Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 1 Machida Zelvia
Aaaaaahhhhh. Another lovely day out at the football! What could think better than getting out the house in a lovely spring day, having a beer at the stadium, singing the songs of and cheering for your favourite players as they enter the pitch and then watching another 90 minutes where we almost entirely failed to have a shot on target?‘But come on’, you say, ‘Don’t exaggerate!’ I apologise. We did have one shot on target. I can’t remember it, but the stats say so. And ‘Don’t be so glum’, you say, ‘This is only one game’. And once again, I have to hold my hands up and acknowledge my error as we’ve had plenty of shots on target recently. In fact we’ve had a massive 13 in total in our last five games. Accounting for additional time in games, I reckon that works out at a wonderful one shot on target every 38 minutes. So it’s kind of unfortunate that I can’t remember yesterday’s one shot on target. If we carry on in this way, and why on earth would anyone ever imagine that we’d try to play in any other way, I’ll have to make sure I pay more attention and enjoy, if my calculations are correct, the 81 remaining shots on target we will have in the next 31 league games. And let’s look on the bright side. If we’re only having one shot on target every 38 minutes, I guess that means our conversion rate is pretty good, as we’re scoring about once every 70 minutes. Bravo! Who says I’m never positive on here? So what was there apart from the feast of shots on target in this game? Well I guess we had the league debut of Ze Ricardo and a first start for Yamauchi. Naturally they were the first two players to be changed, apart from the injured Jesiel. (More on that later). After all it’s the Oniki way to give new players a little sniff of the action and then withdraw them at the first opportunity, apparently believing that it is them who is letting us down, rather than all the other players who’ve played all the other games that we’ve been terrible in. Or, dare I say it, could it be the manager who is still going with the same idea, which has diminished in effectiveness so significantly that it must now be at minus levels? Our game plan literally now helps the opposition beat us. It used to be the case that if you liked seeing attacking play and goals we would be a good team to watch. That probably remains to be the case, but now we’re a good team to watch because the opposition will almost certainly attack and score. This year has been rotten so far. We’ve lost at home to both of the promoted teams. BRAVO! We’ve lost to a team that currently sit in 17th and have only one win this year. BRAVO! Still, at least it means that I can get to the pub quickly after the match as I don’t think there’s much point in staying to wait to clap the players after the game. I think they probably feel pretty embarrassed to have to come and stand in front of us. Aaaaahhhh.
Us -
It’s a shame that I can’t have a bit more fun in these posts at the moment. There’s no room for funnies and it’s all just a bit bleak, isn’t it? I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but this one’s got to go down as another Oniki disaster. In retrospect, the surprise inclusion of two centre backs on the bench probably hinted at what would most likely happen. Clearly Jesiel wasn’t fit to start the game. Almost immediately he was stretching after every effort, looking like he was injured. But was he removed? Of course not! Far better to wait till he was really properly injured and we’d conceded, right? Oniki has done this before with Jesiel too. We know he’s a great player but we also know that he’s a bit injury prone. After he got back to some kind of fitness after a long injury, he was absolutely unnecessarily used as a sub away at Sagan Tosu a few years ago and came on and got another big injury. We can only hope that this isn’t the case again. Not only did Oniki failing to take him off when he was clearly not in a good way probably worsen the injury but also basically gave them their goal. Jesiel could hardly move at that stage so it’s no wonder that they cut through us with ease. Also it probably didn’t help that Oniki still insists on playing a striker at right back. It’s no surprise that opposition teams like to attack down that side. More often than not, they’ll either get past him or they’ll get a free kick. I don’t blame Segawa though. I blame the manager who thinks he’s a better option there than all the right backs we have. I guess we can at least be slightly thankful that Tachibanada wasn’t available for this game as if he had been, Oniki would probably have played him at right back and moved Segawa to left back. No idea what’s happened to Tachibananda to be honest. We don’t normally get this kind of information so that’s no surprise, I guess. Oniki is a problem. He’s been grasping so hard for something, anything to turn our form around. Well anything other than making some big changes to the team and tactics. Of course we know those can’t be tampered with, right? So when we got a bit of a flukey win against FC Tokyo he felt he’d found his magic formula. And decided to wring it to death through three games in nine days. A not-in-perfect-condition Jesiel shouldn’t be playing three whole games in nine days. Ienaga is almost 40 and he too was expected to play for the majority of those three games too. And even for the younger and fitter players, I suspect the relentless shitness of our play has got to be grinding them down a bit.
