Vs Kashiwa Reysol (home) 25/10/17, Emperor's Cup Quarter Final

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 1 Kashiwa Reysol

I guess I can’t put off writing about this any longer, so here we go. I’ll try to keep it brief. We’re now down to two competitions, and with a performance like last night’s, it’s no surprise. This was not an enjoyable game to watch and to describe it as a blip is understating it a bit I think. Sure, we made plenty of changes whereas Kashiwa seemed to be playing a full strength side. I’ve got no complaints about us doing this, (and to be honest I don’t think that was the problem). We really have a chance in the league now. I just hope that this hasn’t dented our confidence. In a way though, we have the perfect next game, once more against Kashiwa, this time away and in the league. Hopefully we can show them what we’re really like, instead of rolling over like we did on Wednesday.

As mentioned above, the starting line up saw some big changes. Sung-Ryong is injured so was replaced by Arai, (although I suspect that would have been the case even without the injury). In front of him were Tasaka, Nara, Edu and Kurumaya. The defensive midfielders were Neto and Moriya and the front four were Ienaga, Chinen, Rhayner and Morimoto. Don’t read too much into the order in which I have listed them. Morimoto was up front, but the other three were switching around quite a lot. I initially presumed that we’d be playing with a big man front two of Morimoto and Chinen, but Chinen found himself on the wing most of the time. Not too sure about that, but I still really don’t know much about him as a player. The bench was made up of Ando, Noborizato, Taniguchi, Kobayashi, Miyoshi, Kengo and Hasegawa, a kind of ‘break glass in case of emergency’ selection of substitutes. It was a cool rainy night, but the rain had pretty much stopped by the time the kick off came around. Kashiwa had brought quite a few fans and a few trumpets too, which was initially a bit of a novelty but soon the excitement drained away. The game started in fairly subdued fashion, with both teams having some possession but attacks breaking down due to the attacking team’s incompetence rather than any kind of wonder defending. We were doing ok right up until we got to their box where we’d lose possession weakly. Rhayner was looking lively but not quite getting there, Chinen was doing a good job of tackling back in defence, Ienaga was trying to pull some strings, but we weren’t really clicking. I don’t think this was due to the irregular line-up, just more a case of no-one particularly playing to their abilities. Arai made a couple of good saves but as we know, struggles a bit to live up to Sung-Ryong’s role as an extra defender to pass the ball around. Consequently, a lot of goal kicks and clearances were going long (which never quite seems to work, but should have had a bit better chance of success in this game given that we had Morimoto and Chinen on the pitch). Arai did occasionally go short but more often than not this got us into a bit of trouble as we didn’t seem to be expecting it. Neto wasn’t having the best of games, seeming a bit sleepy. Perhaps having a game off didn’t do him much good. I hope he’s back to speed on Sunday. Kashiwa grew into the game and had the best of the first half. Their tactic seemed to be fast breaks, pretty much always going through Cristiano. He doesn’t look the most athletic of players but was doing a good job against us, using his power and skills to get the better of our defenders. Thankfully, Kashiwa’s shooting was for the most part, reminiscent of Sanfrecce’s last weekend, so we didn’t have too many problems. Every corner they had, they were taking short so they clearly had something up their sleeves. Ienaga picked up another yellow and it seemed a bit of a harsh one, but I haven’t been able to check it. And that was about it for the first half really. A bit of huffing and puffing but not much in the way of chances.

