Vs Yokohama F Marinos (away) 1/11/26 J League match 13

Yokohama F Marinos 4 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

The winning run is over in predictably horrific style. I can’t help but feel that we might have done better in this game if we came in to it on a five game losing run instead. There was no way that our scummiest neighbours would let us extend a nice run in a game against them. And so it proved to be. One thing to grasp onto is perhaps the fact that this awful defeat was not as bad as the ‘home’ game defeat against them last year. Well at least in terms of the result anyway. I have no interest in prolonging my irritation about this all any longer so please forgive me if I just whinge a lot, (mainly about us), and get out of here. I’ve got plenty of targets for my annoyance this time and that’s probably no surprise as this was a truly shitty game that makes it difficult to even think about anticipating the next match, let alone actually attending it with any expectation of enjoying it. That next match is against a team who love to score and are in good form. This match wasn’t, and still we shat the bed on a monumental scale. As I want to get this done as soon as possible I’m going to not worry about trying to present this post in an organised and thoughtful way, (unbelievably, I normally do try to make these at least slightly readable), and instead will pile it all up in a series of probably ill-informed bullet points. Here goes.

- That same shitty first choice midfield three were back again and once again were awful. Somehow two of them managed to stay on the pitch for the whole ninety minutes. I’m not saying they are awful players, but I am definitely saying that when they’re together we do badly. How Hasebe hasn’t noticed this is a mystery. In our last seven games we’ve won five and lost two. The two losses form the bread in the win sandwich and both featured those three starting. Nagoya at home and this game were truly shit matches. In the middle five wins, three featured Hasebe’s second choice midfield and it seems like those games were pretty good. The other two were the wins away at Cerezo where we were more than aided by a very early red card for them but still in spite of scoring four times could still consider ourselves a bit lucky to win, and the Okayama home game where we were utterly shit and we’re lucky to get the win. Stuck right in the middle is the Vissel Kobe match. On paper I guess they are the strongest team of the lot and we absolutely battered them with our ‘second choice’ midfield. I’ve seen people talking about how they want Ozeki and Yamamichi to start. I agree. But I wonder if they realise that if this is to happen some sacred cows will have to be sacrificed. Surely even the most happy clappy of fan or staff member can see that the big names are regularly soiling themselves. And they still are automatic choices to start the next game if it’s considered an important game. Hasebe rotating for Vissel is still baffling. Does he intend to change it every game? Maybe we’ll see soon as we have two cup games against Kashiwa coming up, preceded by a league game against the same team. Our play is obviously dull but it seems that the football gods who presumably decide the cup draws want us to suffer even more dullness by having to playing the same team three times in a row. Pretty sure the same thing happened with the same opposition a year or two ago. I’m delighted to say that I have to work for one of those game so can’t attend, and perhaps might struggle to get a ticket for one of the others. So maybe I will be spared some misery. 

- When it comes to who was bad in this game it would be much easier to name who wasn’t bad as the list is significantly shorter. Pedro Romano wasn’t bad. And unlike a lot of his teammates, he really seemed to care about us getting repeatedly dismantled. Ito also seemed to care and I was a bit surprised to see him taken off as one of our first changes. Not sure if Derik was good or bad as he never really received the ball so it was difficult to judge. Don't try to give the ball to your one striker? Great tactics! Uremovic scored so that’s in his favour. But we did look a total mess at the back so that probably counts against him. But at least he managed to get a shot on target which is more than can be said for many of his gutless teammates. I think we have a problem in goal. I’m absolutely not saying Yamaguchi would have done any better. I suspect he would have done worse. But fuck me, Brodersen is not good on the ball. Which makes it all the more baffling that we continue to persevere with the absolutely pointless short goal kick thing. I perhaps can see some benefits to it if we could actually in any way do the basics, but recently it’s basically our opponents best form of attack against us. In this game YFM even stopped trying to pressure us in these stupid short goal kick situations, presumably knowing that they didn’t have to, as it seemed part of our game plan to give the ball away, particularly when under absolutely no pressure. Just absolutely woeful stuff. Presumably it will remain a crucial part of our genius tactical master plan for every forthcoming game.

