Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 0 Sony Sendai
So, our first involvement in the Emperor’s Cup in 2024, giving us a chance to set a pretty poor (hang on, that’s a massive understatement, isn’t it? Perhaps, utterly terrible) league campaign aside and concentrate on maybe trying something a little different against new opposition. Definitely something to get excited about. I don’t really understand why people don’t want to go to these games. I think it’s much more interesting to see us play a university team than slug out a 0-0 against a team we play at least twice every year. New! Excitement! Different stuff! Oh, hang on, it was Sony Sendai again. I’m not sure why we seem to play the same few teams every few years in this tournament. And I guess in the ACL too. We’ll almost certainly get Ulsan in our group when the draw is made for the 2024/25 edition. But at least we’d have the excitement of seeing some unfamiliar faces on the pitch, right? Wrong. I think this was pretty much the strongest team we could have put out, given injuries or lack of fitness (more on that later). Presumably Oniki saw us having last weekend off as the perfect justification to try absolutely nothing new. The only experiment Oniki is interested in is one designed to determine the length of people’s tolerance for exactly the same stuff every game. Still, with the first team out and playing a JFL team, we were bound to see some exciting attacking play and plenty of goals, right? Wrong again. This game showed the effectiveness of Oniki’s pass pass pass plan, which hasn’t really worked against most teams this year, and doesn’t work either against a JFL side. Not saying we looked like we might lose. There weren’t that many occasions when Sony Sendai came close to scoring. But I am definitely saying that the same could be said about us. Even when the opposition don’t really threaten and don’t have much of the ball we still can’t really make many chances. In his post match comments Oniki noted that he was pleased we could tighten things up at the back and not concede. I think we can all agree with this, but probably at the same time should acknowledge that the opposition were from three leagues below. With a game against Vissel Kobe coming up on Sunday, you’ve got to wonder quite how wise it was to play so many first team regulars. But at the same time it was utterly predictable that we would do so. Perhaps we’ll put the reserves out against Kobe again like we did in the Super Cup. Although to be honest, they played a lot better in that game than the first team have in most matches this year. Does this mean that Oniki has given up on the league and is basically focussing on getting a cup? Well, the first part probably makes sense as we’ve fucked up the first half of our league campaign so badly that we’re extremely unlikely to get anything out of it. But the second part is a bit dangerous as we all know that if you’re looking for the true weak point of Oniki’s management you’ll find that it is that he’s pretty bad in knockout games. I guess we’ll see when the team lineup is announced on Sunday whether there will be any changes. I’m guessing there won’t be. But we probably still won’t be able to assess things too clearly as we almost never find out about injuries and Oniki doesn’t rotate unless he really has to. So basically I haven’t got a clue what’s going on, so am not sure why I wasted your time speculating over these kind of things.
Let’s talk briefly about players and this match. Perhaps this was the closest Oniki could reasonably get to his dream of playing a whole team of midfielders with Tachibanada at left back and Segawa at right back. Perhaps this is a tactical masterstroke as it leaves the opposition unsure which side of our defence to target as both look equally appealing. It worked better in this game, but once again, I think that was mostly due to the level of the opposition. Not sure where Erison has gone. Haven’t heard anything about an injury. Hope he’s not pissed off. Could understand if he was. Guess we’ll see if he has any involvement on Sunday. Miyagi was back making his first appearance (from the bench) for quite a while after a series of J2 loans with mixed success. It seems like he’s still the same kind of player, offering something a little more direct than our other players who play in that position, but that directness often meaning that he doesn’t pass, and tries to shoot instead, but to not much success. I don’t want to have a go at him though as these were his first few minutes for us for a long time. He had some genuinely exciting moments, but I wonder if these were exciting in comparison to Marcinho, who in this match, like in many previous matches proved himself to be very good at running fast and dribbling but pretty bad at passing, crossing or shooting. Of course this all sounds ridiculous as he assisted for the first goal and scored the second. But he’s definitely not at his best at the moment. It’s been a weird season for him with the two red cards probably affecting his game quite a lot. Hopefully he can get back to his best soon.
I think we had our first shot on target in this game in the 38th minute. That was our first goal. I think that’s something we need to take into consideration when we think about this game. The first 37 minutes were pretty much a waste of time and if we were playing a team from a higher league we could easily have been made to pay before we in any way troubled their keeper. Fair play to Sony Sendai who stifled our attack, but the truth is a lot of the stifling of our attacks was done by our approach and tactics. I wonder if we might even struggle to break down a team of mannequins with our 2024 version incisive attacking play. In previous years we’ve squeaked through our first match in this competition and then come unstuck in the next round when we came up against a J2 team in mediocre to poor form. So who have we got next? Ah, Oita, who before last night’s win against Kagoshima had lost one and drawn four of their last four games. The omens aren’t very good, are they? To be honest, there’s not much else to say. As I mentioned above, Marcinho scored and assisted and both were very nice, but maybe slightly undermined by our bluntness for the rest of the game. Yamada got the other goal, and it was basically a tap in. I feel a little like playing him up front in the middle from the start is the same as playing Kobayashi there. It’s where they want to play, but never seems to have as good an effect as playing them either on the wing or introducing them up front from the bench. Guess that’s a problem with the system again. But the system won’t be changed, so I guess we should just get used to it if we aren’t already. I can’t imagine anyone who’s watched more than a couple of our games ever won’t be used to our system by now. This week’s J Talk Podcast said that things have been improving for us a bit in recent weeks. I guess we were starting from a pretty low level so improvement was probably the only way. However, I’d say that you shouldn’t ignore the fact that aside from the times we’ve managed to score, we’re still pretty crap and the last two results have papered over the cracks somewhat. I’d be delighted if the win over Nagoya and this win were the start of a great winning run, but I wouldn’t exactly say that we’ve been playing like we should be winning. At the same time, if we go on a massive winning streak whilst playing terribly and getting very lucky, that would also be quite amusing. And perhaps even more enjoyable than playing mediocrely and getting the same results. I would have no objections to this monstrous luck taking to the field with us on Sunday. That would be quite nice indeed.
