Albirex Niigata 2 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale
So, what do you think I’m going to say in this blog post? I suspect that some might expect me to continue with the usual moaning and criticism. After all, we threw away a lead and only just managed to avoid losing to a team sitting below us in the league, (and let’s be honest, there aren’t many teams that are below us in the league…). But no, you’re wrong! I’m in a good mood! Well maybe a good mood is a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m vaguely positive for the first time in ages. Not sure I should be quite as positive as I am, but you know, these kind of situations are recently quite rare so I should probably ride this wave whilst I can. The truth is though that some of the reasons for my positivity were later undercut by cold hard reality, but more on that shortly. A draw isn’t going to particularly help us get clear of the relegation battle, but it’s a draw that comes with some caveats, so let’s go into the reasons to be relatively cheerful and then undermine them as we go along with crushing negativity. Sounds perfect, eh?
Happy clappy
I said after the Kobe game borefest (which I still feel was possibly the worst game of the year so far), that Wakizaka and Tachibanada, (and maybe some others), probably needed ‘a rest’ as they’d not been contributing much recently but still remained undroppable. But blimey, Oniki announced a line up without either of them! However, it turned out that Tachibanada was banned due to accumulated yellow cards and after the game Wakizaka was reported as being ‘sick’, (I know the feeling! I’m getting pretty sick of watching our games so it must be even worse to be playing in them). With our new look midfield we came charging out of the blocks and had a pretty good first half I thought. We’d had more shots by the 15th minute than we’d had in the whole game against Kobe. Tono playing in the Wakizaka role seemed to be a lot more effective than erm… Wakizaka playing in the Wakizaka role. If Tono had had his shooting boots on we could have been cruising very early on. But we were shooting! Even though the formation said we’re playing 4-2-3-1 it felt more like a 4-4-2 to me with Tono playing really far forward. Wonderful! Shots! Excitement! Forwards passes!
But…
As I said above, it seems like the changes were forced and I’m not sure Oniki will notice that without two of his favourites in this game we weren’t as we've been recently and he will probably just retreat to the usual guys as soon as he can. I also wonder if the reason Oniki is digging into the squad a bit more and using some different players is just because of masses of injuries that we haven't been told about yet. We certainly seem to be picking up quite a few knocks this year. And as an extra bonus downer, Takai on the bench and Wakizaka ‘sick’... Perhaps saving them for an already agreed in principle transfer coming soon? Purely speculation on my part here, but the fact that it’s so out of character for Oniki to leave them out makes me think that there could be something else going on. Think it's a lot more likely to be true about Takai though. Oniki turning to Tanabe before Takai seems a bit suspicious to me if we know Oniki as well as we think we do.
A new approach?
I dunno if this was to do with the players selected rather than any tactics, but we seemed a lot more attacking in this game than I had expected. As I said above, the 4-2-3-1 looked more like a 4-4-2 to me for most of the first half. Has Oniki finally taken the handbrake off and told the players to just try and score a goal? I don’t think we looked any shakier at the back than we have done in recent games and I’d definitely trade a bit of excitement going forward for a little bit of defensive jeopardy. Of course I’d rather have the former without the latter, but as recent matches have shown, absolutely zero attacking threat combined with a usually solid but at times disastrously generous defence isn’t working, and I’d much rather have at least a bit of fun in my Frontale life if that’s ok.
The usual old retreat
Yeah, the first half was pleasantly surprising, but still Oniki dithered as players got increasingly knackered and crackered (don’t know if that makes sense, but I like the rhyme). The first sub, which seemed to be predetermined, in spite of Kobayashi going down ‘injured’, (Yamada was already warming up and ready to come on), still probably came too late. It was great to see Kobayashi back from injury, but he definitely went off the boil a bit before he was changed. I guess it’s kind of surprising that we didn’t concede in this game whilst preparing to make subs as we normally do. I can definitely imagine that Kobayashi was struggling a bit due to having not played for ages, but you’d hope that the manager might have noticed this before we did in the stands. The rest of the subs came way too late as well. I’d say we were slightly lucky to go into injury time level as we’d had plenty of players who looked like they were out of energy still on the pitch. We had an exciting bench I thought, but it probably says something that Oniki was desperate to not use what he considers our weaker players until he absolutely had to. Actually, that should have said ‘until a bit after he absolutely should have done’. I don’t blame him too much though, as we were doing better in this game than we had done recently, and he is nothing if not unbelievably conservative in his approach so doesn't like taking what he considers to be risks.
Yes!
We didn’t lose away against Niigata! Forget the league position of the teams, we’re always a bit shite away at Niigata. And we didn’t lose!
But, er… kind of no too
Well, we didn’t lose, but after a promising start the writing seemed to be on the wall and I’m surprised we didn’t lose. We’d wasted so many chances in the first half, and to be honest continued to waste chances throughout the game, that there was always a feeling of ‘we’re going to regret not taking those chances’. And we slowly sunk further and further into desperate defending and stopped making chances due to players being, well, knackered. At the time, I was still buoyed by the fact that he’d changed something, (not realising that those changes were enforced), so kind of ignored the fact that he clearly seemed to be watching a different game to us in the stands. But once again his conservatism, which has grown in leaps and bounds recently, (even though we don't usually have anything to conserve aside from the chance of getting a 0-0 when we start the game), seemed to come to the fore. I guess we'll have a bit more of an idea if any progress is being made in the next few games. I'm guessing he'll return to Tachibanada and Wakizaka next game so will have an opportunity to prove me conclusively wrong. Whether he does or not is another matter.
The opposition baiting bit
Not sure how the bitching about the opposition part fits into this new post layout, so let’s just put it here. Niigata looked even more wedded to the pointless passing thing than we are. I could almost feel the disappointment resonating off the players when they were denied the chance to take a goal kick short. I’ve heard this is their normal game plan, but when it got to 1-1, the ponderous nature of their play seemed to go up a further notch. It really seemed like they were happy with a draw, which when you’re playing 2024 Frontale is a disgraceful position to hold as you always have a chance for a easy win if you just go for it a little. Even when they were a goal down they seemed to remain obsessed with the sideways defensive passing. Most of our fans were booing them at this stage but I took the opposite approach, shouting ‘bravo!’ every time they wasted a bit more time twatting around at the back whilst trailing in the match. I’d like to see us adopt this approach as a fan group actually. Sure, if we’re winning and the opposition is wasting time, get on their backs, but whilst we’re ahead, I think we should applaud their attempts at running the clock down. One other aspect of Niigata that I hadn’t noticed in the past was their incessant whinging. There was barely a decision in the game, including ones which went their way, where they didn’t surround the ref to have a moan. I also quite enjoyed the massive cheers from at least half of the Albirex supporters in the stadium as one of their players clearly, as far as I could see, booted the ball into the side netting, the fans thinking it was a goal. I’d like to bitch about this more but I’ve done it myself in the past and any wisecracks about not being able to see the game because of the running track also look a bit like self-inflicted disses so let’s just move on. Move on but not before enjoying the fact that the Albirex cheerleaders, clearly under instructions to run out and do their thing for every goal or at the final whistle after their team has won, raced out as the Albirex fans cheered the ball hitting the side netting and then had to shuffle back shamefacedly when they noticed it hadn’t gone in, and then proceed to run out to celebrate an offside being given against their forwards as they thought it was the final whistle. It was amusing at the time, but much more amusing when we proceeded to score a late equaliser shortly afterwards. Delightful. I think justice was done to be honest as there was no way Albirex deserved to win the game. I don’t think we particularly did either given the wayward nature of much of our shooting, but you know, we were shooting, so let’s be optimistic about that, eh? On, and when did Michael James become so good? Not only stopping our attacks, but also wandering forward with the ball and assisting for goals. Guess that’s a flaw in us signing so many players who we never really play. Once they leave, they are quite fired up for having a good game when they play against us. Well done to him anyway.
Banner wisdom
‘I’ll always be around ‘
Not sure what it’s supposed to mean, but surely this is the ultimate stalkers’ maxim. If this banner was made by one guy for the attention of one specific other, this is high level stalking indeed. It’s even got me a bit scared. Hopefully there is a more football related explanation.
