Vs FC Tokyo (away) 11/8/24 J League match 26

FC Tokyo 0 - 3 Kawasaki Frontale

This is the start of a new streamlined Frontale Rabbit blog. It will be like this for the time being as the more important parts of my life are getting a little out of control and I probably shouldn’t be spending so much time writing sarcastic blog posts. So let’s give this new style a go, hopefully with all of the snark still in place.

- This was another welcome win, albeit another one with some caveats. Against Kashiwa we were pretty lucky. Against Kobe, they shot themselves in the foot with some stupid red cards. And in this game, well Tokyo weren’t very good. The stats aside from possession, (which recently seems to more often than not have an opposite correlation with our success in a game), were pretty even, but I can’t really remember ever being that worried in this match. However that may be due at least in part to that fact that….

- I had consumed a few drinks before this game. So perhaps my memory isn’t as clear as it could have been. It was also a brutally hot day. With this in mind, well done to FC Tokyo for turning off the vending machines inside our end and making people queue for ages for ¥300 bottles of soft drinks. I guess the vending machine vends at a lower price so that avenue had to be stopped in order to leverage as much income as possible to pay for their next expensive mid-contract manager dismissal package. During an injury break in the first half I thought I’d pop to the loo and at the same time get some water as I thought it would be horrible at half time. Even at the 30 minute stage there were about 40 people in the single line for the drink stall and given that I’d attended in order to watch a football game rather than the subs warming up at half time I returned to my seat sadly empty handed but thankfully empty bladdered.

- I always like to poke fun at the ‘laydeeeez and jennnelmun’ stylings of the announcer. Today, I think I’ll call him Tony from the local Eikaiwa. On this occasion he seemed to be aping the general mood of some FC Tokyo fans. I don’t know what he’d taken before the game but perhaps in keeping with the oppressive weather, his announcements seemed quite sedated. Apparently so sedated that he made a massive error. Perhaps expecting the atmosphere to be at fever pitch due it being ’THE BIGGEST DERBY BETWEEN TAMAGAWA TEAMS IN THE WORLD!’ he made the big error of dropping out the usually extremely loud backing track for ユールネバ (as I think it’s referred to among Tokyo fans) halfway through the first verse revealing the utter silence in the ground. Perhaps the lyrics to the verse are a bit tricky to remember or perhaps no-one ever really sings it, but I’d say that Tony definitely overestimated the white heat of the Tokyo support on this occasion and instead triggered a giggling fit in me. I’m sorry Tony, but you made a big mistake.

- As did Nakagawa when it came to his hair. He is pushing on in his apparent desire to resemble a British granny in a bar in Benidorm, tanned to the point of crispiness from five days straight on the beach with seemingly thinning grey hair that has just about been disguised as blond but is clearly not. Either that or he’s looking for a role as a mini me for Donald Trump, with his orange skin tone and unruly yet fake looking shaft of weirdly coloured hair spiking out at a jaunty angle. At one point in the game when he made a tackle something dropped to the floor and he had to run and pick it up. I suppose it was a shin pad, but given that it seems that his goal is to either look as old as possible or perhaps conceal the fact that he is very old, it could as easily have been his dentures. Nakagawa, it doesn’t matter how many years pass, I will still detest you for your shithead goal celebration right in front of our fans.

- This game has reinforced my confusion when it comes to FC Tokyo and pyrotechnics. I liked to laugh at them for their national stadium ‘atmosphere’ building flame throwers but had to take that back to some extent when other teams used the same things in the same venue. It seems the flame throwers came as a job lot with the stadium hire, showing quite how hip the people who run the national stadium games are. In this game though Tokyo went big with the fireworks before the game. Everyone loves fireworks, don’t they, so that was kind of fun. The problem with having a mini display before a football game though is that the smoke just hung around for ages. Our first goal probably came in part due to the fact that no Tokyo defender could see through the gloom as the cross came over. Although the smoke had begun to clear by the time the second went in in similar fashion. And definitely had by the time the third went in… in similar fashion. Three headed goals in a game! And three goals for the third game in a row. Football is fun right now so let’s enjoy it and not worry about the possible reasons behind those wins. 

- Erm, the ref was Nishimura. But once again, he was… alright wasn’t he? I don’t remember anything even of note. This is all a bit uncomfortable for me. Sure we’ll get a stinker of an officiating performance soon though. 

- Finally, that FC Tokyo substitution sponsored slogan seems a bit harsh. It can’t feel very good if you’re leaving the pitch and they flash up ‘Change For The Better’ as they announce your removal. I won’t truly know how it feels till I hear one of my students say ‘thank god that wanker is leaving’ as I finish a class, but at least in that situation I would have the pride of knowing that my students have the ability to insult in perfect English, so could probably take some satisfaction from that.

Next up YFM at home next weekend. Would be lovely to continue this winning run and lovely to continue scoring three goals every game. Not sure if I’d like the Kobe self destruction route or the Tokyo not-at-all-with-it route to a win though. To be honest, if we get a win, I’ll be delighted however it comes about. Oniki said recently that if we win every remaining game we can still get 70 points, which is absolutely an amazingly ballsy thing to say considering how terrible we’ve been for most of the year, but perhaps shows that Oniki is a positive thinking kind of guy. If we’re thinking about trends continuing, and Yamada continues to score twice every game for the rest of the year he’d end up on 35 goals which would be pretty impressive but unfortunately wouldn’t be a record so I guess he’ll need to get a couple of hat tricks on the way. And if I continue to enjoy alcohol the way I have after the Kobe game and this match, I too might be reaching some kind of surprisingly high level, but perhaps not in a positive way. Long may the former things continue but maybe I should have a little rest from the latter.

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai

DF 2. TAKAI Kota

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for IENAGA 84')
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for OSHIMA 73')

MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 57')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for YAMADA 84')
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke  (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 73')

 
Goals

YAMADA (Frontale) 15' 0-1
YAMADA (Frontale) 20' 0-2
TAKAI (Frontale) 72' 0-3


My Frontale Man Of The Match

Although the details of the game are a bit vague in my mind, I think that given how I’ve long been saying our starting striker never scores and that I don’t think him starting there works and then he’s gone on to score two in all of the last three games, it has to go to…

YAMADA Shin - scoring goals is what he’s in the team for and he’s doing it. And you’ve got to love him for his Vai De La performance too, haven’t you? Surprisingly it doesn’t get old.

Highlights