Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 0 Ventforet Kofu
After perhaps what was one of the most infuriating experiences of the season we’ve moved on to what was perhaps one of the most… erm… underwhelming wins of the season. Parachuted into the Levain Cup with only eight teams remaining, at the start of the year this would certainly have looked like the easiest way for us to get our hands on a trophy this year. With our campaigns in every other competition lying in tatters, the Levain Cup is now our only way of getting anything out of what has been an even worse season than last year. With the return leg coming up soon, this post will be in the shorter style that I always attempt but which often gets thwarted by my waffling. Here we go.
- This was a win but it was far from convincing. Before the game, imagining that it would be exactly the same team as it always is, I suspected we’d draw the match and then lose late on in the second leg. An uncharacteristic rotation from Oniki, (more on that in a minute), meant that I was actually quite excited to watch this match. As it was, this was pretty much the same as ever really, with some ponderous build up finally resulting in some bad shooting, all just with some different faces on the pitch. The long ball tactics that Oniki conjured up for the Consadole defeat and which were a crucial part of what he thought was a good first half performance in that game are now gone. I couldn’t see any unique approach for this game. And let’s be honest, even when Oniki does change something, it’s basically the equivalent of swapping the tangerine slices for mandarin ones in his fruit salad, a change which is pretty difficult to notice and which has no real significance or effect. All of which underlines the fact that Oniki’s negative influence remains strong. This was the absolute easiest possible game for us in this stage of this cup. A home leg against a J2 team who are resolutely mid-table this year. But we only managed to win thanks to a mis-hit shot in the first half before a lot of wasting of chances. Due to the new rules, Kofu using a concussion sub meant that we could have made six changes from our bigger than usual bench. But the master Oniki only made four, and even those made us play worse than we had been doing before he intervened. I don’t know what the opposite of a golden touch is, but whatever it is, Oniki seems to have it. The fact that he rotated, whilst both welcome and extremely surprising, was also quite confusing. He usually doesn’t do this kind of thing apart from against non-league teams. Does this mean that he is really worried about relegation and is saving our ‘best’ players for the league? Does it mean that he saw how awful we were against Consadole and wanted to shake things up? There’s no way to tell. Particularly as he obviously included Wakizaka, who’d played pretty badly against Consadole. Oh and of course Tachibanada, but at right back naturally. I suspect for the next match he’ll revert to the Consadole line up, but maybe with one change. I think he’ll drop Sai (for absolutely no reason), play Tachibanada at right back and put Kawahara in midfield. Maybe I’ll be proved completely wrong, but that’s my guess.
- A bit about the stinker performances in this match. I mentioned Wakizaka above and whilst people might think I have an agenda against him, this was definitely another terrible game for him. He seems obsessed with desperately trying to do something fancy and is prepared to make stupid mistake after stupid mistake in pursuit of this ultimately pointless goal. Along with that I guess I’m sore because he tried to shoot when a simple sideways pass would have presented a teammate with an open goal which would have made the second leg a bit less worrying, and the fact that he seems so determined to dominate the score sheet that he was blocking Erison’s goal bound shots. (Do I need to put the winking face in here? Or do people understand this is not entirely serious?) He’s obviously not a bad player but he’s not playing well at the moment and Oniki’s insistence on including him endlessly is pissing me right off. Another kind of unfair thing to say but which I apparently seem to feel obliged to declare is that at the moment Miura really doesn’t seem to be as good as people think he is. Sasaki was much better at left back and we got worse after he was switched to the right. This all feels a bit harsh though as it’s not the players’ fault. It is Oniki’s fault. And as it’s not a great look to whinge when we’ve won, I’ll leave the moaning at this and then presumably pick it up again after the next match. In conclusion, we won, but it wasn’t a massive test, and thanks to our one dimensional approach, it’s one that we could easily have failed.
- A few words about the debutants. Kawahara was probably the stand out player. Which isn’t exactly great news when you consider that’s the one area of the pitch that we have the most cover in. He looked good in the tackle and had a nice range of passes. I’m optimistic about his future, IF he gets a fair crack. Hayder had a solid debut too I thought. It looks a bit like he’s going to be the Jesiel replacement. I don’t know if Jesiel will be leaving us but the fact that he keeps getting injured is a bit of a concern. We haven’t seen the best of Jesiel for a few years now, so hopefully Hayder can fill the gap that Jesiel has left due to his injuries. Having a reliable centre back would free up Sasaki to play on the left where I think he’s better. But anyone who remembers when Jesiel joined us will recall that in spite of him looking better than the rest of our centre backs, he was only given a shot once there were no other options, so maybe we shouldn’t expect Oniki to see Hayder have a good game and then play him again. Yamaguchi did fine but was only really tested on a couple of occasions. I’m still a bit miffed by Oniki’s treatment of Hayasaka who now seems to be back to third choice after a defeat where he wasn’t at fault. It was also kind of baffling to see Yamaguchi given man of the match in the stadium considering how little he had to do and the level of the opposition. I presume Oniki doesn’t pick this award, but jeez, it seemed like there was some kind of emotional bullying going on to both Hayasaka (who after coming through our youth team finally got a chance, was shockingly let down by the players in front of him and was immediately exiled) and Tono, who would have been expected to get it given that he scored the only goal. Yamaguchi did his job and made a couple of decent saves, but when you consider that Kofu didn't really have many chances and the fact that it wasn't some kind of against all odds protection of a goal that was getting battered it seems a bit strange to single him out for special praise.