The ref bit
It was Kasahara, so I’m shocked we didn’t get a player sent off. Even more shocked that he’d given Seko a yellow when VAR thought that something more might have been appropriate. Thankfully they decided against it as I thought it would have been hugely unfair in a game where he’d done really well. Kasahara was bit flakey though. But I have to… errrr, give him some... praise…. He booked a Niigata player for whinging. Marvelous! If only he’d booked some of them for time wasting. Although to be honest, that backfired on them in the end. Some Niigata fans online have been moaning that the game should have finished long before we scored. I’d say to them that they wasted so much time during the game and particularly when celebrating what they thought was their winner, that an overly late equaliser was perfect justice. So basically I guess I’m saying, Kasahara, usually terrible, but… he did pretty well…? What’s wrong with me? I haven’t moaned about the ref much for a few matches now. I guess it helps when we are so obviously at fault for our own downfall. But… whisper it… are the refs getting better? Probably not and clearly now we’ll have an awful one on Wednesday against Shonan.
So yes, next up Shonan at home on Wednesday followed by Sanfrecce at home on Saturday. At half time in this game I thought, wow, is this the start of our season and of a nice winning run? Probably not for the former and as we only drew definitely not the latter. But maybe there are some green shoots of recovery. I suspect Oniki will chop them down with his tactics strimmer on Wednesday though. Before this game I thought we would lose this match, draw against Shonan and then miraculously win against Sanfrecce to somehow keep Oniki in a job. He always seems to get a pressure easing win when he needs one. (Of course he’s going nowhere this year anyway, in case you thought I was saying he'll be fired). But after a slightly positive performance, well, who knows? If it’s back to the usual way of doing things next match, I will of course be disappointed but I won’t be surprised. Here’s hoping Oniki gives me a nice shock on Wednesday.
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for YAMAMOTO 87')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto (on for SEGAWA 87')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 79')
FW 28. PATRICK VERHON (on for IENAGA 79')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for KOBAYASHI 66')
Goals
MARCINHO (Frontale) 17' 0-1
FUJIWARA (Albirex) 61' 1-1
SUZUKI (Albirex) 90+7' 2-1
YAMADA (Frontale) 90+11' 2-2
My Frontale Man Of The Match
Happy clappy
I said after the Kobe game borefest (which I still feel was possibly the worst game of the year so far), that Wakizaka and Tachibanada, (and maybe some others), probably needed ‘a rest’ as they’d not been contributing much recently but still remained undroppable. But blimey, Oniki announced a line up without either of them! However, it turned out that Tachibanada was banned due to accumulated yellow cards and after the game Wakizaka was reported as being ‘sick’, (I know the feeling! I’m getting pretty sick of watching our games so it must be even worse to be playing in them). With our new look midfield we came charging out of the blocks and had a pretty good first half I thought. We’d had more shots by the 15th minute than we’d had in the whole game against Kobe. Tono playing in the Wakizaka role seemed to be a lot more effective than erm… Wakizaka playing in the Wakizaka role. If Tono had had his shooting boots on we could have been cruising very early on. But we were shooting! Even though the formation said we’re playing 4-2-3-1 it felt more like a 4-4-2 to me with Tono playing really far forward. Wonderful! Shots! Excitement! Forwards passes!
But…
As I said above, it seems like the changes were forced and I’m not sure Oniki will notice that without two of his favourites in this game we weren’t as we've been recently and he will probably just retreat to the usual guys as soon as he can. I also wonder if the reason Oniki is digging into the squad a bit more and using some different players is just because of masses of injuries that we haven't been told about yet. We certainly seem to be picking up quite a few knocks this year. And as an extra bonus downer, Takai on the bench and Wakizaka ‘sick’... Perhaps saving them for an already agreed in principle transfer coming soon? Purely speculation on my part here, but the fact that it’s so out of character for Oniki to leave them out makes me think that there could be something else going on. Think it's a lot more likely to be true about Takai though. Oniki turning to Tanabe before Takai seems a bit suspicious to me if we know Oniki as well as we think we do.
A new approach?
I dunno if this was to do with the players selected rather than any tactics, but we seemed a lot more attacking in this game than I had expected. As I said above, the 4-2-3-1 looked more like a 4-4-2 to me for most of the first half. Has Oniki finally taken the handbrake off and told the players to just try and score a goal? I don’t think we looked any shakier at the back than we have done in recent games and I’d definitely trade a bit of excitement going forward for a little bit of defensive jeopardy. Of course I’d rather have the former without the latter, but as recent matches have shown, absolutely zero attacking threat combined with a usually solid but at times disastrously generous defence isn’t working, and I’d much rather have at least a bit of fun in my Frontale life if that’s ok.