The second half started with Kengo coming to try to reinvigorate us. He replaced Morimoto, who'd had a quiet half, and immediately his presence had an effect on our players. They seemed to be more involved and we looked a little dangerous for the first time in the match. Unfortunately though, he wasn’t playing particularly well, misplacing passes and having an all round off day. I guess Oniki hoped to not need to use any of the subs, but our first half was so lacklustre that something had to be done. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the Kengo effect to wear off and we were back to first half levels of performance. None of the team could pass, which wasn’t helping us play the ball out of defence. When passing isn’t working, I think we shouldn’t be dilly-dallying so much at the back. Their goal came on 61 minutes and was in part our own making. Arai rolled the ball short to Neto who had to quickly pass to Kengo. Kengo’s pass back was way off target and presented Kashiwa with a shot which we deflected out for a corner. From the corner, (a short one naturally…), Cristiano was able to bend the ball in from the edge of the box. He had plenty of time and space to shoot. In spite of every one of their corners being played short we hadn’t worked out how to defend them. A 1-2 from the corner left him in loads of space and we just watched as he set himself up and shot. Arai got his fingers on the shot, but not enough to stop it. Terrible defending from a set piece which had been trailed all the way through the game and all from a corner from our own error. Them taking the lead resulted in them sticking pretty much everyone behind the ball and time wasting for the rest of the game, as they had every right to do. They were relying even more on quick breaks now, but even though they were sitting back, somehow it felt like they were still more likely to score than we were. Rhayner was replaced by Noborizato who almost scored with his first touch of the ball, but his shot was put over the bar by the Kashiwa keeper. Not long afterwards, Chinen was off and Kobayashi on, but to be honest it didn’t change things much. We were unable to break through the banks of defenders lined up and we weren’t shooting from distance. We were second to everything and looked like we hadn’t even met before, let alone played together. At this stage, there were quite a few of our usual starting line-up on the pitch but we were far from our usual selves. The remaining game time ran away through a succession of misplaced passes from us, horrible life-threatening injuries to their players (thankfully they were all ok in the end, phew!) and confusion as to where they should be taking their free kicks and throws and who should be taking them. It was nothing more than we deserved though. I almost found myself hoping that we wouldn’t get an equaliser which would condemn us all to another 30 minutes of misery. Or probably more accurately boredom, as our play was so lethargic that it would have struggled to inspire misery. It clearly wasn’t going to be our day, so the less time we had to spend on the pitch, confidence ebbing away as pass after pass rolled to the opposition the better. Better make a clean break, forget this and get started again on Sunday.

Positives and negatives. Let’s start positive. None. Negatives. A totally lacklustre performance, sapping confidence against a team who we have a crucial league fixture against on Sunday. Three shots in the whole game. Three!! They had twice as many in the first half than we had in the whole match. Our performance had the feel of a team who had been relegated the previous week and were just fulfilling the fixtures before they could find a new club in the off-season. This was a cup game, but we didn’t seem to have any desire to win it. Way too many mediocre performances from too many players and strangely, I’d say it was probably the regular starters that were playing the worst. Perhaps it’s fatigue, and if that’s the case, I’m worried as we have five more crucial games left. Hopefully we can put this rotten game behind us on Sunday and I can put this subpar blog post behind me too. I didn’t even moan about the ref and my photos are worse than the match was. Apologies...

Next up Kashiwa away on Sunday in a crucial league game to keep the pressure on Kashima who are away at Consadole Sapporo. I seem to remember last year hoping that Jay would do us a favour and score a few for Jubilo against Urawa at a similarly tense stage of the season. He didn’t last year, but hope he’ll come good this year and smack, (or head), a hat-trick past Kashima in the Sapporo Dome. But we need to concentrate more on ourselves than anyone else after this stinker. The only way we can keep the pressure on Kashima is by keeping winning. After that, it’s the small matter of the Levain Cup final the weekend after. All these matches are crucial now, so fingers crossed and go Frontale!


Team

GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

DF 23. EDUARDO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 20. CHINEN Kei

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 40')

MF 22. RHAYNER

FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki

Subs 

GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke

MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for RHAYNER 64')

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for CHINEN 70')

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo (on for MORIMOTO 46')

FW 13. MIYOSHI Koji

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

My Frontale Man Of The Match

A bit of a struggle to come up with anyone in this game, but on reflection, there was one player who perhaps deserved it.

KURUMAYA Shintaro - Did a reasonable job when all around him were doing a less than reasonable job. Created a few decent opportunities with his runs down the left and then was foiled when there was no-one in the box to cross to. Also, the goal was on the opposite side of the pitch to his. That’s about it.

Goals 

CRISTIANO (Kashiwa) 61' 0-1

Highlights

Really?! You want to watch them?

