Vs Kashiwa Reysol (home) 25/5/24 J League match 16

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 Kashiwa Reysol

Ok, I know I always say I’ll keep it brief and then bore on for ages but this time I was going to be a little briefer than usual. We’re in the middle of moving at the moment and it’s a monumental task. I hadn’t imagined that I’d really have had time before our next game to sit down for any extended period and write something to my usual, erm… ‘standard’. But thanks perhaps to worrying about the move, I’ve woken up at 5am, too early to start making any kind of noise by shifting anything. So here we are, a semi usual blog post, just with a bit more bleakness due to the fact that I already know this is going to be a long and tiring day. This was unsurprisingly, another crap game. Unsurprising because once again a close look at our recent travails has seen our manager decide that we’re probably doing the right thing but being monumentally unlucky, and to keep on with exactly the same stuff. Oniki’s post match comments are becoming as predictable as these blog posts are. And none of these things are in any way surprising, as the same approach and the same performance will inevitably draw the same comments from whoever is being submitted to them. Quite why it hasn’t nudged our manager into trying something new is a bit of a mystery though. Or rather would be a mystery if we didn’t have one plan Oniki in charge. I should stress again that I’m not demanding he be fired and immediately banned from Kawasaki city. I just wish he’d for once notice quite how bad we’ve become, and instead of trotting out the same platitudes after every match, just try something different on the field thereby giving himself something different to talk about.

In this game, aside from changing the keeper which was such an obvious thing to do that even Oniki couldn't avoid it, we went for the same starting line up and approach as against Gamba, a game we lost 3-1. The bench was almost exactly the same too, the only change being enforced because the return of Sung-Ryong meant that we didn't have enough foreigner spots in the matchday squad for Ze Ricardo. Segawa, despite leaving the field as a concussion sub against Gamba was able to start this next match, much like Ominami did a few games before. Can’t really complain that Sai didn’t start as he had a pretty bad game against Sagan Tosu, but I thought he did a decent job against Gamba when he was called on. But no, the solution for Oniki is to once again play someone out of position in a full back spot, apparently favouring some players over others regardless of their performances. The tactics were exactly the same as they always are and for the third game in a row we went ahead but capitulated. Unlike in the Tosu and Gamba games though, we managed to squeak a point. And unlike against Gamba and in a few other games recently, we avoided conceding almost immediately after scoring. But let’s not be under any illusions. The period just before and after we scored was our only decent spell in the match. It didn’t last that long and as always we were unable to take advantage of being on top in the match. We made an extremely dodgy start to the game though, and that was much more in keeping with the general pattern of the game than us taking the lead was. Aside from that semi decent period either side of the goal the stats speak volumes, particularly the second half stats, (just the one shot from us and it was off target. Truly terrible stuff). Sung-Ryong was back in goal and was the clear man of the match, saving us on numerous occasions as we did pretty much nothing in the second half aside from pass sideways and then finally lose the ball to gift them chances. I think there is absolutely no doubt who should be starting in goal at the moment. To be honest, these posts are hardly worth writing recently as every game is the same. We have a little bit of a good period, don’t take our chances and then fall to pieces, making like-for-like subs with not even a second’s thought that we might be able to do something to change the tactics. Which naturally results in us getting nothing, as it did in numerous previous games and for most of the season. Nothing will change unless Oniki changes something tactically. I don’t think he will. 

Erison got his recent usual 15 minutes. Too little time for him to really do anything or allow him to play himself into some form, but just enough to dent his confidence further and switch him endlessly from the middle to the wing and back into the middle again and again. Another bit of managerial magic. Jesiel started the game looking very out of shape again and I was worried that Oniki might be pushing him towards another injury like he did earlier in the season. Thankfully though he managed to last the full 90 minutes. Tachibanada and Wakizaka had pretty bad games again, I thought. Bet they still get picked for the next match though, eh? Wakizaka this year seems to get the occasional goal which serves to cover up his usually utterly average performances. It’s probably a bit unfair to blame him for their goal, but the replays do make it look a bit like he tees the ball up for their striker during a penalty box scramble. (As an aside, I bet if we'd been in the same situation in the Kashiwa box, instead of trying to shoot we'd probably kick the ball back to Sung-Ryong to try to draw out the opposition). I would be quite happy to see neither of them start the next match, but I think that is about as likely as us making a charge for the league title this year. Or Oniki changing his tactics. Should probably also point out that once again we conceded whilst we were preparing to make subs. In fact, so familiar were many things in this match that I could have just cut and pasted large sections of previous blog posts. We’re awful. I wonder if the recruitment of our new analyst from India will change matters. I suspect after closely analysing this match he will submit a report that is just one side of landscape oriented A4 with ‘VERY SHITE’ printed in the biggest font possible and a sad face emoji. Even if he has something useful and important to say, the likeliness of Oniki listening is pretty low I think. Remember he went to watch Arsenal train a few years ago and came away with the impression that his way was better and there was nothing he could learn from the experience. I think the game was summed up by the way that after endless attempts at ‘drawing out the opposition’ with some short passing at the back, we found ourselves on the ball and breaking with at least five Kashiwa players out of contention, left behind by our player running with the ball. Naturally in this situation, we decided to cut back, allow them to regroup, before making a few more passes to get the possession stats up, and then attempt what seems to be our holy grail this year, the pass that is hit directly at an opposition player but passes unhindered through their physical form. Don’t lose heart lads, sooner or later Oniki’s 2024 tactical innovation will start to come off and then we’ll be flying! As a final comment on the uselessness of our play this year a quick stat. We’ve averaged around 60% possession in six out of our last eight games. Guess which ones we didn’t have as much possession in? Yep, the two games that we won. But keep on going with the pointless passes, eh? Who needs goals or even shots when we can have beautiful, beautiful sideways passing.

