Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 0 Kashima Antlers
What’s happened to us recently? After struggling to play attacking football for pretty much the whole year, now we’re on a massive goalscoring streak. Perhaps it’s because the pressure is off as we’ve been out of the title race for a while. Perhaps Oniki has tweaked the tactics (haven’t really noticed that happening particulary, but what do I know?). Actually the only team we’ve been unable to score multiple goals past in the last month and a half is one of the two teams still involved in the relegation battle going into the final week’s fixtures. Thankfully we got our awful performance against the other one out of the way earlier in the year. Bizarrely, but maybe not so unpredictable given recent years’ performances, the only other game in this run that we’ve failed to win was against Kyoto, a team who were until this round of fixtures, also involved in the relegation battle, albeit slightly tenuously. Whatever the reason for these goal heavy games, it was lovely to keep the high scoring going against Kashima, who at times for me get slightly forgotten as being a true hateable team. I guess they just haven’t been very successful recently 😉. That and the fact that they seem to be completely unable to beat a Oniki managed Frontale team which must be particularly annoying for them in 2023, when pretty much anyone can beat us pretty easily. We’ve got four more games left this year, Sagan Tosu away in the league, Johor at home and Ulsan away in the ACL, and the Emperor’s Cup final. If we don’t win the Emperor’s Cup this will have been a pretty poor season, I think. Even if we do, there is definitely a case to be made that it still has been pretty bad. This sounds like an entitled attitude, but the fact is that we were apparently fully focused on regaining the league title this season and that was probably the worst we did in any competition. Well, perhaps the Levain could also be taken into consideration for this title, but the fact that most teams play the reserves for games in that competition means that it’s always a bit random. So, I guess the key is to intentionally not focus on a competition and then you do well in it. This was one of the first years for a long time that the ACL wasn’t really mentioned as a season goal and somehow we seem to be managing to negotiate a difficult group without too much trouble so far. 2023 has been a weird season, but probably not weird enough to live long in the memory. Certainly I want to forget quite a few of the games we’ve had to watch this year. But anyway, this isn’t an end of season round up. That will, I guess, come in a few weeks. Not sure I can really be bothered to write it though as it’s never much fun when you have almost nothing positive to say.
Unsurprisingly, Oniki kept pretty much the same line up for this game. I guess it was slightly interesting that Ominami was back and it was him who partnered Yamamura in defence. Jesiel had a shocker in his last game which led to me pondering on whether he wasn’t really fit. I don’t know if we’ll see him again this season. Yamamura and Ominami looked pretty well organised in this game, so I’d much rather it was them playing at the moment to be honest. Up front we had Oniki’s recently favoured Ienaga / Marcinho / Damiao trio. Probably the main talking point of this game was Damiao who turned back the clock somewhat and could have had a hat trick if Oniki hadn’t intervened and taken the ball off him and given it to Wakizaka for our very much not crucial in any way whatsoever penalty with us leading 2-0 with about 10 minutes to go. Sure Damiao’s recent penalties have left quite a lot to be desired, but at least give hm the chance of scoring a hat trick in what will probably be his last appearance at Todoroki. There has long been talk that he’ll be leaving us and his goal celebration with his kids who were sitting in the main stand and then him climbing in with the drummers for a post game Vai La De Frontale suggests that he was making the most of his last home appearance. It will be a shame if he goes, but probably the right decision. Strikers in Oniki teams seem to struggle recently, and I can’t imagine it’s much fun being a big money player who doesn’t play much and when they do play, struggles to get any chances. I think he’s greatly loved by our fans and seems like a really nice guy. I think we all hope he goes back to Brazil rather than join another J League team, particularly as I suspect he’d start scoring for fun in a different formation or under different tactics. But Oniki, why did you demand Wakizaka took that penalty?! As I always say, there seems to be nothing but nice comments about him and how much of a good guy he is, but there is definitely the cold veins of a psychopath in some of the decisions he makes. Let’s not get too carried away about us scoring three times in this game. The first goal was a nice move and a lovely finish from Damiao. But the second was an absolute gift from a Kashima defender and their keeper got in on the gifting by giving us a penalty for the third. However, we did look pretty solid at the other end so perhaps…. we deserved to win… Perhaps.