- Wakizaka is a problem, I think. Many people disagree. He’s undroppable. He’s playing shit. He’s moaning at his teammates for making mistakes and taking no responsibility when he makes his own numerous mistakes. He’s the captain so you’d hope he be able to support and motivate his teammates but recently he seems more interested in farting around picking fluff out of his belly button, giving the ball away, missing even the easiest passes and chances and mouthing off at his teammates. He’s by no means the only problem in the midfield, but his unquestioned presence is blocking younger players who look more interested and are surely not in as bad form as he is. Maybe there are some similarities with Marcinho in that both of them seem to not be playing very well but then score goals, erasing any memories of any other very dodgy moments. But at least Marcinho looks like he’s trying and is interested. I doubt Hasebe will have the guts or the insight to drop him. But clearly the midfield three he prefers are absolutely not doing the business right now. 

- Whilst we’re in the subject of picking holes in Hasebe’s abilities, you’ve got to ask some questions about his tactics and subs in this match. We were not in the game right from the start, could easily have conceded two or three more than we did in the first half and he did nothing. We had two shots in the first half apparently. This was surprise for me as I can’t remember the one that wasn’t the goal. We were awful. And he changed nothing at half time. When he finally made a change it seemed a bit late and he took off Ito who had been one of the few players to show any kind of interest. Losing 4-1 with time running out, Hasebe finally changed our shape in the 78th minute. Presumably he thought we had enough time to come back and win. And then with little more than five minutes left he made his final two subs, two defensive changes. So maybe he was intent on keeping things tight and preserving our 4-1 defeat. I know we don’t have a great deal of options due to inuries and stuff, so maybe I should cut him some slack. But as far as I can see, when we win, it’s usually because we got lucky and when we lose, it’s because we got what we deserved. If he continues to carry on with picking the same players and doing the same things, you’ve got to hope that his time with us won’t extend past this season. I know he’s not at fault for the numerous individual errors we made in this match which lead to every single one of their goals, but he is responsible for the idiotic short goal kick tactics which was involved in most of those mistakes and he is responsible for constantly picking players who seem like they can’t be bothered, aside from the part where they get to slag off their teammates. 

- Not going to bother talking much about YFM. We know they are a scummy club and they showed it with their persistent fouling, diving and time wasting. I think we actually could say we won this game 6-0 as every goal scored in the match was created by us. They hammered us AGAIN. I don’t get how their players always seem to be well up for this fixture but ours seem to not care. I don’t think YFM are very good, but you can’t deny that they deserved this win, as even if they weren't very good, we were absolutely fucking shit.

- And a quick word on the ref. He was dogshit. As I’ve said in previous posts on his games, he likes to not give much. And on this occasion he thought he’d extend that policy to not give us anything. We had three possible penalties turned down by him. Just give us one, you bastard! Miyaichi's yellow looked like it could have been a red to me, but let-it-go Shiino was in town. I mean, we didn’t lose because of him but it’s good for some of our players that he was so shit that he took some of the focus away from their numerous cock ups. But I suppose on reflection, given that it was a game between two middling to hopeless teams, it made perfect sense that the ref would also be shite.


This has all been quite pessimistic. I blame that of course on the shite on the pitch but also on the fact that the seats in the stadium were too small, (or the person next to me was maybe hogging my space), so I spent most of the match quiet uncomfortable. Add to this the stupid fucking big flags which seem impossible to avoid at certain games, the almost constant waving of which meant that most of the match for me was viewed as a series of brief glimpses of still photos with plenty of stuff missed in between them. Sadly the absolute cock ups for the goals were all too clear though. Basically this was a top tier shit afternoon. The only saving grace I can find is that it wasn’t an early Saturday kick off as that would have ruined a whole extra day of the weekend. Absolutely gutless stuff and apparently the players were still applauded at the end of the match. CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING HAMMERED BY A SMALLER SCORELINE THAN LAST YEAR! NICE WORK LADS! KEEP UP THE… OBJECTIVELY AWFUL WORK. I didn’t see this for myself as I was out of there as soon as the ref blew the final whistle. Right now I have absolutely no desire to go to the next match, away at Kashiwa next weekend. Of course, I’ll go, but if Hasebe goes with the same old shit, which he almost certainly will, it will almost certainly result in another shocker. I’m currently watching the U21 team on DAZN and I’d love some of these guys to get a look in with the top team. At least then there would be something to look forward to. Or maybe Kobayashi could play a bit more. There’s no way we’ll ever put together enough consistency to get anything out of this season so why not just give us some kind of interest or enjoyment. Please, please, please. Make the utter boredom and frustration stop. Or if that’s not possible at least let us have the same dull shit but with some different faces.

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO 
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC (Yellow card 76') 
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya 

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 97. DERIK LACERDA

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for MARCINHO 78')  
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for YAMAMOTO 64')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for TACHIBANADA 84')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto (on for ITO 64')
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi (on for UREMOVIC 84')
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon (on for MIURA 78')


Man of the match

What do you think? Should I just ditch this section permanently? 

Goals

TONO (YFM) 12' 1-0
KONDO (YFM) 28' 2-0 
UREMOVIC (Frontale) 33' 2-1
TANIMURA (YFM) 41' 3-1 
QUINONES (YFM) 56' 4-1 
OZEKI (Frontale) 90+2' 4-2

Highlights 

(coming soon)

Vs Fagiano Okayama (home) 25/10/26 J League match 12

 

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 1 Fagiano Okayama 

Two games in a row both finishing with 2-1 home wins. Lovely! But to be honest that’s where the similarities end. My initial impulse is to just say that if you want to know about this game you should read the Vissel post and just reverse everything about that game. Against Vissel we’re looked pretty good and they looked awful. We attacked and created chances. In this game we looked pretty toothless and had hardly any shots. And Okayama were almost certainly frustrated with the result. It’s difficult to pick out too many details from what was a big old sludge of a match, but I’ll do my best with a few things and then move on without wasting too much of your time.

Ok, so as far as I’m concerned, aside from us being very disappointing in this match, (which when coupled with getting the win actually makes a nice change from some of the other ways we’ve played matches this year), the main point of interest has to be the selections. Hasebe reverted to what I consider to be his first choice starters as much as he could. In spite of us battering Kobe on Wednesday we were back to the usual midfield and wingers. Of course when it comes to the defence and the striker we don’t have many options to play with so it’s no surprise nothing much changed there. I don’t really know why he’d change to the team he uses for cup games for Vissel and change back to the league team for Okayama. I guess it could mean I’ve got confused about what his first choice team is, but I doubt it. Obviously with so many games some rotation is needed. But It’s hard not to think that he rotated for the Vissel game because he’d written it off and was going to focus on getting three points against Okayama instead. Which is a bit weird in retrospect when you consider how the games turned out. If this is the case it would definitely say something about his confidence in our abilities. You’ve got to presume he’ll change things again for our next cup game away at Sagan Tosu on Wednesday. But now after this weekend’s results have moved us up in the table and now we’re only five points off the top, Hasebe might start having some more things to think about. It’s a weird season as we don’t seem to get the rewards when we play well but sometimes do get them when we dither around and are somehow still in touch with the top. Maybe the league is quite even this year. Right now it’s quite annoying that we threw away a lead against Machida. Well all the leads we’ve thrown away are annoying, but given that they’re top that one is particularly annoying right now. I can’t say I’m confident we’ll be able to keep up this slow and steady… charge… up the table. But it’s quite enjoyable whilst it continues. Saying that, there wasn’t much joy in this match. Of course the goals were fun, but we only had seven shots in the whole game, so clearly there was a whole lot of nothing going on for us for most of the match. A few other points which are slightly more pertinent to the match maybe. Uremovic did a great job dealing with Lucao. Their battle was much more entertaining than anything we did going forward. It says a lot that he could stand out even though he was playing alongside our recent best defender Pedro Romano. Maybe the one other thing to say was that Hasebe once again tried the Ozeki coming on on the left wing thing. It worked almost immediately against Cerezo but didn’t really in this game. Osa hasn’t been involved recently and probably would have made more sense. But then that would have meant no Ozeki as the players in his preferred positions don’t get changed very often. But it’s strange that after years of having loads of wide options at the moment we now seem to basically have Marcinho and Ito and then we have to start chucking central midfielders out there. But both Yamaichi and Ozeki do a better job on the wing than Wakizaka does, so maybe it makes sense. I shouldn’t think about these things too much I guess. I don’t really understand what Hasebe is thinking but you can’t deny that whatever he’s thinking seems to be working more often than not recently. And when you consider that we’re not exactly blessed with alternatives in lots of positions, you’ve got to give him the thumbs up for making what we have work most of the time. Even if we do get some truly uncomfortable and borderline unwatchable games like this one. I think that most of the stadium probably thought we were going to concede a late equaliser. And even though we spent the last five minutes trying to keep the ball in the corner to run down the clock, (which seemed like it might go wrong), we somehow managed to see out the game and take the three points. Blimey. I guess I should probably mention that the goals were good. And it’s a bit of luck we scored from those chances because we didn’t have a great deal of other chances. Oh, and Derik is faster than I thought.

I’ll deal with both The opposition and the officials in one paragraph. Okayama deserved more. They played better than us for most of the match. The ref was a bit dodgy but I don’t have any major complaints. It’s not often I say that, is it? So, well done Okayama and sorry we cheated you out of at least one point. And… well done to the ref. Hmmm. That doesn’t feel very comfortable to write. 

Next up Sagan Tosu away in the Emperor’s Cup on Wednesday. Then the following Sunday we have an away game at YFM. I would love to be able to go to the former but can’t. There’s not a great deal to recommend about the latter, but I’ll be there. Fingers crossed we can continue our nice little run. 

 

 

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO 
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya 

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 97. DERIK LACERDA (Yellow card 59') 

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for YAMAHARA 72')  
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for ITO 82')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for YAMAMOTO 82')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (on for DERIK LACERDA 64')  
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto (on for MARCINHO 72')
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
FW 34. OSA Ryuki 


Man of the match

Has to be…

FILIP UREMOVIC - definitely not as classy with the ball as some of our other defenders but very much got the job done in this match. And it was mentioned to me that if any of our other centre backs were given the same contain-and-disrupt-Lucao job that he was, they almost certainly couldn’t have done it as effectively. Nice one Filip!

Goals

DERIK LACERDA (Frontale) 12' 1-0
MARCINHO (Frontale) 51' 2-0
OBERDAN (Okayama) 75' 2-1 

Highlights 

 

Vs Vissel Kobe (home) 21/10/26 J League match 11

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 1 Vissel Kobe

What a delightful result this was! And what a strange season we are having. It’s felt pretty underwhelming but surprisingly we’ve only lost two games and that’s only one less than the teams at the top. I guess it’s the multiple missed opportunities that make things feel frustrating. Particularly strong in the memory still is us battering Kashima but having to rely on a very late equaliser to grasp a point. We’ve thrown away leads so many times, totally dominated but failed to trouble the opposition keeper so many times. And it really felt like that was going to happen again in this game. Kobe looked terrible, had only had two shots and very little possession in the first half but were still absolutely in the game at half time due to us being unable to shoot. But we finally managed to put the ball in the net. And then did it again. And then immediately conceded ensuring that once again we couldn’t have a relatively stress free end to a match. But we held on and it was lovely. Beating one of the teams above us and with interesting results for some of the leading teams made me excited to check the league table. But we finished exactly where we started, in 7th position and seven points off top. But don’t let that kill your buzz as this was a very welcome result.

Us -

Hasebe shuffled the midfield brining in Ozeki and Kawahara and played Yamaichi instead of Ito. Before the game I said that it appeared that he was in a way writing this game off by playing what I presumed he thought of as a semi reserve side. I also said that if we went on to beat Kobe with those players he should have some thinking to do as I felt that quite a lot of our struggles this year have been due to the midfield not really working. Presumably we’ll be back to the usual three on Sunday for the visit of Okayama. I think this would be quite harsh on the starters in this match as I thought they did well. At the back it seemed that our defensive injury crisis might not have been as bad as it looked last week as both Sasaki and Romano started. Romano was taken off after a clash of heads in the second half though, much to his disgust. I think once again it was precautionary. And let’s hope so as we are really down to bare bones. In the first half we contrived to miss good chances in a variety of ways, ranging from massively off target shots to delicate roll backs straight into the keepers gloves. Derik and Marcinho didn’t really have the best of games, but then in the second half Marcinho came up with the goods again. It’s so strange that he always seems to score in games where he hasn’t been playing particularly well. It’s not a bad situation to be in, but can you imagine what we’d be like if his passing in the box was even just a little bit better. Great work for the goal though! On the other wing I thought Yamaichi did really well. I’m starting to like him more and more and it seems like he can do the job in various positions. So, what else? Bit of a shame that Vissel had only one shot on target but still managed to score. That also seems to be something we just have to put up with this year. Matsunagane did really well in his brief appearance, really annoying Kobe by keeping the ball in their half and winning throw after throw to run down the clock. Absolutely loved Ito’s goal. And even more loved the fact that in his post match interview when asked if it was a shot or cross, said it was a cross. I wonder if it was helped in by the swirling wind that kept coming and going for most of the match. Some goal kicks and long balls seemed to just go up and hang in the air. Maybe we can blame the wind for the goal we conceded. Maybe not. I’m not going to say we’ve turned a corner as we’ll more than likely lose to Okayama in the next match, but it did feel good to for once not throw away a game after dominating. Fingers crossed!

Them - 

Scummy scummy Kobe. Maybe even their fans are starting to feel the same way as hardly any of them turned up. They couldn’t anywhere near fill the small allocation that we gave them. Their selection of songs contains every single shitty song that other clubs sing. It’s basically like a greatest shits of the lamest stuff including that one that the US men’s team use, the Enter-bloody-tainer and plenty more. If you’ve been irritated by another team singing something tacky, you can almost guarantee that there will be a Vissel version. To be honest though, I shouldn’t be focusing on the fans as they can’t help their team being scummy. On the pitch the scum was scumming, elbows all over the place from the Kobe forward line, Thuler just being the wanker that he is at the back. Shame he didn’t decide to boot the ball at an official and get sent off again. And of course Erik, a scumbag who understandably given his scumminess, seems to want to play for all the scummiest teams in the league. (Presumably he’ll complete the set by transferring to Urawa and Kashima in the next two seasons). To go from Machida to Kobe, back to Machida and then back to Kobe again is just bizarre. Surely the fans of both teams must think he’s a bit of a prick, right? I certainly do. It was very enjoyable when Romano took the ball off of him in the first half. And even more enjoyable when he wet the bed, stamping his feet because the ref wouldn’t let him back on the pitch where he clearly would be interfering with play. I guess this is all the same old stuff that I always write about Kobe. The only original content this time is perhaps remarking on how shit they were! Lovely! I’ll end this part by commenting on one of their banners and by asking a question about another of them. (I probably always do this too). The comment, ‘We Shall Overcome’ is a strange one. Perhaps the last part which said ‘… the awful difficulty of having absolutely massive financial backing’ was covered by other banners. And what is ‘11 Stones’ all about? It was on numerous flags of theirs. It’s so weird that I can’t even think of anything snarky to write about it.

Ref - 

Nakamura was back in town to further tarnish the one time glory he got from being voted ref of the year a few years ago. To be honest, he wasn’t too bad compared to some of the other absolute dross we’ve had recently. Pretty sure he missed or wasn’t interested in two Kobe handballs, stopped the game on numerous occasions for Kobe play acting and injury feigning and gave and denied some advantages in a bonkers fashion. Also, his counting down of seconds for their interminable long throws was absolutely random. If you’re not doing a long throw the count starts as soon as the thrower has the ball it seems. But if you’re doing a long throw Nakamura not only doesn’t start counting till you’ve started your 30 metre run up, but almost goes as far as to offer his own shirt for them to use to dry the ball and give the thrower a quick massage to make he doesn’t do himself a mischief through over exertion of the shoulders. To be fair, I think the numerous things they now have to count are a ridiculous over complication of their duties. And given that the countdown speed seems to be quite fluid, the initial seconds being a lot shorter than the final ones, and the four and five of the count always coming precisely as they take the throw, no matter how long they’ve dithered over it, it’s more like a kind of hype man thing, counting down to the launch and building excitement rather than actually measuring time. I wouldn’t mind if they got rid of the law even though it would maybe encourage more long throws. It just seems that it’s probably not worth having the rule if the application of it is so random. 

Next up Okayama at home. Will be kind of interesting to see who starts. But I think I can probably predict who it will be. We have the opportunity to win a historic third game in a row. It’s the stuff of our wildest dreams! Even if the inevitable happens and we follow up a nice result with a turd of a performance, at least we’ll still be able to enjoy the fact that Kobe are arse and we actually managed to not throw away what should have been an easy win. Bravo!

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO 
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 52') 
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto 
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 97. DERIK LACERDA

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto (on for TACHIBANADA 90+3')  
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for YAMAHARA 82')  
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for DERIK LACERDA 82')  
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto  (on for OZEKI 59')  
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for YAMAICHI 59')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (on for MARCINHO 87')  
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC (on for PEDRO ROMANO 67')
FW 34. OSA Ryuki 


Man of the match
There’s one person who I always want to give this to every time he plays, but in the interest of not appearing ridiculously biased and instead just a little biased, I’m going to give it jointly to…

KAWAHARA SO and YAMAICHI SHUTO - well played to both of them and they should have given Hasebe some selection headaches if he is picking on form rather than reputation.

Goals

MARCINHO (Frontale) 61' 1-0
ITO (Frontale) 71' 2-0
OSAKO (Vissel) 73' 2-1
 

Highlights

Vs Cerezo Osaka (away) 17/10/26 J League match 10

 

Cerezo Osaka 2 - 4 Kawasaki Frontale

Well that was a bit of a mess. Looking only at the result it might appear that it should be celebrated as a win at a ground where we hadn’t won for five years by a couple of clear goals. But for most of the game we had a an extra man. And we lost the lead twice, as we seem to enjoy to doing recently. And really we were kind of shit to be honest. People will obviously be delighted that Kobayashi managed his first minutes in the league for who knows how long. But really the focus should be that we never really looked like we had the extra man and for long parts of the match it seemed like ten men Cerezo would be the ones more likely to win the match. They had more shots than us. They looked more like they were up for attacking than us. If we hadn’t got the fourth goal late on we could easily have drawn this match as at no stage did it look like we were steady at the back. I haven’t got a clue what’s going on with us. Our next game against, another Kansai team, is coming up soon. Would love another spawny win given who the opposition are.

The regular midfield was back again and played pretty poorly I thought. I know this sounds ridiculous as both Tachibanada and Wakizaka scored but we did have an extra man for over 70 minutes and still couldn’t really take control of the game. Hasebe brining on Ozeki for Marcinho late on and playing him on the left wing was a weird one too. But once again is something that is difficult to criticise as he scored too. Derik was very quiet up front. Marcinho could have scored at least twice but both were ruled out for offside by a linesman who afterwards came in for some criticism from me in my perfect location to judge offsides, standing right behind the goal. Can’t remember if it was three or four times that we put the ball in the net and were denied by that guy. After Miura and Wakizaka’s recent bust up I was wondering if things were back to normal but there was one situation where Wakizaka totally messed up a pass to Miura and Miura either didn’t see or ignored his reconciliatory hand touch. I guess at least he didn’t launch into a tirade but still seems like things aren't too good in that department. Miura was really good in this game I thought, a rare shining light. But any type of trouble between him and Wakizaka might now not be relevant for the foreseeable future as Miura went off injured at the end. Add to this Romano being changed at half time, (I thought because he was getting pretty annoyed with the ref’s uselessness and had already been booked, but after the match he was definitely limping and basically looked fucked. He didn’t come to greet the fans afterwards. I thought it might be for interview purposes, but it later looked more like he might not be able to walk that far). Oh and Sasaki was injured in the first half too and subbed. I think this one was more a cautionary measure than a necessary change so hopefully he’s ok. Miura’s injury looked the worst. Absolutely typical after he finally came into some form. Of course Taniguchi is already injured. And Noda is also now injured. So I guess there’s going to be some U21 starters coming into the first team so presumably some U18s into the U21s which is not good news as the U18 team now sit bottom of their league. Ugh. But I guess it wouldn’t be a Frontale season without a defensive crisis, would it? So to sum up our part of the game, we were shit, somehow won, but picked up loads of injuries. Hmmmm.

