Vs Urawa Reds (home) 3/5/24 J League match 11

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Urawa Reds 

Finally, we won a game. And that’s two milestones in two games as last week we finally scored a goal. What a time to be a Frontale fan! It’s fair to say that this year hasn’t been going as well as some might have expected. You could also say that about Urawa’s season. It’s a lot funnier when it happens to them though, isn’t it? Even when things aren’t going great, a win against Urawa is a very welcome thing. Actually, maybe it’s even better when things aren’t going great as them having their expectations punctured is always very amusing. It’s all too easy to get distracted by your dislike for YFM and forget quite how irritating a club Urawa are, with their wannabe tough guy fans and their massive amount of money spent. (As an aside, I’m very happy that we put on another insane pre-match performance celebrating the birthday of the offspring of our mascot in front of the Urawa fans as they would almost certainly have been triggered by it). (As a second aside, seems like they have another manager struggling to do anything in the league with the massive budget that they have. Bless him, the poor soul! Will he want to stay past the end of the year, I wonder. If past evidence suggests anything, probably not). Of course I’m delighted when we beat any team. But it’s just a bit more fun when we beat someone I really don’t like. As it’s Golden Week and the next game is coming up soon, I’ll put the usual excuse in here and say that I’m going to rattle through this, probably focusing mainly on sarcastic bitching. Let’s get snarking!

First half -

The first half, or actually the first half of the first half, looked pretty bad for us. Even though there were only five points between the two teams and Urawa were kind of mid table, we seemed to be playing like we were a bottom of the league team, (guess we are kind of close to that), coming up against a super club who were destroying anyone who dared get near to them. We looked nervous and shaky and it seemed like a matter of when and not if we would concede. But we slowly managed to get back into the game a little and by the time we got to half time I thought things were pretty even. Although the stats tell a different story. It really didn’t feel like they had 58% possession, and the fact that this stat was exactly the same for the second half too makes me think that maybe the guy who was registering possession for Flashscore might have given up after the first goal. It was something of a surprise to see us take the lead. A very welcome surprise though! Gomis started this game up front in place of Erison who seems to have really been struggling recently. In a way, I hope he’s not fully fit, as if his travails are down to something else it will be a bit sad considering he looked amazing in his first few games. Much like was the case last season, it still seems that whoever we play up front will struggle to score. I guess that’s got something to do with how we start games. The strikers only seem to get chances when things get a bit ragged in the second half of matches. Even though he didn’t really get many chances in this game, I thought Gomis had a good match and he played a significant part in our first goal. Going ahead seemed to really give us some confidence. And that’s no surprise as we hadn’t scored the first goal in a game since we played FC Tokyo. It’s a shame that we let them equalise before half time though. It was a pretty soft goal to concede, but you could probably say that about the one we scored too. All in all it was a semi-promising first half. Tono had another good game in midfield and once again Kamifukumoto made some important saves, (along with giving us a few heart in the mouth / head in your hands moments, but that just seems to be something that is destined to happen). On balance, 1-1 seemed to be about right.

Second half -

Well, the second half was a lot more fun! I don’t know if we looked great or Urawa looked terrible, but as the net result is the same, let’s not worry too much about it, eh? I’m not sure what was really going on. We were… attacking! We were… shooting! When you see that a centre back has scored you expect it to have been with a header from a corner. But no, Sasaki ran the length of the pitch and the length of the Urawa half with the ball before smashing it home. I’m taking some credit for the goal as before the match I bought a Sasaki towel. I think he’s been doing really well recently so I was delighted to see him score. So out of character is it for us to attack like that, I genuinely had no idea who had scored when the goal went in. We hit the bar with a Wakizaka free kick too and also had plenty of good chances where we tried to shoot instead of pass or tried to pass instead of shoot. It really looked like it might be one of those games where we would ultimately regret not taking enough of our chances. Finally Ienaga made it safe after some very unselfish play from Yamada who passed instead of shot, perhaps because he previously had shot instead of passed. We really could and should have scored more. If they’d managed to get an equaliser when it was still 2-1 I think we could well have collapsed and lost the match. But we didn’t and the fact that we didn’t could prove to be a very crucial thing going forward. So what went right on this occasion that previously went wrong? Well, I think it makes a difference that Oniki has again abandoned the two defensive midfielder thing. It definitely tightens things up but also removes any chance of us ever scoring. I think Ienaga has really benefited from a little rest. He looked unrecognisable in this and the last match from some of the earlier games this year. Marcinho seems to slowly be getting some form back, although he probably still has some way to go, but at least he’s passing the ball a bit earlier than previously. Sai coming in has really helped too. I think Segawa is still something of a weak link when it comes to defending, (unsurprisingly given that he’s a striker), but has been doing the business going forward. And I think Tono compliments Wakizaka better than some of the other options that Oniki has tried. When Wakizaka went off relatively early (for an Oniki favourite) in this match I thought Seko did a really good job in his place. As always, we’ve probably got too many players who can play/want to play in Wakizaka’s position so maybe we’ll see some rotation there at some stage. I think the big change though is that Oniki seems to have finally taken the handbrake off. Whilst is was obvious to many but apparently not noticed by our manager, we really were pissing around trying to follow the overly extravagant plan to the absolute detail in order to score a textbook goal, instead of just improvising a bit. Of course confidence plays a big part and you could see that we’d got a boost from the draw at Hiroshima. And I guess we’ll get some more from this result. It’s something of a shame that we didn’t climb the table, but it is nice to put a bit of distance between us and the teams below us. And the league is very compact at the moment. We’re in 16th and ten points cover us and all the teams to the top. Clearly things can change quickly and dramatically this year. It seems like anyone can beat anyone on their day. And we can say this from experience as we’ve lost some games against teams we should really expect to beat. Fingers crossed that we can now put a little run together, instead of building on a win with another awful winless and goalless run.

Ref and VAR -

Ikeuchi was back in town and naturally I thought he was useless. However, the fact that I can still speak today rather than having lost my voice from screaming at insane refereeing decisions probably means that I didn’t think he was as useless as Okabe was last week. As I am clearly biased, I suspect that me feeling the ref is giving the opposition most things probably means that he’s been reasonably fair. When a referee annoys me a bit, he’s probably done alright. When a refereee infuriates me, he’s probably not done very well. So I guess this is a kind of backhanded compliment to Ikeuchi. But what would this section be without a good old moan, and on this occasion, the recipient is the linesman on the side closest to the main stand. Now he was utterly shite. I don’t really know what the point of having a linesman who is so unwilling to make any kind of decision or judgement is. Even for the most clear cut of throw ins, he still dithered with his flag in both hands, not wanting to commit either way till the ref made the call. Perhaps he never actually wanted to be a linesman but ended up in the job because he said ‘Yes boss. I agree’ to everything anyone ever said to him. It’s something of a miracle that the game kicked off on time as the linesman was probably sitting in his changing room waiting for the ref to tell him which foot to put each of his shoes on and whether he should wear his pants under or over his shorts. I suspect I would have more to moan about if we hadn’t won, but somewhat surprisingly, this is a relatively positive ref and VAR section.

Banner wisdom -

Oh Urawa, there’s just too much to chose from! With the numerous ‘Lads’ flags, which branch off into French for a ‘Garcons’ version, (which I like to think of as waiters rather than boys). I wonder if they have considered translating it into any more languages? Add to this the motivational message ‘Nothing is beyond you’ in which the use of you makes me feel like it is more encouragement for the opposition and their fans rather than their own team. There were plenty more riches on display, but on this occasion I think I have to go for…

‘Pride of Urawa’

Pride of Saitama prefecture? No, that’s not accurate… could be Seibu Lions, those funny old buildings in Kawagoe. Pride of Saitama city? Hmmm, no that could be Omiya Ardija. How about Pride of Urawa? Well, I still think you’re stretching the truth a bit as that’s probably Urawa Parco, but as we’re running out of ideas, let’s go with it.

When I go to work next week I’m going to unveil my flag saying ‘Best English teacher currently teaching this exact class’ flag and stick it to all the haters.

Next up, Avispa away and I’m sad to say that I’m not going. Scheduling two away games in Kyushu within ten days of each other and then sticking a home game in the middle to destroy any thoughts of trying to combine the two is really top level J League shitness. And also seems to be trolling of anyone who is in any way slightly worried about the environmental effects of air travel. I’m pleased that we got a win in this match as if we hadn’t and then went on to win in Fukuoka, I would start wondering if I am the bad luck charm. So, expect the next blog post to be even less detailed than usual as I won’t be able to watch the game live and can’t really see the point of watching a game that you already know the score of. Basically the next post will be me describing what I could see from the highlights that you clearly will also have seen. No there’s something to look forward to, eh?
 

Team

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
FW 17. TONO Daiya

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
DF 4. JESIEL (on for WAKIZAKA 81')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 81')
FW 9. ERISON
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for TONO 69')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for GOMIS 75')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 75')

Goals

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 18' 1-0
OKUBO (Urawa) 34' 1-1
SASAKI (Frontale) 49' 2-1
IENAGA (Frontale) 90+3' 3-1

My Frontale Man Of The Match

There really should be something here, but I forgot to write it when I wrote the post and now I can't really think straight as I'm very tired, so let's give it to...

Everyone - was fun wasn't it?

 

 
Highlights

Vs Sanfrecce Hiroshima (away) 28/4/24 J League match 10

Sanfrecce Hiroshima 2 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

This game seems to have divided opinion somewhat. I came away from the stadium having had a pretty good time and being kind of encouraged at least by the fact that we managed to score a goal for the first time in ages. There were loads of players who had a decent game too I thought. At the same time, I guess this is another draw, and Hiroshima didn’t look particularly good, I thought. On the day and in the stadium I felt quite pleased with how things had gone. But sitting here writing this a few days afterwards, it’s clear to see that another draw isn’t going to help us much more than a defeat would have. And conceding so soon after finally taking the lead in a game won’t exactly give our confidence the boost that holding on for an unlikely win would have done. As I’ve left it quite late to write this I’m going to get it out of the way quite quickly, so here we go under the usual headings.

Us -

Plenty of decent performances from the players we had available. The players who did particularly well I thought included Sasaki, Tono, Ienaga and Kamifukumoto. Sure Kami could have done better for their goals but at the same time he did save us on numerous other occasions. It was a blow losing Sung-Ryong in the warm up but Kami did a good job, even when it seemed that the Hiroshima players were doing their best to injure him, knowing that we basically had no keeper on the bench. Sung-Ryong has a back injury apparently. He sat on the bench for the whole game but was never going to take part. I think he didn’t even come to us after the game. I suspect that he won’t be available for the next game. Oniki decided to ‘go back’ to the old 4-1-2-3 formation for the start of the game. Once again, I say ‘go back’ but some of the formation changes that he apparently made were almost imperceptible I thought. He didn’t keep this formation for long though, half way through the first half giving the ‘no top’ formation he once used against Sapporo a go. It worked in that game but was useless in this one. It doesn’t seem to make much sense to me to have Erison on the right wing and Ienaga and Tono in the middle. I wonder if Erison isn’t completely fit. He went off at half time in this game and hadn’t really done that much. How I wish we could see the start of the season Erison back again. We didn’t have a great first half and were slowly retreating further and further backwards, pissing around with the ball to absolutely no effect, as you would expect. It still felt a bit unfair that they went a goal ahead though. There wasn’t much quality in the first half so I think a 0-0 would have been fairer. If someone had to score, well, I suppose on balance it should have been them, but it did hurt a bit.

For the second half we came out charging though. Kobayashi, having replaced Erison, seemed well up for it and Ienaga looked like a changed man, the little rest apparently having done him the world of good. There was something inevitable in the fact that after scoring, Kobayashi would end up getting injured. That just seems to be the way things are going for us this year when it comes to injuries. I feel gutted for him, and you could see that he was pretty upset about it. His replacement though scored with his first touch, and it was bouncing in the stands. Would have been nice if we could have enjoyed the excitement a little bit longer, but no, we conceded almost directly from the restart. A real gut punch but not entirely surprising in 2024 I guess. The remainder of the game was pretty crazy I thought. It was a bit of a mess with chance after chance coming, play swinging from one end of the pitch to the other. Either team could have nicked a winner I think, but a draw was probably fair.

As this has all been a bit too positive, let’s have a little moan. Please can we stop playing Segawa in defence. He’s doing the best he can, but it’s a ready made weakness for the opposition to attack every match. If the opposition can see this, and I can see this, surely Oniki has seen it. Sure, we don’t have a great deal of options in defence, but we do have players who can play there who are defenders. I feel sorry for Segawa. Maybe if we were playing a back three and he was a wing back it might work a bit better, but in our usual formation, it’s just an easy target for the opposition. Our shooting is still a bit suspect. We only got three of our twelve shots on target in this game. Thankfully their goalkeeper failed to save two of them! We missed some pretty easy chances I thought. and when you look at the stats and see that Sanfrecce had double the amount of shots as us with 10% less possession, well that tells the whole story of recent Oniki Frontale doesn’t it? Way too much pointless possession and when we do manage a shot, more often than not, we can’t get it on target. But, let’s end on some positivity. We scored not once, but twice! Recently we’ve at least been making a few more chances. This game was not as infuriating as recent ones have been. I actually enjoyed it! And the atmosphere in the stands was great. It’s not a high bar to clear, but this was probably my favourite game of the season to watch. And looking forward, whilst I wouldn’t say I’m filled with optimism, I am at least not filled with the despair that I have been for much of the season so far,

Them -

I guess the first thing to say in this section is that the Pee Swing Stadium is a very nice one. Perhaps it’s a touch smaller than it could have been, but maybe Sanfrecce don’t have that many fans. This game was a sell out which according to people I spoke to in a bar before the game is a rare thing. The capacity is about 26000, which is around the same size as Todoroki. Naturally though the views are a lot better given that the Peas Win doesn’t have a running track. It got me kind of excited about the possibilities for our new stadium. It’s also pretty accessible, in the middle of numerous stations so giving multiple routes to get to the stadium. And we got to queue in the shade. Perhaps because the away end is next to an old apartment building, our end was quite enclosed so we could make quite a lot of noise. This was a bit of luck for those watching online as there was almost no noise apart from the sound of clapping coming from the two sides of the ground. Nothing but good stuff to say about the Piece Wind. Ah, except for the fact that the PA was insanely loud, Sanfrecce perhaps using the FC Tokyo trick to try to cover up the lack of atmosphere by playing extremely loud motivational music. The pre game music was quite weird actually, seeming to have been created from an AI command to create a song in the style of Rage Against the Machine but just different enough to not be a copyright infringement and without any kind of inflammatory or political lyrics. Oh and the AI was probably also employed to create their videos for encouraging their fans. It featured an animation of their mascot waving a towel or clapping their hands but the AI instruction this time to determine the movement probably contained the phrase uncanny valley, as the weird hip shake was somehow quite distressing. The Sanfrecce players, well, they are distressing in a different way. Perhaps inspired by the numerous flags I’ll mention in the section below, they seemed to be determined to be as mischievous as possible, taking every opportunity to either feign injury, or complain to the ref, or to kick our goalkeeper, feign injury and then complain to the ref in one smooth sweep. Perhaps my favorite whinging from a Sanfrecce player was when Sotiriou was screaming at the ref to restart the game after their second goal, apparently thinking we were time wasting, whilst he himself was standing in the centre circle, ensuring that the game couldn’t restart. Perhaps it’s not only in front of goal that he’s not the sharpest. Skibbe said after the game that they’d played well against a strong Kawasaki side. I think he’s probably not exactly right about either aspect of that sentence to be honest. A couple of short mentions of individual players. Marcos Junior has some hair now so doesn’t look quite so psychopathic anymore. Now he looks like he’s the guitarist in a moderately successful late 90’s melodic punk band on their reunion tour. And Ohashi, well he just seems to be a total wanker. He bravely managed to go through the pain barrier after being felled by a slightly too long blade of grass, summoned up just enough energy to wave an imaginary yellow card at the ref before crumpling back onto the turf.

Ref and VAR -

Who knows if the VAR guys were actually watching this game. Judging by the second Sanfrecce goal, I’d say probably not. Of course, it’s too much to expect the ref to notice the foul on Tachibanda. If you were watching online you wouldn’t have seen it as the footage was still showing a replay of our goal when it happened. The only evidence is in one replay angle where he’s lying on the floor as play continues. VAR presumably had the angle to watch if they wanted though. Seems like it was also too much to expect the ref or VAR to notice either Sotiriou either barging our player out of the way as he’s about the head the ball, or if you think Sotiriou actually made contact with the ball, as some sites do with him being given the assist, well then why didn’t they spot the scorer was offside. What do you expect from the absolutely useless Okabe (on the field ) or the absolutely useless Iida (on the VAR)? Okabe was terrible in this game. I realise I am biased but I thought he was unbelievably generous to the home side. Once again, I’ve broken my voice from screaming at a referee. I probably should just calm down a bit. It’s a bit like getting angry about Japanese summer. Yes, the heat and humidity is horrible, but it always is, there’s nothing you can do about it and presumably it will only get worse. And yes, J League referees are atrocious, but what do you expect? They always are, and presumably always will be. As sure as your toast ending up butter side down if you accidentally drop it, you know that as soon as a J League ref picks their whistle up, they are about to lose both their vision and rationality.

Ref apparently going to miss a clear handball
because he forgot to pay attention to the game

Banner wisdom -

'Bad Boys'

It’s back! The section that no-one asked for and no-one enjoys! After a disappointing lack of amusing banners against Cerezo and Verdy we were back and banging in this game. Ignore Duran Duran, these fans are not ‘Wild Boys’. The Sanfrecce fans, no matter where they’re from are BAD BOYS! I don’t know where they got this reputation from. Perhaps it was from Kansai teams’ fans objecting to their way of making okonomiyaki, (sorry Gamma and Cerezo fans, I’m with the bad boys on this one). Or maybe it was a natural reaction to having to watch very dull football for quite a long time. But these bad boys are here to stay and wherever they are from, (regular bad boys, Tokyo based bad boys), they are going to shout about it. Guess the guys with the ‘Sanfecce Club Okayama’ flag don’t qualify as real bad boys, although perhaps some might say that if you have to get a shinkansen to go to home games rather than supporting your local club, you actually are the baddest of all bad boys.

Next up, Urawa at home on Friday. I’m don’t like Friday Night J League but thankfully as Friday is a holiday, this is Friday Afternoon J League. Urawa are another team who were strongly fancied pre-season. They haven’t lived up to those expectations quite as much as Sanfrecce have though. In fact you could probably say that they have really lived down to those expectations. I don’t think lived down works in that sentence but you know what I mean. However, the fact is, we’re still not doing very well, so a game against anyone is most likely a loss. But maybe we have just a little bit of confidence from the Sanfrecce match. At the same time, maybe we don’t really have enough fit players to fill a match day squad. After fumbling around for the first nine games of the season though, it would be quite nice to turn our season round against the two teams who everyone said would win the league, wouldn’t it? It’s a home game so obviously it won’t be as much fun as an away one, but after this game I am kind of slightly looking forward to it. Hopefully those words won’t look too stupid on Saturday morning...

Team

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
FW 17. TONO Daiya

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 51')
FW 9. ERISON (Yellow card 41')
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 4. JESIEL (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 68')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for ERISON 46')
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (Yellow card 87') (on for SEGAWA 68')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for KOBAYASHI 74')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for WAKIZAKA 89')

Goals

OHASHI (Sanfrecce) 38' 0-1
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 65' 1-1
YAMADA (Frontale) 74' 1-2
KATO (Sanfrecce) 75' 2-2

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

Generally we played a lot better than we have recently so I felt I had to do one of these today. I can’t really chose between the people mentioned above though, so let’s split it between…

SASAKI Asahi, TONO Daiya, IENAGA Akihiro & KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto - yeah, I know they weren’t perfect but well done to them and to all of the players really I guess.

 

Highlights

 

Vs Tokyo Verdy (home) 20/4/24 J League match 9

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 0 Tokyo Verdy

I’m running out of different ways to write the same thing every week. I’m also running out of ways to say that I’m running out of ways to write the same thing every week. So please forgive me if there is some repetition here. Personally I approached this game a little differently from usual as I was attending with one of my former students so had to remain a bit calmer than I usually might in order to show that I am a mature adult and all that. In contrast to my new approach, Oniki went with exactly the same approach again, those two defensive midfielders really shoring things up and the same safety first approach to attacking once again ensuring that we didn’t score. No goals in four games now and naturally that also means no wins in four. If only Oniki could come up with a way of winning without having to score we’d be quids in! This goalless draw was similar in some ways to the draw against YFM. Similar in the way that we had some shots but never really looked like coming close to scoring. Against YFM we had fifteen shots, only one of which was on target. In this game we had fourteen and managed to ‘hit the target’ an astonishing five times! I say ‘hit the target’ but it was more a case of the ball slowly trickling towards the target and lightly nuzzling against it. Hit sounds way too dangerous. Also like the YFM game, this was a match where it looked like we were probably going to concede from a hopeless error from a situation of little to no danger.  We had a few dodgy moments when we were playing the ball around at the back and lost it. I mean, that’s not even worth writing as this always happens, doesn’t it? I guess the real surprise is that we didn’t concede, so that’s got to be a good thing, hasn’t it? Well, yes and no. Obviously I don’t want us to concede, but at the same time, I probably wouldn’t have traded any possibility of us ever scoring again for a series of endless clean sheets. After all, we do go to games for entertainment purposes. Although saying that, our current bluntness is so predictable that going to a game and expecting entertainment and excitement is about as pointless as going to a sculpture gallery and hoping to see the exhibits perform a perfectly choreographed hi-energy dance routine.

Our current situation is causing problems for itself. The longer we go without a goal, the lower confidence gets. The lower confidence gets, the more chance we have of totally wasting any chance we might get. The longer we fail to win, the more Oniki wants to make sure that we don’t lose. I wonder if we have enough points on the board so far to ensure our survival with goalless draws for the rest of the season. In this game there was at least a little bit of a change of personnel from Oniki. The problem is that I don’t think that’s where the problem lies. Finally we got to see our new right back Sai play in a league game. Naturally he played at left back just to keep things interesting. On the other side we still are going with Segawa, who is definitely getting better in that position, but presumably is still not as good as an actual right back might be. Ienaga was finally rested too. So there was at least a slight acknowledgment of the need to try something new. Ze Ricardo also came in to play alongside Tachibanada. There even seems to be some suggestion from the line up on the official site that we were playing 4-4-2. I think that this is clearly just fantasy as it was totally the same formation as always. particularly when you consider Yamada spent a lot of time on the right wing and Wakizaka was in the middle of the pitch. (edit: Have just read Oniki’s comments and he says it was a 4-4-2 but the tweak was that Wakizaka was more central than his right wing position and Yamada was told to go start his attacks from the right. So, exactly the same as the usual formation. At this stage I feel like everyone is gaslighting me. We’re having spaghetti for dinner, but instead of using spaghetti, I’m using chips and I’m replacing the spaghetti sauce with battered fish. But it’s definitely spaghetti, ok?). I don’t really know what the point of this kind of deception is. Is it supposed to panic the opposition before the game into imagining that we’re going to set up differently? Or is it just a diversion for all of those who say that Oniki never tries anything new? Whatever the reason, this was definitely just a case of the same old stuff having the same old effect. Marcinho is clearly having a tough season. The two red cards have probably shaken his confidence. I would suggest that maybe I don’t really want our speedy dribbler being relied on to run back and make last ditch tackles in defence. The rest of his game has crashed too though it seems. All he seems to be able to do now is run fast. I can’t imagine he’s going to regain his confidence by ballooning shot after shot way over the bar or just dribbling to the box and then losing the ball. I want him to pass a bit more and a bit earlier. But of course our problems aren’t down to him. It seems that Erison has settled in now, the couple of months of Oniki football coaching having finally removed any vestige of exciting attacking talent from him. Perhaps he’s still not fully recovered from his injury. If that’s the case, I wonder why he’s playing. At the start of the year, having Erison in the side was a guaranteed one goal head start in a match. That is not the case anymore. The frustration of the players is clear to see. I’m sure that they’re not excited about terrible performance after terrible performance. And they’ve got to have noticed that the rush to the exits in the stands on the final whistle of games has become more vital and exciting than what goes on during the game on the pitch. But the fact is we’re adrift and looking lost and need a lucky break to go our way to regain any kind of confidence or form. So, maybe that will happen in the next few games. I’m sure we’ve got some easy ones coming up, right? Hmmmm, next… Hiroshima away… ermmm. Then Urawa at home, who are shit this year, but that probably makes them more likely to be able to beat us. Hmmmm. Avispa away, a ground where we usually don’t play very well. And then games against Sagan Tosu and Consadole, two of the current bottom four. Ah! So that’s the positive, right? We’re playing teams who are worse than us! Except we’ve already lost to Kyoto who are second bottom. If we still haven’t picked up a win by the time those games are done, I think it’s pretty likely that we’ll be bottom. The only way is up from there, right? Well actually I guess down to J2 is also possible. I think I’ve said many times that I think our squad this year is better than last year. It’s unfortunate that our tactics are the same as they were last year, but one year older, and one million times more predictable. Next game expect a nominally different formation with one or two players changed, but in reality, exactly the same old shit. Lovely!

I normally would moan about the opposition here but I don’t have anything to say really. They didn’t look that good so were a perfect match for us who also didn’t look that good. They have some of their best players away with Japan’s U23 team. Praise the lord! Glad that we could come up against a weakened version of them. Some people on Twitter were talking about us getting revenge for the Emperor’s Cup defeat to them a few seasons ago. I don’t know if revenge is really the word though when you haven’t really been wronged and you’ve basically brought it on yourself. I want revenge against JR as I missed my train today because I didn’t bother leaving the house! The cheek of it! They didn’t even have any funny banners. Jofuku was rocking the dark suit and white t-shirt combo that seems to have become popular with J League managers recently. Wonder if he rolled up the sleeves of the jacket slightly to go for that middle ground between Miami Vice and Phil Collins? Perhaps because I was playing the part of a responsible adult at this game was why I didn’t find more to get irritated about. Basically this game was a nailed on 0-0 and that’s what it ended up as. Grump lovers, don’t despair though because the ref on the other hand was an extremely irritating wanker. Kasahara hates us. We all know that. I thought it was brave of him to demonstrate that quite so openly though. Once again thought I should say that our bluntness wasn’t down to the ref, so don’t think I’m moaning in that way. I suppose I should be positive and say that at least we managed to get through a Kasahara game without a DOGSO red card. Kasahara, we know you hate us, and just in case you were wondering, the feeling is mutual.

Next up, a new stadium! Thankfully there is something to look forward to as I suspect that game won’t be much fun. We have trouble against Hiroshima when they’re crap, so a season when they are doing much better will probably not be much fun. Although saying that, as Hiroshima away must be the absolute most nailed on of defeats, we’ll probably end up winning. A win would be lovely, but would clearly ease the pressure on Oniki and give him the idea that all that was needed was for us to persevere by sticking to the same tactics for long enough and then things would come good. And then we’ll lose our next four games. To win though… well… it requires… a goal. And I can’t see where our next one is coming from. Hopefully off the arse of a particularly annoying Sanfrecce player past his own keeper. The demand for the commemorative goods after the game will be immense. First goal in five games with the Frontale crest emerging from behind big OG letters, available for printing on a t-shirt, tote bag or key ring. Actually it must also be a matter of time before OG gets a 100 J League games presentation too, with his girlfriend bringing on their newborn baby ‘og’ on to the field for the three of them to have a photo together. Beautiful stuff! Perhaps retail therapy is the solution for Frontale fans who are feeling disheartened right now. Frontale eye masks so you don’t have to watch what’s going on during the game and branded ear plugs so you don’t have to listen to either Oniki’s excuses or my whining!

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. ZE RICARDO

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (Yellow card 32')
FW 9. ERISON
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for ERISON 64')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 72')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 64')

FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS (on for WAKIZAKA 84')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for YAMADA 72')

Goals

Not a sausage

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

Well, if we were playing a tweaked 4-4-2 which wasn't the usual 4-2-3-1, I thought I should tweak this section too. This week in a totally different way from the last few weeks when I haven't given it to anyone, this week I've decided to give it to no-one. I hope you appreciate the new way I'm doing things here.

 

Highlights 

Vs Cerezo Osaka (away) 13/4/24 J League match 8

Cerezo Osaka 1 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale

Well, I dunno. What’s there to say? One again we lost. Once again we lost away at Cerezo. Once again we lost away at Cerezo and I’m not that pissed off. Oh hang on. That’s probably the headline. Last year’s away game here saw us get battered 3-0, but I came away from that game with some positivity thinking that at least the great Oniki had finally tried something different. Not sure that’s particularly the case with this match, but at least you could say that we played better than we did against Machida. Admittedly that’s not a high bar to clear though. As the games pass this year and the defeats keep on piling up it would make sense to get more angry about our 2024 uselessness. Certainly looking at the result of this game would give you plenty of things to moan about. But to be honest, I thought this was a game that should have been a 0-0, with both teams showing that they were pretty crap when it came to finishing off chances. As it was we’ve ended up even closer to the relegation zone and the bottom of the table and Cerezo ended the weekend at the top. To be honest, this was something of a blessing, as usually the trains after the game are unpleasantly busy. It seemed that knowing that they’d gone top of the league, the Cerezo fans decided to hang around and enjoy the moment. I can't say for sure as this was another game where we left pretty soon after the final whistle. For these kind of shitty performances at home we’d probably go on the final whistle, but at away games, particularly when we’ve put up a bit of a fight, I feel like I should at least wait and acknowledge the bow of shame. Not going to hang around cheering off our losing team till they get back into the changing room though. Life is really way too short for that. I was considering if there was a way to enjoy Frontale games more this year and the only thing I could think of would be to avoid the matches as much as possible and otherwise continue with the away game activities or home game routine. That way you’d get all the fun and none of the misery. Hmmmm. Perhaps worth considering. As I don’t think there’s much to be said about either Cerezo, (basically not that good on the day, but crucially, with some kind of plan and like most teams, not as bad as us), and the ref, (pretty crap but not offensively so apart from him letting pretty much anything go unless one of our Brazilian players was involved in which case, he gave them a booking), I’m going to dispense with the usual headings and instead wrap this up in one bloated miserable diatribe. Well, maybe not miserable, as like I said, this defeat was a vast improvement on the Machida game. But definitely bloated and certainly a diatribe. Ok, here we go.

I've said it plenty of times and whilst people don't like to hear it, right now (and for a while as far as I'm concerned but not to most), Oniki is a bit crap isn’t he? I suspect the board and him will realise this fact shortly after our relegation to J2 is confirmed. I think it’s clear that we are very much in the diminishing returns era now. I’ve been moaning for years and with every passing game it seems that what I’ve been saying seems to be coming increasingly apparent. Admittedly, we’ve been getting shafted by injuries recently. This weekend the club has confirmed that Maruyama is injured. And Miura has a knee injury so don’t expect him back any time soon. And unsurprisingly, Jesiel's injury been confirmed. Don't forget that Oniki played a clearly unfit Jesiel, kept him on the pitch long after he looked like he was crocked, and eventually left it till we’d conceded and he was completely crocked till he changed anything. So he’s definitely got to be blamed for Jesiel’s absence. Let’s hope it’s not a long term thing. But history says that it probably will be. So yeah, plenty of injuries. You could say that’s why Oniki played a striker at right back and a midfielder at left back. Well, you could, but there was a player on the bench who can play in either of those positions, so the truth has to be that Oniki as usual likes to play his favourites, regardless of logic in all but the rarest of occasions. For a bit of positivity when it comes to injuries, Oshima and Gomis played in a practice game on Sunday against JEF. Perhaps slightly unfortunate that we have plenty of fit players who play in their positions though and a manager who is wedded to the same players in pretty much the same formation. Perhaps Oniki will go for Oshima at right back And Gomis at left back in a game soon. That’s the level of out of the box thinking we’re dealing with.

So Segawa at right back and Tachibanada at left back. Sounds like an attacking line up, right? Well… maybe in theory. It was nice to see us equal our total number of shots on target in the whole game against Machida after just four minutes in this game. The match stats will tell you that we had a magnificent five shots on target in this game! Sounds even better when you consider we’d only had 13 shots on target in the previous five games. But crucially, we still failed to score. That’s three games without a goal now. Blimey. Although I don’t see there being a great deal of difference since we switched to two defensive midfielders, (when we played FC Tokyo at home and somehow... won! That result is looking increasingly bizarre week by week. Unless you remember that two of the goals were absolute gifts from Chofu and the other was scored after their keeper had been sent off), we’ve tightened things up a little at the back but have significantly blunted our attack. Oniki did exactly the same thing last year, (or was it the year before?), when he played Tachibanada and Joao Schmidt together. Much like last time he tried it, it has stopped us conceding for fun. Unlike last time though, in 2024 this change means us conceding one goal and losing rather than keeping a clean sheet and hoping for a 0-0. The attack blunting effect of the change is pretty much the same as when Oniki last tried it though. Erison looks completely isolated and our don't-go-forwards-if-there's-a-backwards-pass-available approach is unsurprisingly not that effective when it comes to scoring. So don’t any of you dare say he NEVER changes anything! Obviously the truth is that he seldom changes anything and when he does he changes to a formula that he’s tried before, which didn’t work then and won't work now. That’s the beauty and quality of Oniki Frontale! BRAVO!!!!! It’s a shame that the other myriad formations or tactical approaches that are available are never even considered by him. Perhaps he’s only got a very limited number of options on his magnet board. It always makes me laugh how he seems to shuffle his magnets as a sign to show everyone that he’s really thinking. Shuffle them around, stand up purposefully and then impose exactly the same tactics as last time. Please, someone in the club, steal that board and smash it to pieces. I think he needs to go magnet cold turkey. It’s the only way we’ll break out if this insanely looping reality that we’re in. Most teams would look at our steady decline and notice that something needs to change. It looks like we’ll go with the ‘wait till we’re relegated’ route before anyone even dares question Oniki’s tactics or abilities as a manager. Before I was aware of the extent of our latest injuries I looked at the starting line up and my only conclusion was that Oniki had a nice job lined up somewhere and was desperately trying to get sacked so he could get a pay out rather than resign. Now I know the extent of our injuries… actually maybe I still think that same thing. But the truth is, Oniki is unbelievably risk averse. The weird thing is that he sees playing 3/4 of the defence out of position as being less risky than playing players who aren’t experienced but can play in those positions. I’m almost convinced that if we got a couple of injuries in the goalkeeping department Oniki would probably play Tachibanda there rather than Ando or Hayasaka. Thankfully we haven’t had that particular crisis yet as Sung Ryong kept us in the game again early on in this match. Well Sung-Ryong and some truly crap Cerezo finishing. The stats at the end of the game were fairly even, with us actually having more shots. The truth is though that this was another crap performance and one where we came up against a team who were also on this occasion playing like crap so luckily we avoided getting whupped. Our results have been terrible but you could probably say that we’ve been kind of lucky considering how poor we’ve been.


I’m not that interested in continuing this blog post much longer so let’s rip through one other notable thing. This game saw us come up against Nobori for the first time since he left us. When he came to say hello after the match he was moved to tears. I suspect this was probably tears of joy as he noticed he’d dodged a real bullet by leaving us before the start of this season. Not sure where he was playing for Cerezo as it sometimes looked like left back, sometimes centre back and sometimes defensive midfield. I wonder if the Cerezo manager actually has some original ideas about how to play football. Oniki take note please. I suspect it’s unlikely that he will. Nobori was the latest in a long line of players we have discarded to ‘weaker’ teams who’ve come back to us, beaten us and kept their new team in a much higher position in the league. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have got rid of these players. I actually think our squad this year is better than last year's. It’s just the complete lack of ideas that is the killer. 

 

(No) Banner wisdom -

 

I'm sad to say that there were no amusing banners on display at this game, which means that my snarky section is dying before it even really got started. So instead this week I'll change the focus slightly.

Heavenly audio -

 

Every team seems to have a rousing anthem to gee up their fans before the match. FC Tokyo go for a karaoke backing track of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' with Colin from the local Eikaiwa multi-tracking several vocal parts in a few different voices, (Chofu Eikaiwa employee, Chofu ALT, Chofu based gaijin TikTok content maker), over the top to blast out at maximum volume to cover up the mumbling coming from the stands. YFM have their shitty towel twirling 'banger'. Vissel Kobe proudly sing about the three lions on their shirts and the return of football to it's true home in Hyogo. And of course I shouldn't forget Urawa having a look at their logo and the hip music lover on their staff scanning through his collection of 'NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC!' CDs to find the first song with the word 'house' in its title (it's on NOW 23 in case you were wondering). Cerezo took a different approach and asked their staff if any of them had a casio keyboard at home, the cheaper the better. Thankfully one of them did and after carefully selecting the Funky Pop preset and letting it rip, they did a bit of one finger drum pad fills to keep things exciting. Of course it was crap, and of course every team does these kind of crap things. But you know, I just thought I'd try to inject just a little of of levity in this otherwise dour post. 

Next up Tokyo Verdy at home next weekend. They now sit ahead of us in the league. That’s true for fifteen teams though, so perhaps not worth mentioning. We've already lost to the other two newly promoted teams at home. And we’ve played two of the teams who are below us in the league so are supposedly worse than us and lost to one of them! The other was a slightly unsteady win at the start of the season before we knew quite how bad things were going to get. Ah! The glory of 2024! How nice it would be to go back to the days when we could play like shit but not lose! With Takai away with the U23 Japan team it seems like we'll be enjoying this injury crisis in defence for a while. But we should be used to that kind of thing, as it seems we have an injury crisis in defence every season. 2024 is going to be the year of throwbacks and repetition it seems. All of the problems we've had in previous years just keep cropping up again. I guess that's got something to do with us doing exactly the same thing every week and expecting things to magically start working. I suppose at least we'll soon have one new thing though to experience soon though. The excitement of being in a real relegation battle. 

 

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. ERISON (Yellow card 60')
FW 23. MARCINHO (Yellow card 55')

Subs

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for YAMAMOTO 73')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for IENAGA 73')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto

FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 58')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 73')
FW 28. PATRICK VERHON (on for WAKIZAKA 79')

Goals

LEO CEARA (Cerezo) 70' 1-0

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

Briefly toyed with doing a serious FMOTM, and then with a sarcastic one. But finally settled on just not bothering.

 

Highlights  

 

Vs Machida Zelvia (home) 7/4/24 J League match 7

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 1 Machida Zelvia

Aaaaaahhhhh. Another lovely day out at the football! What could think better than getting out the house in a lovely spring day, having a beer at the stadium, singing the songs of and cheering for your favourite players as they enter the pitch and then watching another 90 minutes where we almost entirely failed to have a shot on target?‘But come on’, you say, ‘Don’t exaggerate!’ I apologise. We did have one shot on target. I can’t remember it, but the stats say so. And ‘Don’t be so glum’, you say, ‘This is only one game’. And once again, I have to hold my hands up and acknowledge my error as we’ve had plenty of shots on target recently. In fact we’ve had a massive 13 in total in our last five games. Accounting for additional time in games, I reckon that works out at a wonderful one shot on target every 38 minutes. So it’s kind of unfortunate that I can’t remember yesterday’s one shot on target. If we carry on in this way, and why on earth would anyone ever imagine that we’d try to play in any other way, I’ll have to make sure I pay more attention and enjoy, if my calculations are correct, the 81 remaining shots on target we will have in the next 31 league games. And let’s look on the bright side. If we’re only having one shot on target every 38 minutes, I guess that means our conversion rate is pretty good, as we’re scoring about once every 70 minutes. Bravo! Who says I’m never positive on here? So what was there apart from the feast of shots on target in this game? Well I guess we had the league debut of Ze Ricardo and a first start for Yamauchi. Naturally they were the first two players to be changed, apart from the injured Jesiel. (More on that later). After all it’s the Oniki way to give new players a little sniff of the action and then withdraw them at the first opportunity, apparently believing that it is them who is letting us down, rather than all the other players who’ve played all the other games that we’ve been terrible in. Or, dare I say it, could it be the manager who is still going with the same idea, which has diminished in effectiveness so significantly that it must now be at minus levels? Our game plan literally now helps the opposition beat us. It used to be the case that if you liked seeing attacking play and goals we would be a good team to watch. That probably remains to be the case, but now we’re a good team to watch because the opposition will almost certainly attack and score. This year has been rotten so far. We’ve lost at home to both of the promoted teams. BRAVO! We’ve lost to a team that currently sit in 17th and have only one win this year. BRAVO! Still, at least it means that I can get to the pub quickly after the match as I don’t think there’s much point in staying to wait to clap the players after the game. I think they probably feel pretty embarrassed to have to come and stand in front of us. Aaaaahhhh.

