Kashima Antlers 2 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale
Back down to Earth with a bang in this game which at times looked like it was going to be marvellous but turned out horribly. People have talked about their being a Kokuritsu curse with teams who move their games there not being able to win. Equally I think we have a Kokuritsu curse, as we never seem to play particularly well there. Judging by this game, our curse is stronger. With another game coming up on Wednesday, let's get this done, under the usual headings.
Us -
Not so many surprises in the line up. I guess Miura’s injury situation isn’t good as he was nowhere to be seen. As was Wakizaka, which was a bit strange as I wasn’t aware of any injury to him. Aside from those two it was business as usual really. One possible downside of that is that the people who played the most minutes in the ACL were once again starting and maybe could have done with a rest. In the ACL our defence looked quite solid, but on this occasion it looked quite tired. In the first half I thought we were pretty good. We were all over Kashima and really should have scored more than once. I said towards the end of the half that if we didn’t take our chances we might come to regret it and sadly we did. There were a lot of good chances missed. In the second half we noticeably tired and even though we could make some changes, I don’t think those changes made much of a difference to either our making or taking of chances. Hopefully this game was just a blip, with us still being tired from our ACL endeavours. Ozeki had a good game which was slightly blighted by him missing a pretty good scoring opportunity. Erison and Marcinho both shot rather than passed when the other was in a better position so I guess that equals out, but sadly equals out at two missed chances rather than two goals. Yamaguchi didn’t have a great game. I guess he must be tired too. Until now I think he’s done pretty well, but on this occasion he wasn't really up to the same standard. I'm not singling him out though, as even having conceded two, we could have won comfortably. But of course you’re never going to win when you mess up your shots and concede soft goals. I suspect that Hasebe knew how much we all wanted to win this game and with that in mind didn’t rotate. But looking back, you’ve got to wonder if maybe we would have done better with a few more changes. The clear drop off from the first to second half suggests that we ran out of steam. With midweek and weekend games coming consistently for the next few weeks, you’ve got to hope we can get rid of that lingering fatigue a bit. Definitely not panic stations yet, but this was definitely a disappointing outcome after a promising start.
Them -
Recently, when it comes to hatability, Kashima have gone under the radar slightly, with other apparently more dislikable teams over shadowing Kashima’s grottiness. But clearly they had a point to prove when it came to showing us what a bunch of shits they are, and they did in spades. They have a surprising number of unlikeable players. I’m not including Suzuki in this. It seems that plenty of people hate him, but I don't mind him. It seemed that the ref quite liked him too, but more on that later. Their fans are quite irritating and this was demonstrated with the absolute silence in the stadium pre-match, right up until we sang a song, waking them up and starting a chorus of boos, only for them fall back into silence moments later. First class booers apparently. Their lengthy but ultimately dull chanting of Oniki’s name after their team announcement was presumably intended to make us Frontale fans cry, as it seemed they thought we’d be distraught that they had prised Oniki away from us. Not sure that's really what happened. Us giving his name a clap is probably quite at odds with what they’ll do after they inevitably dump him when things start going wrong. Even though he’s a former Kashima player I seem to remember that his name always got a chorus of boos when he was in charge of us. This might sound like sour grapes but I thought they weren’t very good. When Suzuki didn’t have the ball they did nothing. It was classic Oniki pointless possession. After about 30 passes along the defence line someone finally realised that the game plan was ‘give it to Yuma’ and only then did they threaten. This is not entirely accurate as they also had another tactic which was to hoof the ball forward. And those yucky long throws too. It seemed that when Oniki was our manager and had Sai to do long throws, the long throw tactic was beneath him. But now it seems to be the only way they take throws. I guess he feels that he has to win at all costs. I reckon if Suzuki gets injured, Kashima are going to fall apart. I don’t want to wish injury on him, but I do want them to fall apart. I haven’t even mentioned the dark arts which have always been a Kashima thing, (spirit of Zico perhaps), and are still very much on show. Horrendous time wasting from them from the moment they went ahead. Feigning injuries all over the pitch. I would say that I was surprised to see their centre back go down injured, require treatment, the physios signalling to the bench that he couldn’t carry on, the bench realising that they had used all their subs, the player leaving the pitch absolutely destroyed only to make a miraculous Lazarus like recovery, but the fact is it was just another example of their shithousery, so was not surprising at all. They are a thoroughly unlikeable team and hopefully they'll fall to pieces soon. One good thing though was that they moved the game to the National Stadium. Whilst, as I said above, we’re almost always shit there, at least we didn’t have to go to and come back from Kashima on that rotten bus. It was probably extremely convenient for the majority of their fanbase too as I think most of them live much closer to the National Stadium than to Kashima.
