Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 1 Kyoto Sanga
Congratulations Oniki! You’ve achieved a new record for earliest loss of hope for a season. I realise that this is exactly the kind of petty comment that people come flocking to this blog to read but don’t get me wrong, I’m actually kind of thankful he has managed to so successfully crush my hopes so early this year. For the remainder of 2024 there will be no grinding of teeth with frustration about how badly we are doing. Instead, just a little smile and wink to myself as I see Oniki repeat, time after time, the same dodgy selections and push on with the same tactic that was last effective some time around four years ago. Bravo Oniki! No more weekends ruined by us performing at a level that is unbelievably further below what even a random team and tactic selection might result in. (It’s a real talent to get us playing the worst possible stuff. Like drawing the one ticket that was put into the tombola by accident and doesn’t even get you a tin of mandarin orange slices). How could a weekend ever possibly be ruined by a game turning out exactly as expected? As sure as summer in Japan will be horribly hot, as sure as any musical release involving any former member of Oasis will sound like the Beatles and be extremely shit, as sure as any 7-11 item that looks vegetarian contains gelatine. That’s how sure we can be that Oniki will keep persevering with his beloved tactic and that we will continue to get horrible and utterly justified results. We’ve played three times at home and have lost them all. We’ve played three teams widely predicted to finish near the bottom of the league and have lost to two of them. I’m seriously worried what will happen when we play a team who are expected to finish above 12th in the league. And the most depressing thing is that we have months of this same old rubbish ahead of us, until we even get the hope of a little break with a cup game, the same players being trotted out every week with micro changes to the starting line up, and the one consistent thing being that at least one player will be played out of position. I suppose at least it makes these posts a little easier to write. In fact I’ll make a new section below that i can cut and paste for future games. Lovely!
How did we play? -
There was a small adjustment to the usual starting eleven. We decided to build extremely slowly with plenty of passing along the back. Once the requisite number of pointless passes was reached, we either booted the ball forward for Marcinho to run on to, hang on to too long, and then lose, or just hoofed it straight to the opposition cutting out the middle man. And also, we occasionally gifted possession to the opposition, somehow with all of our players out of position and looking in the opposite direction to where the ball was, allowing them a relatively easy finish to take the lead. After which point we continued with the same tactics and players, before shaking things up around 60 minutes with some like for like changes, ensuring that even if one of the players subbed off was playing out of position, there was at least one player coming on who was also playing out of position. At the end of the game, we added a new option, booting the ball forward after only half the usual number of prepaatory pointless passes, but still failed to score, as we lost the ball before we could even have a shot. Oniki said the usual things in his post match interview. But apparently decided that his plan was 98% correct and we’d been unlucky, so has decided to give it another go in the following game.
Anything of note in this match? -
No. Our performance was less blood and thunder and more ketchup and light drizzle. One shot on target for every 200 completed passes. It was truly turgid stuff!
Bitching about the opposition -
Their shorts and socks were weird. They looked like they’d been subject to a laundry error. Their player Kawasaki was once again a thorn in our side and is as far as I can tell, still a bit of an arsehole. Their manager, shock horror, knows what he’s doing and actually thinks about the upcoming game before it starts. How nice it would be to have someone who didn’t think the solution to every situation is to do the same thing. They had two massive centre backs. Oniki played Yamada there by himself. And then put Tono and Kobayashi up against them. Who needs to win headers anyway, eh? Their keeper looked quite dodgy, almost giving us a goal but completely mis-controlling / missing the ball from an early back pass. Their keeper was so dodgy that… he kept a clean sheet. They didn’t bring that many fans, which I was surprised about, as I was pretty sure they’d win the game. Perhaps they too thought that result would be so predictable that it wasn’t worth bothering with.
