Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 2 Gamba Osaka
Welcome to part two of ‘Shit home games that end 2-2’. I will forever remain astonished that some people are happy to come away from a game like this, (and Wednesday’s), with positivity saying that it was an entertaining match. Clearly they are better people than me, as my feelings were irritation, frustration and creeping pessimism. And then I followed up this game by watching my beloved Leyton Orient lose the play off final in the pub. Thankfully the many beers consumed softened the blow slightly. But needless to say, this was a truly shit weekend for football. But then again, we could have lost I suppose. So perhaps not the shittest weekend ever for football, but quite a shit one. Unbelievably, but somehow at the same time totally believably, YFM thrashed Kashima, so we had a good opportunity to claw back a little of the gap. However, this is suggesting that we still have some hopes of winning the league. I think they are evaporating with every successive game. But hey, let’s be positive and say we at least closed the gap by one point! Oh, but that shit game on Wednesday opened the gap by two points so our two disappointing draws have taken us further away from the leaders. And have taken me further towards negativity. I’m still not blaming Hasebe, but I’m losing a bit of patience with some players who seem to be getting worse game by game. Let’s get this over and done with and I can start thinking about a nice trip to Hiroshima next weekend, hopefully not distracted by the fact that we have to watch presumably another irritating game that ends in a frustrating draw there. (Or is that being too optimistic?).
Us -
People who don’t like negativity, maybe skip this part. There were a significant amount of players who didn’t do very well in this game as far as I’m concerned. Even with Erison out, Yamada didn’t start. And when he came on, perhaps he justified the fact that he didn’t start. I really want him to come good soon, but right now I’ve got to agree with Hasebe for starting Kobayashi ahead of him. His desperation to score somehow means he’s getting further and further away from being able to score, and less likely to pass. I don’t know what Kanda has done to not even be used from the bench. I don’t like saying it, but Yamada should be the one who’s an unused sub right now. Wakizaka had another poor game and seems to still be troubled by the ACL exit, if that is indeed the reason he has become quite bad at most aspects of football since we lost the final. He also shouldn’t be starting. Ienaga got my goat again, as he did in the Urawa game for his extremely slow exit from the pitch after he was subbed. It’s very amusing when he does it if we’re winning, but in this game we were drawing and still he was wasting time. Presumably the solution is to start with him on the bench and then it won’t happen. And finally, but perhaps most significantly, Yamaguchi had another nightmare. The situation is getting dangerously similar to that with Kamifukumoto in that it seems that at the moment, Yamaguchi in goal is basically giving the opposition a one goal head start. And when you consider we are missing good chances for fun, it makes it quite difficult to win games. Against Urawa he just watched the ball dribble into the net from a soft cross. In this game for their second goal, if he stood still it would have hit him, but instead he ran away from both the ball and the Gamba player, giving him a much bigger open goal to aim at. (And don’t forget that the reason Gamba won possession for this goal was because Wakizaka lost the ball trying a stupid little back heel in a dangerous area). It wasn’t all bad though. Sasaki and Yamamoto had really good games. And Ito looked dangerous when he came on. The problem was that the people who were supposed to be scoring couldn’t hit the target, (two shots on target out of 14), and the guy who was supposed to stop the ball going into our net but seems to be so scared of the ball that he runs away from it, only made one save in the game and let their other two shots on target in. I said above that I don’t blame Hasebe and then went on to say how people who are playing terribly shouldn’t be playing. I guess these two things don’t quite fit together perfectly, so maybe Hasebe needs to stop playing players who are woefully out of form. But I guess his thinking is that they are good players and they won’t get into form by not playing. Maybe we could just use one or two of them at a time and we wouldn’t be so shit? Oh, I almost forgot to do my marks out of ten. Considering that in the Urawa game I gave us 5.5, I definitely can’t justify going any higher even though the result was the same. The gutting late equaliser in that game was horrible, but the total shitness from plenty of players in this game makes me feel that 5.5 is way too optimistic. Let’s go right down the middle with a 5, because some players were tens and some were zeroes. I’m a bit worried though about how irritating this 5/10 game was, and how much more irritating a score below five might be. Hopefully we can avoid those for the time being.
