Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Urawa Reds
Finally, we won a game. And that’s two milestones in two games as last week we finally scored a goal. What a time to be a Frontale fan! It’s fair to say that this year hasn’t been going as well as some might have expected. You could also say that about Urawa’s season. It’s a lot funnier when it happens to them though, isn’t it? Even when things aren’t going great, a win against Urawa is a very welcome thing. Actually, maybe it’s even better when things aren’t going great as them having their expectations punctured is always very amusing. It’s all too easy to get distracted by your dislike for YFM and forget quite how irritating a club Urawa are, with their wannabe tough guy fans and their massive amount of money spent. (As an aside, I’m very happy that we put on another insane pre-match performance celebrating the birthday of the offspring of our mascot in front of the Urawa fans as they would almost certainly have been triggered by it). (As a second aside, seems like they have another manager struggling to do anything in the league with the massive budget that they have. Bless him, the poor soul! Will he want to stay past the end of the year, I wonder. If past evidence suggests anything, probably not). Of course I’m delighted when we beat any team. But it’s just a bit more fun when we beat someone I really don’t like. As it’s Golden Week and the next game is coming up soon, I’ll put the usual excuse in here and say that I’m going to rattle through this, probably focusing mainly on sarcastic bitching. Let’s get snarking!
First half -
The first half, or actually the first half of the first half, looked pretty bad for us. Even though there were only five points between the two teams and Urawa were kind of mid table, we seemed to be playing like we were a bottom of the league team, (guess we are kind of close to that), coming up against a super club who were destroying anyone who dared get near to them. We looked nervous and shaky and it seemed like a matter of when and not if we would concede. But we slowly managed to get back into the game a little and by the time we got to half time I thought things were pretty even. Although the stats tell a different story. It really didn’t feel like they had 58% possession, and the fact that this stat was exactly the same for the second half too makes me think that maybe the guy who was registering possession for Flashscore might have given up after the first goal. It was something of a surprise to see us take the lead. A very welcome surprise though! Gomis started this game up front in place of Erison who seems to have really been struggling recently. In a way, I hope he’s not fully fit, as if his travails are down to something else it will be a bit sad considering he looked amazing in his first few games. Much like was the case last season, it still seems that whoever we play up front will struggle to score. I guess that’s got something to do with how we start games. The strikers only seem to get chances when things get a bit ragged in the second half of matches. Even though he didn’t really get many chances in this game, I thought Gomis had a good match and he played a significant part in our first goal. Going ahead seemed to really give us some confidence. And that’s no surprise as we hadn’t scored the first goal in a game since we played FC Tokyo. It’s a shame that we let them equalise before half time though. It was a pretty soft goal to concede, but you could probably say that about the one we scored too. All in all it was a semi-promising first half. Tono had another good game in midfield and once again Kamifukumoto made some important saves, (along with giving us a few heart in the mouth / head in your hands moments, but that just seems to be something that is destined to happen). On balance, 1-1 seemed to be about right.
Second half -
Well, the second half was a lot more fun! I don’t know if we looked great or Urawa looked terrible, but as the net result is the same, let’s not worry too much about it, eh? I’m not sure what was really going on. We were… attacking! We were… shooting! When you see that a centre back has scored you expect it to have been with a header from a corner. But no, Sasaki ran the length of the pitch and the length of the Urawa half with the ball before smashing it home. I’m taking some credit for the goal as before the match I bought a Sasaki towel. I think he’s been doing really well recently so I was delighted to see him score. So out of character is it for us to attack like that, I genuinely had no idea who had scored when the goal went in. We hit the bar with a Wakizaka free kick too and also had plenty of good chances where we tried to shoot instead of pass or tried to pass instead of shoot. It really looked like it might be one of those games where we would ultimately regret not taking enough of our chances. Finally Ienaga made it safe after some very unselfish play from Yamada who passed instead of shot, perhaps because he previously had shot instead of passed. We really could and should have scored more. If they’d managed to get an equaliser when it was still 2-1 I think we could well have collapsed and lost the match. But we didn’t and the fact that we didn’t could prove to be a very crucial thing going forward. So what went right on this occasion that previously went wrong? Well, I think it makes a difference that Oniki has again abandoned the two defensive midfielder thing. It definitely tightens things up but also removes any