Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 2 Mito Hollyhock
I haven’t exactly been putting off writing this post, but there certainly was a feeling of not being bothered to write it. I feel pretty stupid after starting the year with some confidence. At the time it seemed like it made sense as we’d strengthened well in the exact areas that we needed to, so all seemed good. Little did I know that the kind of indifference I had towards this interim season system would also spread through the club so much. In the week there were people talking about Taniguchi commenting on how the club seemed a bit too laid back compared to his previous experiences and expectations. This definitely rings true when you consider that quite a few players have been playing as if they don’t give a shit. The past few games have been so bad that I am starting to feel that even if all of our players started making a proper effort we might still have problems due to the lack of ideas from the manager. It’s been very easy to point the finger at Miura, Wakizaka and Yamamoto for their pretty dodgy performances in previous games, but the fact is it seems that we don’t actually have any idea of how to play at the moment. Hasebe’s attempts to keep it tighter at the back have failed two-fold. Not only have we kept it tight for almost all, but crucially not all of the game, the few occasions when we haven’t kept it tight, we instead kept it incredibly… loose? But also the fact that there seems to be no plan other than to keep it tight and keep practicing keeping-it-tight defending means that every time we manage to stop an attack, we are so tight that we have almost no-one to have a go at attacking. Hence the ball keeps coming back, again and again, and sooner or later we concede an extremely soft goal. Or two as the case was in this game. The only time we actually got going in this game was when things were getting desperate towards the end when presumably the game plan had been abandoned. Maybe we should abandon the game plan at the start of the match instead and see how that works… Anyway, there will be more moans later, so let’s end this intro paragraph here and get on with the usual crap.
1st half -
Complete control with absolutely no threat and then complete self destruction. Seemed like we were showing a bit more guts and effort, but of course it didn’t translate into anything meaningful. Or actually anything at all. Fucking terrible stuff. Four shots in the whole first half, none of which were on target and then dropped a couple of clangers to intensify the frustration. I don’t think anyone covered themselves in glory and in fact a few people covered themselves in something considerably less desirable and a lot more stinky.
2nd half -
Of course the only way was up. And in the end we absolutely cheated Mito out of a win. It felt like a bit of an injustice for us to get an equaliser. I think this is partly my pessimism speaking though, as in reality it had been a dull game and probably a draw was a fair score. A 0-0 probably would have been fairer. Of course that would have also resulted in penalties, so perhaps justice was done after all. It didn’t feel like it to me though. Not saying I didn’t enjoy the ‘win’, but it was a feeling more of relief than anything triumphant.
Penalties -
Felt like Brodersen was a lot closer on a lot more occasions in this shoot out than in the previous one. And his save was a nice one. Well done to him! Pleased again that we seemed to be able to put our penalties away pretty nicely. Probably should bear in mind that the two shoot outs we’ve had have both been against promoted teams so maybe we shouldn’t get too excited about any kind of penalty prowess at this stage.
Good day -
As strange as it is to say this, I thought the ref did a reasonable job. The last time we had him I noted that even though he’s a youngster he had already attained the necessary level of total shitness to make it as an established J League ref. In this match I thought we got away with a few fouls that could have been yellows, which was kind of the reverse of the last game we had with him, (away at Nagoya), so maybe he goes a bit easier on the home team. Perhaps me saying that he had a good game is as a result of him maybe giving us a bit of a break. Also somewhat bizarrely, I’m going to say that our main supporter group had a good day too. We were utterly shit in the first half and as our fans sang the team off at half time I commented that anyone singing must have been a complete idiot after what the team had served up. As the players came out for the second half they started up a different song than the usual post half time one and then… proceeded to sing the same song for the whole of the second half without stopping. They clearly are better people than I am. I was kind of sulking and moaning whilst trying to detach myself from the experience slightly. I feel like that is the healthy thing to do. But clearly we are in a mess at the moment and sometimes it’s not particularly helpful for arseholes like me to just whinge. But in my defence, I do usually try to support the team as much as I can. I’m not sure if singing the same song for fifty minutes managed to inspire the team to get the result, but it definitely did send a signal I think. We’re in a bit of a mess which is an amazing thing to say so early in the season and with the points on the board that we have. I think a comeback like this might be what we need to have a bit of a shake up and use the next two weeks between games to sort ourselves out a bit. Finally, although he didn’t have a great day on the pitch, well done to Wakizaka for saying that we shouldn’t be doing the usual end of game sing and jump thing that we do when we win if we’ve only managed to scrape through a penalty shoot out. I was certainly hoping that they didn’t do it. So good on him for having a bit of humility in the situation.