Them -
Gamba seemed to be pretty going very physical in this match. Usami started the game by sliding into Maruyama’s ankle with his studs showing and the ball long gone. Ref didn’t even notice it. More on him and his accomplices later on. There was lots of overly physical play from Gamba I thought, but given that the ref was doing nothing, I guess it made sense as a game plan. Juan Kalano is still as unlikeable as he has always been, constantly with a scowl on his face, looking like he’s being made to play football with bits of lego in his boots. (Please note, that was note a typo when I wrote his name. Say it out loud if it doesn’t make sense). I think last time I saw him I got annoyed about the midget Yamashita’s diving and naturally that continued in this match along with him generally appearing to be a shithead. Of course he was always going to score, wasn’t he? Usami seemed to get injured late in the game. I wonder if it was just a way to waste some time and prolong an already planned sub. It happened after he’d ballooned the ball over the bar but if he was really injured I think the injury probably came from when he sprinted across the pitch to get up in the ref’s face not long before. It’s probably no surprise Gamba were employing rough tactics and general shittiness when you consider their manager though. Dressed in the classic wanker outfit of suit jacket and trainers, he was constantly whinging about everything. Fortunately for him, because he’s so special he was allowed to have a discussion with the ref over every incident that he thought hadn’t gone his way. He should have been sent off for his barrage of abuse at the officials when our second goal wasn’t ruled out. But instead he got a yellow card and an opportunity to air his grievances at length. Send the arsehole to the stands! And scuff up his trainers. That’ll teach him. Gamba weren’t that good in the first half and once again we really paid the price for not scoring more when we were clearly on top. A familiar story. But they did come into it later on and after their first goal, I don’t think we really made it out of our own half till we’d conceded another. So an entertaining game and a fair result? Well maybe, according to some. But fuck me it was an annoying afternoon.
Ref -
Sendachi was back at Todoroki. I checked my last two blog posts on his games with us and found one big win where I said he went unnoticed and one in the final game of last season where I said he let everything go. Well, I guess he at least kept up half of those two things in this game. Every decision he made, (when he actually did something), was probably one level too low. Regular fouls were ignored and we only got free kicks for things that merited yellow cards which of course he didn’t give. At the end he started throwing cards around everywhere, but to be honest it was too little too late. Perhaps he’d set himself a card target and realised that time was running out so he’d better start booking people. At one stage he played the advantage for a foul on a Gamba player, they played on and lost the ball, and then he took it back and gave them the free kick anyway. Very generous of him! Not wanting to be left out, the linesman in front of us also had a nightmare, constantly getting things wrong. There was an absolutely clear corner for us at the end that he gave as a goal kick. At one stage the ref overruled him for a decision he made about a throw. You have to be really, really shit to get overruled by such a shit ref. Even the useless Sendachi knew that one was a mistake. Apparently the linesman on the other side made a cock up for an offside against Gamba where they went on to shoot and Yamaguchi saved it. It’s a shame for Yamaguchi as that save might have made his stats look a bit better if the linesman hadn’t messed up. I guess the big decision that people will talk about is our second goal. Yamada seemed to be doing his best to get the goal ruled out by just wandering around in an offside position. Maybe the deflection helped us as when you consider the direction Ito was shooting in was well out of the way of Yamada until it was deflected. I dunno really. I think the rule is stupid. The problem is the whole interfering with play thing is that it’s another rule wildly open to interpretation. I don’t know why football is constantly trying to overcomplicate rules by making them subjective. Perhaps it’s to justify the continuing use of VAR. In this case, VAR checked it and wasn’t interested. Poyatos had his meeting and couldn’t sway the ref. I wouldn’t have been surprised if VAR had said the goal was good, Sendachi had gone over to Poyatos for their meeting, booked him and then canceled the goal. Something for everyone that way. Anyway, just another shit ref, this time with a couple of shit linesman friends with him. Guess we’d had a few games with nothing much to moan about from an officiating point of view so we were due a bad one. But blimey did he give both sets of fans plenty to complain about.
Next up, Hiroshima away… next Saturday! Wow! We have a midweek off. Not sure it will help the injury situation much as we seem to be cursed with lots of serious ones at the moment. I really hope Hasebe makes some changes otherwise we’re going to get battered. I really hope I don’t have to say at the end of the first half as I seem to be saying all the time recently, ‘I really hope we don’t regret not taking more of those many good chances’, before we go on to absolutely regret not taking more of those many good chances. This match, combined with the Orient game has made me very grateful for the Wednesday off. There was a total of one save in this game! One save! I’d take one save in Saturday’s game, but only if we make the save and we also have ten shots on target, all of which naturally we score from. Or maybe if we go with the same players again we’ll just have to hope that Sanfrecce field an ineligible player and we get awarded a 4-0 win when it’s discovered after the match finishes.
