Cerezo Osaka 3 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale
Where to start with this game? This is probably going to be a post that surprises some people with its light positivity and occasional complimentary words for Oniki. At the same time though, this was another truly horrible result in a year that just keeps on disappointing. There are so many things to talk about, but at the same time I don’t really want this to be ridiculously long and instead only very long. The stuff about the game is fairly straightforward, although perhaps I have a different opinion to most about it. The other stuff around the game and about the club in general is a bit more complicated. And given that I have no insider knowledge or gossip, I’ll try to deal with that in as much of a detached way as possible. We have no games for a couple of weeks now, (next up, FC Tokyo at home in the league), which is probably a good thing. But at the same time, when you have a result like this, it’s sometimes a good thing to get it out of your system as soon as possible, rather than think about it for 14 days, but that’s what we’ll have to do, I guess. For once I’m not going to dwell on the opposition or the ref. I didn’t really have any complaints about the ref to be honest, apart from a VAR moan which I’ll put in the part about the game. As for the opposition, the beer truck wasn’t as good this year as aside from a couple of slightly mediocre Kawasaki beers, it only had Deraileur stuff, and I’m not a massive fan of them. Seems a bit ungrateful as it is that brewery’s beer truck, but hey, I’m a beer snob, I guess. The only other opposition point is that Croux is still a total wanker and an unbelievable diver. To slightly throw some shade on the ref perhaps I should moan that although he didn’t fall for all of Croux’s dives, he did fail to punish Croux for his dives when he spotted them. Although I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone get booked for diving. Start dishing out those yellows J League refs! I guess most of them have enough trouble with the basic rules of the sport so they should probably work on understanding them first. Anyway, here’s a bit about the game, a bit about things surrounding the game, and a bit about the state of the club in general.
The game -
I was strangely pleased with the line up in this game. It seemed that Oniki had finally realised that we are not in the title race anymore, something which most of us have known since the first few weeks of the season. Perhaps with this in mind, or perhaps because we played 120 minutes on Wednesday and then had to come to Osaka for Saturday, Oniki shuffled the pack. Finally we saw Ienaga and Yamane get a rest, (although quite why the former, a laid back and slightly lethargic influence at the best of times, was brought on in the second half to chase the game, I don’t know). We saw a shake up up front, the defence was shuffled, the midfield was… pretty much the same as usual. We maybe even saw a change in formation!!!! There was talk online from an expert before the game of us playing 3-5-2, the main reason being that Ominami couldn’t be expected to do the high intensity right back thing after playing the whole game on Wednesday. Well, that person was half right. It looked like the normal formation to begin with but soon seemed to change into the 3-5-2, but instead of giving Ominami a partial rest and playing him as part of the back three he was instead played as the right wing back and therefore had to do even more work than usual. I thought he did pretty well though. Segawa on the other side looked good going forward and did his best to help out Tanabe, (long time no see!), on the left hand side of the back three, but Segawa is absolutely not a defender and got caught out quite a few times. Guess he joins the long list of non-defenders who Oniki has played on the left hand side in a defensive position. Tanabe had a good game I thought. I’d been cursing Oniki for recalling him and then after he got injured, totally forgetting him, but he was back again and showed that he can become an important player for us. I guess some people suspected he might be playing as a wing back as he can play anywhere across the back line. But he looked good at centre back. Likewise, Takai was back after a bit of a rest perhaps due to some shocking errors, and also looked reasonably solid. Yamamura, the other centre back had a bit of a nightmare game, but I don’t particularly blame him either. He’s not a defender. The Cerezo fans must be bewildered why we signed their midfielder, who can do a job up front and had on occasion filled in at the back in an emergency and then refused to play him anywhere other than at centre back. It definitely true that he had an unlucky game. The first penalty looked borderline and far from clear cut. The VAR check took just under five minutes (speedy!). Remember that these things are supposed to be for clear and obvious errors. It’s a common moan of mine and many others that if a check takes that long, it’s probably not a clear and obvious error. Also, if the only angles the ref saw were the ones that were displayed on the screen in the ground, it’s a total joke. There were only two marginally different side-on angles neither of which had any hope of showing where the ball made contact with the player. VAR with these angles is like trying to read the small print on your refereeing job contract whilst looking through the wrong end of a telescope. If that’s how the J League refs are told to read the rule book it would certainly explain some of their decisions. The ref was perhaps taking guidance from Kagawa who seemed to be offering advice non-stop as we waited for the VAR guys to watch the same two wholly inappropriate angles before basically tossing a coin to make the decision. And I’m pretty sure that whilst the check was being painstakingly done, the Cerezo fans were chanting ‘VAR, Ole! Ole! Ole!’, which was a bit weird. Actually that was a lot weird, but kind of makes sense as whenever there’s a VAR incident we’re involved in at that ground, it goes against us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it 100% wasn’t a penalty, but it was nowhere near such a sure thing as the Cerezo fans and players thought it was, and with the evidence available, there was no way the ref’s original (perhaps correct, perhaps incorrect) decision should have been overturned. But these things happen. And pretty sure this thing happened in the same stadium to us last year, or maybe the year before. We never seem to do that well away at Cerezo, so all the failures blur into one somewhat.