Bad day -
Maybe I should have done the bad day part first as now it looks like I’m a build ‘em up and knock ‘em down kind of guy. The toils of our midfielders continued in this match. Hasebe had changed things up… a bit. But it seems like 2026 is going to be the year that our midfield, which is usually the strongest part of our team, turns to shit. I think the only two players who’ve played in there this year who come out with any credit are Kawahara and Tachibanada. Wakizaka has started every match and hasn’t been very good. Yamamoto has been in and out of the team but has shown consistency in not being very good, and even Ozeki who we’ve all been clamouring to see play more, was in this game… not very good. Wakizaka and Yamamoto in particular seem to be way too casual this year, getting caught in possession on numerous occasions and giving the ball away cheaply on an equally numerous amount of occasions. I think this is partly why we we’ve been conceding so many opportunities recently. It probably should be noted that we only gave away ten chances in this game which is less than half of our previous best this season. Although saying that, we did still concede twice. Miura was also pretty dodgy again. If Taniguchi was trying to single anyone out subtly with his comments it could well be the guy who is to his left in defence. Much like in the last game, he started reasonably, but seemed to give up pretty quickly. I really don’t know what’s happened to him. He hasn’t been the same since his last injury, but his level has dropped off so dramatically that it’s pretty weird. Obviously given that I was moaning that Wakizaka and Miura are undroppable for Hasebe even though they’ve both been way off the pace, it was inevitable that they should combine for the late equaliser. I like that fact that my hot takes are more often than not extinguished by fact. It keeps me from getting cocky I guess.
It’s very easy to slag off players, and believe it or not, I don’t actually enjoy doing it. So far I haven’t really slagged off the manager much. Every game comes round with me thinking that surely he has to try something a little different. In this game, he kind of did. He made a few changes to the starting line up in the midfield and swapped the front three around a bit. It didn’t really alter the outcome much though. I think the thing that is starting to irritate me is that he’s used the same maybe 20 players in the same positions with the same tactics, over and over and over again. It’s like he has a massive lego box full of exciting pieces and can build anything he wants. But instead he insists on making a little wall out of his favourite twenty bricks and occasionally changes it from being a blue and black wall into a black and blue wall. He could build so many more exciting things, but I don’t think he wants to if he doesn’t have the instruction booklet. I really hope he tries something different soon. Surely he realises that we’re absolutely shite at the moment and are just about scraping by.
Any other business -
- Mito’s away shirt reminded me of a red bull can. I have nothing amusing to say about this really. It’s just a dull observation.
- Our crossing in this game was truly terrible. It didn’t matter who was doing it, they were all poor. I think we’re starting to get some kind of fore-goal dysfunction because it wasn’t really only the crossing that was poor, but just pretty much everything that took place within shooting distance. On the contrary, Miura’s corners seemed a bit better than Wakizaka’s efforts but maybe only because they were going all the way over everyone rather than always hitting the first defender. If only we could anticipate these apparent mishits and have someone stand by the touch line on the opposite side of the pitch we might be able to retain possession. It would probably be a unique corner routine too. We tried a few short ones but they more often than not were just a handy way of us being able to get the ball back into our own half quicker, which in recent weeks seems to be what we’ve been trying to do as a matter of extreme importance.
- I’m not going to moan too much about this as we were pretty shit, but their second goal getting called offside and then the offside decision being overruled by VAR after a massive delay seemed pretty dodgy to me. It really doesn’t seem like J League stadiums have sufficient cameras to judge these kind of tight offsides. I didn’t moan about it at the time, but the lengthy digging to find a reason to allow it was quite annoying. I don’t know how many times I’ll say the same two things on this blog, but here we go. Firstly, if it’s a clear and obvious error it shouldn’t take so long to determine, should it? Are they more just trying to find a reason to justify their own existence as VAR officials? And secondly VAR is so detrimental to the stadium experience that I would still like to see it booted into the ocean. But it does seem like the league thinks it’s a good thing. Shame they didn’t decide to prioritise training their refs. After listening to the J Talk Podcast I discovered that they too thought this decision was a bit dubious which made me think that perhaps I was being a bit harsh on the team when I said how bad we were. But at the same time, without those two Mito goals it would have been 0-0 at half time with us having just four off-target shots in 45 minutes so maybe I’m not so crazy after all.