So, time to throw a bit of crap around at the opposition and officials. Kashiwa were much better than us at football, and were infinitely better than us when it came to rolling around on the floor, whinging, and brandishing imaginary cards at the ref. It was their lucky day though, as Kimura and his linesmen were so useless that they actually needed the help of the good natured Kashiwa players, who saw some guys who were really struggling to understand even the basic aspects of their job and gave them some pointers. This even extended to their manager who, I noticed when watching a replay of their goal, was giving it quite some gusto with the invisible card for the foul by Tono. Not blaming the ref for our shitness though. When your one aim is to pass the ball sideways in your own half, there’s not really many ways that the ref can have an influence. I found the Kashiwa right back intensely irritating as in spite of his tender age and lack of J League experience, he seemed to be leading the way when it came to being a bit of a moany and divey shit. Their fans gave Ominami and Segawa a big old boo when they were mentioned in the team announcement. I thought it would have been great for them to rub their previous team’s fans’ noses in it by us putting in a great performance and thrashing them. Sadly reality and Oniki intervened and instead we were extremely lucky to get away with a draw. The late VAR drama where Jesiel’s goal, (just saying, from a Seko free kick, instead of one of Wakizaka's usual useless set pieces), was ruled out for a very marginal offside would have been quite enjoyable if it had gone the other way, but I think that if we’d won this game, it would have been an injustice on an even bigger scale than the Emperor’s Cup final last year against… oh Kashiwa. So basically, a bit of a shit first half, with a shithead at right back for them, a shit ref, shit linesmen and a larger than the sun steaming shit of a second half. I don’t know why we bother.

Banner wisdom -

So much content here. Although I think I have poked fun at all of these in the past but never mind, eh?



We’re Kashiwa Stupid -

I think we all want to know where exactly does Kashiwa level stupid fit in relation to Funabashi level stupid and Ichikawa level stupid when it comes to the Chiba prefectural stupidity ranking?

Endless Trip to Asia -

Is it a trust fund backpacker gap year type situation or have they just experienced some truly awful airport delays?

Play Dirty, Go Hard -

Just bizarre. If only Kimura had noticed this he might have been convinced to give them a few cards too as it seemed he couldn’t make any decisions by himself and needed constant advice.

Kashiwa City to Big Dreamin -

The feeling that Kashiwa fans get when the Joban line turns in the Chiyoda line at Ayase.


So, another pile of steaming crap in a season that is delivering more shit than a super sewer. The only consolation, (well, apart from the fact that us not playing well was so predictable that I’m sure most of us had mentally prepared to lose the game), was to wake up and see the score of the ACL final the next morning, Some people might consider this a pretty shitty attitude, but I’d say that if I spend every weekend wishing our local rivals get hammered by whoever they’re playing, why wouldn’t I want them to get hammered in one of the most important games they’ve ever played? Next up, the same tactics and broadly the same players against Nagoya at home next Sunday. By that stage we will have finished our move, so I will either be on a high about our new place, (presumably a high that will soon be punctured by a terrible performance by our team), or so traumatised by the move and cleaning that the defeat will just wash over me. Either way it probably sounds preferable to going into the game with any hopes and having them smashed to bits. After that, a weekend off before a midweek game in the Emperor’s Cup where Oniki will probably play the same players and use the same tactics, and Sony Sendai will put an end to one other slight glimpse of some kind of potential rest of the season entertainment. What a joy this all is!

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 4. JESIEL
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (Yellow card 57')
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 88')
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. TONO Daiya (Yellow card 58')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
FW 9. ERISON (on for WAKIZAKA 78')
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for TONO 61')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for GOMIS 61')
MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 70')
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN (on for SEGAWA 70')

Goals

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 30' 1-0
KINOSHITA (Reysol) 59' 1-1


My Frontale Man Of The Match

I said it above but the only option is…

JUNG Sung-Ryong - without him on the pitch we would have lost, and probably have lost heavily.