The usual old retreat
Yeah, the first half was pleasantly surprising, but still Oniki dithered as players got increasingly knackered and crackered (don’t know if that makes sense, but I like the rhyme). The first sub, which seemed to be predetermined, in spite of Kobayashi going down ‘injured’, (Yamada was already warming up and ready to come on), still probably came too late. It was great to see Kobayashi back from injury, but he definitely went off the boil a bit before he was changed. I guess it’s kind of surprising that we didn’t concede in this game whilst preparing to make subs as we normally do. I can definitely imagine that Kobayashi was struggling a bit due to having not played for ages, but you’d hope that the manager might have noticed this before we did in the stands. The rest of the subs came way too late as well. I’d say we were slightly lucky to go into injury time level as we’d had plenty of players who looked like they were out of energy still on the pitch. We had an exciting bench I thought, but it probably says something that Oniki was desperate to not use what he considers our weaker players until he absolutely had to. Actually, that should have said ‘until a bit after he absolutely should have done’. I don’t blame him too much though, as we were doing better in this game than we had done recently, and he is nothing if not unbelievably conservative in his approach so doesn't like taking what he considers to be risks.
Yes!
We didn’t lose away against Niigata! Forget the league position of the teams, we’re always a bit shite away at Niigata. And we didn’t lose!
But, er… kind of no too
Well, we didn’t lose, but after a promising start the writing seemed to be on the wall and I’m surprised we didn’t lose. We’d wasted so many chances in the first half, and to be honest continued to waste chances throughout the game, that there was always a feeling of ‘we’re going to regret not taking those chances’. And we slowly sunk further and further into desperate defending and stopped making chances due to players being, well, knackered. At the time, I was still buoyed by the fact that he’d changed something, (not realising that those changes were enforced), so kind of ignored the fact that he clearly seemed to be watching a different game to us in the stands. But once again his conservatism, which has grown in leaps and bounds recently, (even though we don't usually have anything to conserve aside from the chance of getting a 0-0 when we start the game), seemed to come to the fore. I guess we'll have a bit more of an idea if any progress is being made in the next few games. I'm guessing he'll return to Tachibanada and Wakizaka next game so will have an opportunity to prove me conclusively wrong. Whether he does or not is another matter.
The opposition baiting bit
Not sure how the bitching about the opposition part fits into this new post layout, so let’s just put it here. Niigata looked even more wedded to the pointless passing thing than we are. I could almost feel the disappointment resonating off the players when they were denied the chance to take a goal kick short. I’ve heard this is their normal game plan, but when it got to 1-1, the ponderous nature of their play seemed to go up a further notch. It really seemed like they were happy with a draw, which when you’re playing 2024 Frontale is a disgraceful position to hold as you always have a chance for a easy win if you just go for it a little. Even when they were a goal down they seemed to remain obsessed with the sideways defensive passing. Most of our fans were booing them at this stage but I took the opposite approach, shouting ‘bravo!’ every time they wasted a bit more time twatting around at the back whilst trailing in the match. I’d like to see us adopt this approach as a fan group actually. Sure, if we’re winning and the opposition is wasting time, get on their backs, but whilst we’re ahead, I think we should applaud their attempts at running the clock down. One other aspect of Niigata that I hadn’t noticed in the past was their incessant whinging. There was barely a decision in the game, including ones which went their way, where they didn’t surround the ref to have a moan. I also quite enjoyed the massive cheers from at least half of the Albirex supporters in the stadium as one of their players clearly, as far as I could see, booted the ball into the side netting, the fans thinking it was a goal. I’d like to bitch about this more but I’ve done it myself in the past and any wisecracks about not being able to see the game because of the running track also look a bit like self-inflicted disses so let’s just move on. Move on but not before enjoying the fact that the Albirex cheerleaders, clearly under instructions to run out and do their thing for every goal or at the final whistle after their team has won, raced out as the Albirex fans cheered the ball hitting the side netting and then had to shuffle back shamefacedly when they noticed it hadn’t gone in, and then proceed to run out to celebrate an offside being given against their forwards as they thought it was the final whistle. It was amusing at the time, but much more amusing when we proceeded to score a late equaliser shortly afterwards. Delightful. I think justice was done to be honest as there was no way Albirex deserved to win the game. I don’t think we particularly did either given the wayward nature of much of our shooting, but you know, we were shooting, so let’s be optimistic about that, eh? On, and when did Michael James become so good? Not only stopping our attacks, but also wandering forward with the ball and assisting for goals. Guess that’s a flaw in us signing so many players who we never really play. Once they leave, they are quite fired up for having a good game when they play against us. Well done to him anyway.
Banner wisdom
‘I’ll always be around ‘
Not sure what it’s supposed to mean, but surely this is the ultimate stalkers’ maxim. If this banner was made by one guy for the attention of one specific other, this is high level stalking indeed. It’s even got me a bit scared. Hopefully there is a more football related explanation.
The ref bit
It was Kasahara, so I’m shocked we didn’t get a player sent off. Even more shocked that he’d given Seko a yellow when VAR thought that something more might have been appropriate. Thankfully they decided against it as I thought it would have been hugely unfair in a game where he’d done really well. Kasahara was bit flakey though. But I have to… errrr, give him some... praise…. He booked a Niigata player for whinging. Marvelous! If only he’d booked some of them for time wasting. Although to be honest, that backfired on them in the end. Some Niigata fans online have been moaning that the game should have finished long before we scored. I’d say to them that they wasted so much time during the game and particularly when celebrating what they thought was their winner, that an overly late equaliser was perfect justice. So basically I guess I’m saying, Kasahara, usually terrible, but… he did pretty well…? What’s wrong with me? I haven’t moaned about the ref much for a few matches now. I guess it helps when we are so obviously at fault for our own downfall. But… whisper it… are the refs getting better? Probably not and clearly now we’ll have an awful one on Wednesday against Shonan.
 |
| Yellow card for moaning incoming! |
So yes, next up Shonan at home on Wednesday followed by Sanfrecce at home on Saturday. At half time in this game I thought, wow, is this the start of our season and of a nice winning run? Probably not for the former and as we only drew definitely not the latter. But maybe there are some green shoots of recovery. I suspect Oniki will chop them down with his tactics strimmer on Wednesday though. Before this game I thought we would lose this match, draw against Shonan and then miraculously win against Sanfrecce to somehow keep Oniki in a job. He always seems to get a pressure easing win when he needs one. (Of course he’s going nowhere this year anyway, in case you thought I was saying he'll be fired). But after a slightly positive performance, well, who knows? If it’s back to the usual way of doing things next match, I will of course be disappointed but I won’t be surprised. Here’s hoping Oniki gives me a nice shock on Wednesday.
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (Yellow card 88')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. TONO Daiya
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 23. MARCINHO
SubsDF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (Yellow card 88')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. TONO Daiya
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 23. MARCINHO
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for YAMAMOTO 87')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto (on for SEGAWA 87')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 79')
FW 28. PATRICK VERHON (on for IENAGA 79')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for KOBAYASHI 66')
Goals
MARCINHO (Frontale) 17' 0-1
FUJIWARA (Albirex) 61' 1-1
SUZUKI (Albirex) 90+7' 2-1
YAMADA (Frontale) 90+11' 2-2
My Frontale Man Of The Match
I’d really like to give this to Tono who was something of a revelation
playing in the Wakizaka role. What a shock that when you play the
attacker Tono in a more attacking role he does better! At the same time,
in spite of him usually being a reliable goalscorer, he really couldn’t
hit the target in this game. But he did well anyway. I’d also like to
give it to Marcinho who did a lot better than in recent games, but still
isn’t quite back to his best. So with these things in mind I’ll give it
jointly to…
SEKO Tatsuki and SASAKI Asahi - maybe it’s a coincidence that I have Seko’s shirt and Sasaki’s towel but I thought both of them had really good games in this match. Long may that continue!
SEKO Tatsuki and SASAKI Asahi - maybe it’s a coincidence that I have Seko’s shirt and Sasaki’s towel but I thought both of them had really good games in this match. Long may that continue!
Highlights
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