- I feel sorry for Romanic. I don’t know if he accidentally farted in the changing room or something, but it seems like he always passes to someone in a better position, but never gets the ball passed to him when he’s in a better position. I guess when so many players aren’t playing well, lots of them want to do something dramatic and impressive to get their confidence back and their form going. But they could do that by getting an assist for a goal rather than trying to score by themself. One opportunity sticks in the memory where Konno shot from a difficult angle and obviously missed, (as did everyone in the first half), while Romanic was waiting for the ball, unmarked, directly in front of the goal with a potentially easy finish. It’s weird as when were in the middle third of the pitch we seem extremely happy to pass the ball rather than attack, but as soon as we get near the goal we seem like we feel like we’re on a shot clock and need to finish the attack as soon as possible. Maybe another thing for Hasebe to sort out.
WOW! -
Bit disappointed to not have anyone to put in here again. I could extend it to figures outside of football but I don’t think anybody needs to read that, do they? Given the next opposition, there is certain to be someone who qualifies next time!
All of this has left me a bit confused. Are we absolutely awful? Or are we terribly unlucky? Are we a clear the air talk and a little break away from taking the handbrake off and going absolute gangbusters in the league? Or are we just repeating the same insane inconsistency that plagued us last year? To me it seems like our midfield is the problem. But the sheer amount of goals conceded might suggest it’s the defence. And don’t forget the forwards who struggle to muster more than one shot every fifteen minutes , let alone one on target. So basically, I guess we’re still in exactly the same position as after the Tokyo game, but somehow with two extra points. I think it’s too early to start calling for Hasebe to go, but at the same time I am still not sure he has the guts or the inclination to shake up our current stodgy football. I reckon a nice easy game next should help us get back on track. Maybe a game against a newly promoted team… oh we played both of them already and drew…. who is it then? Oh, just the defending champions away from home who seem to be absurdly lucky when it comes to things going their way. At least a significant portion of the next blog post will be dedicated to moaning about the bus journey. It’s one of our furthest away trips in this shittier than shit half season. A distant away trip usually means some excitement and fun, but this is Kashima, so it will be nothing more than the game and the bus ride there and back. No fun allowed. If it’s another stinker I might find the usual one hour getting out of the car park and to Kashima Station (one mile away) significantly more enjoyable than the 90 minutes. Yikes…
1st half -
Complete control with absolutely no threat and then complete self destruction. Seemed like we were showing a bit more guts and effort, but of course it didn’t translate into anything meaningful. Or actually anything at all. Fucking terrible stuff. Four shots in the whole first half, none of which were on target and then dropped a couple of clangers to intensify the frustration. I don’t think anyone covered themselves in glory and in fact a few people covered themselves in something considerably less desirable and a lot more stinky.
2nd half -
Of course the only way was up. And in the end we absolutely cheated Mito out of a win. It felt like a bit of an injustice for us to get an equaliser. I think this is partly my pessimism speaking though, as in reality it had been a dull game and probably a draw was a fair score. A 0-0 probably would have been fairer. Of course that would have also resulted in penalties, so perhaps justice was done after all. It didn’t feel like it to me though. Not saying I didn’t enjoy the ‘win’, but it was a feeling more of relief than anything triumphant.
Penalties -
Felt like Brodersen was a lot closer on a lot more occasions in this shoot out than in the previous one. And his save was a nice one. Well done to him! Pleased again that we seemed to be able to put our penalties away pretty nicely. Probably should bear in mind that the two shoot outs we’ve had have both been against promoted teams so maybe we shouldn’t get too excited about any kind of penalty prowess at this stage.