Highlights

Vs Gamba Osaka (away) 19/5/24 J League match 15

Gamba Osaka 3 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale

What better way to follow up getting a thumping by getting a humping? Or a dumping…? A bumping? A stumping? A rumping? Chumping? Not even sure those last two are real words, but let’s roll with it. Coming into this game Gamba had scored 11 goals in 14 games. But don’t worry, the Frontale donation association rolled into town, spreading gifted goals and points to whoever wants them. Newly promoted team from J2 who everyone thinks will go down? Jubilo, have five goals on us! Team who’ve survived in J1 against the odds for years but seem to have run out of luck? Sagan Tosu, have five goals on us! Team who are doing pretty good compared to recent years but just can’t score more than once a match unless the moon is a nice shade of blue? Gamba have three goals. And of course, all of you can have the three points too. Admittedly on this occasion we weren’t as generous as we had been on the other occasions but I feel like all three goals in this game were gifts to a certain extent. And even better that we gave away the first one immediately after we’d scored to really batter the morale. In the Sagan Tosu game I didn’t really want to point the finger too much when it came to individuals’ catastrophic mistakes as it was clearly obvious who’d fucked up for at least four of their five goals. After reading Twitter after this game, I feel I need to be a bit more direct as people seemed to be blaming Ze Ricardo who came on in the 77th minute for us conceding the third goal. I’m pretty sure I was cursing Wakizaka for that one, but I guess he’s untouchable. Which is kind of a big problem for Frontale at the moment. Certain players can’t do anything wrong, even if they do something obviously wrong. And at the same time, players who’ve been given almost no pitch time come in and are blamed for everything. I have to admit I haven’t watched the highlights for this game yet so maybe I’m completely wrong on this count. But I just wish that the players who are getting only a few minutes here and there weren’t being scapegoated for the failures of players who are playing the majority of the time. To be fair though, I don’t really blame the players for our current plight. It’s clearly the clueless manager who is at fault. Long time readers of this blog might be a little bored to hear me say this, but Oniki is evidently way past his sell by date and his one formation is now so aged that it is almost fossilised. As much as he moves those magnets around in between matches he just can’t seem to get away from his beloved and utterly useless in 2024 (and 2023… and actually for most of 2022 to be honest), 4-1-2-3. To be honest though, I think it’s more the approach that is the problem. This game could be perfectly summed up by the occasion where Marcinho had the ball and the defence parted in front of him, allowing a free run at goal. But of course, presumably following Oniki’s strict instructions, he decided to stop, cut back and attempt to beat just one more defender. He lost the ball. I swear that if the opposition sent their keeper up for a last ditch corner and we had a player break free with the ball with no one between him and the goal, he’d stop at the edge of the box, waiting for some support, in order to get the requisite 45 passes in before being allowed to shoot. But even then they might be in trouble as 40 of those 45 need to be between the defence and goalkeeper, before the final hoof upfield. We’re shite. The players probably aren’t. But the manager definitely is.

During the game I noticed that a butterfly was relaxing precariously close to the foot of the guy a couple of seats away from me. I pointed this out to him and the butterfly ended up flying down to the row in front where it diced with death relaxing next to another foot. At the time I thought that this would be great blog post fodder. I can’t quite put my finger on how to use it though. Is the butterfly our ‘beautiful football’ tactics, which are being seriously imperiled by the reality of the J League in 2024. Hmmmmm. No. I think that’s giving way too much credit to the beauty of a type of football that is basically the most pointless passing possible. Frontale’s art project in 2024 is more like someone making bang average pottery at home, never showing it to anyone and then smashing it to pieces. Not only is it not that good, but it was an utterly pointless exercise. Is the butterfly the hopes of the fans who started following us when we were good and now are threatened with being submerged in a deluge of shitty football? Perhaps. I’d like to propose a third option. The butterfly is my Frontale spirit. It looks like it’s in extreme danger and almost certainly will end up getting squashed, but somehow against all the odds, it’s just about hanging in there. And probably will continue to cheat death, but jeez, the constant repetition of the same useless stuff is really taking its toll. This story wouldn’t be complete without me telling you what happened to the butterfly, right? Sorry. I didn’t see if it got crushed or flew away. So please draw your own conclusions. I like to hope it’s the latter.

I’m so tired of saying Oniki should quit or be fired. It’s obvious, isn’t it? But at the same time, it will probably never happen. He’ll squeak through an ACL group with teams from India, Singapore and Hong Kong, (don’t say this is offensive and unfair, I just googled weakest leagues in Asia so blame the site I checked and not me), and be offered a new contract. The terrible thing is that he’ll accept it, fully believing that he’ll soon be turning the corner and things can only get better. Don’t forget though that we were pretty shit in 2022 and somehow managed to finished 2nd. The following year we were crap but everyone said it was a rebuilding season. This year, with what I believe to be a stronger squad, we’re infinitely worse. Perhaps we have to demolish completely before we rebuild? Surely it’s time for people to acknowledge that Oniki isn’t the man for the job? You’d think so, but on Twitter after this game I saw someone saying that if we change manager we’ll probably get relegated. I would counter that with the fact that if we don’t, we definitely will get relegated. I don’t actually believe this, but the brass balls of someone who is defending Oniki in 2024 is just astounding to me. I don’t know what kind of secretly taken incriminating photos he has of his supporters, but somethings clearly going on. I can’t imagine anyone really believes he’s the best man for the job. When I was young, if you asked me to drink heavily for a week straight, I’d consider it both a duty and an honour. Right now if you asked me to do it, I’d admit that I’m probably not that man for the job. (To be fair though I’ve made a decent effort of doing it for five days this week). Quite why people can’t grasp the fact that just because Oniki did something good in the past doesn’t necessarily mean that everything he will do in the future will be good is beyond me. To take this post even further to the gutter, there were probably some people who though that Harold Shipman was a decent doctor, Fred West did a great job building their extension and that Jimmy Saville did a lot of good work for charity. (Sorry for the very British references. I would suggest you Google then, but if you don’t know who these people are, maybe it’s better to remain ignorant). These things may be true, but the murders, necrophilia and child abuse probably more than slightly discredit any past good work. Of course it’s not a very nice thing to compare Oniki even obliquely to these people. Don’t get me wrong, I think as everyone has said that he’s probably a nice guy. But just because you’re a nice guy doesn’t mean you’re the right guy or a good manager for us in 2024. Maybe we need to have a chat with him and say ‘It’s not you Toru, it’s me. I just see us more as friends and don’t think we should be a couple anymore’. I’d certainly be happier if he moved into the friend zone with the club where we can from time to time remember the good old days and not actually have to worry about the toxic effect he’s having on our lives anymore. Right now he seems to be in a death spiral. If he doesn’t try to salvage the situation somehow we’ll be in big trouble. But salvage probably means change, and that’s just not in his skill set.