chance of us ever scoring. I think Ienaga has really benefited from a little rest. He looked unrecognisable in this and the last match from some of the earlier games this year. Marcinho seems to slowly be getting some form back, although he probably still has some way to go, but at least he’s passing the ball a bit earlier than previously. Sai coming in has really helped too. I think Segawa is still something of a weak link when it comes to defending, (unsurprisingly given that he’s a striker), but has been doing the business going forward. And I think Tono compliments Wakizaka better than some of the other options that Oniki has tried. When Wakizaka went off relatively early (for an Oniki favourite) in this match I thought Seko did a really good job in his place. As always, we’ve probably got too many players who can play/want to play in Wakizaka’s position so maybe we’ll see some rotation there at some stage. I think the big change though is that Oniki seems to have finally taken the handbrake off. Whilst is was obvious to many but apparently not noticed by our manager, we really were pissing around trying to follow the overly extravagant plan to the absolute detail in order to score a textbook goal, instead of just improvising a bit. Of course confidence plays a big part and you could see that we’d got a boost from the draw at Hiroshima. And I guess we’ll get some more from this result. It’s something of a shame that we didn’t climb the table, but it is nice to put a bit of distance between us and the teams below us. And the league is very compact at the moment. We’re in 16th and ten points cover us and all the teams to the top. Clearly things can change quickly and dramatically this year. It seems like anyone can beat anyone on their day. And we can say this from experience as we’ve lost some games against teams we should really expect to beat. Fingers crossed that we can now put a little run together, instead of building on a win with another awful winless and goalless run.
Ref and VAR -
Ikeuchi was back in town and naturally I thought he was useless. However, the fact that I can still speak today rather than having lost my voice from screaming at insane refereeing decisions probably means that I didn’t think he was as useless as Okabe was last week. As I am clearly biased, I suspect that me feeling the ref is giving the opposition most things probably means that he’s been reasonably fair. When a referee annoys me a bit, he’s probably done alright. When a refereee infuriates me, he’s probably not done very well. So I guess this is a kind of backhanded compliment to Ikeuchi. But what would this section be without a good old moan, and on this occasion, the recipient is the linesman on the side closest to the main stand. Now he was utterly shite. I don’t really know what the point of having a linesman who is so unwilling to make any kind of decision or judgement is. Even for the most clear cut of throw ins, he still dithered with his flag in both hands, not wanting to commit either way till the ref made the call. Perhaps he never actually wanted to be a linesman but ended up in the job because he said ‘Yes boss. I agree’ to everything anyone ever said to him. It’s something of a miracle that the game kicked off on time as the linesman was probably sitting in his changing room waiting for the ref to tell him which foot to put each of his shoes on and whether he should wear his pants under or over his shorts. I suspect I would have more to moan about if we hadn’t won, but somewhat surprisingly, this is a relatively positive ref and VAR section.
Banner wisdom -
Oh Urawa, there’s just too much to chose from! With the numerous ‘Lads’ flags, which branch off into French for a ‘Garcons’ version, (which I like to think of as waiters rather than boys). I wonder if they have considered translating it into any more languages? Add to this the motivational message ‘Nothing is beyond you’ in which the use of you makes me feel like it is more encouragement for the opposition and their fans rather than their own team. There were plenty more riches on display, but on this occasion I think I have to go for…
‘Pride of Urawa’
Pride of Saitama prefecture? No, that’s not accurate… could be Seibu Lions, those funny old buildings in Kawagoe. Pride of Saitama city? Hmmm, no that could be Omiya Ardija. How about Pride of Urawa? Well, I still think you’re stretching the truth a bit as that’s probably Urawa Parco, but as we’re running out of ideas, let’s go with it.
When I go to work next week I’m going to unveil my flag saying ‘Best English teacher currently teaching this exact class’ flag and stick it to all the haters.
Next up, Avispa away and I’m sad to say that I’m not going. Scheduling two away games in Kyushu within ten days of each other and then sticking a home game in the middle to destroy any thoughts of trying to combine the two is really top level J League shitness. And also seems to be trolling of anyone who is in any way slightly worried about the environmental effects of air travel. I’m pleased that we got a win in this match as if we hadn’t and then went on to win in Fukuoka, I would start wondering if I am the bad luck charm. So, expect the next blog post to be even less detailed than usual as I won’t be able to watch the game live and can’t really see the point of watching a game that you already know the score of. Basically the next post will be me describing what I could see from the highlights that you clearly will also have seen. No there’s something to look forward to, eh?
