Vs Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo (away) 1/9/24 J League match 29

Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo 2 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale 

Ah, another amazing game! I’ve said so many times this year that we’ve reached a new low that perhaps the phrase has lost its meaning. I can confirm though that this most definitely was a new low. Perhaps worried that we were in mid-table mediocrity and had nothing to play for after our three win run, Oniki has plunged us back into the excitement of a relegation battle. But don’t worry guys, he’s got it all under control! Actually, if he did say those words it would be enough to send me into a massive downward spiral of worrying. We’re six points off the drop zone with quite a few teams between us and the relegation places. This probably means that we’re not in too much trouble. However, we’re absolutely the worst kind of shite at the moment and have a manager who has long since lost any credibility as a capable leader. I was sitting around all morning doing nothing because I knew I had to write this blog post and totally couldn’t be bothered to do it. But I must do it in order to free me up to do other more exciting things like deep clean the bathroom. Here we go...

- Absolute shit from both teams in the first half. Terrible skills, terrible tactics, terrible vibes. Everything felt like it was a game between two teams who’d not only already been relegated but also who’d been told they were about to be liquidated and the players had been told someone was about to set fire to their homes. Utterly shit. Utterly useless. And whilst this kind of uselessness can sometimes be entertaining this was utterly dull too. Basically two teams doing a couple of sideways passes and then gifting possession to the opposition. So bad was the first half that the only part of it that is shown on the highlights is our kick off, which in a very prescient way shows us pass the ball backwards and then aimlessly hoof it long, immediately losing possession. But surely the managers saw how bad it was and would do something at half time, right?
 

- Half right. As in one of them did. And no surprises, it was the Consadole manager. Oniki apparently looked at that first half and thought, ‘Hmmmm, pretty good, we’re not losing and they’re as bad as us so we should be able to get a thrilling 0-0 draw against the team who are sitting bottom of the league’. We weren’t. Consadole came out firing. We came out snoozing. They were well on top and then also made some changes. Which presumably caused Oniki to get the magnets out and have a think. And in his usual lightning fast way he produced the game changing substitution of Tono on for Marcinho. Because yeah, that was the big problem area, wasn’t it? Five minutes later they scored. Oniki was at this stage presumably thinking, ‘If we keep things tight we can come away with a great 1-0 defeat against the team bottom of the league’. Out came the magnets again and when he realised we don’t get any points for losing 1-0 he made two more subs, taking off the right back and the player who’d come closest to scoring and giving two strikers who are desperate to play and score a whopping 11 minutes to completely turn around the game. Of course Kobayashi would have to do that from right wing instead of up front as Yamada was on the pitch and he scored some goals a while ago so is now undroppable. We briefly flirted with two up front, (Yamada and Erison), before Oniki saw Oniki sense, and moved Erison out to play on the left. It’s impossible to understand what he is trying to do or what he even thinks. Unbelievably his post match comments included him saying that we should have played more like we did in the first half but we maybe couldn’t keep it up because we'd overdone it trying too hard in that half . This is now gaslighting of the highest degree. Surely most people at the club now realise he’s talking bollocks. Can’t someone call the authorities and get him taken out of harms way for both his and our sake.
 

- I don’t like to single players out and I guess I’m about to single out so many that it probably doesn’t count as singling them out. Those who were crap from back to front. Takai, again after a confidence boost played awfully and was partly at fault for both goals. Miura, did nothing apart from attack their number 33,  and well done to him for doing that, but other than that he was awful. And I think his corners might be even worse than Wakizaka’s, which is really saying something. Tachibanada, seems to completely disappear when playing alongside Oshima. Only appeared when he was moved to right back and did nothing for their second goal. Wakizaka, strolls about the pitch looking to make a killer showbiz pass and in pursuit of that one good pass per game, spends the rest of the time giving the ball away. Marcinho, feel a bit guilty as he clearly tries hard but about a month ago he was our only attacking outlet and wasted way more chances than he made, never passing until it was absolutely too late. Presumably has been ‘coached’ by Oniki and now seems to have lost the attacking part of his game, leaving him basically just with the missing chances part of his game. Yamada, you can never fault his effort but why he gets almost 90 minutes of every game and is automatically ahead of every other striker we have, I don’t know. He had a great run of games but since then has done close to nothing. And quite how anyone not in the starting line up is supposed to do enough to get in the team from just playing in practice or for ten minutes at the most in games we’ve already totally fucked up, I don’t know. But this is all unfair. We know they’re not bad players. It’s Oniki's fault. But still we’ll go with 4-3-fucking-3 and perhaps his new tweak as a reaction to us losing again will be to tell them to attack less. His one tactical masterstroke in this game was to pump it forward as often as possible. Lots of long balls to our front three who aren’t very big and two of whom probably won’t even be up front. But even these long balls were awful. The only person who didn’t immediately hoof the ball off the pitch or give it to Consadole was Oshima, and his passes to Marcinho were ultimately pointless as it seemed that Oniki had spent the week telling Marcinho that he is shit, had kidnapped his pet and said that the pet would face the consequences if Marcinho attempted to attack.

