Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 2 Urawa Reds
God damn that was a disappointing ending. I really would have loved to have won this game but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes. Despite the disappointment, it was at least an entertaining game and a draw was probably the right result. Which makes it all the more annoying that we were so close to getting a win as there’s no more delicious win than one which isn’t really 100% deserved, particularly when it comes against despicable opponents. To be fair though, I suppose I don’t have that much against Urawa the club. In fact I quite like their apparent inability to turn big money managerial appointments and signings into repeated mediocrity. To continue with this enjoyment of other teams’ possible misfortunes, let’s just check last night’s results again… Ah! YFM lost again! Lovely! Schadenfreude isn’t very grown up and clever, but it does help a bit when your own team has conceded late on. Again…
Us -
The injury to Erison was a significant blow to us in this match. It seemed unbelievable when he was ok to come back on the pitch after lengthy treatment and then seemed all too predictable when he immediately collapsed almost immediately. I can only presume he won’t be playing at the weekend as surely it was a head injury. Hope he’s ok. [After seeing the highlights I am now slightly embarrassed about my poor eyesight and more worried about his injury. It absolutely wasn’t a head injury so I was completely wrong about that. But when you see how upset he looked I can only presume it’s a reoccurrence of a past injury. He looked so unhappy that I can only presume he won’t be playing for quite a while]. All of this meant that Yamada was going to play for most of the match. He’s not having a good year. I think he showed some signs of improvement in this match, but he’s still well off the pace for some unknown reason. Add to this the fact that Wakizaka still isn’t playing particularly well and that means we’ve got a significant part of the team who are supposed to be making and scoring the goals who are playing nowhere near their best. With this in mind it’s something of a miracle that we managed to score twice I guess. Whilst we’re on the negative stuff, that first goal was horribly soft wasn’t it? We basically let a cross roll into the net. Urawa only had four shots on target in the whole game and we let two of them in. Don’t know if it’s because we’re still knackered (the schedule eases up slightly next week thankfully, so I won’t be able to keep making this exact same point). Maybe it’s because the injuries are piling up. Our only alternative options at centre back are Haydar or maybe Tanabe or Sasaki. Of course Kamihashi and Tsuchiya are in the squad but judging by the fact that recent match day squads have been identical and neither of those two have even made the bench recently, I guess they’re not really in the frame for playing any time soon. And then up front we now seem to only have Yamada who looks like he’ll never score again, or Kanda, who looks like he’ll never get on the pitch again. I know it sounds slightly bizarre to suggest changing to a 4-4-2 when I’ve just said we have no strikers, but the fact is that Yamada can’t do the one up front thing this year, so why not play someone alongside him and see if that helps. I’d go with Yamamoto and Kawahara in the middle, Ito on the right, Marcinho on the left and then Yamada up front with maybe Kanda or Segawa. But this is all a bit stupid isn’t it? The problems are clearly at the back at the moment. But anyway, we did alright, but that’s a seventh draw in 16 games which isn’t great, especially when you consider two of those draws came thanks to very late equalisers against scumbag teams. I started that new marks out of ten thing for us in the YFC game, and then promptly forgot about it for the Cerezo game. Well, it’s back! It feels a bit harsh to give us a five as we were close to winning, but the fact is that we didn’t. Six seems too high though, but maybe it’s deserved as the move for Segawa’s goal was great, wasn’t it? Ok then I compromise. Five and a half it is.
Them -
Not that much to say about Urawa really. Laughable behaviour from their centre back when he thought he shouldn’t have been booked in the first half. Some quite irritating players but no-one anywhere as annoying as my previous Urawa most hated player Ito. Really annoying that their first goal was so pissy. But then it does match a the character of a lot of their fans who were once again out in numbers to mainly boo and whistle. Of course our team announcements was greeted by a chorus of boos and whistles but their commitment even to negativity was so flimsy that they couldn’t even make the booing last till the end of the intro video. Maybe they were saving it for later in the match, After all there might be an opposition player with an obvious serious injury that needs to be booed, right? I don’t know why I always feel the need to say that obviously it’s not all of their fans who are like this. But it was plenty of them. I don’t know if it was the ‘Garcons’ the ‘Dandys’ or ‘Urawa Boys’ or perhaps some other ridiculously named group of wannabe hooligan little shitheads. There’s a reason one of their flags says ‘Pride of Urawa’ and that’s because not even all of their city are proud of them. One flag on the far right seemed to say ‘Wancars’. Maybe I read it wrong, but it certainly wouldn’t be out of place, even if the spelling could do with some work.
Ref -
Iida on the pitch and Kimura on VAR seems like a match made in hell. But can’t really complain about anything. Well actually one thing really pissed me off. Iida stopped the game as an Urawa defender was on the floor, (watch out mate, you’ll have your own fans booing you if you’re not careful, but only if you’re properly injured), and when he restarted the game with a drop ball Iida decided to give the ball to their keeper in the box instead of return it to us, even though we had it and had been attacking in on the left in the final third, I think we probably should have moaned a bit more about that. Probably wouldn’t have changed anything, but seemed a pretty weird decision for Iida to make. Anyway, aside from that, I’m astonished to say I have nothing else to write in this section.
Next up Gamba at home on Sunday. Hopefully we won’t concede another late equaliser. However I guess it would be nice to be in the position where that is possible, rather than losing. I’m guessing it will be Yamada up front. Will he finally remember where the goal is? I hope so. We urgently need him back in form. It will be the last of a little run of home fixtures, in which we have won two and drawn one so far. It would be nice to make that three and one, and if we are harbouring any realistic hopes of doing anything in the league we’ll have to win. YFM are playing Kashima. Hmmmm, a bit of a conundrum… I think I’d like a 0-0 with plenty of red cards and lengthy season long bans for the key players of each team. Not too much to ask for, is it?
Us -
The injury to Erison was a significant blow to us in this match. It seemed unbelievable when he was ok to come back on the pitch after lengthy treatment and then seemed all too predictable when he immediately collapsed almost immediately. I can only presume he won’t be playing at the weekend as surely it was a head injury. Hope he’s ok. [After seeing the highlights I am now slightly embarrassed about my poor eyesight and more worried about his injury. It absolutely wasn’t a head injury so I was completely wrong about that. But when you see how upset he looked I can only presume it’s a reoccurrence of a past injury. He looked so unhappy that I can only presume he won’t be playing for quite a while]. All of this meant that Yamada was going to play for most of the match. He’s not having a good year. I think he showed some signs of improvement in this match, but he’s still well off the pace for some unknown reason. Add to this the fact that Wakizaka still isn’t playing particularly well and that means we’ve got a significant part of the team who are supposed to be making and scoring the goals who are playing nowhere near their best. With this in mind it’s something of a miracle that we managed to score twice I guess. Whilst we’re on the negative stuff, that first goal was horribly soft wasn’t it? We basically let a cross roll into the net. Urawa only had four shots on target in the whole game and we let two of them in. Don’t know if it’s because we’re still knackered (the schedule eases up slightly next week thankfully, so I won’t be able to keep making this exact same point). Maybe it’s because the injuries are piling up. Our only alternative options at centre back are Haydar or maybe Tanabe or Sasaki. Of course Kamihashi and Tsuchiya are in the squad but judging by the fact that recent match day squads have been identical and neither of those two have even made the bench recently, I guess they’re not really in the frame for playing any time soon. And then up front we now seem to only have Yamada who looks like he’ll never score again, or Kanda, who looks like he’ll never get on the pitch again. I know it sounds slightly bizarre to suggest changing to a 4-4-2 when I’ve just said we have no strikers, but the fact is that Yamada can’t do the one up front thing this year, so why not play someone alongside him and see if that helps. I’d go with Yamamoto and Kawahara in the middle, Ito on the right, Marcinho on the left and then Yamada up front with maybe Kanda or Segawa. But this is all a bit stupid isn’t it? The problems are clearly at the back at the moment. But anyway, we did alright, but that’s a seventh draw in 16 games which isn’t great, especially when you consider two of those draws came thanks to very late equalisers against scumbag teams. I started that new marks out of ten thing for us in the YFC game, and then promptly forgot about it for the Cerezo game. Well, it’s back! It feels a bit harsh to give us a five as we were close to winning, but the fact is that we didn’t. Six seems too high though, but maybe it’s deserved as the move for Segawa’s goal was great, wasn’t it? Ok then I compromise. Five and a half it is.
Them -
Not that much to say about Urawa really. Laughable behaviour from their centre back when he thought he shouldn’t have been booked in the first half. Some quite irritating players but no-one anywhere as annoying as my previous Urawa most hated player Ito. Really annoying that their first goal was so pissy. But then it does match a the character of a lot of their fans who were once again out in numbers to mainly boo and whistle. Of course our team announcements was greeted by a chorus of boos and whistles but their commitment even to negativity was so flimsy that they couldn’t even make the booing last till the end of the intro video. Maybe they were saving it for later in the match, After all there might be an opposition player with an obvious serious injury that needs to be booed, right? I don’t know why I always feel the need to say that obviously it’s not all of their fans who are like this. But it was plenty of them. I don’t know if it was the ‘Garcons’ the ‘Dandys’ or ‘Urawa Boys’ or perhaps some other ridiculously named group of wannabe hooligan little shitheads. There’s a reason one of their flags says ‘Pride of Urawa’ and that’s because not even all of their city are proud of them. One flag on the far right seemed to say ‘Wancars’. Maybe I read it wrong, but it certainly wouldn’t be out of place, even if the spelling could do with some work.
Ref -
Iida on the pitch and Kimura on VAR seems like a match made in hell. But can’t really complain about anything. Well actually one thing really pissed me off. Iida stopped the game as an Urawa defender was on the floor, (watch out mate, you’ll have your own fans booing you if you’re not careful, but only if you’re properly injured), and when he restarted the game with a drop ball Iida decided to give the ball to their keeper in the box instead of return it to us, even though we had it and had been attacking in on the left in the final third, I think we probably should have moaned a bit more about that. Probably wouldn’t have changed anything, but seemed a pretty weird decision for Iida to make. Anyway, aside from that, I’m astonished to say I have nothing else to write in this section.
Next up Gamba at home on Sunday. Hopefully we won’t concede another late equaliser. However I guess it would be nice to be in the position where that is possible, rather than losing. I’m guessing it will be Yamada up front. Will he finally remember where the goal is? I hope so. We urgently need him back in form. It will be the last of a little run of home fixtures, in which we have won two and drawn one so far. It would be nice to make that three and one, and if we are harbouring any realistic hopes of doing anything in the league we’ll have to win. YFM are playing Kashima. Hmmmm, a bit of a conundrum… I think I’d like a 0-0 with plenty of red cards and lengthy season long bans for the key players of each team. Not too much to ask for, is it?
Team
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi (Yellow card 53')
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 9. ERISON
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for KAWAHARA 70')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for TACHIBANADA 85')
FW 18. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for ITO 46')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 32')
FW 38. KANDA Soma
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for MARCINHO 70')
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi (Yellow card 53')
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 9. ERISON
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for KAWAHARA 70')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for TACHIBANADA 85')
FW 18. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for ITO 46')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 32')
FW 38. KANDA Soma
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for MARCINHO 70')
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
My Frontale Man Of The Match
There are probably candidates but I’m still in a bit of a grump about that late goal so I’m going to skip right past this.
Goals
NAKAJIMA (Urawa) 42' 0-1
MARCINHO (Frontale) 45+2' 1-1
SEGAWA (Frontale) 86' 2-1
OKUBO (Urawa) 90+4' 2-2
Highlights
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