Ref -
We had a guest ref from overseas! I spent a long time trying to work out who he was and where he was from as his name was listed on the J League site as ‘スミス ルイス ディーン’. So was this Smith Lewis-Dean? Dean Smith-Lewis? Smith Ruiz-Dean? Smith Luis Dean? It was Lewis Smith, apparent rising star of English refereeing who was perhaps surprised to find that everyone in Japan was including his middle name every time they referred to him. Slightly worryingly he seemed to have only had one game in the Premier League before he came to Japan, so only one experience of VAR before he got thrown in at the deep end in the country where there is no guarantee that the people watching the replays from numerous angles will even understand the rules of the game enough to male the correct decision. And right away after six minutes, off we went again for a lengthy VAR review. Maybe I’m being presumptuous, but I’m guessing Smith doesn’t speak Japanese, so that added an extra level of… what’s the opposite of streamlining?… obfuscation maybe, to the whole thing. Our last two games have for me compounded how much of a game killing waste of time VAR is. I don’t even care if it means that the right decisions are being made (if that is indeed the case. I think it’s not a given in the J League). I think the only people who like VAR must be the people who never go to the stadium to watch a match. VAR saved us in the 6th minute and took a goal away from us in the 88th. On both occasions the wait was interminable, players and fans alike just twiddling their thumbs whilst some out of sight people do their best to kill any kind of atmosphere in the stadium. These awful delays are the reason that almost half of the photos on this post are of people standing around doing nothing. As for the ref, I thought he was alright. Definitely one of those refs who wants to ‘let the game flow’ and consequently doesn’t whistle for much. This approach probably favoured Kyoto who seemed to have come with quite a physical game plan. (Oniki was presumably surprised and shocked by this. Almost everyone else on earth expected it). But I don’t mean to say the ref favoured Kyoto. I thought he was very even handed, and I’m sure everyone on the pitch knew after the first ten minutes or so how the officiating was going to pan out and exactly what they could get away with. So basically no complaints about the ref, which is a rarity. I will say though that I got quite a strong young-school-teacher-‘call me-by-my-first-name’ vibe from him. Plenty of I’m-not-like-those-other-stuffy-refs,-let’s-just-have-some-fun-here-and-shake-things-up-a-bit energy.
Looking forward -
Who will get the opportunity to play out of position in the next match is the big question I think. At least we now have an idea of the pecking order for the right back spot. Well, we at least know that one of our more exciting signings pre-season is lower down in that pecking order than a left back playing out of position, a midfielder playing out of position and a striker playing our of position. I know Oniki is almost permanently incapable of leaving out one of his favorites so perhaps that was why he moved Tachibanada there. This move also saw the reemergence of last season’s tactic where we use the right back coming inside to the defensive midfield spot to start building attacks. I suppose Tachibanada is more suited to this role than a right back might be. The big question though is probably why we’re bothering to try this as it seems to have absolutely zero effect when it comes to varying out attacks. It’s basically just a new way to start doing the move which leads to the same pointless end. Up front, Erison is injured, which is a huge shame as his goal per game guarantee would have got us a point in this match. It seems clear that Gomis is at best Oniki’s fourth choice in a position where we usually only play one player. I’m gutted that his goal got ruled out as we’re all desperate for him to score. When the replay was shown on the big screen, his facial expression did suggest that he thought it might not stand. I think the goal keeper situation is no clearer after this game. I think Kamifukumoto has done ok when he’s played this year. I’d say no better and no worse than Sung-Ryong, who has had the misfortune to have to play behind some defensive horror shows. Ominami and Maruyama looked reasonably solid. but it’s worth remembering that that partnership let in four goals against Shandong, so perhaps we shouldn’t be that positive too quickly. Who knows what’s happened to Jesiel? I’m pretty sure he’s not injured. Just too far down the tactical master’s preference list. The midfield looked pretty bad again I thought. But to be fair, Wakizaka’s corners were better than in recent games. Sp how do we get out of this mess? My first solution would be to smash Oniki’s magnet board to pieces. I think he’s hopeless now and somehow seems to have way too much courage in his own convictions to have noticed quite how much his selections and tactics suck. I’m sure we won’t get rid of him this year, but I think that if we did it would immediately cause a change in fortunes as our players are good but seem to be losing both their footballing skills and any kind of enthusiasm under his charge. As Oniki will remain in charge, slowly further trashing his reputation, I think my other ideas for what should change are about 0.0001% likely to happen. But, I don’t think Wakizaka, Ienaga and Maricnho should be playing every game. Our attacks are woefully predictable and horribly blunt and as long as those players are in the team following the Oniki plan, I can’t see anything changing. The ‘route to goal’ will remain the long bal for Marcinho to chase, with nothing going down the other side because there’s no-one there. But basically with Oniki in charge, and no new ideas, I think the most we’ll get is a little shuffle in other positions, the ‘thinking’ being that the reason we’re so crap is because we haven’t yet discovered the right player to play out of position at right back.
Next up, Kashima away, who’ve just lost to Machida, which would be funnier if it weren’t for the fact that Machida’s ‘fairytale’ promotion to J1 came backed up by just the massive oil tanker full of cash. And also would be funnier if we hadn’t lost to Kyoto and Jubilo already this year. We normally do well there, but I can see us getting hammered to be honest. Especially if we approach the game in the same way, and let’s be honest, it will be an absolute miracle if we don’t. Normally one consolation when taking the horrific bus journey back after the game is the fact that we have got three points in the bag, and those three points have on more than a few occasions been absolutely robbed from Kashima. If we have to get on the bus after a humiliation it will take a significant amount of booze to erase the memory after arriving at Tokyo station. Luckily though, I’m now in my happy place, with expectation levels at absolutely rock bottom! At home games I can enjoy the fun at the usual after game pub. Last night, I seemed to be the most positive person there, in no way disappointed as what I knew would happen had happened. Away games still carry the excitement of visiting different places. Well, normally that’s the case, but very much isn’t for Kashima away, where the local highlights basically extend no further than the stadium car park. At least we’re getting the game out of the way early on in the season, meaning that the worst away trip will be done and we can look forward to more exciting destinations. Like… Chofu?