Not taking anything away from the joy of putting the despicable Kashima to the sword though. I’m sure there are some nice people involved with the club and I’m sure that not all of their fans are arseholes, but how nice to see Suzuki, Pituca and Iwamasa upset about how this game went. I have nothing new to say about the Spirit of Zico banner, It’s still bizarre. I don’t have anything original to say about Yuma Suzuki’s shorts, which at the start of the match seemed to be pretty normal but soon started to creep up his thighs as if they were trying to sneak their way into his arse without anyone noticing. There was one particular amusing point where his short wearing style seemed to bite him as he kind of swiveled mid air to try to volley the ball and seemed to give himself a wedgie. At the end of the game, Suzuki was furious and gutted by the result, taking his time to half-heartedly join the post game bow line. He may have been gutted but his shorts presumably were relieved as they were by that stage only millimeters away from being completely consumed, never to be seen again. Actually though, I don’t mind him that much. He’s a real Okubo type player, who you love if he’s on your team and hate if he’s on the opposition team. I think he’s probably not as nuts as he seems to be and instead is a bit of an expert in the dark arts. Pituca on the other hand is just an areshole it seems. Constantly complaining about everything, perhaps constantly only moments away from punching someone or kicking something into the crowd. How nice it is that he’ll be leaving Japan soon (apparently). It will mean the end of my jokes about him looking like CJ from Eggheads, but I think no-one ever understood what I was talking about when I made that reference, year after year, much to my own amusement. For the sake of tradition, let’s just one more time refer to his most famous news story by hoping that wherever Pituca moves next, there are no canals, as if there are the local population could be in danger. I feel like I should probably mention their goalkeeper too, who I think is young and looked quite dodgy at times. I could happily enjoy this dodginess though, as before he started being dodgy, he’d been flopping around feigning injury and moaning a lot. I have to say, I find it quite annoying when goalies come out of their box and then go down at the slightest contact. Surely they should be treated the same as outfield players if they want to start heading or passing the ball. But this is probably the ref’s fault and not his. In any case, the keeper somehow managed to combine the characteristics of both a sickly child and a frail OAP, bridging the generation gap. Truly inspirational stuff. A quick word on the Kashima gammon fans who were pretty annoyed at the end of this game. Who can blame them? As their players went to thank them, a shirtless gammon ran towards the extremely low wall separating them from the pitch area and was somehow stopped in his tracks. Another one did that classic Kashima move of simultaneously perfectly playing the roles of angry fan trying to storm the pitch and security guard holding him back, another brave protestor being thwarted by a wall that comes up to just past his knees and the restraining pull of himself on himself. I’d very much enjoyed us beating Kashima, but the reaction of their fans just added that extra bit of satisfaction to everything. Lovely!
A few words on the ref. It was Kasahara and we also had Nishimura on VAR which sounds like a nightmare combination. Although thank you to Nishimura who overruled Kasahara to give us what looking at replays was clearly a penalty. Kasahara managed to keep his red card in his pocket in this game, and was presumably distraught that he couldn’t give a DOGSO red card to us. He didn’t seem very keen to give yellows either. Although he made an exception for Kobayashi’s first tackle after coming on. To be fair I don’t think he made any clangers, but he did give some wired decisions at times and they did start to irritate me. But in 2023 a referee being irritating and making weird decisions but not making any major mistakes counts as a first class officiating performance, so best give credit where credit’s due. Especially as he told Ienaga to go off the pitch behind the goal in order not to waste time and then let himself be completely ignored, and even slightly humiliated. Actually, I should be giving Ienaga the credit here and not the ref, shouldn’t I? So, well done Ienaga.
Next up Johor at home in the ACL. A point will secure first place in the group but it would be nice to beat them, wouldn’t it? After that, our final league game of the season away at Sagan Tosu down in Kyushu. It’s always one of my favourite away trips and perhaps this year it will be even more fun as the game will be 100% meaningless, so when we perform badly as we tend to do, it won’t matter at all!
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 2. NOBORIZATO KyoheiMF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 23. MARCINHO
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (on for NOBORIZATO 87')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (Yellow card 90') (on for IENAGA 87')
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 87')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for SEKO 87')
DF 29. TAKAI Kota
FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei (on for MARCINHO 71')
My Frontale Man Of The Match
LEANDRO DAMIAO - lovely guy. It’s been a pleasure having you at our club and we hope you can score a few more before you depart.
Goals
LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 34' 1-1
LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 63' 2-3
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) PEN 84' 3-3
Highlights
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