In the first five minutes of this game we missed two absolutely wonderful chances, and we’d missed them to a ridiculous extent, not poking the ball straight at the keeper, more like the shot going out for a throw level of miss. As usual I pondered whether we would come to rue missing these chances. And of course we did. But the truth was, we were actually alright for large parts of the first half. Well, alright apart from the whole scoring goals and shooting on target thing. Oh and the not getting so dizzy after taking the lead that you immediately concede, as we did in both this match and in Hiroshima. At least in the latter we managed to avoid defeat and pick up one precious point. That wasn’t to be the case in this match. After scoring and then conceding I don’t think anything went right for us. I don’t know what Oniki said at half time but it was probably motivational stuff along the lines of ‘keep doing the same thing, but try to make it less progressive’. So perfect was his half time team talk that I think we failed to even have another shot till about the 70th minute. I can’t stress enough how hopeless his team talks and tactics seem to be. He turned a halfway decent first half performance into a parade of cock ups and a terrible defeat. I often think that he must have instructed the players to make sure that during goal celebrations they spin round at least 100 times in the same direction, ensuring that when the opposition kick off we’ll be so dizzy that they can just walk through us and score. Likewise when he is preparing subs we often seem to concede. Perhaps he’s told them that when they see a substitution being readied whoever touches the ball next will be taken off. Although right now that might mean that everyone immediately rushes to the ball, determined to end the unpleasant experience that is playing for us at the moment. Maybe that butterfly was a Frontale fan and was just begging someone to step on it to end the agony. Every time Oniki gets involved we fuck up. If he could just stay in the changing room for the next match and then lock himself in the toilet at half time I think we’d see a real difference in performance and result. 


Some of Oniki’s wisdom: 



- 3-1 down having made no chances in the second half? Probably best to change both of the centre backs right? 

- High wage foreign striker on the bench when you really need a goal? Best bring him on and play him out of position on the right wing and push a centre back up front. 

- Tactics and formation stinking up the place for about 3 years? Probably better keep going with the same stuff till every team in the country knows how to play against them. 

- Having trouble making Chances? Probably need a few dozen more sideways passes along the defence line.

- Absolutely terribly bad results from your awful management? Well, definitely don’t quit. It’s probably just a three year blip and those tactics will start working just as soon as our relegation is confirmed. 



He really should go. He won’t go. He really should be sacked. He won’t be sacked. We’ll get one flukey win in the next few games which will give him a stay of execution and then he can get back to what he knows best; truly dull, pointless and ineffective football.

This is going on too long. Let’s quickly bitch about the ref and the opposition a bit. The ref was Iida and as expected was shite, but equally shite to both teams I felt, so on balance had a good game. He seemed happy to let almost everything go, apart from randomly awarding some free kicks to keep us all guessing. He’s shit, but this was just regular level shit, so well done to him. Gamba seem to be a team quite like Frontale. Loads of pointless passing and a complete lack of progression. It should have been an utterly boring 0-0 draw. But somehow we came with a bit of fire in our belly and went for it and ended up scoring. Much like against Tosu we scored first and then capitulated. At least we didn’t capitulate four subsequent times in this match. Just the three goals conceded. Lovely! The general feeing from Gamba fans about the first half seemed to be that we were all over them and they needed a kick up the backside. With that in mind, it’s quite telling that even with us bossing it in the first half, at half time we still weren’t winning. We just can’t take advantage of erm… our advanrtages. Throughly shit stuff. I’m still annoyed about them shifting us up to the second tier. I’m sure it was mainly intended to stop the away team from building up any kind of atmosphere. It makes sense but doesn’t seem like a very honourable thing to do. And blimey, when you’re up there it’s a little vertigo inducing. It’s a steep stand and it felt like a gust of wind could cause a domino rally of Frontale fans tumbling forwards and ending up in a pile in the front bit of the second tier which also was off limits to us. Perhaps though they’ve put us up there so we can fully appreciate the large number of Japanese nationalist flags in the home end. They seemed to be multiplying as the game went on. I don’t really understand what kind of person prepares for a league football game between two Japanese teams by getting their dodgy flag ready and spending 70 out of the 90 minutes waving it. I dunno, maybe they really like the navy. Maybe they hate foreigners. Or maybe they’re just a bit simple. Thankfully this doesn’t seem to be a problem we have to deal with. I feel sorry for the majority of Gamba fans who don’t feel the need to express their love for an old flag with plenty of dubious baggage by waving it incessantly in a mindless way.