So, yeah, next up Vissel Kobe away on Sunday, but away in the National Stadium. The Kobe players can wave at Todoroki from the Shinkansen as they pass en route from Kobe to their ‘home’ game against us. After that we’re away in Niigata the following weekend. Now that is always a fun trip and given that we’ll be returning home on the last train after the game, we’ll have to get plenty of ‘sightseeing’ in the evening before and on the day of the game. I expect to turn up to the game suitably refreshed. It really is the best way to enjoy our matches at the moment. Lovely!
 |
| Cup fever burns bright at Todoroki! |
Let’s talk briefly about players and this match. Perhaps this was the closest Oniki could reasonably get to his dream of playing a whole team of midfielders with Tachibanada at left back and Segawa at right back. Perhaps this is a tactical masterstroke as it leaves the opposition unsure which side of our defence to target as both look equally appealing. It worked better in this game, but once again, I think that was mostly due to the level of the opposition. Not sure where Erison has gone. Haven’t heard anything about an injury. Hope he’s not pissed off. Could understand if he was. Guess we’ll see if he has any involvement on Sunday. Miyagi was back making his first appearance (from the bench) for quite a while after a series of J2 loans with mixed success. It seems like he’s still the same kind of player, offering something a little more direct than our other players who play in that position, but that directness often meaning that he doesn’t pass, and tries to shoot instead, but to not much success. I don’t want to have a go at him though as these were his first few minutes for us for a long time. He had some genuinely exciting moments, but I wonder if these were exciting in comparison to Marcinho, who in this match, like in many previous matches proved himself to be very good at running fast and dribbling but pretty bad at passing, crossing or shooting. Of course this all sounds ridiculous as he assisted for the first goal and scored the second. But he’s definitely not at his best at the moment. It’s been a weird season for him with the two red cards probably affecting his game quite a lot. Hopefully he can get back to his best soon.
I think we had our first shot on target in this game in the 38th minute. That was our first goal. I think that’s something we need to take into consideration when we think about this game. The first 37 minutes were pretty much a waste of time and if we were playing a team from a higher league we could easily have been made to pay before we in any way troubled their keeper. Fair play to Sony Sendai who stifled our attack, but the truth is a lot of the stifling of our attacks was done by our approach and tactics. I wonder if we might even struggle to break down a team of mannequins with our 2024 version incisive attacking play. In previous years we’ve squeaked through our first match in this competition and then come unstuck in the next round when we came up against a J2 team in mediocre to poor form. So who have we got next? Ah, Oita, who before last night’s win against Kagoshima had lost one and drawn four of their last four games. The omens aren’t very good, are they? To be honest, there’s not much else to say. As I mentioned above, Marcinho scored and assisted and both were very nice, but maybe slightly undermined by our bluntness for the rest of the game. Yamada got the other goal, and it was basically a tap in. I feel a little like playing him up front in the middle from the start is the same as playing Kobayashi there. It’s where they want to play, but never seems to have as good an effect as playing them either on the wing or introducing them up front from the bench. Guess that’s a problem with the system again. But the system won’t be changed, so I guess we should just get used to it if we aren’t already. I can’t imagine anyone who’s watched more than a couple of our games ever won’t be used to our system by now. This week’s J Talk Podcast said that things have been improving for us a bit in recent weeks. I guess we were starting from a pretty low level so improvement was probably the only way. However, I’d say that you shouldn’t ignore the fact that aside from the times we’ve managed to score, we’re still pretty crap and the last two results have papered over the cracks somewhat. I’d be delighted if the win over Nagoya and this win were the start of a great winning run, but I wouldn’t exactly say that we’ve been playing like we should be winning. At the same time, if we go on a massive winning streak whilst playing terribly and getting very lucky, that would also be quite amusing. And perhaps even more enjoyable than playing mediocrely and getting the same results. I would have no objections to this monstrous luck taking to the field with us on Sunday. That would be quite nice indeed.
So, yeah, next up Vissel Kobe away on Sunday, but away in the National Stadium. The Kobe players can wave at Todoroki from the Shinkansen as they pass en route from Kobe to their ‘home’ game against us. After that we’re away in Niigata the following weekend. Now that is always a fun trip and given that we’ll be returning home on the last train after the game, we’ll have to get plenty of ‘sightseeing’ in the evening before and on the day of the game. I expect to turn up to the game suitably refreshed. It really is the best way to enjoy our matches at the moment. Lovely!
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
Subs
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for YAMAMOTO 83')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto (on for SEGAWA 83')
MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for IENAGA 70')
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for WAKIZAKA 83')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 65')
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for YAMAMOTO 83')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto (on for SEGAWA 83')
MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for IENAGA 70')
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for WAKIZAKA 83')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 65')
Goals
YAMADA (Frontale) 39' 1-0
MARCINHO (Frontale) 58' 2-0
My Frontale Man Of The Match
I'll skip this again this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment