Cerezo Osaka 2 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale
What a horrible game this was. I have nothing interesting or amusing to say about it really so I hope you’re not expecting much. With most of our midfield looking like they were already on the beach and our recently typical suicidal defending and goalkeeping this was always going to be a tough game to win. And that prospect became even tougher after seven minutes by which time we were already two goals down. In the time we’d conceded two we hadn’t even had an attack. I’m
Not proud to say this, but the most enjoyable part of the game for me was probably when Ito’s shot smacked straight into the face of the Cerezo keeper. Slightly in my defence, he had been acting like a twat before it happened so had already pissed me off. Apart from this moment, which I’m pretty sure was our first shot of the game, (in the 19th minute…), there wasn’t much to get excited about. There was one phase in the second half where we looked like we were rattling them and that the momentum might be about to shift, but for that to have happened it would have required us to be at least slightly potent in attack and we weren’t at all. At the start of the second half it seemed like our game plan was to try to hang on to what we had and go for the 2-0 defeat. Miraculously we did. But that was in part due to Cerezo being almost as shit as we were in front of goal. But by that stage the damage had already been done. Naturally one of their goals came from Yamaguchi diving across the goal and delicately delivering the ball to an unmarked striker with a little push of his gloves. I say naturally because we’ve conceded the same goal at least once every game he’s played recently. Either the opposition are always doing their homework or maybe we’re not very good at stopping teams scoring from not that threatening situations. Add to this the fact that the way we were trying to play was by passing it around at the back for a bit, (I say a bit, but the truth is it was much more than a bit. More like an age), and then after the sufficient pass total had been reached, hammering the ball forward to no one for it to be collected by their defence so we could get back to doing some more defending practice. Fucking hell it was a dull game. And then it started raining. And they didn’t have the beer truck there like they have had in recent years. It was all shite really. Even the atmosphere was (unsurprisingly) a bit subdued. We seemed to be singing the same song for ages without changing. But maybe it just seemed that way as time had slowed down because everything was so fucking boring. I said some of the players looked like they’d given up for the season and I think I started to understand their feelings and join them. I usually like singing, but in this match every time I interrupted my singing with important asides like ‘fucking hell that was bad’, ‘wow, that was lucky’ and ‘jesus christ try to get the ball out of our own half’, I went back into the song a little bit quieter until I gradually just became silent and slightly embarrassed. Crap crap crap crap crap.
I don’t have much desire to write anymore but I wanted to mention to that the time wasting from Cerezo was pretty horrific. They could have scored a lot more if they hadn’t wasted so much time. Even the ball boys were at it. And I’m not just saying that. Have a look J League and punish the club. Not that the ref was bothered though. His solution to any time wasting was to angrily blow his whistle and give a final warning that next time he’ll give them a card. And then proceed to do nothing as they continued time wasting. To be fair, it wasn’t a surprise as Tanimoto has a reputation on this blog for blowing his whistle a lot but never actually doing much. Naturally the only player booked was Uremovic, and I’m kind of surprised the speedy as a sloth arsehole on VAR didn’t decide to delay the game further and have a glacial-paced look at it. Aside from the fact that none of the players paid him any attention at all (‘Stop time wasting and leave the pitch behind the goal as you’re being subbed!’ ‘Who me? Oh sorry I didn’t realise you were talking to me, even though I’m clearly the one being subbed and to make up for not hearing properly, I’ll continue dawdling off the pitch via the absolute longest route that you told me not to use.’ ‘Well ok then, as you are. If you do this again in this match I’ll be really upset with you… but still do nothing’), the ref didn’t have a shocker. Not the case for the linesman or the aforementioned VAR clown who absolutely baffling ruled out Marcinho’s goal without ever getting the ref involved. He was absolutely nowhere near offside and how this decision could have gone to VAR and been upheld is an absolute mystery. The only thing I can presume is that they got Erison and Marcinho mixed up. If this is true, it is… well, I don’t really have any words for how that would be, but I’m sure you can imagine. I know I always moan about the referees, but take a look at this decision and you’ll know why. And don’t forget that they took about four minutes to come to this completely erroneous conclusion. But somehow fitting with the luck we’ve had on more than our fair share of occasions this year. Hasebe probably didn’t have his best game, but probably can’t compete against the various forces (mainly in the form of match officials) who seem to be conspiring to mess us up as often as possible. But Hasebe leaving Wakizaka and Yamamoto on and taking off Kawahara, one of the few players who’d looked like he was interested has got to go down as a weird decision. But perhaps not that surprising. Also not sure why he didn’t start with Jesiel and Uremovic at centre back. It’s almost as if even when we have fit defenders we think it’s not the right and proper thing to do to play them. Maybe Hasebe thinks it’s too easy to just pick out best players and it’s more fun and challenging to start every game effectively with one hand tied behind our backs. Maybe it’s all intentional and is done to be practice for next season when presumably we’ll once again have our usual annual defensive injury crisis. I’m still pleased that Hasebe is in charge rather than Oniki, but I’m starting to worry a bit about him. Obviously he’s knows more than I do, but some of the decisions he makes seem pretty strange to me. And he is Oniki’s polar opposite when it comes to being lucky. Oh and finally a quick update on those season comparison stats. No goals scored means we’re still one goal behind last year’s total and now with only three games left. It was the case that we’d have to concede 13 goals in our final five games to have conceded more than last year. In the first two of those games we’ve conceded five. So we’re pretty much on schedule to do exactly that. Fucking hell this game was shit. Did I mention that already?
Next up, another fucking two week break (this season’s schedule has been ridiculous), and then Okayama at home. Then three weeks till Sanfrecce at home which is the game after that. No wonder the players can’t be bothered! Just let us get this season over and done with. Any hopes of end of season fun and games rotation in the dead rubber games we might have had has now gone out of the window as we played pretty much the same team in this game as we did in the previous one. It would be nice if some of the players who I suspect might be retiring could get a bit more time on the pitch and why not give Sung-Ryong, Ando and Lee a game each in goal. We have nothing to lose. But I’m sure it won’t happen, so maybe there’s nothing left to look forward to. But it’s ok, there’s one more away game so that should be fun! Oh fucking hell scratch that, it’s Urawa...
Not proud to say this, but the most enjoyable part of the game for me was probably when Ito’s shot smacked straight into the face of the Cerezo keeper. Slightly in my defence, he had been acting like a twat before it happened so had already pissed me off. Apart from this moment, which I’m pretty sure was our first shot of the game, (in the 19th minute…), there wasn’t much to get excited about. There was one phase in the second half where we looked like we were rattling them and that the momentum might be about to shift, but for that to have happened it would have required us to be at least slightly potent in attack and we weren’t at all. At the start of the second half it seemed like our game plan was to try to hang on to what we had and go for the 2-0 defeat. Miraculously we did. But that was in part due to Cerezo being almost as shit as we were in front of goal. But by that stage the damage had already been done. Naturally one of their goals came from Yamaguchi diving across the goal and delicately delivering the ball to an unmarked striker with a little push of his gloves. I say naturally because we’ve conceded the same goal at least once every game he’s played recently. Either the opposition are always doing their homework or maybe we’re not very good at stopping teams scoring from not that threatening situations. Add to this the fact that the way we were trying to play was by passing it around at the back for a bit, (I say a bit, but the truth is it was much more than a bit. More like an age), and then after the sufficient pass total had been reached, hammering the ball forward to no one for it to be collected by their defence so we could get back to doing some more defending practice. Fucking hell it was a dull game. And then it started raining. And they didn’t have the beer truck there like they have had in recent years. It was all shite really. Even the atmosphere was (unsurprisingly) a bit subdued. We seemed to be singing the same song for ages without changing. But maybe it just seemed that way as time had slowed down because everything was so fucking boring. I said some of the players looked like they’d given up for the season and I think I started to understand their feelings and join them. I usually like singing, but in this match every time I interrupted my singing with important asides like ‘fucking hell that was bad’, ‘wow, that was lucky’ and ‘jesus christ try to get the ball out of our own half’, I went back into the song a little bit quieter until I gradually just became silent and slightly embarrassed. Crap crap crap crap crap.