Good day -
As strange as it is to say this, I thought the ref did a reasonable job. The last time we had him I noted that even though he’s a youngster he had already attained the necessary level of total shitness to make it as an established J League ref. In this match I thought we got away with a few fouls that could have been yellows, which was kind of the reverse of the last game we had with him, (away at Nagoya), so maybe he goes a bit easier on the home team. Perhaps me saying that he had a good game is as a result of him maybe giving us a bit of a break. Also somewhat bizarrely, I’m going to say that our main supporter group had a good day too. We were utterly shit in the first half and as our fans sang the team off at half time I commented that anyone singing must have been a complete idiot after what the team had served up. As the players came out for the second half they started up a different song than the usual post half time one and then… proceeded to sing the same song for the whole of the second half without stopping. They clearly are better people than I am. I was kind of sulking and moaning whilst trying to detach myself from the experience slightly. I feel like that is the healthy thing to do. But clearly we are in a mess at the moment and sometimes it’s not particularly helpful for arseholes like me to just whinge. But in my defence, I do usually try to support the team as much as I can. I’m not sure if singing the same song for fifty minutes managed to inspire the team to get the result, but it definitely did send a signal I think. We’re in a bit of a mess which is an amazing thing to say so early in the season and with the points on the board that we have. I think a comeback like this might be what we need to have a bit of a shake up and use the next two weeks between games to sort ourselves out a bit. Finally, although he didn’t have a great day on the pitch, well done to Wakizaka for saying that we shouldn’t be doing the usual end of game sing and jump thing that we do when we win if we’ve only managed to scrape through a penalty shoot out. I was certainly hoping that they didn’t do it. So good on him for having a bit of humility in the situation.
Bad day -
Maybe I should have done the bad day part first as now it looks like I’m a build ‘em up and knock ‘em down kind of guy. The toils of our midfielders continued in this match. Hasebe had changed things up… a bit. But it seems like 2026 is going to be the year that our midfield, which is usually the strongest part of our team, turns to shit. I think the only two players who’ve played in there this year who come out with any credit are Kawahara and Tachibanada. Wakizaka has started every match and hasn’t been very good. Yamamoto has been in and out of the team but has shown consistency in not being very good, and even Ozeki who we’ve all been clamouring to see play more, was in this game… not very good. Wakizaka and Yamamoto in particular seem to be way too casual this year, getting caught in possession on numerous occasions and giving the ball away cheaply on an equally numerous amount of occasions. I think this is partly why we we’ve been conceding so many opportunities recently. It probably should be noted that we only gave away ten chances in this game which is less than half of our previous best this season. Although saying that, we did still concede twice. Miura was also pretty dodgy again. If Taniguchi was trying to single anyone out subtly with his comments it could well be the guy who is to his left in defence. Much like in the last game, he started reasonably, but seemed to give up pretty quickly. I really don’t know what’s happened to him. He hasn’t been the same since his last injury, but his level has dropped off so dramatically that it’s pretty weird. Obviously given that I was moaning that Wakizaka and Miura are undroppable for Hasebe even though they’ve both been way off the pace, it was inevitable that they should combine for the late equaliser. I like that fact that my hot takes are more often than not extinguished by fact. It keeps me from getting cocky I guess.
It’s very easy to slag off players, and believe it or not, I don’t actually enjoy doing it. So far I haven’t really slagged off the manager much. Every game comes round with me thinking that surely he has to try something a little different. In this game, he kind of did. He made a few changes to the starting line up in the midfield and swapped the front three around a bit. It didn’t really alter the outcome much though. I think the thing that is starting to irritate me is that he’s used the same maybe 20 players in the same positions with the same tactics, over and over and over again. It’s like he has a massive lego box full of exciting pieces and can build anything he wants. But instead he insists on making a little wall out of his favourite twenty bricks and occasionally changes it from being a blue and black wall into a black and blue wall. He could build so many more exciting things, but I don’t think he wants to if he doesn’t have the instruction booklet. I really hope he tries something different soon. Surely he realises that we’re absolutely shite at the moment and are just about scraping by.
Any other business -
- Mito’s away shirt reminded me of a red bull can. I have nothing amusing to say about this really. It’s just a dull observation.
- Our crossing in this game was truly terrible. It didn’t matter who was doing it, they were all poor. I think we’re starting to get some kind of fore-goal dysfunction because it wasn’t really only the crossing that was poor, but just pretty much everything that took place within shooting distance. On the contrary, Miura’s corners seemed a bit better than Wakizaka’s efforts but maybe only because they were going all the way over everyone rather than always hitting the first defender. If only we could anticipate these apparent mishits and have someone stand by the touch line on the opposite side of the pitch we might be able to retain possession. It would probably be a unique corner routine too. We tried a few short ones but they more often than not were just a handy way of us being able to get the ball back into our own half quicker, which in recent weeks seems to be what we’ve been trying to do as a matter of extreme importance.