Us -
People who don’t like negativity, maybe skip this part. There were a significant amount of players who didn’t do very well in this game as far as I’m concerned. Even with Erison out, Yamada didn’t start. And when he came on, perhaps he justified the fact that he didn’t start. I really want him to come good soon, but right now I’ve got to agree with Hasebe for starting Kobayashi ahead of him. His desperation to score somehow means he’s getting further and further away from being able to score, and less likely to pass. I don’t know what Kanda has done to not even be used from the bench. I don’t like saying it, but Yamada should be the one who’s an unused sub right now. Wakizaka had another poor game and seems to still be troubled by the ACL exit, if that is indeed the reason he has become quite bad at most aspects of football since we lost the final. He also shouldn’t be starting. Ienaga got my goat again, as he did in the Urawa game for his extremely slow exit from the pitch after he was subbed. It’s very amusing when he does it if we’re winning, but in this game we were drawing and still he was wasting time. Presumably the solution is to start with him on the bench and then it won’t happen. And finally, but perhaps most significantly, Yamaguchi had another nightmare. The situation is getting dangerously similar to that with Kamifukumoto in that it seems that at the moment, Yamaguchi in goal is basically giving the opposition a one goal head start. And when you consider we are missing good chances for fun, it makes it quite difficult to win games. Against Urawa he just watched the ball dribble into the net from a soft cross. In this game for their second goal, if he stood still it would have hit him, but instead he ran away from both the ball and the Gamba player, giving him a much bigger open goal to aim at. (And don’t forget that the reason Gamba won possession for this goal was because Wakizaka lost the ball trying a stupid little back heel in a dangerous area). It wasn’t all bad though. Sasaki and Yamamoto had really good games. And Ito looked dangerous when he came on. The problem was that the people who were supposed to be scoring couldn’t hit the target, (two shots on target out of 14), and the guy who was supposed to stop the ball going into our net but seems to be so scared of the ball that he runs away from it, only made one save in the game and let their other two shots on target in. I said above that I don’t blame Hasebe and then went on to say how people who are playing terribly shouldn’t be playing. I guess these two things don’t quite fit together perfectly, so maybe Hasebe needs to stop playing players who are woefully out of form. But I guess his thinking is that they are good players and they won’t get into form by not playing. Maybe we could just use one or two of them at a time and we wouldn’t be so shit? Oh, I almost forgot to do my marks out of ten. Considering that in the Urawa game I gave us 5.5, I definitely can’t justify going any higher even though the result was the same. The gutting late equaliser in that game was horrible, but the total shitness from plenty of players in this game makes me feel that 5.5 is way too optimistic. Let’s go right down the middle with a 5, because some players were tens and some were zeroes. I’m a bit worried though about how irritating this 5/10 game was, and how much more irritating a score below five might be. Hopefully we can avoid those for the time being.
Them -
Gamba seemed to be pretty going very physical in this match. Usami started the game by sliding into Maruyama’s ankle with his studs showing and the ball long gone. Ref didn’t even notice it. More on him and his accomplices later on. There was lots of overly physical play from Gamba I thought, but given that the ref was doing nothing, I guess it made sense as a game plan. Juan Kalano is still as unlikeable as he has always been, constantly with a scowl on his face, looking like he’s being made to play football with bits of lego in his boots. (Please note, that was note a typo when I wrote his name. Say it out loud if it doesn’t make sense). I think last time I saw him I got annoyed about the midget Yamashita’s diving and naturally that continued in this match along with him generally appearing to be a shithead. Of course he was always going to score, wasn’t he? Usami seemed to get injured late in the game. I wonder if it was just a way to waste some time and prolong an already planned sub. It happened after he’d ballooned the ball over the bar but if he was really injured I think the injury probably came from when he sprinted across the pitch to get up in the ref’s face not long before. It’s probably no surprise Gamba were employing rough tactics and general shittiness when you consider their manager though. Dressed in the classic wanker outfit of suit jacket and trainers, he was constantly whinging about everything. Fortunately for him, because he’s so special he was allowed to have a discussion with the ref over every incident that he thought hadn’t gone his way. He should have been sent off for his barrage of abuse at the officials when our second goal wasn’t ruled out. But instead he got a yellow card and an opportunity to air his grievances at length. Send the arsehole to the stands! And scuff up his trainers. That’ll teach him. Gamba weren’t that good in the first half and once again we really paid the price for not scoring more when we were clearly on top. A familiar story. But they did come into it later on and after their first goal, I don’t think we really made it out of our own half till we’d conceded another. So an entertaining game and a fair result? Well maybe, according to some. But fuck me it was an annoying afternoon.
Ref -
Sendachi was back at Todoroki. I checked my last two blog posts on his games with us and found one big win where I said he went unnoticed and one in the final game of last season where I said he let everything go. Well, I guess he at least kept up half of those two things in this game. Every decision he made, (when he actually did something), was probably one level too low. Regular fouls were ignored and we only got free kicks for things that merited yellow cards which of course he didn’t give. At the end he started throwing cards around everywhere, but to be honest it was too little too late. Perhaps he’d set himself a card target and realised that time was running out so he’d better start booking people. At one stage he played the advantage for a foul on a Gamba player, they played on and lost the ball, and then he took it back and gave them the free kick anyway. Very generous of him! Not wanting to be left out, the linesman in front of us also had a nightmare, constantly getting things wrong. There was an absolutely clear corner for us at the end that he gave as a goal kick. At one stage the ref overruled him for a decision he made about a throw. You have to be really, really shit to get overruled by such a shit ref. Even the useless Sendachi knew that one was a mistake. Apparently the linesman on the other side made a cock up for an offside against Gamba where they went on to shoot and Yamaguchi saved it. It’s a shame for Yamaguchi as that save might have made his stats look a bit better if the linesman hadn’t messed up. I guess the big decision that people will talk about is our second goal. Yamada seemed to be doing his best to get the goal ruled out by just wandering around in an offside position. Maybe the deflection helped us as when you consider the direction Ito was shooting in was well out of the way of Yamada until it was deflected. I dunno really. I think the rule is stupid. The problem is the whole interfering with play thing is that it’s another rule wildly open to interpretation. I don’t know why football is constantly trying to overcomplicate rules by making them subjective. Perhaps it’s to justify the continuing use of VAR. In this case, VAR checked it and wasn’t interested. Poyatos had his meeting and couldn’t sway the ref. I wouldn’t have been surprised if VAR had said the goal was good, Sendachi had gone over to Poyatos for their meeting, booked him and then canceled the goal. Something for everyone that way. Anyway, just another shit ref, this time with a couple of shit linesman friends with him. Guess we’d had a few games with nothing much to moan about from an officiating point of view so we were due a bad one. But blimey did he give both sets of fans plenty to complain about.
Next up, Hiroshima away… next Saturday! Wow! We have a midweek off. Not sure it will help the injury situation much as we seem to be cursed with lots of serious ones at the moment. I really hope Hasebe makes some changes otherwise we’re going to get battered. I really hope I don’t have to say at the end of the first half as I seem to be saying all the time recently, ‘I really hope we don’t regret not taking more of those many good chances’, before we go on to absolutely regret not taking more of those many good chances. This match, combined with the Orient game has made me very grateful for the Wednesday off. There was a total of one save in this game! One save! I’d take one save in Saturday’s game, but only if we make the save and we also have ten shots on target, all of which naturally we score from. Or maybe if we go with the same players again we’ll just have to hope that Sanfrecce field an ineligible player and we get awarded a 4-0 win when it’s discovered after the match finishes.
Team
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 90')
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 90')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for KAWAHARA 71')
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 58')
FW 18. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for MARCINHO 57')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (Yellow card 90+8') (on for KOBAYASHI 57')
FW 38. KANDA Soma
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for KAWAHARA 71')
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 58')
FW 18. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for MARCINHO 57')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (Yellow card 90+8') (on for KOBAYASHI 57')
FW 38. KANDA Soma
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
My Frontale Man Of The Match
Kind of said this above but two people really stood out in what was a game of mixed fortunes for players.
SASAKI Asahi & YAMAMOTO Yuki - two bright lights in a day with plenty of gloomy performances. They were both at the heart of most of the good things we did in this match.
Goals
MARCINHO (Frontale) 32' 1-0
USAMI (Urawa) 53' 1-1
YAMASHITA (Urawa) 60' 1-2
ITO (Frontale) 79' 2-2
Highlights