First half -
The first half, or actually the first half of the first half, looked pretty bad for us. Even though there were only five points between the two teams and Urawa were kind of mid table, we seemed to be playing like we were a bottom of the league team, (guess we are kind of close to that), coming up against a super club who were destroying anyone who dared get near to them. We looked nervous and shaky and it seemed like a matter of when and not if we would concede. But we slowly managed to get back into the game a little and by the time we got to half time I thought things were pretty even. Although the stats tell a different story. It really didn’t feel like they had 58% possession, and the fact that this stat was exactly the same for the second half too makes me think that maybe the guy who was registering possession for Flashscore might have given up after the first goal. It was something of a surprise to see us take the lead. A very welcome surprise though! Gomis started this game up front in place of Erison who seems to have really been struggling recently. In a way, I hope he’s not fully fit, as if his travails are down to something else it will be a bit sad considering he looked amazing in his first few games. Much like was the case last season, it still seems that whoever we play up front will struggle to score. I guess that’s got something to do with how we start games. The strikers only seem to get chances when things get a bit ragged in the second half of matches. Even though he didn’t really get many chances in this game, I thought Gomis had a good match and he played a significant part in our first goal. Going ahead seemed to really give us some confidence. And that’s no surprise as we hadn’t scored the first goal in a game since we played FC Tokyo. It’s a shame that we let them equalise before half time though. It was a pretty soft goal to concede, but you could probably say that about the one we scored too. All in all it was a semi-promising first half. Tono had another good game in midfield and once again Kamifukumoto made some important saves, (along with giving us a few heart in the mouth / head in your hands moments, but that just seems to be something that is destined to happen). On balance, 1-1 seemed to be about right.
Second half -
Well, the second half was a lot more fun! I don’t know if we looked great or Urawa looked terrible, but as the net result is the same, let’s not worry too much about it, eh? I’m not sure what was really going on. We were… attacking! We were… shooting! When you see that a centre back has scored you expect it to have been with a header from a corner. But no, Sasaki ran the length of the pitch and the length of the Urawa half with the ball before smashing it home. I’m taking some credit for the goal as before the match I bought a Sasaki towel. I think he’s been doing really well recently so I was delighted to see him score. So out of character is it for us to attack like that, I genuinely had no idea who had scored when the goal went in. We hit the bar with a Wakizaka free kick too and also had plenty of good chances where we tried to shoot instead of pass or tried to pass instead of shoot. It really looked like it might be one of those games where we would ultimately regret not taking enough of our chances. Finally Ienaga made it safe after some very unselfish play from Yamada who passed instead of shot, perhaps because he previously had shot instead of passed. We really could and should have scored more. If they’d managed to get an equaliser when it was still 2-1 I think we could well have collapsed and lost the match. But we didn’t and the fact that we didn’t could prove to be a very crucial thing going forward. So what went right on this occasion that previously went wrong? Well, I think it makes a difference that Oniki has again abandoned the two defensive midfielder thing. It definitely tightens things up but also removes any chance of us ever scoring. I think Ienaga has really benefited from a little rest. He looked unrecognisable in this and the last match from some of the earlier games this year. Marcinho seems to slowly be getting some form back, although he probably still has some way to go, but at least he’s passing the ball a bit earlier than previously. Sai coming in has really helped too. I think Segawa is still something of a weak link when it comes to defending, (unsurprisingly given that he’s a striker), but has been doing the business going forward. And I think Tono compliments Wakizaka better than some of the other options that Oniki has tried. When Wakizaka went off relatively early (for an Oniki favourite) in this match I thought Seko did a really good job in his place. As always, we’ve probably got too many players who can play/want to play in Wakizaka’s position so maybe we’ll see some rotation there at some stage. I think the big change though is that Oniki seems to have finally taken the handbrake off. Whilst is was obvious to many but apparently not noticed by our manager, we really were pissing around trying to follow the overly extravagant plan to the absolute detail in order to score a textbook goal, instead of just improvising a bit. Of course confidence plays a big part and you could see that we’d got a boost from the draw at Hiroshima. And I guess we’ll get some more from this result. It’s something of a shame that we didn’t climb the table, but it is nice to put a bit of distance between us and the teams below us. And the league is very compact at the moment. We’re in 16th and ten points cover us and all the teams to the top. Clearly things can change quickly and dramatically this year. It seems like anyone can beat anyone on their day. And we can say this from experience as we’ve lost some games against teams we should really expect to beat. Fingers crossed that we can now put a little run together, instead of building on a win with another awful winless and goalless run.