Ref -
Still the quest for me to say a ref has had a good game in a defeat for us continues. Perhaps this demonstrates the true level of my prettiness. I guess you can judge this for yourself. Nakamura was back in town and much like the last time I saw one of our games that he was in charge of, he was an absolute joke. I’ve said it before but the transformation in his refereeing skills since he won ref of the year a few years ago is shocking. Of course Kashima are prize shithousers, but we all knew this before the game and I’m sure he did too. But he seemed to fall for all of it. Almost every challenge with Suzuki involved ended up with a free kick for Kashima. Actually, it even seemed like the ref was taking instructions from Suzuki. If he did something bad, just let the game continue. Any time he was tackled, give him a free kick. He gave them a very soft free kick which lead to their second goal. Maybe they’ll pay him an indirect assist bonus for it. Also, if a Kashima player got right in the face of the ref shouting at him, no problem at all. Who needs to give out yellow cards for obvious dissent after all? Plenty of times he’d stop the game because one of their players had cramp. I’m not sure it really counts as something your supposed to stop the game for, but it seemed to be part of the Kashima game plan, and therefore the ref had to follow it. The thing that annoyed me the most was the nonsensical decision, (but not nonsensical when you consider it was given by Nakamura in Kashima’s favour, I guess), when their keeper jumped to catch the ball, fell over and dropped it, Kanda took the loose ball and the ref gave them a free kick. I don’t think there was any contact apart from perhaps a brushing of shirt on shirt. Totally predictable outcome though. I didn’t mention this in the Kashima section, but one of the major pricks in the Kashima team is clearly their meathead of a keeper. Gutted we couldn’t score past him more, and doubly gutted that was due to our poor shooting rather than anything good he did. Anyway, Nakamura has become awful and continued to be awful in this game. If he’d been the ref for legendary spirit of Zico moment, when Zico, upset about the opposition being awarded a penalty, spat on the ball, Nakamura probably would have sent off the penalty taker for being irritated at Zico’s attempt to clean the ball for him. Nakamura is the perfect ref for a Kashima game as they are arseholes and he seems to be trying his best to also be one.
So a massively frustrating game. Kashima aren’t that good, but us fucking up has given them a decent lead at the top. Even if we win all of our games in hand they’ll still be seven points ahead of us. Please some other teams give them a pasting. They are extremely unlikeable and I’d love them to mess up another season. People have said that they’d like to see Oniki do well. and whilst I understand this sentiment, you’ve got to realise that he’s now the manger of Kashima so the only reasonable wish is that his season goes terribly wrong. Sorry Toru, but you are working for Satan now so I’ll give you a little clap before the game, but hope that your despicable team loses every match. Next up, Yokohama FC at home on Wednesday. It’s a must win game, not only because we need to get some form back, but also because our ACL absence has left us quite close to the teams at the bottom of the table. YFC quite often seem to frustrate us. Their goals scored total is the lowest in the league and even the shitbags at YFM have scored more than them having played two fewer games. I suspect we’ll see some rotation, and hopefully a few fresher players might be able to inject a bit of fizz into our play. Fingers crossed we can get a result, climb up the table a bit, and get ourselves back to the level that we know we can play at.
Us -
Not so many surprises in the line up. I guess Miura’s injury situation isn’t good as he was nowhere to be seen. As was Wakizaka, which was a bit strange as I wasn’t aware of any injury to him. Aside from those two it was business as usual really. One possible downside of that is that the people who played the most minutes in the ACL were once again starting and maybe could have done with a rest. In the ACL our defence looked quite solid, but on this occasion it looked quite tired. In the first half I thought we were pretty good. We were all over Kashima and really should have scored more than once. I said towards the end of the half that if we didn’t take our chances we might come to regret it and sadly we did. There were a lot of good chances missed. In the second half we noticeably tired and even though we could make some changes, I don’t think those changes made much of a difference to either our making or taking of chances. Hopefully this game was just a blip, with us still being tired from our ACL endeavours. Ozeki had a good game which was slightly blighted by him missing a pretty good scoring opportunity. Erison and Marcinho both shot rather than passed when the other was in a better position so I guess that equals out, but sadly equals out at two missed chances rather than two goals. Yamaguchi didn’t have a great game. I guess he must be tired too. Until now I think he’s done pretty well, but on this occasion he wasn't really up to the same standard. I'm not singling him out though, as even having conceded two, we could have won comfortably. But of course you’re never going to win when you mess up your shots and concede soft goals. I suspect that Hasebe knew how much we all wanted to win this game and with that in mind didn’t rotate. But looking back, you’ve got to wonder if maybe we would have done better with a few more changes. The clear drop off from the first to second half suggests that we ran out of steam. With midweek and weekend games coming consistently for the next few weeks, you’ve got to hope we can get rid of that lingering fatigue a bit. Definitely not panic stations yet, but this was definitely a disappointing outcome after a promising start.
Them -
Recently, when it comes to hatability, Kashima have gone under the radar slightly, with other apparently more dislikable teams over shadowing Kashima’s grottiness. But clearly they had a point to prove when it came to showing us what a bunch of shits they are, and they did in spades. They have a surprising number of unlikeable players. I’m not including Suzuki in this. It seems that plenty of people hate him, but I don't mind him. It seemed that the ref quite liked him too, but more on that later. Their fans are quite irritating and this was demonstrated with the absolute silence in the stadium pre-match, right up until we sang a song, waking them up and starting a chorus of boos, only for them fall back into silence moments later. First class booers apparently. Their lengthy but ultimately dull chanting of Oniki’s name after their team announcement was presumably intended to make us Frontale fans cry, as it seemed they thought we’d be distraught that they had prised Oniki away from us. Not sure that's really what happened. Us giving his name a clap is probably quite at odds with what they’ll do after they inevitably dump him when things start going wrong. Even though he’s a former Kashima player I seem to remember that his name always got a chorus of boos when he was in charge of us. This might sound like sour grapes but I thought they weren’t very good. When Suzuki didn’t have the ball they did nothing. It was classic Oniki pointless possession. After about 30 passes along the defence line someone finally realised that the game plan was ‘give it to Yuma’ and only then did they threaten. This is not entirely accurate as they also had another tactic which was to hoof the ball forward. And those yucky long throws too. It seemed that when Oniki was our manager and had Sai to do long throws, the long throw tactic was beneath him. But now it seems to be the only way they take throws. I guess he feels that he has to win at all costs. I reckon if Suzuki gets injured, Kashima are going to fall apart. I don’t want to wish injury on him, but I do want them to fall apart. I haven’t even mentioned the dark arts which have always been a Kashima thing, (spirit of Zico perhaps), and are still very much on show. Horrendous time wasting from them from the moment they went ahead. Feigning injuries all over the pitch. I would say that I was surprised to see their centre back go down injured, require treatment, the physios signalling to the bench that he couldn’t carry on, the bench realising that they had used all their subs, the player leaving the pitch absolutely destroyed only to make a miraculous Lazarus like recovery, but the fact is it was just another example of their shithousery, so was not surprising at all. They are a thoroughly unlikeable team and hopefully they'll fall to pieces soon. One good thing though was that they moved the game to the National Stadium. Whilst, as I said above, we’re almost always shit there, at least we didn’t have to go to and come back from Kashima on that rotten bus. It was probably extremely convenient for the majority of their fanbase too as I think most of them live much closer to the National Stadium than to Kashima.
