match in Mito signified that Sung-Ryong was first choice again, so perhaps he got injured between the photos being taken and the game. Kami had a good game though, so well done to him. Thankfully YFM were very wasteful in front of goal too. Lovely! There weren’t a great deal of other surprises in the line up. But to be honest, what with the injuries we have and the fact that players are leaving our club much more frequently than they are arriving, it’s understandable that there weren’t any line-up surprises. Our bench featured two defenders and Yamamura, who it seems will basically also be a defender for us. So perhaps there wasn’t much choice. After a few years of us having midfielders coming out of our ears, it’s something of a shock to see three defenders on the bench. Much like against Mito, when Oniki started making changes and basically shuffling the defence I moaned about how it was a bad idea and a waste of time. Likewise when Tachibanada and Joao were on the pitch together. And did some more general moaning about how our subs were very negative and ineffective. I really showed how much I know, right? We did basically nothing much until Oniki made the changes and then afterwards we started threatening. Segawa won the penalty and was responsible for a lovely pass to set up Ominami to cross for Kurumaya to bundle the ball home. Quite how two of our centre backs from what was at that stage a back three were the players furthest forward, I don’t know. But I’m delighted they were. So I guess this is me publicly apologising to Oniki as his changes changed the game in our favour and, who would have thought it, he apparently knows more than I do. Of course if we lose the next three games I’ll be back to knowing better, right? And if feels a bit weaselly to undermine my praise for him, but I’m not sure why we have to go through the ‘utterly shite and ineffective’ stage at the start of most matches. Can’t we just skip that bit and start by playing well instead? But just to reinforce it again, well done Oniki. I’ve been moaning so much about him all year, that I should give him credit when we win, particularly against a rival who were top of the table.
So, what else is there to say? I guess normally I’d moan about the ref and have a go at the opposition and their fans. These parts are so predictable that you can probably just imagine what I’d say so there’s no point writing it. The ref was part of the ref exchange thing, this time coming from Qatar. As fans of foreign leagues will know, Qatar represents one of the highest standards in the world, and is the league that every child dreams of playing in. That’s why no one could blame Taniguchi for wanting to go and try his luck at a… higher level? During the game I had a good old moan about the ref. I thought he was giving them a lot more than he gave us. But honestly, as we won the game all of these thoughts faded away delightfully. It would be remiss of me not to make a joke about the ref’s name being Al Marri, but as he comes from an Islamic country it seems in bad taste to refer to him as Al Marri Pub Landlord, introducing yet another out of date and perhaps slightly obscure British TV reference to these blog posts. So I’ll leave it as just a mention and not push any further down this potentially offensive cul de sac. For their home game against one of their most hated rivals YFM still had large swathes of empty seats in the stadium. Thankfully it didn’t mess up their tifo as they’d thoughtfully laid the coloured squares on the seat backs, meaning that no one actually had to be there for it to work. We could see though! I guess one of the perils of having a big stadium is that it’s difficult to fill it even when you’ve got a big game. But we do often hear about how wonderful Yokohama is and how it’s the biggest city in Japan (if you include some other places because they’re not technically cities or something like that), and how if you live in Yokohama you will have a dream of a life and will never need to leave the city for anything, (aside from possibly going to work, or school, or university, or for culture… and maybe some other stuff). For me Yokohama is 100% the Brighton to Tokyo’s London, full of people who diss their bigger neighbour but somehow find themselves in that neighbour quite often. The comparison also works because it’s by the sea. And because it has (a) scummy football team(s) (choose your preferred option here). Mitoma going to Brighton doesn’t change the fact that they are a horrible club, (well maybe they actually aren’t as horrible anymore, but they were really horrible in the past, and you’re not going to find me changing my mind). Anyway, all this was basically saying there are loads of people in the city, but maybe not that many are interested in the football team. And who can blame them, eh? Yokohama bashing done, perhaps this post is also done.
Next up, Vissel Kobe away next weekend. Our second game in a row against genuine title contenders. Would be lovely if we could beat them in a similar style. Sadly for me it will be the first game I miss this season. We traveled to the previously canceled fixture but this has been rearranged at a difficult time both financially and convenience wise, so I'll be missing it. Hopefully my absence will mean that it will be a barnstormer and a massive victory for us. After that there's some shitty friendly, the existence of which I am not going to acknowledge any more than I have already, and then an away game against Kochi United in the Emperor's Cup which I also will be unable to attend, something which I am quite disappointed about, but which is clearly the correct decision when you look at it rationally. Fingers crossed this result will spur us on!
