Vs Ulsan Hyundai (home) 3/10/23 ACL Group stage match 2

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 0 Ulsan Hyundai 

It’s fair to say that 2023 hasn’t been the greatest year for Frontale. Considering how badly we’ve played it’s something of a miracle that we still find ourselves involved in two competitions at this stage of the year. However this has been slightly skewed in 2023 by the late start of the ACL as they switch the schedule for the more standard late-summer-start-and-spring-finish season. So even in this year when we've been awful, it really would have been something for us to put ourselves out of contention after just the one group game. After such a terrible performance against Niigata, surely we were going to lose against the team that destroys our ACL campaign every year, right? Actually wrong, which was a delightful and very welcome surprise. Recently, writing these blog posts has become a real chore as there are only so many ways you can say ‘we’re terrible’. Given the result, this one should be a bit easier, but to be honest, we still weren’t that great. But for once we did the job. I’m going to keep this brief as I’m busy with work this week and this blog, whilst occasionally being a bit of a pressure relief valve, takes ages to write and offers no reward apart from getting a few Twitter likes and the thrill of occasionally irritating pompous opposition fans. I’m going to experiment with a shorter style as I probably can’t really afford to spend three hours doing these when I should be doing housework or actual work. Let’s see how that goes.
 

The starting line up looked like it could be a weird 3-5-2 but after the Niigata game it seemed destined to be back to 4-3-3. And so it was, despite Yamamura being listed as a midfielder, (very sneaky from us, presumably hoping that Ulsan would not have done any scouting at all). So it was with some trepidation that I awaited kick off. As I’ve said constantly 4-3-3 has been useless when it comes to scoring recently. It kind of was in this game too, with us having loads of shots which mostly went miles over the bar and not managing to test the Ulsan keeper until the 66th minute. I guess the crucial difference was that we were making plenty of good chances though. So now I wonder, and I don’t really like to say this, that perhaps 4-3-3 with Ienaga on the right is useless, and there could be a future for a more structurally disciplined 4-3-3. Ienaga seems to have disappeared recently which I guess must be an injury as I can’t see Oniki dropping him from the squad in a game where we could have so many subs. I think there’s still a role for him in midfield, but I don’t think we can justify making our attack so lopsided by accommodating his free role up front any more. Damiao seems to have a new lease of life and he got the nod in this game with Gomis on the bench. Miyashiro was back too and it seems like bad news for Kobayashi, who didn’t make it into the pitch at all again, so perhaps could now be considered bottom of the striker pecking order. This does seem to change with every toothless attacking week though. And when we did finally manage to score, the goal came from Tachibanada who thankfully was able to get a shot on target, unlike many of his contemporaries. We left it quite late though. Like I said, we made chances, (15 of them), and some were really good ones, but only four shots on target is pretty dismal. But who cares when we won? It’s a slightly weird but horribly predictable to say that we could have been four goals up within the first 15 minutes of the game, but failed to hit the target on any of these occasions. But at least we got to do a bit of attacking. Ulsan were quite happy to let us fart around at the back with the ball, doing absolutely nothing with it, (see, they had scouted us!), whereas we were hassling their back four and keeper constantly. Both approaches were equally unsuccessful till the 89th minute. At one point we had a two on one and made it into the box but somehow contrived to not even be able to have a shot from the situation. All of this would have been hugely frustrating if we hadn’t finally managed to score.
 

Probably the frustration would have been amplified by the fact that Ulsan didn’t do much in the game. They had a few very good chances, but like us seemed to be in pretty bad shape. They only had the one shot on target, so in retrospect, we totally dominated the game. Totally dominated it yet only managed to score the winner and only goal in the 89th minute. Ulsan were a big surprise actually. They always beat or frustrate us. They definitely are a bogey team, and currently sit top of their league, but really looked a shadow of the teams who’ve successfully messed with us and our delicate style in the past. After a first minute VAR check for a possible red card after an early potentially-aggro coming together they seemed to really fade. Maybe they’re focusing on the league this year (just like we are, right? 😉) or maybe they’re lulling us into a false sense of security so that they can totally destroy us at a later stage of the competition and smash our hearts into tiny pieces. They scored three times against Pathum in their first game but only once ever looked like threatening in this game. (It probably should be said that Johor scored four against Pathum in their second game. All set up perfectly for us to self destruct in our next game against them). Whether we were lucky to come up against Ulsan on an off day or whether they’re not as good as before, well, only time will tell. But we now don’t play them till the last group game, and you’d hope with the start we’ve made, that we won’t need anything from that game to secure our progress. But don’t forget we are 2023 Frontale, and can easily turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear. But let’s be tentatively… optimistic. Oh, and I almost forgot to say, one of the most entertaining parts of the game, was the fact that the linesman on our side couldn't stop himself from going on the pitch. Perhaps not as amusing when written down as it was at the time, but as I'm adding the photo below, I thought I'd better explain why.

What a surprise of a blog post, eh? Not much moaning, no jokes, not that long, ending on a positive note! Don’t worry, normal service will probably be resumed soon, as next up we have Avispa Fukuoka at home in the Emperor’s Cup semi final on Sunday. Can Oniki build on this win? Can we perhaps shoot a little bit more accurately? Can I write another slightly shorter and less interesting blog post? All of these questions will be answered in due course.

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (Yellow card 48')

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

FW 23. MARCINHO

 

Subs

GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
DF 15. TANABE Shuto

FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for SEKO 77')

FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS (on for SEGAWA 83')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 77')
FW 24. MYOGAN Toya

MF 28. OZEKI Yuto

DF 29. TAKAI Kota

FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei (on for MARCINHO 70')

 

Goals

TACHIBANADA (Frontale) 89' 1-0

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Don’t really know what to do with this. We seemed to be better than the opposition, but no one really stood out as we didn’t have to do much and mostly couldn't actually do much in front of their goal. However, given that they were restricted to just five shots in the game, I’m going to perhaps slightly randomly give it to….

OMINAMI Takuma & YAMAMURA Kazuya - for once Sung-Ryong didn’t have much to do, which this year is something I’ve only been able to say when he has been on the bench.

Highlights