- Once again, nothing about the opposition or the ref. This was a fairly uneventful game. It was a shame that Erison’s goal was ruled out by VAR but even from the initial replay on the big screen before VAR was even mentioned I wondered if it might be. We in the stadium certainly didn’t see enough replay angles to make any conclusive decision but there seemed to be enough for the ref to change his mind when at the monitor. He did have to watch it quite a few times though to decide on what I guess is supposed to be a clear and obvious error. The cancellation of the goal really took the wind of our sails though. That wind was only a light breeze though, but I guess it shows quite how on edge everyone is at the moment and how their confidence is pretty fragile. But I have no issues with the decision, and the subs Oniki made had a greater negative impact anyway. Oops here I go again with the whinging…
Next up the second leg in Kofu on Sunday. I made my team prediction above and don’t particularly want to predict a result. And don’t need to predict anything tactical, do I? 😉 After that we have a relegation six pointer against Sagan Tosu the following Friday. Way too much Friday Night J League remaining this season for my liking. If we do slip up on Sunday and then go on to slip up again next Friday we could be in a hell of a lot of trouble. There are a lot of teams behind us but at the same time the points difference isn’t much and recently we’ve been known to give our rivals in that area of the table a gift-wrapped three points for free. And after Sagan Tosu we still have to play Kyoto… And when the ACL starts will have a fixture pile up. And presumably still just the one idea. Blimey.
- This was a win but it was far from convincing. Before the game, imagining that it would be exactly the same team as it always is, I suspected we’d draw the match and then lose late on in the second leg. An uncharacteristic rotation from Oniki, (more on that in a minute), meant that I was actually quite excited to watch this match. As it was, this was pretty much the same as ever really, with some ponderous build up finally resulting in some bad shooting, all just with some different faces on the pitch. The long ball tactics that Oniki conjured up for the Consadole defeat and which were a crucial part of what he thought was a good first half performance in that game are now gone. I couldn’t see any unique approach for this game. And let’s be honest, even when Oniki does change something, it’s basically the equivalent of swapping the tangerine slices for mandarin ones in his fruit salad, a change which is pretty difficult to notice and which has no real significance or effect. All of which underlines the fact that Oniki’s negative influence remains strong. This was the absolute easiest possible game for us in this stage of this cup. A home leg against a J2 team who are resolutely mid-table this year. But we only managed to win thanks to a mis-hit shot in the first half before a lot of wasting of chances. Due to the new rules, Kofu using a concussion sub meant that we could have made six changes from our bigger than usual bench. But the master Oniki only made four, and even those made us play worse than we had been doing before he intervened. I don’t know what the opposite of a golden touch is, but whatever it is, Oniki seems to have it. The fact that he rotated, whilst both welcome and extremely surprising, was also quite confusing. He usually doesn’t do this kind of thing apart from against non-league teams. Does this mean that he is really worried about relegation and is saving our ‘best’ players for the league? Does it mean that he saw how awful we were against Consadole and wanted to shake things up? There’s no way to tell. Particularly as he obviously included Wakizaka, who’d played pretty badly against Consadole. Oh and of course Tachibanada, but at right back naturally. I suspect for the next match he’ll revert to the Consadole line up, but maybe with one change. I think he’ll drop Sai (for absolutely no reason), play Tachibanada at right back and put Kawahara in midfield. Maybe I’ll be proved completely wrong, but that’s my guess.
- A bit about the stinker performances in this match. I mentioned Wakizaka above and whilst people might think I have an agenda against him, this was definitely another terrible game for him. He seems obsessed with desperately trying to do something fancy and is prepared to make stupid mistake after stupid mistake in pursuit of this ultimately pointless goal. Along with that I guess I’m sore because he tried to shoot when a simple sideways pass would have presented a teammate with an open goal which would have made the second leg a bit less worrying, and the fact that he seems so determined to dominate the score sheet that he was blocking Erison’s goal bound shots. (Do I need to put the winking face in here? Or do people understand this is not entirely serious?) He’s obviously not a bad player but he’s not playing well at the moment and Oniki’s insistence on including him endlessly is pissing me right off. Another kind of unfair thing to say but which I apparently seem to feel obliged to declare is that at the moment Miura really doesn’t seem to be as good as people think he is. Sasaki was much better at left back and we got worse after he was switched to the right. This all feels a bit harsh though as it’s not the players’ fault. It is Oniki’s fault. And as it’s not a great look to whinge when we’ve won, I’ll leave the moaning at this and then presumably pick it up again after the next match. In conclusion, we won, but it wasn’t a massive test, and thanks to our one dimensional approach, it’s one that we could easily have failed.