Ref and VAR -
Ikeuchi was back in town and naturally I thought he was useless. However, the fact that I can still speak today rather than having lost my voice from screaming at insane refereeing decisions probably means that I didn’t think he was as useless as Okabe was last week. As I am clearly biased, I suspect that me feeling the ref is giving the opposition most things probably means that he’s been reasonably fair. When a referee annoys me a bit, he’s probably done alright. When a refereee infuriates me, he’s probably not done very well. So I guess this is a kind of backhanded compliment to Ikeuchi. But what would this section be without a good old moan, and on this occasion, the recipient is the linesman on the side closest to the main stand. Now he was utterly shite. I don’t really know what the point of having a linesman who is so unwilling to make any kind of decision or judgement is. Even for the most clear cut of throw ins, he still dithered with his flag in both hands, not wanting to commit either way till the ref made the call. Perhaps he never actually wanted to be a linesman but ended up in the job because he said ‘Yes boss. I agree’ to everything anyone ever said to him. It’s something of a miracle that the game kicked off on time as the linesman was probably sitting in his changing room waiting for the ref to tell him which foot to put each of his shoes on and whether he should wear his pants under or over his shorts. I suspect I would have more to moan about if we hadn’t won, but somewhat surprisingly, this is a relatively positive ref and VAR section.
Banner wisdom -
Oh Urawa, there’s just too much to chose from! With the numerous ‘Lads’ flags, which branch off into French for a ‘Garcons’ version, (which I like to think of as waiters rather than boys). I wonder if they have considered translating it into any more languages? Add to this the motivational message ‘Nothing is beyond you’ in which the use of you makes me feel like it is more encouragement for the opposition and their fans rather than their own team. There were plenty more riches on display, but on this occasion I think I have to go for…
‘Pride of Urawa’
Pride of Saitama prefecture? No, that’s not accurate… could be Seibu Lions, those funny old buildings in Kawagoe. Pride of Saitama city? Hmmm, no that could be Omiya Ardija. How about Pride of Urawa? Well, I still think you’re stretching the truth a bit as that’s probably Urawa Parco, but as we’re running out of ideas, let’s go with it.
When I go to work next week I’m going to unveil my flag saying ‘Best English teacher currently teaching this exact class’ flag and stick it to all the haters.
Next up, Avispa away and I’m sad to say that I’m not going. Scheduling two away games in Kyushu within ten days of each other and then sticking a home game in the middle to destroy any thoughts of trying to combine the two is really top level J League shitness. And also seems to be trolling of anyone who is in any way slightly worried about the environmental effects of air travel. I’m pleased that we got a win in this match as if we hadn’t and then went on to win in Fukuoka, I would start wondering if I am the bad luck charm. So, expect the next blog post to be even less detailed than usual as I won’t be able to watch the game live and can’t really see the point of watching a game that you already know the score of. Basically the next post will be me describing what I could see from the highlights that you clearly will also have seen. No there’s something to look forward to, eh?
Team
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
Subs
GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
DF 4. JESIEL (on for WAKIZAKA 81')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 81')
FW 9. ERISON
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for TONO 69')
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. TONO Daiya
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. TONO Daiya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 23. MARCINHO
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
DF 4. JESIEL (on for WAKIZAKA 81')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 81')
FW 9. ERISON
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for TONO 69')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for GOMIS 75')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 75')
Goals
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 18' 1-0
OKUBO (Urawa) 34' 1-1
SASAKI (Frontale) 49' 2-1
IENAGA (Frontale) 90+3' 3-1
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 75')
Goals
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 18' 1-0
OKUBO (Urawa) 34' 1-1
SASAKI (Frontale) 49' 2-1
IENAGA (Frontale) 90+3' 3-1
There really should be something here, but I forgot to write it when I wrote the post and now I can't really think straight as I'm very tired, so let's give it to...
Everyone - was fun wasn't it?
Highlights
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