Ok, I probably need to say these last few things just to get them off my chest. I don’t think Kami is the answer in goal. He’s so wedded to the idea that he’s a crucial part of our build up as a hybrid sweeper keeper that I think he forgets he’s not an outfield player and consequently doesn’t think he can use his hands when he’s trying to stop the opposition from scoring. His new default pose seems to be with his arms extended sideways but with his head turned back, as if he’s now ready to save the shot that he’s just checked has already gone in. To be fair to him, he had some good games, but in contrast to the way that early-Frontale-form Erison was basically almost like a one goal head start, recently Kami in goal means that the opposition will get at least one goal for free. It’s not all his fault by any means, but I don’t think he’s the answer. Well, unless the question is which Frontale keeper is most likely to get caught in possession. People on Twitter who say he plays an important part in our build up play, please watch the whole game and not the highlights and notice the myriad times where endless passing between him and his defence with the opposition pressing more each subsequent pass ends up with Kami hoofing the ball upfield or off the field to give the opposition a chance to start a new attack. He’s in terrible form. But then again, so is… erm… everyone. And the other thing that really pissed me off in this match were the unnecessary and unsuccessful showboat passes. If you’re winning by a few goals, well, maybe it’s ok to do this kind of thing. Perhaps not very classy, but excusable I guess. But if you’re struggling to get anywhere near scoring maybe best to play the simple pass instead of the outside of the boot, no look pass which inevitably goes straight to the opposition. Ienaga did one amazing bit of skill in this game. Naturally it came to nothing. And in contrast, the multiple other times he tried something fancy, we lost the ball. It wasn’t just him though, it was a few players. Currently the effectiveness of our ‘tekkers’ is basically the equivalent of us setting ourselves up for an overhead kick into our own goal. Maybe it looks impressive if it comes off, (and that’s a big if), but it’s not doing us any good, and it’s actually doing us harm. It really doesn’t sit well with me that people are doing this kind of thing when we’re so shit.

Aaaaah, confidence at an all time low. No way we can even buy a win unless the opposition don’t turn up. What a time to be alive! But don’t blame Oniki, eh? If we’d tried hard and fallen short I think we could all accept that, given that we’re nothing like as good as we were when we were at our strongest. But right now our manager’s influence on what are good players is basically the same as someone trying to break the world record for fastest time to solve a Rubik’s cube but being told by their boss that it would be better to do it wearing boxing gloves. Even if the person attempting the record tried their best, it’s impossible not to be frustrated by the ridiculous barrier that’s been put in between them and success. We need massive clear the air talks between the players and the manager. We need an admission that the problems we’re having aren’t just little mistakes and an acknowledgement that the overall plan is absolutely not a good one. We need something fun (or at least slightly positive, or I’d even settle for not mind numbingly dull) and something different. Can Oniki deliver any of these things? Well, I don’t think so, but plenty of people remain convinced he can. Kashiwa Reysol at home next weekend. They’re five points ahead of us with a zero goal difference. You’d be a fool not to think that their points and goal difference won’t be better next Sunday. Will another horrible loss be enough to signal the end of Oniki? I don’t think so. Oniki seems to be something like back pain, or getting old. It’s not something you can really do anything about. You just have to accept it as part of life and begrudgingly learn to live with it.

 

Team

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 4. JESIEL
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. TONO Daiya

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
DF 2. TAKAI Kota (on for JESIEL 77')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for OMINAMI 77')
FW 9. ERISON (on for GOMIS 67')
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for TONO 60')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for MARCINHO 67')
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN (Yellow card 47') (on for SEGAWA 38')

Goals

SEGAWA (Frontale) 26' 0-1
NAKATANI (Gamba) 28' 1-1
FUKUOKA (Gamba) 70' 2-1
KURATA (Gamba) 81' 3-1

Highlights 

Vs Sagan Tosu (away) 15/5/24 J League match 14

 

Sagan Tosu 5 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

This morning in our hotel in Fukuoka, I decided to have a shower. I’d had one before bed last night but woke up feeling disgusting for some reason. Having checked the various bottles by the shower the previous night I reached for the one at the back and proceeded to attempt to wash myself with conditioner. Using a substance utterly unfit for the job in an act of carelessness, brought about by a feeling of confidence that was misplaced. Starting the day exactly the way Frontale had finished the previous evening. Perfect! Thankfully I was in the shower and could just wash away the error. Sadly the humiliation of a completely gutless and useless defeat isn’t so easy to rid ourselves of. Anyway, that’s enough chat about me showering. I’m sure it’s not an image that any of us wants to dwell on. This is going to be a thrown together post as I’m now on the train heading to our first in-between-games destination. I won’t be home till Sunday night after the Gamba game so this post will look horrible till then. And maybe for some time afterwards too. But once again I think that is a kind of appropriate metaphor for this dog’s breakfast of a season. The last time we won two games in a row was the first leg against Shadong and the Super Cup final. We know what happened in the second leg though, and when it comes to importance, the Super Cup makes the Levain Cup look like the World Cup final. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like the Levain Cup, and it should be more fun this year in its new format. And let’s not be under any illusions the Levain Cup is probably our best chance of salvaging anything from this season as we’ll be dropped in at a later stage of the competition due to our “ACL commitments”. Right now though, for us to have any chance of winning it we’d probably need to be dropped in at the start of injury time in the second half of the final with a seven goal head start. We’re totally shit this year, apart from in tiny bursts when the players seem to ignore what they’ve been instructed to do by our esteemed manager. Even when we have what looks like a good result, all you have to do is watch the whole game and you’ll realise that any gloss you might imagine you’ve seen is just an illusion. If the opposition doesn’t turn up in an absolute state, or give us a few free goals or get a red card, we’ll pretty much stand no chance of getting anything from a game. Sometimes the opposition does that and we still get nothing. After every game we get the same nonsense from Oniki, and then for the next game we get the same nonsense plan from Oniki. A common refrain from people who don’t like any Oniki out talk is “But who would take over?!?!”. Right now I think anyone could do a better job. Well maybe anyone apart from Nanami who’d probably somehow manage to get us to the JFL in one season instead of the three that Oniki has planned. There must be some doubts amongst the players about his abilities. There seems to finally be some doubts in the stands too, as after this game there was some booing of our players. It was a surprise and I’m not really in favour of it, but I am all in favour of shouting out “This is fucking shit!” as we concede our fifth goal. I don’t know if Oniki ever comes to talk to the supporters after a game as in these kind of situations I’m usually out of the stadium pretty quickly. Why prolong the agony? If the players have tried hard but come up short, fair enough, give them a clap. But at this game when they came over there was nothing for me to clap about. So I didn’t. A bit of silent treatment might help I think. I find the guy booing and shouting “I came all the way to Tosu to see this!” equally as pointless as clapping and singing to them after an awful game. They know they’ve had a shit game. And plenty of other shit games before it. I think the whole “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed in you” parenting thing is the right approach. 

A few words about what went wrong in this game, as if it wasn’t utterly obvious. Some truly terrible individual errors for all but one of the goals. I don’t want to single him out, but Tachibanada’s cock up for the last goal was quite emblematic of our season, pissing around with the ball just outside of our own penalty area for absolutely no apparent reason or purpose, then lose the ball and concede. We kept a clean sheet in our last game but Oniki decided to change things for what I guess he considered to be the easier of our two games this week. Hmmmm. To be honest though, I think that was probably the right thing to do. Perhaps though he shouldn’t have got the central defence pairing that conceded five goals to Jubilo back together. Wonder if Oniki has spotted that yet? Hat trick hero from the last game? Leave him at home. Players who’ve been having a bit of a nightmare recently? Keep them in! To be fair to Oniki we had a reasonable first 20 minutes. Players looked like they wanted to try to attack and we were trying some forward passes. We scored from a corner! Naturally it wasn’t a Wakizaka corner. I think maybe Takai let his first league goal go to his head though, as although in this first period he was spraying the ball around nicely, as the clock ticked on things started to fall to pieces for him and the team as a whole. As soon as we conceded the first it was like we’d been told we had to play the rest of the game blindfolded. All the confidence evaporated and we became awful. We struggled to get out of our own penalty box, let alone our own half. And as always, that pointless, pointless passing. Pass it along the defensive line, centre back to centre back to keeper to centre back to right back who gets in trouble but somehow gets out of it and passes back to the centre back etc. All of this finally results in Kami hoofing the ball upfield for the opposition to start building an attack. Absolutely no forward movement. Any opposition coach scouting us must just be rubbing their hands. ‘We don’t need to try to make chances, they’ll make them for us. Just pressure them a bit at the back and they’ll give the ball away’. I’ve got no idea how we managed to score a second goal. Even in the stadium it seemed like lots of people hadn’t noticed we’d scored. Looking at the replay it seems like it was some great persistence from Yamada. But to be honest that was about all he did in the game. He stayed on the pitch for the whole game though. Oniki’s substitutions in this match were awful. The defence was a total mess in the first half, conceded three but it still took him till the 58th minute by which time we’d conceded our 4th to change anything. We desperately needed a goal but it took him until the 68th minute to bring on Erison, our marquee signing this year. I can’t imagine Erison is going to play himself back into form with 20 minutes at the end of a game now and again. And always, it’s just the same system and approach. And the same excuses. And the same points made in these increasingly dull blog posts. We had more shots than them apparently, (I find this hard to believe to be honest. It certainly didn’t feel like that). We had loads more possession than them, (very easy to believe. But utterly pointless possession). They scored five times and we scored once and scrambled one in. 

Oh, the ref was Kasahara. He usually hates us and seems to want to sabotage us, but I think we hated ourselves and sabotaged ourselves more in this game. So another no-moans-about-the-ref blog post!

So what should we do going forward? Well the thing that would really make a difference I think is to fire Oniki but of course that’s not going to happen and he won’t quit till he’s confirmed our relegation and even then he probably will think he’s got a good chance at doing well in J2. (I disagree. There’s no way we’ll get away with this crap and pointless football there). If we dropped every player who had a nightmare in this game we’d have to change all of the back four apart from Sasaki, the goalkeeper, one third of the midfield and probably two thirds of the attack. Actually, maybe that would be kind of fun. But as I always say, if one player has a nightmare, you can blame the player. If it’s more than half the team you’ve probably got to blame the manager. I’m not a manager or tactician so I can’t tell you what we should do, but it’s pretty clear what we shouldn’t do, isn’t it? Ditch the slow build up and pointless passing. Maybe, I dunno, try something different. Remember when Oniki took over? There was a consensus that he was doing the right thing by tempering the attack crazy Kazama style slightly and giving us some defensive solidity. Eight years on and somehow Oniki has eliminated both the attacking and the defensive solidity. So what exactly do we have left? Passing! That’s what we have! Lots of passing! Who needs attacks or goals when you have passes? Oniki’s culinary style is to chop his ingredients finely. Then chop them again. And then again until the vegetables have become a big mush, at which stage he throws the ingredients in the bin and starts the process again. Who needs to eat dinner when you can just enjoy the most basic part of cooking over and over again? Chop chop chop. Pass pass pass. Chop pass pass chop. And then throw any aspirations of doing anything in 2024, of winning a game, of even scoring a goal, throw them all in the bin. So in conclusion, I dunno what to do, but please for the love of god don’t do EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME THING AGAIN. And I dunno, maybe try to attack a bit.

Next up Gamba away on Saturday. Presumably back to the two man defensive midfield to shore things up which in turn will ensure that we score NO GOALS. Fingers crossed for a 0-0 then. Recently we’ve always been pretty bad at the Suita stadium and anyone who thinks that is likely to change is a braver and more optimistic person than I am. But then again, if we played badly there when we were supposed to be good, perhaps in this shittest of shit seasons we might do well? Hmmmm. Anyway, I going to get this online ASAP so I can enjoy the rest of the week. It should be a lot of fun. Well, right up until the point I remember that we have to go and watch this ponderous and pointless crap again. Bravo Frontale!

Team

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. TONO Daiya

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 4. JESIEL (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 58')

MF 6. ZE RICARDO
FW 9. ERISON (on for IENAGA 68')
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for MARCINHO 58')

MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for SEKO 68')
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for OMINAMI 78')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Alcohol - the stronger the better to tolerate this shit.

Goals

TAKAI (Frontale) 13' 0-1
YOKOYAMA (Tosu) 26' 1-1
YOKOYAMA (Tosu) 37' 2-1
MARCELO RYAN (Tosu) 44' 3-1
IENAGA (Frontale) 45+3' 3-2
HARADA (Tosu) 47' 4-2
KAWATA (Tosu) 75' 5-2

Highlights

Vs Consadole Sapporo (home) 11/5/24 J League match 13

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 0 Consadole Sapporo  

Oooh. Another win! Three goals at home for the second game in a row! Everything is great, right? Well, everything is clearly better, but there are a few pinches of salt that need to be taken when you consider whether or not to describe this as our new great run of form. I know how some people enjoy my moaning and some people hate it. I think on this occasion I will probably disappoint both camps. It seems kind of crazy to moan after we’ve won 3-0, particularly given that it’s only our fourth win in the thirteen games we’ve played so far this year. With that in mind, I’ll keep the moany part short and let’s get that out of the way straight away.

Yes, we won handsomely! But blimey, Consadole were bad. They are clearly bottom of the table for a reason. The first fifteen minutes of this game were truly awful from both teams, with unforced error after unforced error and nothing of even any kind of quality on display. Consadole missed SO MANY chances, which was a bit of luck for us as they were making a lot more chances than we were. But they just couldn’t shoot. I feel a bit sorry for their manager who is clearly in some trouble as on this occasion you couldn’t really fault the tactics when it came to attacking as they carved through us time after time but thankfully either swung and missed or blasted the ball over the bar. I can’t remember Kami having to make any kind of proper save. In addition to erring in front of goal, they also seemed to be messing up all over the pitch, falling over whilst trying to dribble, shanking passes directly off the pitch, perfectly controlling the air above or below the ball whilst allowing the ball itself to trundle past them. It seems that confidence is at an all time low for them, and perhaps this could be something you can point the finger at the manager for. I think they just need a lucky break. I don’t think anyone wants them to go down, but on this evidence, they’re going to need a big change in fortunes to avoid the drop. They did make one good chance with a striker chipping Kami only for Ominami to make an amazing goal line hooked clearance, passing the ball to Kami, who for a moment appeared to be about to blast the ball into his own net but thankfully didn’t.  We were very poor for the first fifteen minutes and also a bit poor for large parts of the second half. It was only when we made a few changes that we started to make some chances, Yamada hitting the post so perfectly that the ball pinged almost directly back towards him. It did feel though that if we’d conceded, we could have started wobbling and perhaps ended up drawing. (How does that feel Yuma?). But thankfully we didn’t, and hopefully the score line if not the whole performance will help us take another step towards getting a bit better and a bit more confident. But let’s not get too carried away as after we hammered Urawa, (who I thought looked pretty bad), we went on to draw against Avispa. I didn’t see that game so can’t really comment, but from what I’ve heard it wasn’t that great. So still baby steps, I guess. Don’t get too cocky. We beat the team who were bottom of the league and were in horrible form. But yes, the important thing is that we beat them.