Us -

It’s a shame that I can’t have a bit more fun in these posts at the moment. There’s no room for funnies and it’s all just a bit bleak, isn’t it? I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but this one’s got to go down as another Oniki disaster. In retrospect, the surprise inclusion of two centre backs on the bench probably hinted at what would most likely happen. Clearly Jesiel wasn’t fit to start the game. Almost immediately he was stretching after every effort, looking like he was injured. But was he removed? Of course not! Far better to wait till he was really properly injured and we’d conceded, right? Oniki has done this before with Jesiel too. We know he’s a great player but we also know that he’s a bit injury prone. After he got back to some kind of fitness after a long injury, he was absolutely unnecessarily used as a sub away at Sagan Tosu a few years ago and came on and got another big injury. We can only hope that this isn’t the case again. Not only did Oniki failing to take him off when he was clearly not in a good way probably worsen the injury but also basically gave them their goal. Jesiel could hardly move at that stage so it’s no wonder that they cut through us with ease. Also it probably didn’t help that Oniki still insists on playing a striker at right back. It’s no surprise that opposition teams like to attack down that side. More often than not, they’ll either get past him or they’ll get a free kick. I don’t blame Segawa though. I blame the manager who thinks he’s a better option there than all the right backs we have. I guess we can at least be slightly thankful that Tachibanada wasn’t available for this game as if he had been, Oniki would probably have played him at right back and moved Segawa to left back. No idea what’s happened to Tachibananda to be honest. We don’t normally get this kind of information so that’s no surprise, I guess. Oniki is a problem. He’s been grasping so hard for something, anything to turn our form around. Well anything other than making some big changes to the team and tactics. Of course we know those can’t be tampered with, right? So when we got a bit of a flukey win against FC Tokyo he felt he’d found his magic formula. And decided to wring it to death through three games in nine days. A not-in-perfect-condition Jesiel shouldn’t be playing three whole games in nine days. Ienaga is almost 40 and he too was expected to play for the majority of those three games too. And even for the younger and fitter players, I suspect the relentless shitness of our play has got to be grinding them down a bit.

We're probably either about to blast the ball over the bar and into
the stand or more likely play it back to Sung-Ryong

And then think about the players who are watching from the stands, seeing how terrible we are playing and are still not really getting a look in. But you know, keep on with the same stuff, right? Do that short passing stuff at the back to ‘draw out the opposition’. If you manage to not lose the ball and successfully draw the opposition out, as soon as you get to the centre circle, be sure to pause, pass the ball back, generously letting the opponents get back in position in their line of ten defenders. Joyous stuff! Under no circumstances try to attack. Make sure that Erison doesn’t get the ball. If by some chance he gets the ball, make sure that he has no support. Keep those lovely sideways passes coming. In this game it was an impressive 559 passes per shot on target. On Wednesday against YFM we only managed 304 passes for our one shot which must have been a huge disappointment. In this game we had 62% possession, a massive 17 shots to their 7 but still they managed to get double the amount on target. Is it just me, or is our football just a complete waste of time? We’ve often spoken about our football as being a kind of art installation, where the aesthetic is more important than result. So I’m sure everyone in the stadium really enjoyed the first 38 minutes of the game where we didn’t even manage a shot off target let alone one on target. Once again our starting line up did nothing and it was only when we made changes that we started to do something, But let’s be honest, even then we didn’t do much. Looking back I guess the real highlight for me was seeing that arsehole Tani get sent off. I’ve had a problem with him since he got a Damiao overhead goal ruled out by crying because he’d poked himself in the eye or something. Of course we didn’t bother taking advantage of the extra man and instead contrived to just come up with more ways of missing the target. Confidence and effectiveness must be at an all time low. Presumably the best way to solve that is by keeping the same tactics for the next five games. DON’T. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. SHOOT. And don’t ever change anything.

Them -

In this match our art experiment came up against its polar opposite. Machida were ugly, thuggish and dull. Oh, and effective, so the opposite in that way too. They took their chance and I don’t think you could say we even really made a chance.  I don’t think they’ll win any admirers for the way they play and I can’t imagine anyone outside of Machida will take much pleasure in them winning. They didn’t even look that good. But they did crucially look better than us. Their manager, aside from his stone age approach to the game should be derided for his white trainers, suit and white t-shirt combination. But should be praised (faintly, reluctantly) for coming up with (perhaps that’s not the right word, maybe digging up) tactics that work. We all knew they’d play like this and we probably would have been able to deal with them if we hadn’t decided to play a striker at right back and a defender who could barely move. I think that in spite of the piles of cash they’ve spent and that they have stashed in various places around their stadium, they are probably in a false position at the top of the league. But as long as they keep playing teams who are both as shit and as overconfident in their abilities as us, they’ll probably keep winning.

Ref -

Only one line will suffice here, I think. Yamamoto is a useless attention seeking waste of space of a ref. But even he’s not as bad at reffing as we are at playing football.

Banner wisdom -

‘This is Machida’

There were a few things in their flags to have a look at. ’No-one likes us, we don’t care’ for example. Yeah, but not really for the same reasons no-one likes Millwall. A stone island logo flag to attempt to sure up the hooligan thing. Oh, and of course one of the Japanese imperial flags that knucklehead fans in plenty of teams love. But the highlight has to be ‘This is Machida’. I know plenty of people believe Machida is in Kanagawa, but I’m a little surprised that the fans didn’t know better. Maybe that flag makes more sense at home games, eh?

Next up Cerezo Osaka away on Saturday. There’s a nice beer truck outside the stadium. Aside from the red card, the highlight of this game for me was watching a boy try to push big bits of beautiful looking clear ice through a drain cover after the match. There’s definitely a way to extend that into our season / supporter’s money / players’ careers going down the drain, but I’ll let you do that bit yourself. Let’s hope I can find some ice and a drain on Saturday as I think the football will be awful again. Something to look forward to, eh? Unless Oniki changes something. But as far as I know there isn’t a porcine airport near the stadium so I think it’s unlikely pigs will be flying.

 

 

Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 4. JESIEL
DF 2. TAKAI Kota

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (Yellow card 23')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. ERISON (Yellow card 56')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata

Subs
Team
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for JESIEL 35')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for IENAGA 66')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for ZE RICARDO 46')

FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for YAMAUCHI 46')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for YAMAMOTO 82')

Goals

FUJIO (Machida) 32' 0-1

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

If you've come to this section, expecting there to be anything here, you have made a big mistake.

 

Highlights