Vs Shimizu S Pulse (home) 20/9/17, Emperor's Cup 4th Round

Kawasaki Frontale 4 - 1 Shimizu S Pulse

Wednesday night saw us back in action in the Emperor’s Cup (not the Levain cup as I tweeted during a brain freeze. There’s been a lot of games recently and I’m sticking with that as my excuse). Once again Shimizu were our opponents, although this time we were at home and the line ups were a little different. I still can’t really say for sure which competition we are prioritising, but this line up certainly had more than the usual compliment of players who might normally be expected to start on the bench. Perhaps Oniki suspected that this line up would have enough to get past Shimizu (who also seemed to be resting players as far as I could tell). If that was the case, he was right. Whilst the performance wasn’t exactly clinical, the result was pretty satisfying and saw some good performances from players who could now be said to be making a decent claim for a starting spot. Whether they’ll get it is another matter, but it’s nice to know that we have some options in the event that we pick up some injuries. Hopefully we won’t. 

Into the starting line up came Arai, Tasaka, Edu, Itakura, Moriya, Hasegawa, Kano and Morimoto. The bench had plenty of the usual starters on it, but also some less familiar faces. Ando had a chance to put on his gloves for a change and Chinen was back. The rest of the bench was made up of Kurumaya, Taniguchi, Oshima, Ienaga and Kobayashi. We were playing with a back three of Nara, Edu and Itakura with Moriya and Neto in front of them, Tasaka and Hasegawa on the wings and Abe and Kano behind Morimoto up front. In theory anyway. As seems to be the case when we play with three at the back, at least one of them spends most of the game bombing forward, so we were attacking quite a lot. We didn’t start particularly well, perhaps due to the unfamiliar line up and formation and for a while we were a little under the cosh, having to defend as Shimizu attacked us looking to make an early breakthrough. But we survived and it was us that scored first on 8 minutes. It was Morimoto, continuing where he left off last Saturday. The goal game from an Itakura through pass, (one of our centre backs who was magnificently running at the Shimizu defence with the ball). Morimoto took a touch to control it and then calmly slotted it past the keeper. The goal settled us down a bit, but the game was still pretty open. Both teams were attacking a lot and it appeared that we were going to be in for a goal fest. Presumably as a result of this thought coming into my head, there were no more goals for a while after this. Shimizu were hitting us on the counter attack and one of these hits finally landed on 23 minutes. There was more than a hint of handball from a Shimizu attacker lying on the floor in the box beforehand, but can't complain about the finish, which was pretty unstoppable. Moriya got totally flattened trying to block the shot and it looked a bit dodgy for him for a little while. No complaints about the ref’s decision though, as it was by no means intentional. He left the pitch on a stretcher but was thankfully able to resume not long afterwards. Shame we gave them the chance with a bit of dodgy ball control from Edu though, but never mind. It looked like we were going to head in to the break level, but Morimoto popped up again. On 41 minutes we were ahead once more and once again it was Itakura (one of our centre backs, it's worth stating again...), who, from just outside the box, swung in a lovely cross for Morimoto to head home. A lively and exciting first half, made all the more exciting by the fact that we were leading and given the scorer and provider of our goals.

The second half started with no changes for us. We seemed a little more assured than we were at the start of the first half, but we gave them a few good chances by giving away the ball cheaply trying to pass our way out of defence. Whilst we were leading and also defending pretty well, it wasn’t exactly comfortable and I felt that we probably needed another goal. Thankfully we got it, and unbelievably it was Morimoto again. The Japanese Ronaldo is back! Apparently he is statistically the most dangerous striker in the league at the moment if you're judging by the amount of minutes taken for each goal. But statistics can be a little misleading I guess! Not that anything should be taken away from Morimoto who was having a great game. His hat-trick was completed with a through ball from Abe and finished with his left boot. A perfect hat-trick, one from each foot and one from the head. Great stuff! He seemed to relax a little after this goal and was dropping a bit deeper and puffing a bit harder. I guess he’d put in a shift so he deserved a bit of a rest. I made a fool of myself for the second time around this time when a marauding Shimizu forward made it to the goal line and just fell over. I can’t pretend it wasn’t a hilarious moment, but it seemed I was enjoying it a bit more than most of the other people around me. I did feel sorry for the Shimizu player, but it was an almost slapstick moment. Chances were being created at both ends of the pitch and it almost had a feel of last season about it, when we went about most games attacking like crazy, almost encouraging the other team to score so we would need to do some more attacking. Thankfully we seem to have got a bit more steel about our defence since last year though. Even when attack after attack is coming, we’re pretty calm, (although maybe a touch too calm sometimes), and satisfyingly solid. Shimizu now really needed a goal so they were pushing forward relentlessly. Our clearances started getting longer, but there wasn’t the desperation we saw against Urawa, and the ball was sticking a bit more. On 59 minutes, Oshima came on for Neto who hadn’t had his best game for us. Not saying he was playing badly, but he wasn’t quite his usual forceful presence in midfield. About 15 minutes later, Kurumaya entered the fray too, replacing Abe. It was definitely a good opportunity to rest some more players as we were doing pretty well and looked at least equally as likely as Shimizu to score.  There wasn’t quite the urgency of the first half though. I guess we’d understandably slowed things down a little. Because of Morimoto dropping back, I thought the game was begging for Chinen to replace him, giving Morimoto the perfect opportunity to get a nice reception as he left the field. But when Chinen finally did come on it was for Hasegawa, and was after we’d scored again. Our fourth came from the head of Edu via a Moriya free kick and he seemed very pleased to score. There wasn’t much more action after this to be honest. I guess everyone had kind of accepted the result. Chinen had a go and once again I thought showed that he will probably have plenty to offer us in the future. It was also good to see Kano play 90 minutes. He’s very much a favourite with the fans and got plenty of encouragement and played pretty well. Think he’s a way off dislodging anyone in the regular starting eleven though, but with a run of games, who knows? Whether he’ll get that chance is another matter. So, a fairly comfortable 4-1 win and we’re through to the next round where we’ll meet Kashiwa Reysol, just a few days before we play them in the league. Weird how this seems to keep happening this season. It was the case with Shimizu and will also be with Sendai next month.

Positives and negatives. Positives first. Decent win, decent performance, pitch time for fringe players, plenty of whom gave a good account of themselves and rest time for some players who’ve played a lot of minutes recently. Arai looked pretty solid in goal making a few good stops and one particularly good save when Shimizu broke through. We looked fairly at ease with the different formation which is good as it seems to hint at us actually having a plan B. Hasegawa once again looked dangerous on the wing with his trickery. Moriya seems to be growing into the defensive midfield position which represents his best chance to get more pitch time. Itakura did a great job with the assists for the first two goals, especially considering he was apparently playing at centre back. He seems to be growing in confidence and quality every time he plays. Negatives, not many really. Not the best day for Neto, but by no means a bad performance. Defending was at times a little desperate, and we did give them a few chances that normally would have resulted in us conceding. But we only did once, so let’s leave the negativity at that.

Next up we’re away to Vissel Kobe on Saturday. This fixture was a stinker last year when we lost 3-0. They also now have some guy called Podolski. I’m looking forward to the game as their stadium was pretty nice. I hope we can banish any of the remaining traumatic memories of last year. Don’t think it will be an easy game, but hope we can keep our title chase alive. We’re running out of games, and not many people are beating Kashima this year in the league, but let’s keep going for those wins and keep our fingers crossed that someone will do us a favour. And then that two other teams will also do us favours. Clutching at straws a little I guess, but let’s keep the dream alive! Go Frontale!

Team

GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 28. ITAKURA Ko

DF 23. EDUARDO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki

MF 25. KANO Kenta

FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki

Subs 

GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (on for ABE 75')

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for NETO 59')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for HASEGAWA 86')

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

My Frontale Man Of The Match

I think I said before that I try to usually look beyond goalscorers to pick out a man of the match. After the first two goals were scored, I thought that Itakura was in with a shout for his great assists and ‘dynamic’ defending. But what with the hat-trick, it’s pretty churlish to give it to anyone other than...

MORIMOTO Takayuki - perfect hat-trick. Is he finally going to be able to fulfil the promise of his early career? It certainly would be very welcome and quite well timed if he is.

Goals 

MORIMOTO (Frontale) 8' 1-0
DUKE (Shimizu) 23' 1-1
MORIMOTO (Frontale) 41' 2-1
MORIMOTO (Frontale) 49' 3-1
EDUARDO (Frontale) 85' 4-1

Highlights

Vs Thespakusatsu Gunma (away) 12/7/17 - Emperor's Cup 3rd round

Thespakusatsu Gunma 0 - 4 Kawasaki Frontale

This is a post surprisingly light on details. I think anyone who watched on TV or the internet probably has a much better idea of what went on than anyone who attended the game, as in addition to the usual running track, we had an area of grass about the size of another running track round the outside. And also we were pretty much standing at ground level so the angle wasn't great either. And the weather went from not great to pretty bad during the second half when we were soaked through by a heavy rain shower and further disoriented. Considering that it's not that far away, the journey there took a pretty long time. However, I like the new rule that draws the stronger team away this year, ( although not sure how that will work in the next round though when there will probably be J1 teams playing each other). I heard that this would not apply to teams still in the ACL. However, it seems the exception doesn't count if you are lowly Frontale. It really does seem that the 'big' teams get priority treatment. But, it was a really fun evening to be honest. I like Emperor's Cup games as they normally give us a hint of what the rest of the squad is up to, and we get to see some different grounds, players, teams and fans.

To be honest though, our starting line up was quite familiar this time. I guess this may be due to the break from games that we have soon. We didn't have the need to rest players to give them a break from the league, but sadly this meant that some of the more peripheral players didn't get a look in this time. Although there were a few unusual starters. In goal we had Arai, with Tasaka, Taniguchi, Nara and Nobori ahead of him. The defensive midfielders were Neto and Moriya. And the front four were Ienaga, Kengo, Rhayner and Morimoto. There was definitely a fair bit of movement up there though. On the bench were Ando, Abe, Oshima, Kobayashi, Hasegawa, Elsinho and Itakura, so no place this time for some of the youngsters. The game started very badly for Thespakusatsu, (think from here forwards I'll just call them Kusatsu, as they seem to call themselves that). In the third minute we took the lead and it was slightly surprisingly a nice Morimoto goal! Moriya played a lovely ball into the box and Morimoto controlled, turned and slotted it home into the corner. Well done him! Perhaps the first step on the road back to some form for him. He had a reasonable game I think, leading the line as a target man, holding the ball up and at times on the right wing. He definitely offers something a little different from our other strikers so could be useful in the future if he can keep recovering the ability we know he has. I'm sure that his goal was due to me having a photo taken with him on Tuesday morning. Frontale Rabbit Blog power! In spite of this early assist, Moriya seemed to be getting moaned at by some elements of our fans which annoyed me a bit. He was doing ok I thought, and once again playing in a position that probably wouldn't be very close to his first choice. Most of the play in the first half was going on at the other end of the pitch, near the Kusatsu goal. However we did give them a few chances by giving the ball away and they showed that they can attack. Fortunately for us their finishing didn't seem very good and the few times they managed to get a shot on target, Arai was able to deal with it pretty easily. I think the surface wasn't helping. It had been pretty wet in Maebashi that day and whilst the rain held off for the first half, plenty of players were slipping and sliding around on the pitch and perhaps our short passes weren't really going exactly where we might have hoped. One thing that Kusatsu seemed particularly good at was putting in meaty challenges. Their number 8 was probably lucky to not get sent off. He picked up a booking pretty early on and I think probably could have had another yellow on a few occasions. Rhayner was having a good game going forward and covering at the back. I guess his recent absence from the squad, due to the limit on foreigners, has made him come back with some enthusiasm to show what he can do.  Neto was also doing a great job of spraying long passes across the field, switching the play and making some great opportunities for us. As soon as I wrote this note on my phone, he put in an absolute stinker which flew right off the other side of the pitch. But aside from that one, he had a decent game. Our second goal came right near the end of the half and once again Moriya was involved, giving the ball to Rhayner who did a great job of making some space, shielding the ball and then laying it off for Tasaka to smack it home from outside the box. Kind of reminiscent of his goal in the last Emperor's Cup game. So, a reasonably satisfying first half. Nothing amazing from us, but despite gifting them a few chances, we were fairly comfortable.