And then think about the players who are watching from the stands, seeing how terrible we are playing and are still not really getting a look in. But you know, keep on with the same stuff, right? Do that short passing stuff at the back to ‘draw out the opposition’. If you manage to not lose the ball and successfully draw the opposition out, as soon as you get to the centre circle, be sure to pause, pass the ball back, generously letting the opponents get back in position in their line of ten defenders. Joyous stuff! Under no circumstances try to attack. Make sure that Erison doesn’t get the ball. If by some chance he gets the ball, make sure that he has no support. Keep those lovely sideways passes coming. In this game it was an impressive 559 passes per shot on target. On Wednesday against YFM we only managed 304 passes for our one shot which must have been a huge disappointment. In this game we had 62% possession, a massive 17 shots to their 7 but still they managed to get double the amount on target. Is it just me, or is our football just a complete waste of time? We’ve often spoken about our football as being a kind of art installation, where the aesthetic is more important than result. So I’m sure everyone in the stadium really enjoyed the first 38 minutes of the game where we didn’t even manage a shot off target let alone one on target. Once again our starting line up did nothing and it was only when we made changes that we started to do something, But let’s be honest, even then we didn’t do much. Looking back I guess the real highlight for me was seeing that arsehole Tani get sent off. I’ve had a problem with him since he got a Damiao overhead goal ruled out by crying because he’d poked himself in the eye or something. Of course we didn’t bother taking advantage of the extra man and instead contrived to just come up with more ways of missing the target. Confidence and effectiveness must be at an all time low. Presumably the best way to solve that is by keeping the same tactics for the next five games. DON’T. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. SHOOT. And don’t ever change anything.
Them -
In this match our art experiment came up against its polar opposite. Machida were ugly, thuggish and dull. Oh, and effective, so the opposite in that way too. They took their chance and I don’t think you could say we even really made a chance. I don’t think they’ll win any admirers for the way they play and I can’t imagine anyone outside of Machida will take much pleasure in them winning. They didn’t even look that good. But they did crucially look better than us. Their manager, aside from his stone age approach to the game should be derided for his white trainers, suit and white t-shirt combination. But should be praised (faintly, reluctantly) for coming up with (perhaps that’s not the right word, maybe digging up) tactics that work. We all knew they’d play like this and we probably would have been able to deal with them if we hadn’t decided to play a striker at right back and a defender who could barely move. I think that in spite of the piles of cash they’ve spent and that they have stashed in various places around their stadium, they are probably in a false position at the top of the league. But as long as they keep playing teams who are both as shit and as overconfident in their abilities as us, they’ll probably keep winning.
Ref -
Only one line will suffice here, I think. Yamamoto is a useless attention seeking waste of space of a ref. But even he’s not as bad at reffing as we are at playing football.
Banner wisdom -
‘This is Machida’
There were a few things in their flags to have a look at. ’No-one likes us, we don’t care’ for example. Yeah, but not really for the same reasons no-one likes Millwall. A stone island logo flag to attempt to sure up the hooligan thing. Oh, and of course one of the Japanese imperial flags that knucklehead fans in plenty of teams love. But the highlight has to be ‘This is Machida’. I know plenty of people believe Machida is in Kanagawa, but I’m a little surprised that the fans didn’t know better. Maybe that flag makes more sense at home games, eh?
Next up Cerezo Osaka away on Saturday. There’s a nice beer truck outside the stadium. Aside from the red card, the highlight of this game for me was watching a boy try to push big bits of beautiful looking clear ice through a drain cover after the match. There’s definitely a way to extend that into our season / supporter’s money / players’ careers going down the drain, but I’ll let you do that bit yourself. Let’s hope I can find some ice and a drain on Saturday as I think the football will be awful again. Something to look forward to, eh? Unless Oniki changes something. But as far as I know there isn’t a porcine airport near the stadium so I think it’s unlikely pigs will be flying.
Us -
It’s a shame that I can’t have a bit more fun in these posts at the moment. There’s no room for funnies and it’s all just a bit bleak, isn’t it? I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but this one’s got to go down as another Oniki disaster. In retrospect, the surprise inclusion of two centre backs on the bench probably hinted at what would most likely happen. Clearly Jesiel wasn’t fit to start the game. Almost immediately he was stretching after every effort, looking like he was injured. But was he removed? Of course not! Far better to wait till he was really properly injured and we’d conceded, right? Oniki has done this before with Jesiel too. We know he’s a great player but we also know that he’s a bit injury prone. After he got back to some kind of fitness after a long injury, he was absolutely unnecessarily used as a sub away at Sagan Tosu a few years ago and came on and got another big injury. We can only hope that this isn’t the case again. Not only did Oniki failing to take him off when he was clearly not in a good way probably worsen the injury but also basically gave them their goal. Jesiel could hardly move at that stage so it’s no wonder that they cut through us with ease. Also it probably didn’t help that Oniki still insists on playing a striker at right back. It’s no surprise that opposition teams like to attack down that side. More often than not, they’ll either get past him or they’ll get a free kick. I don’t blame Segawa though. I blame the manager who thinks he’s a better option there than all the right backs we have. I guess we can at least be slightly thankful that Tachibanada wasn’t available for this game as if he had been, Oniki would probably have played him at right back and moved Segawa to left back. No idea what’s happened to Tachibananda to be honest. We don’t normally get this kind of information so that’s no surprise, I guess. Oniki is a problem. He’s been grasping so hard for something, anything to turn our form around. Well anything other than making some big changes to the team and tactics. Of course we know those can’t be tampered with, right? So when we got a bit of a flukey win against FC Tokyo he felt he’d found his magic formula. And decided to wring it to death through three games in nine days. A not-in-perfect-condition Jesiel shouldn’t be playing three whole games in nine days. Ienaga is almost 40 and he too was expected to play for the majority of those three games too. And even for the younger and fitter players, I suspect the relentless shitness of our play has got to be grinding them down a bit.
 |
| We're probably either about to blast the ball over the bar and into the stand or more likely play it back to Sung-Ryong |
And then think about the players who are watching from the stands, seeing how terrible we are playing and are still not really getting a look in. But you know, keep on with the same stuff, right? Do that short passing stuff at the back to ‘draw out the opposition’. If you manage to not lose the ball and successfully draw the opposition out, as soon as you get to the centre circle, be sure to pause, pass the ball back, generously letting the opponents get back in position in their line of ten defenders. Joyous stuff! Under no circumstances try to attack. Make sure that Erison doesn’t get the ball. If by some chance he gets the ball, make sure that he has no support. Keep those lovely sideways passes coming. In this game it was an impressive 559 passes per shot on target. On Wednesday against YFM we only managed 304 passes for our one shot which must have been a huge disappointment. In this game we had 62% possession, a massive 17 shots to their 7 but still they managed to get double the amount on target. Is it just me, or is our football just a complete waste of time? We’ve often spoken about our football as being a kind of art installation, where the aesthetic is more important than result. So I’m sure everyone in the stadium really enjoyed the first 38 minutes of the game where we didn’t even manage a shot off target let alone one on target. Once again our starting line up did nothing and it was only when we made changes that we started to do something, But let’s be honest, even then we didn’t do much. Looking back I guess the real highlight for me was seeing that arsehole Tani get sent off. I’ve had a problem with him since he got a Damiao overhead goal ruled out by crying because he’d poked himself in the eye or something. Of course we didn’t bother taking advantage of the extra man and instead contrived to just come up with more ways of missing the target. Confidence and effectiveness must be at an all time low. Presumably the best way to solve that is by keeping the same tactics for the next five games. DON’T. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. SHOOT. And don’t ever change anything.
Them -
In this match our art experiment came up against its polar opposite. Machida were ugly, thuggish and dull. Oh, and effective, so the opposite in that way too. They took their chance and I don’t think you could say we even really made a chance. I don’t think they’ll win any admirers for the way they play and I can’t imagine anyone outside of Machida will take much pleasure in them winning. They didn’t even look that good. But they did crucially look better than us. Their manager, aside from his stone age approach to the game should be derided for his white trainers, suit and white t-shirt combination. But should be praised (faintly, reluctantly) for coming up with (perhaps that’s not the right word, maybe digging up) tactics that work. We all knew they’d play like this and we probably would have been able to deal with them if we hadn’t decided to play a striker at right back and a defender who could barely move. I think that in spite of the piles of cash they’ve spent and that they have stashed in various places around their stadium, they are probably in a false position at the top of the league. But as long as they keep playing teams who are both as shit and as overconfident in their abilities as us, they’ll probably keep winning.
Ref -
Only one line will suffice here, I think. Yamamoto is a useless attention seeking waste of space of a ref. But even he’s not as bad at reffing as we are at playing football.
Banner wisdom -
‘This is Machida’
There were a few things in their flags to have a look at. ’No-one likes us, we don’t care’ for example. Yeah, but not really for the same reasons no-one likes Millwall. A stone island logo flag to attempt to sure up the hooligan thing. Oh, and of course one of the Japanese imperial flags that knucklehead fans in plenty of teams love. But the highlight has to be ‘This is Machida’. I know plenty of people believe Machida is in Kanagawa, but I’m a little surprised that the fans didn’t know better. Maybe that flag makes more sense at home games, eh?
Next up Cerezo Osaka away on Saturday. There’s a nice beer truck outside the stadium. Aside from the red card, the highlight of this game for me was watching a boy try to push big bits of beautiful looking clear ice through a drain cover after the match. There’s definitely a way to extend that into our season / supporter’s money / players’ careers going down the drain, but I’ll let you do that bit yourself. Let’s hope I can find some ice and a drain on Saturday as I think the football will be awful again. Something to look forward to, eh? Unless Oniki changes something. But as far as I know there isn’t a porcine airport near the stadium so I think it’s unlikely pigs will be flying.
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (Yellow card 23')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (Yellow card 23')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. ERISON (Yellow card 56')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
Subs
Team
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for JESIEL 35')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for IENAGA 66')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for ZE RICARDO 46')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. ERISON (Yellow card 56')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
Subs
Team
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for JESIEL 35')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for IENAGA 66')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for ZE RICARDO 46')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for YAMAUCHI 46')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for YAMAMOTO 82')
Goals
FUJIO (Machida) 32' 0-1
Goals
FUJIO (Machida) 32' 0-1
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