How did we play? -
There was a small adjustment to the usual starting eleven. We decided to build extremely slowly with plenty of passing along the back. Once the requisite number of pointless passes was reached, we either booted the ball forward for Marcinho to run on to, hang on to too long, and then lose, or just hoofed it straight to the opposition cutting out the middle man. And also, we occasionally gifted possession to the opposition, somehow with all of our players out of position and looking in the opposite direction to where the ball was, allowing them a relatively easy finish to take the lead. After which point we continued with the same tactics and players, before shaking things up around 60 minutes with some like for like changes, ensuring that even if one of the players subbed off was playing out of position, there was at least one player coming on who was also playing out of position. At the end of the game, we added a new option, booting the ball forward after only half the usual number of prepaatory pointless passes, but still failed to score, as we lost the ball before we could even have a shot. Oniki said the usual things in his post match interview. But apparently decided that his plan was 98% correct and we’d been unlucky, so has decided to give it another go in the following game.
Anything of note in this match? -
No. Our performance was less blood and thunder and more ketchup and light drizzle. One shot on target for every 200 completed passes. It was truly turgid stuff!
Bitching about the opposition -
Their shorts and socks were weird. They looked like they’d been subject to a laundry error. Their player Kawasaki was once again a thorn in our side and is as far as I can tell, still a bit of an arsehole. Their manager, shock horror, knows what he’s doing and actually thinks about the upcoming game before it starts. How nice it would be to have someone who didn’t think the solution to every situation is to do the same thing. They had two massive centre backs. Oniki played Yamada there by himself. And then put Tono and Kobayashi up against them. Who needs to win headers anyway, eh? Their keeper looked quite dodgy, almost giving us a goal but completely mis-controlling / missing the ball from an early back pass. Their keeper was so dodgy that… he kept a clean sheet. They didn’t bring that many fans, which I was surprised about, as I was pretty sure they’d win the game. Perhaps they too thought that result would be so predictable that it wasn’t worth bothering with.
Ref -
We had a guest ref from overseas! I spent a long time trying to work out who he was and where he was from as his name was listed on the J League site as ‘スミス ルイス ディーン’. So was this Smith Lewis-Dean? Dean Smith-Lewis? Smith Ruiz-Dean? Smith Luis Dean? It was Lewis Smith, apparent rising star of English refereeing who was perhaps surprised to find that everyone in Japan was including his middle name every time they referred to him. Slightly worryingly he seemed to have only had one game in the Premier League before he came to Japan, so only one experience of VAR before he got thrown in at the deep end in the country where there is no guarantee that the people watching the replays from numerous angles will even understand the rules of the game enough to male the correct decision. And right away after six minutes, off we went again for a lengthy VAR review. Maybe I’m being presumptuous, but I’m guessing Smith doesn’t speak Japanese, so that added an extra level of… what’s the opposite of streamlining?… obfuscation maybe, to the whole thing. Our last two games have for me compounded how much of a game killing waste of time VAR is. I don’t even care if it means that the right decisions are being made (if that is indeed the case. I think it’s not a given in the J League). I think the only people who like VAR must be the people who never go to the stadium to watch a match. VAR saved us in the 6th minute and took a goal away from us in the 88th. On both occasions the wait was interminable, players and fans alike just twiddling their thumbs whilst some out of sight people do their best to kill any kind of atmosphere in the stadium. These awful delays are the reason that almost half of the photos on this post are of people standing around doing nothing. As for the ref, I thought he was alright. Definitely one of those refs who wants to ‘let the game flow’ and consequently doesn’t whistle for much. This approach probably favoured Kyoto who seemed to have come with quite a physical game plan. (Oniki was presumably surprised and shocked by this. Almost everyone else on earth expected it). But I don’t mean to say the ref favoured Kyoto. I thought he was very even handed, and I’m sure everyone on the pitch knew after the first ten minutes or so how the officiating was going to pan out and exactly what they could get away with. So basically no complaints about the ref, which is a rarity. I will say though that I got quite a strong young-school-teacher-‘call me-by-my-first-name’ vibe from him. Plenty of I’m-not-like-those-other-stuffy-refs,-let’s-just-have-some-fun-here-and-shake-things-up-a-bit energy.