A few words about line ups. Kamifukumoto was in goal again and Sung-Ryong was once again absent. It’s a bit weird as there were pictures of Sung-Ryong in training online before the game. I thought Wednesday’s match in Mito signified that Sung-Ryong was first choice again, so perhaps he got injured between the photos being taken and the game. Kami had a good game though, so well done to him. Thankfully YFM were very wasteful in front of goal too. Lovely! There weren’t a great deal of other surprises in the line up. But to be honest, what with the injuries we have and the fact that players are leaving our club much more frequently than they are arriving, it’s understandable that there weren’t any line-up surprises. Our bench featured two defenders and Yamamura, who it seems will basically also be a defender for us. So perhaps there wasn’t much choice. After a few years of us having midfielders coming out of our ears, it’s something of a shock to see three defenders on the bench. Much like against Mito, when Oniki started making changes and basically shuffling the defence I moaned about how it was a bad idea and a waste of time. Likewise when Tachibanada and Joao were on the pitch together. And did some more general moaning about how our subs were very negative and ineffective. I really showed how much I know, right? We did basically nothing much until Oniki made the changes and then afterwards we started threatening. Segawa won the penalty and was responsible for a lovely pass to set up Ominami to cross for Kurumaya to bundle the ball home. Quite how two of our centre backs from what was at that stage a back three were the players furthest forward, I don’t know. But I’m delighted they were. So I guess this is me publicly apologising to Oniki as his changes changed the game in our favour and, who would have thought it, he apparently knows more than I do. Of course if we lose the next three games I’ll be back to knowing better, right? And if feels a bit weaselly to undermine my praise for him, but I’m not sure why we have to go through the ‘utterly shite and ineffective’ stage at the start of most matches. Can’t we just skip that bit and start by playing well instead? But just to reinforce it again, well done Oniki. I’ve been moaning so much about him all year, that I should give him credit when we win, particularly against a rival who were top of the table.
So, what else is there to say? I guess normally I’d moan about the ref and have a go at the opposition and their fans. These parts are so predictable that you can probably just imagine what I’d say so there’s no point writing it. The ref was part of the ref exchange thing, this time coming from Qatar. As fans of foreign leagues will know, Qatar represents one of the highest standards in the world, and is the league that every child dreams of playing in. That’s why no one could blame Taniguchi for wanting to go and try his luck at a… higher level? During the game I had a good old moan about the ref. I thought he was giving them a lot more than he gave us. But honestly, as we won the game all of these thoughts faded away delightfully. It would be remiss of me not to make a joke about the ref’s name being Al Marri, but as he comes from an Islamic country it seems in bad taste to refer to him as Al Marri Pub Landlord, introducing yet another out of date and perhaps slightly obscure British TV reference to these blog posts. So I’ll leave it as just a mention and not push any further down this potentially offensive cul de sac. For their home game against one of their most hated rivals YFM still had large swathes of empty seats in the stadium. Thankfully it didn’t mess up their tifo as they’d thoughtfully laid the coloured squares on the seat backs, meaning that no one actually had to be there for it to work. We could see though! I guess one of the perils of having a big stadium is that it’s difficult to fill it even when you’ve got a big game. But we do often hear about how wonderful Yokohama is and how it’s the biggest city in Japan (if you include some other places because they’re not technically cities or something like that), and how if you live in Yokohama you will have a dream of a life and will never need to leave the city for anything, (aside from possibly going to work, or school, or university, or for culture… and maybe some other stuff). For me Yokohama is 100% the Brighton to Tokyo’s London, full of people who diss their bigger neighbour but somehow find themselves in that neighbour quite often. The comparison also works because it’s by the sea. And because it has (a) scummy football team(s) (choose your preferred option here). Mitoma going to Brighton doesn’t change the fact that they are a horrible club, (well maybe they actually aren’t as horrible anymore, but they were really horrible in the past, and you’re not going to find me changing my mind). Anyway, all this was basically saying there are loads of people in the city, but maybe not that many are interested in the football team. And who can blame them, eh? Yokohama bashing done, perhaps this post is also done.
Next up, Vissel Kobe away next weekend. Our second game in a row against genuine title contenders. Would be lovely if we could beat them in a similar style. Sadly for me it will be the first game I miss this season. We traveled to the previously canceled fixture but this has been rearranged at a difficult time both financially and convenience wise, so I'll be missing it. Hopefully my absence will mean that it will be a barnstormer and a massive victory for us. After that there's some shitty friendly, the existence of which I am not going to acknowledge any more than I have already, and then an away game against Kochi United in the Emperor's Cup which I also will be unable to attend, something which I am quite disappointed about, but which is clearly the correct decision when you look at it rationally. Fingers crossed this result will spur us on!
Team
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
Highlights
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 29. TAKAI Kota
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (Yellow card 29')
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei
Subs
GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for WAKIZAKA 83')
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for NOBORIZATO 83')
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for SEKO 60')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for YAMADA 60')
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for MIYASHIRO 67')
MF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya
My Frontale Man Of The Match
This was a very fun game, but one about which the memories are more about emotions than details, so I dunno, let's cop out again, but in a different way this time, and give it to...
EVERYONE - All the players and staff and fans and just everyone really.
EVERYONE - All the players and staff and fans and just everyone really.
Goals
KURUMAYA (Frontale) 90+4' 0-1
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