 
- Consadole had kept three clean sheets all season until this match. Two of them were against Jubilo and the other one was in the first game of the season. They are notoriously not bothered about defending and on the rare occasions they win, it’s usually 5-3 or something similar. We failed to score against them. And worse than that, I can only remember one decent chance. We could still be playing now and probably would only have been able to score if their goalie had to pop off to go to the toilet. I’m not even convinced we could put the ball into an empty net at the moment. I think that right now, we’d be defeated by one of those free kick dummy walls that people use to practice. Somehow our tactic of trying to pass the ball directly through that wall rather than go around it wouldn't pay off. And then after a light gust of wind blows the wall over and it would clip the ball which would trundle slowly down the pitch, with one of our defenders who’d been distracted by Oniki shouting micro management instructions from the side of the pitch turning round quickly, taking out our goalie, and the ball would trickle slowly over the line. Oniki’s assessment would be something along the lines of ‘We wanted to win for the supporters who’d come to the stadium and should have tried to focus more on passing the ball though the solid object. I take full responsibility for the result, (By which I mean, I take no responsibility, it’s nothing to do with me), and I’ll do the same thing next week when we come up against another tough opponent, those little cones they use for dribbling practice.’

It's difficult to see but there's some double
magnet board action going on here

- It’s not all Oniki’s fault though. Well, 95% his fault, but not all his fault. I said it last week but our summer transfer business was ridiculous. Along with the disappointed Brazilian quota we have to fulfill (which now seems to be have been widened to being a disappointed South American quote), it seems like we also have to make up a supremely talented central midfielder quota too. I’m sure on his magnet boards Oniki has on numerous occasions tried to work out how to play a 0-10-0 formation. I guess that way we could get the pass count up which seems to be our only aim recently. Yamamoto has been treated appallingly and I’m kind of surprised he didn’t demand to leave in the summer. I hope Ze Ricardo is enjoying his time in Japan in the way that Gomis is. I saw one of Gomis’s Instagram posts and I’m not sure if he was being ironic when he said he’s ’Enjoying [his] journey through Japan’s culture’. I’m pleased he is because I can’t imagine he’s enjoying his time at Frontale. And poor Hayasaka. Out of the squad again. Wonder what the excuse if this time… None of these people have been given a fair chance. And there are numerous others who you could add to the list. And at the same time there are people in the team and in charge of the team who consistently perform badly but aren’t held to the same standards. The supporters aren’t immune from criticism either though in my opinion. I like the fact that we’re nice and generally positive supporters. I don’t like us being encouraged to sing a congratulatory sing after an awful performance when we’ve lost against the team who were bottom of the league. Some elements of our support would probably roll out a 'let’s go to the next level' song as our relegation is confirmed after our last home game of the season against Avispa. 'Let’s pull together and have a great season in J2 next year!' I’m not going to boo them, although I might reconsider my no booing policy if that sneak Oniki ever came to the supporters after the game instead of slinking away. But at the same time, I’m not going to sing to them if they’ve stunk the place up. I don’t think it’s their fault, I think it’s Oniki’s fault. Likewise if one of my students completely fails their Eiken test because I was instructed to only teach them words you can use to insult a referee in English instead of using the proper materials, I wouldn’t expect their parents to come into the school and give me a round of applause for my efforts. If they do a decent job I’ll clap them and sing. If they’re shite I’m just going to stand with my arms crossed and stay quiet. I wish more people would do the same.

Not a word about the ref or the opposition because there’s nothing to say. Everything in this game was down to us. We are playing awfully with awful tactics and awful team selections. Confidence is justifiably non-existent and the guy who is supposed to turn this around thought the first half of this game was a success! We’re fucked! Next up a home and way double header against Kofu in the Levain Cup, which we’ve been parachuted into at a late stage, helping us to not go out in the first round. In the Emperor's Cup we triumphantly beat a non league team and then lost to a J2 team. I fear that this time we’ll go one step worse and go out at the first time of asking. Expect the same line up and some amazing tactical tweak, perhaps something like attempting to keep the ball by the corner flag for the entirety of the home leg. If we crash out of the Levain we can really focus on the league... ermmm, on avoiding relegation to J2. Oniki will know what to do. He has a tactical approach for every occasion. by which I mean he has one tactical approach that he uses for every single fucking game. Success this year will be staying in J1. On our showing in this game, even though it seems like it should be achievable, I really am starting to have my doubts.

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
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 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
FW 9. ERISON (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 79')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for IENAGA 79')

MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 64')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for WAKIZAKA 85')

FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for YAMADA 85')

Goals

AOKI (Consadole) 71' 1-0
SUZUKI (Consadole) 80' 2-0

Highlights