Let’s get a bit more positive. I think the headline from this game, which somehow, as is my wont, I have saved till the third paragraph, has to be Gomis. He’s scored!!! Taking advantage of Erison picking up enough yellows to get a one match ban, Gomis came in and… scored!!! Perhaps buoyed by almost getting his first goal towards the end of the Avispa game, and perhaps slightly frustrated by spending the first 30 minutes of this game basically being used as a bumper in a pinball machine, having to win the headers from long goal kicks and then basically get fouled, he perhaps decided he was fed up of laying the ball off and instead turned and scored a lovely goal. The ground erupted in joy. I think everyone, including his teammates, was desperate to see him score and it was slightly sad that he didn’t do his lion celebration. Thankfully he got another goal a little while after and did the lion. The crowd went wilder. And then we got a penalty which I’m kind of shocked he was allowed to take. (Perhaps Oniki didn’t get the message on to the pitch quick enough). And bang, he’d got his hat trick. I’ve long said that I felt he just needed to score his first goal and then he’d be off and running. I didn’t expect him to score his second and third quite so soon afterwards though. Given Erison’s recent form, you might say that Gomis has the spot to lose now, but I suspect that as we have consecutive away games in Saga and Osaka on Wednesday and Sunday, perhaps without returning home in between, (that’s certainly what we’re doing anyway), maybe we’ll see Gomis start one game and Erison start the other. How nice it would be if Erison could grab a couple of goals in his next game to really get some healthy competition going.

Apart from our star striker and highest wage earner finally getting his first goal, this game was significant for the fact that, (I think I’m right in saying this…), this was the first league game we started with two full backs playing at full back! I’d like to say ‘Hey, Oniki! See what happens when you play people in the right position?’ but given what I wrote in the first part about the weakness of the opposition, I think the hypocrisy alarm might explode. All the same, it was nice to see a right and left back on the pitch in their respective spots. Segawa has done his best in that role, but clearly it’s better to play someone in their natural position, isn’t it? But that might all change for the next match at least, as Ominami had to leave the pitch as a concussion sub so I guess that means he won’t be available for the Sagan Tosu game at least. Not sure how many days he has to wait till he can play again. So expect changes on Wednesday, but maybe it will just be Takai in for Ominami and the full backs will remain in place. Although I also noticed that Ienaga went straight down the tunnel after being subbed and didn't come out for the post game celebrations so perhaps he's also injured. Well, injured or pissed off, both of which could be equally troubling. When Ominami got injured I think Oniki was probably going to take off Sai as he has done in the last few games, but had to change his plans on the hoof. Wednesday sees us take on the team who were second bottom before this game, but as they hammered Jubilo away from home by the same score we won this game, they have now climbed to third bottom. (Sitting second bottom now is naturally a team who’ve beaten us already this year). The league is a very funny beast in 2024. Our win saw us soar up the table to 11th, (now down to 12th after Verdy’s late equalizer), and even though we’ve had a truly awful start, we are only 10 points off the top. I don’t know if this shows how great the league is with lots of evenly matched teams or how bad the league is with lots of evenly matched teams. Certainly, I feel like I haven’t seen anyone who looks that good this year, so probably more the latter. It certainly is interesting though! But at the same time, this adds to the frustration of the horrible tactics we ploughed on with for game after game, defeat after defeat. Imagine where we could have been if we hadn’t been so shit. Which I understand is something that many teams could say, but it does seem especially appropriate for us. As I’ve said many times, I think our squad this year is better than it was last season, so hopefully soon we can start showing this on the pitch a bit more regularly

A few words about the ref. It was Kawamata and once again… I am shocked to say… I don’t have much to say. Guess this always helps when we win and maybe I’d have had moans galore if we lost, but I thought he did pretty well. The linesman on our side of the pitch was really puffing though. In fact, so much that I could see his shoulders rising and falling from my elevated viewpoint up in the stand. This was probably due to the large amount of long balls being whacked by both teams. The managers should really consider the health of the officials when deciding on their ‘hoof it to the fast guy’ tactics.

Next up, Sagan Tosu away. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s always my favourite away day and given that this year it’s a Wednesday evening game on a normal working day, only ten days after our last Kyushu away game, I think the away attendance might be something close to how they were in the ‘good old days’, which is exactly what you’d expect a tired old git like me to be excited about. After that we’ll be slowly winding our way to Osaka so expect the blog post on the Tosu game to just be some words with the details added later. And then expect the Gamba away post to be similar too, as when we get back I’ve got a pig of a week at work and then we’re moving apartments. If I survive shifting all my records and absolutely worthless possessions, I’ll update both the posts. If you never see them updated, please send donations to my Ko-Fi account to cover my funeral expenses. I’m not the healthiest of people so the process will almost certainly damage me in some way. I hope the team can continue to improve in the future with or without my support from the terraces.

Team

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 4. JESIEL
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 61')
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. TONO Daiya (Yellow card 63')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 2. TAKAI Kota (on for OMINAMI 75')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for TONO 88')
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for IENAGA 75')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for GOMIS 61')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 75')

DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for JESIEL 88')

Goals

GOMIS (Frontale) 30' 1-0
GOMIS (Frontale) 43' 2-0
GOMIS (Frontale) 45+3' PEN 3-0

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Even someone like me who likes to go a bit left field sometimes couldn’t on this occasion give it to anyone other than….

Bafetimbi GOMIS - three goals, the famous lion celebration and high emotions all round. Delighted! 

 

Highlights