Jumping to the second penalty, I don’t think VAR got involved, perhaps realising that they’d already wasted enough time with the first one. The way the Cerezo player celebrated suggests that perhaps he thought he had ‘won’ the penalty, rather than it being a sure thing. Again, it looked possible, but nowhere near nailed on, so perhaps VAR did the right thing on this occasion as the ref had given it and no clear error had been made. I guess it’s just our luck at the moment that when there are two borderline penalty decisions in a game, both go against us. Prior to both of these we’d already conceded when Yamamura glanced a defensive header onto the head of Takai which sent the ball past Kamifukumoto. Later in the game when we were attacking, one of our headers deflected off the head of a defender and it floated perfectly into the arms of the keeper. Unlucky again, as was the case with most things in this game for us. It’s not good to concede three times, but aside from three bits of bad luck / borderline decisions that all went Cerezo’s way, they didn’t threaten us that much, particularly in the first half. The big problem is that we didn’t threaten much either. It was interesting to see Oniki try a front two for the first time in ages. It was perhaps a bit of a shame that he did it with two players who’ve hardly ever played together. There really was a lack of understanding between Damiao and Yamada, but it felt that with a bit of instruction from the manager it could have worked. I don’t know if Oniki gave them any instructions before the game. You’d hope so, but at the same time, you can’t really guarantee he would have done. I was kind of encouraged though by the possibilities in the first half and was delighted when Oniki went against my expectations and kept the front two the same for the start of the second half. We still didn’t really make any good chances though, but there was a feeling that perhaps with a bit of time it might work. Up until Oniki made his first QUADRUPLE substitution, I thought we were still a work in progress and were doing ok. Not great, but ok and certainly there were more things to be hopeful about than in recent times. We had conceded a goal in quite unfortunate circumstances but things weren’t a disaster. In the interminable seven or eight minutes that it took Oniki to get the subs on, we conceded again. I don’t know how exactly many times we’ve conceded whilst waiting to make subs, but it’s happened memorably often. Out of the subs we had available, my thinking was that if you need a goal, the two most likely sources on the bench would be Seko or Tono. They were the two players who weren’t changed. Marcinho has been a shadow of himself this year, perhaps troubled by his injury still. But he did alright when he came on, but alright in that some chances were almost created but not to the point of actually having a shot or passing to someone to have a shot. Ienaga came on and didn’t do much at all. Give the guy a proper break. Oh, and with these subs we switched back to the good old 4-3-3, which has never not failed to get us a goal this year. So after the subs, all there was to look forward to was the final whistle and the pub after the game, and even that experience was delayed by 10 minutes of injury time (and that second penalty). So we left immediately on the final whistle, (which probably is a bit harsh as the players had done their best but had been let down by what seemed like a bit of a failure with the preparation and some bad luck), and missed out on the next big talking point.
The other stuff -
Ooooooohhhhhhhhh. There was pitch invasion by a pair of ‘Frontale fans’ whilst the hero interview was being done! Some people online compared it to when about 50 Urawa fans broke through the barriers, invaded the opposition fans area, tried to fight them and destroyed their flags. At this match, two people climbed over the barrier, ran around briefly and then climbed back over the barrier into the crowd where they were dealt with by Frontale staff, who had managed to get to them before any of the security had actually noticed anything had happened. I’m not condoning it as it’s a pretty stupid thing to do in any situation. I think it’s a bit of a non-story though. There has been speculation that they weren’t even Frontale fans as they weren’t wearing anything that suggested they might be. It was actually noticeable that alongside the empty seats, there were quite a few new fans / interested tourists in our end. It’s a bit of shame that we couldn’t do anything to retain their interest. If that was my first game as a potential Frontale supporter, I think I’d start looking for not just a new team to follow but a new sport to get interested in. I did quite enjoy the atmosphere though. Cerezo do their best to make the away supporters experience as ineffectual and unsatisfying as possible, by not giving us a roof for the sound to bounce off or to protect us in the event of rain, making the stand not very steep to make the view of the other end of the pitch pretty bad and making the distance from the pitch extra big so they could get some extra advertising hoardings in. I’m only whinging for fun though. It’s better than their old stadium. Along with the pitch invasion, and also missed by those of us who left promptly, was some booing. A very rare thing at Frontale matches, but some might say long overdue. I don’t know where I stand on this. I think we should be able to express our dissatisfaction at our results and the way we’re playing. At the same time, I don’t think booing is particularly going to help. Equally, cheering and singing wildly after another defeat isn’t exactly very useful I think. It makes us just look like we’re nuts. Perhaps leaving on the final whistle is the thing. It certainly works for me. If the whole crowd did it, it might send a message. Support them during the game, but when it’s over, save yourself some time and a lot of effort by just leaving. I think I’ve made it quite clear that I don’t blame the players particularly. Some