I don’t have much desire to write anymore but I wanted to mention to that the time wasting from Cerezo was pretty horrific. They could have scored a lot more if they hadn’t wasted so much time. Even the ball boys were at it. And I’m not just saying that. Have a look J League and punish the club. Not that the ref was bothered though. His solution to any time wasting was to angrily blow his whistle and give a final warning that next time he’ll give them a card. And then proceed to do nothing as they continued time wasting. To be fair, it wasn’t a surprise as Tanimoto has a reputation on this blog for blowing his whistle a lot but never actually doing much. Naturally the only player booked was Uremovic, and I’m kind of surprised the speedy as a sloth arsehole on VAR didn’t decide to delay the game further and have a glacial-paced look at it. Aside from the fact that none of the players paid him any attention at all (‘Stop time wasting and leave the pitch behind the goal as you’re being subbed!’ ‘Who me? Oh sorry I didn’t realise you were talking to me, even though I’m clearly the one being subbed and to make up for not hearing properly, I’ll continue dawdling off the pitch via the absolute longest route that you told me not to use.’ ‘Well ok then, as you are. If you do this again in this match I’ll be really upset with you… but still do nothing’), the ref didn’t have a shocker. Not the case for the linesman or the aforementioned VAR clown who absolutely baffling ruled out Marcinho’s goal without ever getting the ref involved. He was absolutely nowhere near offside and how this decision could have gone to VAR and been upheld is an absolute mystery. The only thing I can presume is that they got Erison and Marcinho mixed up. If this is true, it is… well, I don’t really have any words for how that would be, but I’m sure you can imagine. I know I always moan about the referees, but take a look at this decision and you’ll know why. And don’t forget that they took about four minutes to come to this completely erroneous conclusion. But somehow fitting with the luck we’ve had on more than our fair share of occasions this year. Hasebe probably didn’t have his best game, but probably can’t compete against the various forces (mainly in the form of match officials) who seem to be conspiring to mess us up as often as possible. But Hasebe leaving Wakizaka and Yamamoto on and taking off Kawahara, one of the few players who’d looked like he was interested has got to go down as a weird decision. But perhaps not that surprising. Also not sure why he didn’t start with Jesiel and Uremovic at centre back. It’s almost as if even when we have fit defenders we think it’s not the right and proper thing to do to play them. Maybe Hasebe thinks it’s too easy to just pick out best players and it’s more fun and challenging to start every game effectively with one hand tied behind our backs. Maybe it’s all intentional and is done to be practice for next season when presumably we’ll once again have our usual annual defensive injury crisis. I’m still pleased that Hasebe is in charge rather than Oniki, but I’m starting to worry a bit about him. Obviously he’s knows more than I do, but some of the decisions he makes seem pretty strange to me. And he is Oniki’s polar opposite when it comes to being lucky. Oh and finally a quick update on those season comparison stats. No goals scored means we’re still one goal behind last year’s total and now with only three games left. It was the case that we’d have to concede 13 goals in our final five games to have conceded more than last year. In the first two of those games we’ve conceded five. So we’re pretty much on schedule to do exactly that. Fucking hell this game was shit. Did I mention that already?
Next up, another fucking two week break (this season’s schedule has been ridiculous), and then Okayama at home. Then three weeks till Sanfrecce at home which is the game after that. No wonder the players can’t be bothered! Just let us get this season over and done with. Any hopes of end of season fun and games rotation in the dead rubber games we might have had has now gone out of the window as we played pretty much the same team in this game as we did in the previous one. It would be nice if some of the players who I suspect might be retiring could get a bit more time on the pitch and why not give Sung-Ryong, Ando and Lee a game each in goal. We have nothing to lose. But I’m sure it won’t happen, so maybe there’s nothing left to look forward to. But it’s ok, there’s one more away game so that should be fun! Oh fucking hell scratch that, it’s Urawa...
Team
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN VERMESKERKEN Sai
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN VERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 9. ERISON
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 9. ERISON
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
Subs
GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for KAWAHARA 46')
DF 22. Flip UREMOVIC (Yellow card 54') (on for TANABE 46')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for ITO 75')
DF 27. KAMIHASHI Ryota
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for MARCINHO 60')
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (on for ERISON 78')
GoalsDF 22. Flip UREMOVIC (Yellow card 54') (on for TANABE 46')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for ITO 75')
DF 27. KAMIHASHI Ryota
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for MARCINHO 60')
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (on for ERISON 78')
RAFAEL RATAO (Cerezo) 4' 1-0
TANAKA (Cerezo) 7' 2-0
Highlights
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