With the second half came the rain, a couple more goals and a few substitutions. Personally speaking, the rain was the most memorable factor. I pointed out that bizarrely it was raining on the pitch but not in the stands and almost immediately the deluge started, slowly at first, but gradually building up to power shower intensity. To be honest, it was quite refreshing. Not so refreshing was the two and a half hour journey home, soaked to the skin. I had a rain poncho in my bag, but as the rain only gradually built up, by the time I decided I should probably be wearing it, it was probably already a little too late. In the interests of 'painting it blue' I didn't cover my shirt with a boring white non-official rain coat and the weather actually did for some reason seem to make our support stronger and louder. Not so good for taking notes on a phone though. I managed a few pictures, but there's a reason people don't use their phone whilst showering. It's difficult to type. So all of what follows comes from my memories on the train home and watching the highlights so will probably be presented here in a not particularly linear way. Firstly, Moriya's goal was spectacular. He really has a talent for hitting them in from distance, but the curve and the dip were great. Really pleased for him. Equally, I'm really pleased Ienaga has finally got off the mark. It was a fairly regulation header from a Moriya corner, but the celebration from him showed how much it meant to him and the rest of the team. Until the goal he'd done a decent job of approach play, but couldn't quite get it together when it came to shooting. Actually you could probably say this about his whole season's performances up till this goal. Apparently it's a little difficult to fit in to the Frontale way of playing for new signings sometimes. I think we've been patient though. We know he's a good player and he's been doing well apart from directly in front of goal. But as soon as the ball hit the net he seemed like a changed man, hungry for the ball and dangerous going forward. He was really up for it and I have great hopes for him for the rest of the season. Other reflections on the half were that Rhayner once again was doing a great job and that we had a very enjoyable mix of goal scorers. Of the second half subs, I was quite surprised to see Kobayashi come on for Morimoto. I thought he would be one of the players looking to have a rest. But perhaps the hint of some interest from the national team meant that he was looking for some more time on the pitch. Hasegawa on for Kengo made sense as it seems that Kengo is feeling the pace a little recently. I was actually surprised to see him start. He's still hugely important for us so I thought he might have been rested for what on paper was an easier game. Nice to see Hasegawa back after being absent from the match day squad at Tosu. Finally Itakura on for Neto gave both players a chance. Itakura, a chance to get a bit more practice before going away again with the U23 national team, and Neto, a chance to have sit down and dry off. So, it finished 4-0, with decent performances from all of the players involved. It's probably only Miyoshi now that we need to get scoring. He wasn't involved at Kusatsu though, which was a shame. He too is off with the U23s now. We're through to the next round, which I believe will be drawn in August. I'd quite like another away trip like this to be honest.

Positives and negatives. Let's start negative. The train journey home was uncomfortable because my clothes were very wet. That's about it to be honest. Positives. I guess we have to start with the first goals for Morimoto and Ienaga. Confidence sure to follow hopefully. I should also point out that I had a photo with Ienaga too. And Tasaka. My powers are strong. A clean sheet is nice too, and the fact that we only picked up one yellow card (for Rhayner, can't remember why actually...). We looked pretty solid at the back apart from a couple of slip ups, and we got a clean sheet. Of the players who don't regularly start, I'd say that Moriya and Rhayner made most of a claim for themselves. Both were very involved and made a good case for what they can offer. Finally, I guess the most important thing is that we're through to the next round.

Next, we have a bit of a break. Our next game is against Jubilo Iwata at home on the 29th. Before then, we have a supporters event, a training camp and a well deserved rest for the players. It's maybe a bit of a shame to lose the momentum, as we're in good form at the moment, but hopefully this will carry over to when we're back in action. And everyone, players, staff and fans alike can have a bit of a rest. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 22. RHAYNER (Yellow card 63)

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki

Subs
GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke

MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for MORIMOTO 56')

FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for NAKAMURA 65')

MF 18. ELSINHO 

DF 28. ITAKURA Ko (on for NETO 82')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Once again there were a few contenders and everyone played pretty well I thought. It could have gone to Rhayner who was a constant menace and whose control and dribbling was great. Ienaga or Morimoto both got their important first goals of the season. Neto controlled the middle of the pitch and distributed the ball fantastically (most of the time...). But when you look at the stats, I think it has to go to one player.

MORIYA Kentaro - Had a hand in all of the goals. One goal, two assists and an assist assist (pre-assist, sub-assist, call it what you want, maybe don't call it anything...) It probably could have gone to him just for the great goal, but given his other contributions, it was pretty clear cut I think. 

Goals  

MORIMOTO (Frontale) 3'  0-1

TASAKA (Frontale) 44'  0-2

MORIYA (Frontale) 61'  0-3

IENAGA (Frontale) 76'  0-4

Highlights

Actually managed to find some proper highlights for this round. Still no sign of any from the last round. Maybe that kind of thing is only for the big teams...

Vs Tochigi UVA (home) 21/6/17 - Emperor's Cup 2nd round

 

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 0 Tochigi UVA

Ah! The magic of the Emperors cup! I can safely say that now we're through to the next round. This year's second round saw quite a few upsets and whilst we were facing a team from way down the leagues and we were expected to win, its always nice to actually get the job done. I had great hopes that this might be the game we finally got to see Tabinas do his stuff for the first time and Chinen score his first professional goal for us. Sadly neither happened, but Tabinas made it on to the bench and Chinen tried his hardest as a second half sub, but he'll have to wait a little longer to open his account. The weather looked like it wanted to have a say in the game. The rain and wind were horrible right up to a couple of hours before kick off. The rain stopped, but the wind still reared its head from time to time during the game and on occasion looked like it could make things interesting. Thankfully we avoided any meteorological mishaps.

The starting line up was understandably shuffled, but the it actually looked unexpectedly strong. Admittedly a number of first team regulars were rested (Sung-Ryong, Taniguchi, Edu, Kurumaya, Neto, Kengo, Kobayashi, Abe), but I guess it's a sign of the amount of injuries we've had this season, or the fact that we're still in search of our best eleven, that most of our first team to face Tochigi UVA had already played a fair bit this season. In goal Arai got a rare chance to start. In front of him it seemed we were playing a back three of Tasaka, Nara and Itakura. The defensive midfield spots were taken by Kano and Moriya. On the wings we had Rhayner and Hasegawa. And then up front were Otsuka, Ienaga and Miyoshi. On the bench were Ando, Tabinas and Chinen, and a few regulars, presumably to be brought on in case of emergency (Taniguchi, Kurumaya, Elsinho and Kobayashi). From the start of the game a few things became apparent. Firstly, our 3-2-4-1 was actually more like a 1-4-4-1. Nara stayed in defence but Tasaka (captain for the night) and Itakura spent most of the time pushing forward. Tasaka seemed to almost be playing his usual right back role. This was an interesting, if slightly unnerving tactic, especially given that our defensive midfielders weren't exactly naturals in that position, being more attacking minded themselves. Also, it seemed that most of the team were keen to get Ienaga his first goal. Recently, Ienaga hasn't been looking too happy and I wonder if the fact that he still hasn't scored is playing on his mind. Sadly that goalless run continued in this game, despite our players apparently trying to set him up all the time. Ienaga certainly looked up for it, but I wonder if the fact that he was the big name on show meant that he was getting a lot of attention from the UVA defenders. A few times he looked like he was going to break through on goal only to be denied by either the linesman's flag or a foul from a defender. A bit of a frustrating night for him again. Miyoshi also seemed to be in the mood and was getting involved. Otsuka now seems to have moved on from the run-around-like-crazy role he had last season to be playing deeper, coming to collect the ball and make things happen. You could see this was a relatively untested line-up as whilst we were doing ok, things weren't really clicking. The willingness of the defenders to attack caused us a few worrying moments in the first half and it looked like we were in for a tougher game than we might have expected. Then we scored! After our usual passing the ball around the midfield, Ienaga set up Tasaka who powered the ball into the corner of the net from just outside the box. It was good to see someone have a shot for a change! A nice goal, and very pleased to see Tasaka score as captain. Not a lot else happened in the first half apart from a bit more chaotic defending. Yes, they are three leagues below us, but we probably couldn't really expect Nara to deal with everything and let everyone else attack. We weren't passing particularly well either and plenty of players were having quiet games. When we did create chances we inevitably overplayed things, always favouring another pass over having a shot. It's telling that the goal came when we didn't try to pass the ball into the back of the net, but instead gave it a whack. All in all, it was a pretty sloppy first half. I can't particularly say they troubled us too much, but at the same time I couldn't say we particularly deserved to be any further ahead.