people are having bad seasons, but the same guy keeps picking them and the same guy is deciding on the tactics. I don’t even want to moan about Oniki in this game. The saddest thing about this result is that any hopes for us experimenting a bit more in what are now utterly pointless league matches are probably now dead. We saw in this match that as soon as things started going wrong, Oniki reverted back to the same players and the same system that hasn’t worked all year. After getting a walloping I can’t see that he’ll try anything new in the next match and it will be 4-3-3, Ienaga, Yamane, and the usual sideways passing. Two up front is probably dead. Three at the back is probably dead. The same midfield will obviously live on. The truth is we can’t get away from the fact that we haven’t won in the last six games and we’ve lost four of them. We’re conceding goals at a shocking rate and there doesn’t seem to be any ideas from Oniki how to stop that happening. We’ve conceded ten goals in the last four games! Since we beat YFM in the last minute halfway though July, the only team we’ve beaten is Kochi United and that wasn’t exactly a comfortable win. We signed one player in the summer transfer window and he is still nowhere to be seen apart from in promotional materials and social media posts. I don’t know what we’re saving him for. We let two central midfielders go and now find ourselves with almost not enough people to play in that position. It’s all a bit hopeless really. It’s too easy for some fans to pile on to certain players online for individual mistakes but we probably should remember that the one constant in all of our horrible games this year is the manager. And he must have something to do with the fact that we don’t have enough defenders. He used to be lucky, but the whole thing about luck eventually evening itself out casts a horrible shadow over the next couple of years as right now we’re experiencing some misfortune, but judging by how much good luck we got in the last couple of years, we’ve got quite a bit of bad luck still to come.
So to summarise, as far as I am concerned, we weren’t as bad as the score line suggests and there was even something to be a little positive about when it comes to perhaps trying new things. But any chance of that happening in the future has now probably been destroyed. I think Oniki did the right thing on plenty of occasions in this match, (apart from the subs), and I’m sure that he’s not enjoying how bad we are. I just hope he continues trying to change things, even a little. The problem we’ve had is that we’ve rigidly stuck to a once winning formula for so long, that when we get an injury or we lose a player to the bright lights of the Albanian third tier we can’t replace them as the players who might take over have only featured in the final five minutes of a few games. I once again will say that it seems unlikely that all of of squad have simultaneously become awful players, so we need to have a look elsewhere when it comes to trying to discover what’s going wrong. For once, and in a hugely ironic way considering the bluntness of our attacks and the result of the game, I wasn’t that upset by watching us try to do things in the first half. Nothing worked, but at least we were trying. It was only when the same old crap was wheeled out with the first substitutions that everything became a lot more irritating. But I’m calm now, so it didn’t even leave a scratch on me. It’s pretty futile to moan on the internet about this stuff. (Hmmmm, brief moment of self-observation there where I thought perhaps I was trolling myself). It’s probably also not going to help to moan about it at games and boo. But I understand people’s frustrations, particularly as plenty of our fans have only known good times. I don’t particularly want Oniki to leave. I do want Oniki to change, but as I don’t think he’ll easily do the latter, I guess the former has to happen. But in this match he tried something and if he has the courage of his convictions to carry on with this in the future, I’ll be happy. I think it’s unlikely he will though. If we’re back to the normal stuff next game I won’t be very happy. And presumably now Oniki will really be under pressure to lift the mood so perhaps he’ll play the Gomis card. If Gomis isn’t ready to be involved by the next match we play in two weeks, I think we really have to wonder quite how old he will be when he is deemed worthy of some involvement. All of our eggs are now in the Emperor’s Cup basket so we can definitely afford to try something different again in our remaining league games. It would probably be a better idea to pick a formation that we actually have the players to play though, instead of putting square pegs in round holes. But what do I know, eh? I know that we have only three away games left this year, one is at the worst ground for away fans in the J League and one is at the national stadium, which to be honest, could be a competitor for the former title. It’s a bit of luck that we finish up the year with one of the best away trips. So there you go, there is something to look forward to after all! We’ll be able to celebrate our 10th place league finish with shochus galore on the terrace behind the goal at Tosu!
Team
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 29. TAKAI Kota (Yellow card 90+4')DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT
MF 3. OMINAMI TakumaMF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for TANABE 74')
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 74')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for TACHIBANADA 84')FW 23. MARCINHO (on for SEGAWA 74')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for YAMADA 74')
Goals
TAKAI (Frontale) OWN GOAL 52' 1-0
LEO CEARA (Cerezo) PEN 72' 2-0
WATANABE (Cerezo) PEN 90+2' 3-0
My Frontale Man Of The Match
I mean, I know I've been a bit more positive than you might have expected, but a man of the match is taking it a bit far, isn't it?
Highlights
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