Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 2 Kashiwa Reysol
You can’t ever accuse 2026 Frontale of not being consistent. We started the season with a run of absolutely tedious draws. A little while ago we were on a truly unbelievable streak of five wins in a row. And now we look like we are up for going for the consecutive losses world record. We’re utterly shit, aren’t we? Thankfully for me, I couldn’t attend this game due to having to work and also in part not wanting to give up the opportunity of doing something worthwhile, (earning money), in order to have another few hours of my life snatched away and get a massive dose of frustration back in exchange. I have no desire to even watch highlights of this match. The stats were enough to, (I suspect), allow me to fully understand the way this game went. In fact, I think most of us knew before the match how it would go. Plenty of passing, not many shots, another defeat. I understand it’s not possible for us to win every game and I’m totally fine with us losing. It does get annoying though when there is such a lack of imagination and an utter lack of hope. There’s been some nominal rotation, but as long as the game plan remains, (pass the ball around poorly in non-dangerous areas, giving it away before shooting as soon as we even come anywhere near the goal), the results are going to be the same. We went one up in this match, but anyone who might have thought we were going to finish the first leg with a lead needs their head examined. In the same competition last year against the same opposition we won the first leg massively, taking an unbeatable lead into the away leg. Of course we lost. This time we’re heading to that second leg behind in the tie so I really fear for what might happen. What almost certainly won’t happen is any changes to our approach or formation. I’m utterly fed up with watching us. It’s pure masochism at this stage. I’m thinking of taking some noise canceling headphones and a good book to the second leg which I unfortunately have a ticket for. No good can come from me watching the game so I might as well try to spend the time productively by perhaps listening to a recording of fingernails scraping down a blackboard at full volume whilst carefully poring over a complex philosophy textbook written in a language I have no comprehension of. Either that or I could spend the game in the toilet repeatedly flushing it on my own head whilst punching the cubicle wall. I’m sure you’ll agree all of these things are more desirable than watching more FUCKING SIDEWAYS PASSING. Normally I’d be able to leave this post here, but there are a few things I feel I need to mention as they perfectly encapsulate the shit we are in as a club. It truly is a miracle that we are still safely ensconced in our regular eighth position. We’ve been awful this year and I can’t see any reason this will change. So here are some CLUB IN CRISIS bullet points.
- After Kashiwa away, the two supporter groups were apparently fighting each other. Wonderful isn’t it? We’re generally a friendly group of supporters, and I guess this is exemplified in the fact that if there’s an aggro to go round it’s internecine stuff. Given the relentless, (maybe mindless would be a better descriptor), positivity of our supporters I can only imagine the cause must have been a disagreement over whether to cheer, sing and clap the players or to clap, sing and cheer them after another truly awful game. I know I always say this, but far better to give a single clap and get the fuck out of the stadium. At the moment we just look like suckers for apparently still being happy about what’s going on on the pitch.
- It’s the 30th anniversary of the club and what better way to commemorate that than by having an utterly shit season where the quality of football perhaps resembles that of the good old J2 days which made up most of those early years. Actually, it’s a far better idea to organise a crowd funder, right? You know, one of those things where an organisation creates a project with nice rewards for people who donate money towards a cause that is otherwise unreachable. I can’t remember the exact details, but the highest level goal of the crowd funder was to get a match day mascot of Furan, Fronta’s sister, something which I am guessing would cost maybe just a little bit more than the photoshoot for the next promotional tie-in we do for a home match. And what do you get in return for donating? The cheapest option was around ¥6000 if I recall correctly and for that you got a, (possibly just about slightly better than gacha quality), keyring. The high tiers were for activities with retired players and were insanely expensive. When I first saw it, it all looked like a cash grab, and it seems that most people agreed as it wasn’t that popular. And I’m not sure we need cash that desperately, do we? Once again it seems that it comes back to the idiot at the top of the club. Yoshida, the president or CEO or whatever he is called, seems to have about as much football knowledge as a newborn octopus and seems to be fully focused on one thing and that is making MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! He doesn’t seem to comprehend that fans might stop coming to games if watching those games becomes something more like punishment than pleasure. I have no words for how much I dislike this guy and I truly feel that things have been going downhill fast since he took over. Backroom staff leaving by the dozen, insane player recruitment that seems to have no relation to what is required, and an absolute push to squeeze every last yen out of the supporters. Sadly as he’s the boss there’s not much chance of him leaving. And I’m sure he could never imagine that any shitness on the pitch has anything to do with him and would never take any responsibility for it. I wish the supporter groups would stop fighting amongst themselves and instead unite on something that we can all get behind. Kick this useless bastard out of our club.
- Remember at the end of last year, when our fitness coach resigned and posted a very emotional statement expressing his regret for the large amount of injuries the team had got and taking responsibility for them? We got a new guy in and… exactly the same thing is happening. I don’t know if there’s a concrete carpark buried just under the surface of the training ground or something, but those injuries just keep on coming. When I hear other clubs complain about injury crises and see that they have three players out I can only laugh. We can barely fill a matchday squad right now. I went through the squad list after the previous game to see who wasn’t included who possibly could have been and I could only come up with two goalies, and U18 defender, an U18 midfielder, and then only two possibly fit players who weren’t last year promoted from the youth team, Ienaga and Yui. So it’s no surprise really that we keep seeing the same faces in the starting line ups and on the bench. There was a clip of Hasebe with his magnet board in the last game, where he was staring intently at it and then just shrugged his shoulders as presumably there was nothing he could change. So I do feel some sympathy for him in that respect. But of course he could change the formation, system or approach. We could… try two up front (EEEEEKKKK!). We could try… not playing Wakizaka for every game (ARRRRGGGHH!). We could try… having a shot occasionally (COME ON! YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME YOU LUNATIC!). Seeing as recently it seems we can’t even manage basic passing, it might be bit much to ask for us to change formation, but what is there to lose at this stage? If we continue to be shit, as we inevitably will if we continue in the way we are right now, we could easily find ourselves in a relegation battle with a squad and manager who are so disheartened and demotivated that it could be tricky to escape. In a way, Hasebe has a free hit in the next game. We’ve been totally outplayed by Kashiwa two games in a row with his beloved slowly slowly approach. I don’t think anyone thinks we’ll turn things round so why not give something else a try? Bet it won’t happen, but it would be lovely to be able to say that I was there the day Hasebe didn’t start with a 4-2-3-1. I would also like to win the Loto 7 this week and I suspect that this might be more likely to happen. But for god’s sake Hasebe, try something before it’s too late and before you completely trash your reputation and ruin your chances of getting another job.
So in conclusion, we’re shit and there are perhaps some reasons why this might be, but I doubt anything will happen. I see no reason to have any optimism things will change going forward. After this next defeat to Kashiwa in three days time, we will be at home against Avispa the following weekend. They are a team in a lot of trouble, (uh oh, we normally play badly against that kind of team), who just have got a new manager, (uh oh, we normally play badly against that kind of team), and that manager is Jofuku, (uh oh, we normally play badly against his teams), and it is the former club of our manager, (uh oh, we normally play badly against that kind of team). 100% it will be the case that Hasebe goes back to the Tachibanada, Yamamoto, Wakizaka midfield that has failed time after time this year. Everything points to more humiliation. This will probably happen and that will inspire Yoshida to take the logical response of levying a ‘supporter contribution tax’ where he’ll hire extra staff to go through your belongings and wallets on the way in and take anything that they think he might like to have in his office, home or bank account. Even though we’re truly woeful right now, if there was one person I could immediately remove from the club it would without a doubt be him. Ah! How good it is to finish on a nice thought!
GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 3. TANIGUCHI Hiroto
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (Yellow card 90+3')
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
Subs
GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO (on for TANIGUCHI 61')
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 74')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (Yellow card 83') (on for ITO 74')
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
MF 23. MARCINHO (on for KOBAYASHI 46')
MF 26. YUI Kota
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
Goals
ITO (Frontale) 47' 1-0
MITSUMARU (Kashiwa) 84' 1-1
KUBO (Kashiwa) 87' 1-2
Highlights
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