The second half starred with a substitution. Perhaps as a response to the fragility of our defence, Oniki decided to replace Kano with Kurumaya and switch to four at the back (Tasaka right, Nara and Itakura in the middle and Kurumaya on the left). Kurumaya kept his record of playing every game so far this season going. Hope that can continue for the sake of him keeping a nice run going, but I suspect he might like a rest at some stage! Otsuka took Kano's place alongside Moriya. Interesting... I felt a bit for Kano as he hadn't had a great game, but he was playing out of position. I wonder if Otsuka can be an option for us in the defensive midfield postition. I'd have to say the jury is still out on that after this game. He did ok, but I wouldn't really want him and Moriya playing there against stronger opposition. Perhaps either of them with Neto would be fine though. Without a strong tackler there we're a bit exposed I think. The second half followed a pretty similar pattern to the first really. We attacked, tried to get the ball to Ienaga to score but he was fouled. The new formation definitely seemed to give us a bit more stability at the back though. Our second goal came on 62 minutes with Moriya spreading the ball out to Kurumaya on the wing. He crossed the ball and Hasegawa was able to angle it past the keeper into the corner. A nice move but perhaps there wouldn't have been so much space against tougher opposition. Not long after the goal Miyoshi was replaced by Chinen. Was it to be his night? No... but he really tried. He made an immediate impact and added a bit more height to our forward line. I guess Ienaga's not small but Chinen definitely seemed to be carrying a bit more of a aerial threat about him. He seemed determined to score and he had a few chances, once agonisingly stumbling when going through on goal. He definitely showed the potential he has though. I was quite pleased with how he played and am optimistic about his future with us. Another player determined to score was Moriya, who put in his usual 100% performance and wasn't afraid to try to hammer one in from distance. It also wasn't to be his night. As the game entered its last ten minutes Elsinho came on for Rhayner who'd had a fairly quiet game by his standards. This gave us another boost and we looked pretty dangerous in the last ten minutes. But we didn't score again and the game finished as a slightly underwhelming 2-0 victory. Credit to UVA, who aren't having the best of seasons, for stopping us from having an easy night. I suspect we also kind of stopped ourselves a bit though, as it wasn't exactly a vintage Frontale performance. But, it was a win and we move on to face the challengingly named Thespakusatsu Gunma in the next round.

Positives and negatives. We'll start negative I guess. Not a convincing performance or result against a fairly weak side. Ienaga and Miyoshi both failed to open their accounts against probably the weakest team we'll play this year. Most of our attacking threat came from players not playing up front. Positives. We won and are through (even if the performance was a bit dodgy), unlike our neighbours FC Tokyo. Tasaka played well as captain and scored a cracker. Hasegawa continues to be in the right place at the right time too. Chinen looked like he has plenty to offer when he has the chance. Tabinas was on the bench and whilst I was sad that he didn't get an opportunity to make his debut, I'm pleased he's made it to the bench.

Next up, we're away to Gamba Osaka, a game being played inconveniently on Sunday evening... I'm praying for a better result than the last time we went to Osaka on a Sunday as the defeat to Cerezo really took the shine off the beers after the game. It will no doubt be a tough game and will show us how much chance we might have of having a go at the league this year. Whilst we're approaching the halfway stage, no one has really marked themselves out as being streets ahead yet, so victories in these kind of games are crucial to keep in touch at the top. It's a very nice stadium so hopefully our performance can be equally good. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 28. ITAKURA Ko   

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 25. KANO Kenta

MF 22. RHAYNER

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

MF 13. MIYOSHI Koji

MF 27. OTSUKA Shohei

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

Subs
GK 24. ANDO Shunsuke

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (on for KANO 46')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 18. ELSINHO (on for RHAYNER 82')

FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for MIYOSHI 67')

DF 26. TABINAS Jefferson

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Fairly average performances from most of the team, but good work as captain and a nice goal mean that it probably has to be...

TASAKA Yusuke - leading by example!

Goals  

TASAKA (Frontale) 29'  1-0

HASEGAWA (Frontale) 62'  2-0

  

Highlights

Seems that there aren't any highlights of this game. No idea why as some other teams games are up. But anyway, here are a couple of videos taken from the crowd of the first and second goals.