Vs Albirex Niigata (home) 13/10/24 Levain Cup Semi Final 2nd Leg

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 2 Albirex Niigata (1-6 on agg.)

With us needing to do a bit of work after a terrible first leg, one thing was certain before this game. It was going to be a GOAL RUSH! Plenty of attacking football. GOAL RUSH! Lots of shots and lots of goals. GOAL RUSH! Of course all of our attacking might mean that we gave away a few chances at the back, but we’d more than compensate for that by the amount of great goals we’d score. GOAL RUSH! Oh, unfortunately in a game where scoring three times to take it to extra time was the bare minimum required, we failed to score. And not only did we fail to score, we also conceded twice. So in the end we were just the six goals short of making the final. It says a lot that in all of the photos I took of the game, all of our players just seem to be hanging around doing nothing. I've only included one, as much like the game, the photos were even worse than they usually are. I’m totally fed up with wasting time writing these posts as there’s nothing left to say. It’s always the same old shit from Oniki. The opposition always know what to do. Even if Oniki nominally changes the formation, still the approach is the same. In the first leg we needed over 500 passes for one shot on target. In this game the stats were marginally better, but still the important one was the same. Zero goals. In a game we needed to win and they just needed to not concede four times, we ended up having significantly less shots than the opposition. Right from the start, aside from the immediate time wasting from Albirex, (not a criticism, a legitimate tactic which the ref seemed to notice and moan at them about but of course did nothing to prevent it happening again), you would really have thought that we were the team with the big first leg lead. The usual ridiculous amount of passing amongst the defence and then… nothing. As soon as we got the ball out of our half we gave it away. Even players who’ve stood out a bit recently for not being shit had a bad day. The only possible justification for our slowly slowly patient build up could be if the intention was to bore Niigata sufficiently that they fell asleep and then we’d be able to perhaps score a couple of goals past their prone snoozing bodies. Judging by our finishing though, I wouldn’t even say that would have been a given anyway.

I don’t think there’s much else for me to say. I don’t have anything amusing to write as there is nothing amusing about our games at the moment. It’s all shit. The end of the game was greeted with what was perhaps the most booing I think I have ever heard at Todoroki. As I always say, I’m not a booer myself, but I think it was totally justified. Although it might be a bit unfair as the target of the booing should clearly be the manager rather than the players. And he has very rarely come out after a game and, surprise surprise, that was a game we won. Usually he weasels away and lets everyone else take the criticism. Maybe the chairman could do with getting a bit of stick too. After all it’s him who clearly thought Oniki was the answer at the end of last season, (well actually, quite a bit before the end of last season but that new contract was particularly galling), and who still presumably thinks things are going well. It reminds me of his astonishment when Chanathip left, being surprised that he didn’t want to sit in the stands and wait for his chance (which clearly would only really come if all of Oniki’s favourites were either injured or got sold). Perhaps the chairman like Oniki, believes that we should all wait patiently for Oniki’s tactics to start working again. At the same time, try to dilute the home advantage as much as possible by allowing Niigata fans to take over almost half of the stadium. MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! However, this does explain how this game managed to almost be a sell out even though we are not only shit, but utterly dull right now. Why would anyone apart from the most masochistic of Frontale fans think that this would be a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The pre-game motivational video showing previous times we’ve come back from deficits and scored goals, (they had to dig quite a way back into the past to find some of that footage as recently we’ve been more often than not, throwing away points at the end of matches rather than gaining them), did a good job of getting the fans going and there seemed to be some kind of (clearly delusional) belief that we might be able to get the job done. This was all smashed to pieces as soon as the match started though. The video stated that statistically we had close to zero chance of winning the tie. I don’t know if it’s possible to have a minus % chance of something happening, but clearly that was going to be the only way our chance of winning would be going right from the kick off. Maybe some of the fans believed, but it didn’t seem like the players did. And who can blame them? They probably don’t know how to react when they hear an Oniki team talk now. ‘Really? That’s what you think we should do? Have you watched any of our games this year? Is your magnet board broken?’ And still the clown is in charge. Of course I don’t expect him to be fired, but at least give us the slight morale boost of announcing that he’ll leave at the end of the year. Please, I’m begging you. Please… won’t somebody think of the poor children!

Next up, who gives a shit? Well actually it’s Gamba Osaka for another Friday Night J League. As the game is kind of meaningless, maybe we’ll get something from it. Nothing to play for means that we now have the oppotunity to give some other players a chance. But of course we probably won’t because of the clown who is picking the team. Maybe it’s important for him to try to not get his worst ever league finish when he’s thinking of future employment. But to be honest, I think most of us don’t really care if we finish 11th or 16th. We’ve been so bad in 2024 that we deserved to get nothing. And that’s exactly what we’re going to get. 

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 52')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (Yellow card 40')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 9. ERISON

Subs

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for MIURA 46')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for YAMADA 57')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 67')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for YAMAMOTO 67')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (Yellow card 90+1') (on for ERISON 57')
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR

Goals

KOMI (Niigata) 31' 0-1
OTA (Niigata) 89' 0-2

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

A somewhat surprising return of this section, particularly because this game was so bad. But it has to go to...

JUNG Sung-Ryong - If we hadn't had him in goal we would have been humiliated in both the home and away legs of this tie.


Highlights