- A few words about the debutants. Kawahara was probably the stand out player. Which isn’t exactly great news when you consider that’s the one area of the pitch that we have the most cover in. He looked good in the tackle and had a nice range of passes. I’m optimistic about his future, IF he gets a fair crack. Hayder had a solid debut too I thought. It looks a bit like he’s going to be the Jesiel replacement. I don’t know if Jesiel will be leaving us but the fact that he keeps getting injured is a bit of a concern. We haven’t seen the best of Jesiel for a few years now, so hopefully Hayder can fill the gap that Jesiel has left due to his injuries. Having a reliable centre back would free up Sasaki to play on the left where I think he’s better. But anyone who remembers when Jesiel joined us will recall that in spite of him looking better than the rest of our centre backs, he was only given a shot once there were no other options, so maybe we shouldn’t expect Oniki to see Hayder have a good game and then play him again. Yamaguchi did fine but was only really tested on a couple of occasions. I’m still a bit miffed by Oniki’s treatment of Hayasaka who now seems to be back to third choice after a defeat where he wasn’t at fault. It was also kind of baffling to see Yamaguchi given man of the match in the stadium considering how little he had to do and the level of the opposition. I presume Oniki doesn’t pick this award, but jeez, it seemed like there was some kind of emotional bullying going on to both Hayasaka (who after coming through our youth team finally got a chance, was shockingly let down by the players in front of him and was immediately exiled) and Tono, who would have been expected to get it given that he scored the only goal. Yamaguchi did his job and made a couple of decent saves, but when you consider that Kofu didn't really have many chances and the fact that it wasn't some kind of against all odds protection of a goal that was getting battered it seems a bit strange to single him out for special praise.
- Once again, nothing about the opposition or the ref. This was a fairly uneventful game. It was a shame that Erison’s goal was ruled out by VAR but even from the initial replay on the big screen before VAR was even mentioned I wondered if it might be. We in the stadium certainly didn’t see enough replay angles to make any conclusive decision but there seemed to be enough for the ref to change his mind when at the monitor. He did have to watch it quite a few times though to decide on what I guess is supposed to be a clear and obvious error. The cancellation of the goal really took the wind of our sails though. That wind was only a light breeze though, but I guess it shows quite how on edge everyone is at the moment and how their confidence is pretty fragile. But I have no issues with the decision, and the subs Oniki made had a greater negative impact anyway. Oops here I go again with the whinging…
Next up the second leg in Kofu on Sunday. I made my team prediction above and don’t particularly want to predict a result. And don’t need to predict anything tactical, do I? 😉 After that we have a relegation six pointer against Sagan Tosu the following Friday. Way too much Friday Night J League remaining this season for my liking. If we do slip up on Sunday and then go on to slip up again next Friday we could be in a hell of a lot of trouble. There are a lot of teams behind us but at the same time the points difference isn’t much and recently we’ve been known to give our rivals in that area of the table a gift-wrapped three points for free. And after Sagan Tosu we still have to play Kyoto… And when the ACL starts will have a fixture pile up. And presumably still just the one idea. Blimey.
Team
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki (Yellow card 61')
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (Yellow card 51')
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (Yellow card 51')
FW 9. ERISON
FW 17. TONO Daiya
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 74')
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for SEGAWA 83')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for WAKIZAKA 74')
Goals
Highlights
FW 17. TONO Daiya
Subs
GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
MF 6. ZE RICARDO
DF 13. MIURA Sota (on for YAMAMOTO 74')DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 74')
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for SEGAWA 83')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for WAKIZAKA 74')
Goals
TONO (Frontale) 27' 1-0
My Frontale Man Of The Match
In such an underwhelming game I wouldn’t normally give this out but given that the decision in the stadium was a bit of a weird one I feel like I should balance that out. No offence to Yamaguchi but as he didn't really have that much to do, it’s going to…
KAWAHARA So and SAKASI Asahi - Kawahara looked a lot better than some others who’ve played in midfield for us this year and looks very promising. Sasaki had a good game in his preferred position. Presumably if Oniki continues to Oniki he won’t get the chance to do that very often though.
KAWAHARA So and SAKASI Asahi - Kawahara looked a lot better than some others who’ve played in midfield for us this year and looks very promising. Sasaki had a good game in his preferred position. Presumably if Oniki continues to Oniki he won’t get the chance to do that very often though.
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