- I’m not going to moan too much about this as we were pretty shit, but their second goal getting called offside and then the offside decision being overruled by VAR after a massive delay seemed pretty dodgy to me. It really doesn’t seem like J League stadiums have sufficient cameras to judge these kind of tight offsides. I didn’t moan about it at the time, but the lengthy digging to find a reason to allow it was quite annoying. I don’t know how many times I’ll say the same two things on this blog, but here we go. Firstly, if it’s a clear and obvious error it shouldn’t take so long to determine, should it? Are they more just trying to find a reason to justify their own existence as VAR officials? And secondly VAR is so detrimental to the stadium experience that I would still like to see it booted into the ocean. But it does seem like the league thinks it’s a good thing. Shame they didn’t decide to prioritise training their refs. After listening to the J Talk Podcast I discovered that they too thought this decision was a bit dubious which made me think that perhaps I was being a bit harsh on the team when I said how bad we were. But at the same time, without those two Mito goals it would have been 0-0 at half time with us having just four off-target shots in 45 minutes so maybe I’m not so crazy after all.
- I feel sorry for Romanic. I don’t know if he accidentally farted in the changing room or something, but it seems like he always passes to someone in a better position, but never gets the ball passed to him when he’s in a better position. I guess when so many players aren’t playing well, lots of them want to do something dramatic and impressive to get their confidence back and their form going. But they could do that by getting an assist for a goal rather than trying to score by themself. One opportunity sticks in the memory where Konno shot from a difficult angle and obviously missed, (as did everyone in the first half), while Romanic was waiting for the ball, unmarked, directly in front of the goal with a potentially easy finish. It’s weird as when were in the middle third of the pitch we seem extremely happy to pass the ball rather than attack, but as soon as we get near the goal we seem like we feel like we’re on a shot clock and need to finish the attack as soon as possible. Maybe another thing for Hasebe to sort out.
WOW! -
Bit disappointed to not have anyone to put in here again. I could extend it to figures outside of football but I don’t think anybody needs to read that, do they? Given the next opposition, there is certain to be someone who qualifies next time!
All of this has left me a bit confused. Are we absolutely awful? Or are we terribly unlucky? Are we a clear the air talk and a little break away from taking the handbrake off and going absolute gangbusters in the league? Or are we just repeating the same insane inconsistency that plagued us last year? To me it seems like our midfield is the problem. But the sheer amount of goals conceded might suggest it’s the defence. And don’t forget the forwards who struggle to muster more than one shot every fifteen minutes , let alone one on target. So basically, I guess we’re still in exactly the same position as after the Tokyo game, but somehow with two extra points. I think it’s too early to start calling for Hasebe to go, but at the same time I am still not sure he has the guts or the inclination to shake up our current stodgy football. I reckon a nice easy game next should help us get back on track. Maybe a game against a newly promoted team… oh we played both of them already and drew…. who is it then? Oh, just the defending champions away from home who seem to be absurdly lucky when it comes to things going their way. At least a significant portion of the next blog post will be dedicated to moaning about the bus journey. It’s one of our furthest away trips in this shittier than shit half season. A distant away trip usually means some excitement and fun, but this is Kashima, so it will be nothing more than the game and the bus ride there and back. No fun allowed. If it’s another stinker I might find the usual one hour getting out of the car park and to Kashima Station (one mile away) significantly more enjoyable than the 90 minutes. Yikes…
Team
GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 3. TANIGUCHI Hiroto
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
MF 18. KONNO Kazuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 23. MARCINHO
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC
Subs
GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 76')
FW 9. ERISON (on for ROMANIC 62')
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for KONNO 62')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for OZEKI 90')
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 62')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
Man of the match
Still absolutely no need for this section to exist.
Goals
KATO (Mito) 45' 0-1
KATO (Mito) 45'+4 0-2
ERISON (Frontale) 84' PEN 1-2
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 90+3' 2-2
KATO (Mito) 45' 0-1
KATO (Mito) 45'+4 0-2
ERISON (Frontale) 84' PEN 1-2
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 90+3' 2-2
Highlights