Looking forward -
Who will get the opportunity to play out of position in the next match is the big question I think. At least we now have an idea of the pecking order for the right back spot. Well, we at least know that one of our more exciting signings pre-season is lower down in that pecking order than a left back playing out of position, a midfielder playing out of position and a striker playing our of position. I know Oniki is almost permanently incapable of leaving out one of his favorites so perhaps that was why he moved Tachibanada there. This move also saw the reemergence of last season’s tactic where we use the right back coming inside to the defensive midfield spot to start building attacks. I suppose Tachibanada is more suited to this role than a right back might be. The big question though is probably why we’re bothering to try this as it seems to have absolutely zero effect when it comes to varying out attacks. It’s basically just a new way to start doing the move which leads to the same pointless end. Up front, Erison is injured, which is a huge shame as his goal per game guarantee would have got us a point in this match. It seems clear that Gomis is at best Oniki’s fourth choice in a position where we usually only play one player. I’m gutted that his goal got ruled out as we’re all desperate for him to score. When the replay was shown on the big screen, his facial expression did suggest that he thought it might not stand. I think the goal keeper situation is no clearer after this game. I think Kamifukumoto has done ok when he’s played this year. I’d say no better and no worse than Sung-Ryong, who has had the misfortune to have to play behind some defensive horror shows. Ominami and Maruyama looked reasonably solid. but it’s worth remembering that that partnership let in four goals against Shandong, so perhaps we shouldn’t be that positive too quickly. Who knows what’s happened to Jesiel? I’m pretty sure he’s not injured. Just too far down the tactical master’s preference list. The midfield looked pretty bad again I thought. But to be fair, Wakizaka’s corners were better than in recent games. Sp how do we get out of this mess? My first solution would be to smash Oniki’s magnet board to pieces. I think he’s hopeless now and somehow seems to have way too much courage in his own convictions to have noticed quite how much his selections and tactics suck. I’m sure we won’t get rid of him this year, but I think that if we did it would immediately cause a change in fortunes as our players are good but seem to be losing both their footballing skills and any kind of enthusiasm under his charge. As Oniki will remain in charge, slowly further trashing his reputation, I think my other ideas for what should change are about 0.0001% likely to happen. But, I don’t think Wakizaka, Ienaga and Maricnho should be playing every game. Our attacks are woefully predictable and horribly blunt and as long as those players are in the team following the Oniki plan, I can’t see anything changing. The ‘route to goal’ will remain the long bal for Marcinho to chase, with nothing going down the other side because there’s no-one there. But basically with Oniki in charge, and no new ideas, I think the most we’ll get is a little shuffle in other positions, the ‘thinking’ being that the reason we’re so crap is because we haven’t yet discovered the right player to play out of position at right back.
Next up, Kashima away, who’ve just lost to Machida, which would be funnier if it weren’t for the fact that Machida’s ‘fairytale’ promotion to J1 came backed up by just the massive oil tanker full of cash. And also would be funnier if we hadn’t lost to Kyoto and Jubilo already this year. We normally do well there, but I can see us getting hammered to be honest. Especially if we approach the game in the same way, and let’s be honest, it will be an absolute miracle if we don’t. Normally one consolation when taking the horrific bus journey back after the game is the fact that we have got three points in the bag, and those three points have on more than a few occasions been absolutely robbed from Kashima. If we have to get on the bus after a humiliation it will take a significant amount of booze to erase the memory after arriving at Tokyo station. Luckily though, I’m now in my happy place, with expectation levels at absolutely rock bottom! At home games I can enjoy the fun at the usual after game pub. Last night, I seemed to be the most positive person there, in no way disappointed as what I knew would happen had happened. Away games still carry the excitement of visiting different places. Well, normally that’s the case, but very much isn’t for Kashima away, where the local highlights basically extend no further than the stadium car park. At least we’re getting the game out of the way early on in the season, meaning that the worst away trip will be done and we can look forward to more exciting destinations. Like… Chofu?
Team
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota (Yellow card 36')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 80') (on for WAKIZAKA 79')
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota (Yellow card 36')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 80') (on for WAKIZAKA 79')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for YAMADA 70')
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS (on for IENAGA 84')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 70')
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for SEKO 79')
Goals
KAWASAKI (Kyoto) 65' 0-1
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for YAMADA 70')
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS (on for IENAGA 84')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 70')
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for SEKO 79')
Goals
KAWASAKI (Kyoto) 65' 0-1
My Frontale Man Of The Match
Hideji's Doppelbock was a real surprise inclusion and ended up being the star performer of the day.
Hideji's Doppelbock was a real surprise inclusion and ended up being the star performer of the day.
Highlights
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