Ref -
Still the quest for me to say a ref has had a good game in a defeat for us continues. Perhaps this demonstrates the true level of my prettiness. I guess you can judge this for yourself. Nakamura was back in town and much like the last time I saw one of our games that he was in charge of, he was an absolute joke. I’ve said it before but the transformation in his refereeing skills since he won ref of the year a few years ago is shocking. Of course Kashima are prize shithousers, but we all knew this before the game and I’m sure he did too. But he seemed to fall for all of it. Almost every challenge with Suzuki involved ended up with a free kick for Kashima. Actually, it even seemed like the ref was taking instructions from Suzuki. If he did something bad, just let the game continue. Any time he was tackled, give him a free kick. He gave them a very soft free kick which lead to their second goal. Maybe they’ll pay him an indirect assist bonus for it. Also, if a Kashima player got right in the face of the ref shouting at him, no problem at all. Who needs to give out yellow cards for obvious dissent after all? Plenty of times he’d stop the game because one of their players had cramp. I’m not sure it really counts as something your supposed to stop the game for, but it seemed to be part of the Kashima game plan, and therefore the ref had to follow it. The thing that annoyed me the most was the nonsensical decision, (but not nonsensical when you consider it was given by Nakamura in Kashima’s favour, I guess), when their keeper jumped to catch the ball, fell over and dropped it, Kanda took the loose ball and the ref gave them a free kick. I don’t think there was any contact apart from perhaps a brushing of shirt on shirt. Totally predictable outcome though. I didn’t mention this in the Kashima section, but one of the major pricks in the Kashima team is clearly their meathead of a keeper. Gutted we couldn’t score past him more, and doubly gutted that was due to our poor shooting rather than anything good he did. Anyway, Nakamura has become awful and continued to be awful in this game. If he’d been the ref for legendary spirit of Zico moment, when Zico, upset about the opposition being awarded a penalty, spat on the ball, Nakamura probably would have sent off the penalty taker for being irritated at Zico’s attempt to clean the ball for him. Nakamura is the perfect ref for a Kashima game as they are arseholes and he seems to be trying his best to also be one.
So a massively frustrating game. Kashima aren’t that good, but us fucking up has given them a decent lead at the top. Even if we win all of our games in hand they’ll still be seven points ahead of us. Please some other teams give them a pasting. They are extremely unlikeable and I’d love them to mess up another season. People have said that they’d like to see Oniki do well. and whilst I understand this sentiment, you’ve got to realise that he’s now the manger of Kashima so the only reasonable wish is that his season goes terribly wrong. Sorry Toru, but you are working for Satan now so I’ll give you a little clap before the game, but hope that your despicable team loses every match. Next up, Yokohama FC at home on Wednesday. It’s a must win game, not only because we need to get some form back, but also because our ACL absence has left us quite close to the teams at the bottom of the table. YFC quite often seem to frustrate us. Their goals scored total is the lowest in the league and even the shitbags at YFM have scored more than them having played two fewer games. I suspect we’ll see some rotation, and hopefully a few fresher players might be able to inject a bit of fizz into our play. Fingers crossed we can get a result, climb up the table a bit, and get ourselves back to the level that we know we can play at.
Team
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 44')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 9. ERISON
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 87')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 76')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for OZEKI 58')
FW 18. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for IENAGA 82')
FW 38. KANDA Soma (on for MARCINHO 76')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for ITO 76')
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 44')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 9. ERISON
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 87')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 76')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for OZEKI 58')
FW 18. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for IENAGA 82')
FW 38. KANDA Soma (on for MARCINHO 76')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for ITO 76')
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
My Frontale Man Of The Match
There were probably contenders for this in this match, but given that the second half was so crap compared to the first and I left the game feeling quite pissed off, I'm going to give it a miss.
Goals
SASAKI (Frontale) 7' 0-1
FUNABASHI (Kashima) 45+1' 1-1
TAGAWA (Kashima) 65' 2-1
Highlights
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