There’s not a great deal to say about Cerezo or the ref to be honest but I’ll do my best. Cerezo looked the better team but their shooting was awful for the most part. Their striker was an absolute lump and behaved like a wanker for most of the match. He repeatedly did everything that annoys me about a nasty player, hacking, diving and whining. I was delighted to see the ref give him a booking for dissent. (After a foul THAT HAD BEEN GIVEN HIS WAY YET STILL HE WAS MOANING!) As for the ref, he was just a bit useless. He definitely lost control and let things get out of hand. He also appeared to be refereeing by consensus, giving the decisions to whoever complained the most. I haven’t seen any replays but I reckon the red card was right. (Of course VAR agreed, but the VAR guy was absolutely the junior partner compared to the ref, even though the ref himself would be the junior in most other situations). At the time I was shouting for a red, but given the ref’s flakiness, I fully expected it to be overturned. But mercifully it wasn’t. The Cerezo fans after the match seemed to not have appreciated his performance which I thought was a bit strange as as far as I could see, he was being absolutely hopeless but in a perfectly impartial way. I’ve found one note that I made saying that the decision for their penalty was insanely bad, but it was at the other end of the pitch and I haven’t seen a replay. I’ll check it after I post this but leave this uninformed judgement here for your entertainment. 

Next up Vissel Kobe at home on Wednesday. Given our injury crisis it’s a bit unfortunate that we now seem to have games coming relentlessly after a few weeks off of league action. I wonder if we might see Ueno from the U15 team get on the bench at some stage. This seems a bit of a strange thing to say, but he’s been standing out at both U18 and U21 levels and maybe the club might want to get him involved for the fan excitement and potential publicity. After all, given our absolutely random form we might as well do something to generate some interest as clearly we’re not going to be troubling the top of the table any time soon. After Kobe, we’re at home again on Sunday against Okayama. Our form is so random that there’s no telling what might happen in either of these games, so let’s at least keep our fingers crossed that they turn out to be at least entertaining and hopefully not disastrous. 

 

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO (Yellow card 36') 
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto 
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 97. DERIK LACERDA

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for DERIK LACERDA 86')  
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for MARCINHO 75')  
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for TACHIBANADA 87')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke 
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto 
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi (on for PEDRO ROMANO 46')
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon (Yellow card 41') (on for SASAKI 31')
FW 34. OSA Ryuki 


Man of the match

 

There’s only one player who I could give this too as no one else, (apart from Kawahara, with a lovely assist in his five minute cameo), seemed to do much. So it goes to…

MIURA SOTA - looked dangerous going forward and actually did his defensive stuff too. Absolutely gutted that he’s now got injured as well as that will mean we might also miss out on the continuing drama through micro aggressions between him and Wakizaka. 

Goals

PEDRO ROMANO (Frontale) 10' 0-1
FERNANDES (Cerezo) PEN 43' 1-1
TACHIBANADA (Frontale) 45+3' 1-2
KOMI (Cerezo) 48' 2-2
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 74' 2-3
OZEKI (Frontale) 89' 2-4

 

Highlights

 

Vs Nagoya Grampus (home) 11/10/26 J League match 9

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 2 Nagoya Grampus 

Fucking hell this was bad. After a couple of wins in the cups against lower league opposition we were back on league duty and absolutely shit the bed. This game was so bad that it has convinced me that this blog needs a new post tag. So with that in mind, along with the ‘atrocious ref’ tag that I’d forgotten about but which is very much being used for this game, I’ve now made an ‘atrocious performance’ tag that will also be used today. I did my best to obliterate any memories I had of this match in the pub after the game but unfortunately some still remain. But any discomfort I felt this morning was much more to do with a hangover from a truly shit football game, rather than from the beer. On a normal week, an awful game on a Sunday afternoon wouldn’t be as bad as an awful game on Saturday or even Friday night as there wouldn’t be as much remaining weekend for it to ruin. Sadly though, today is a public holiday, so instead of getting back to work, I instead had a day when all I could do was stew in the misery induced by such an awful match. Two terrible teams, one awful referee. If there was any justice this game would have finished 0-0 as neither team’s play in any way justified the scoring of a goal. I think I often say this, but a result where both teams lost would have been fairest. Instead, Nagoya walked away with a win, and I walked out of the stadium as soon as the final whistle was blown. After a few weeks of not being able to go to a match I was actually looking forward to this. But fuck me, it was horrendous. Praise the lord I have some reasons to look forward to Cerezo away next weekend. Please don’t for a moment think that any of those reasons have anything to do with football.

I have no real desire to dissect this match. I think the only things I need to say about our performance are that we never really looked like we would be able to score, (the goal we did get was extremely scrappy and basically a tap in. Anything other than a tap in to an empty net would have been way beyond our abilities), and when it came to defending it looked like we had decided we’d leave a one meter exclusion zone around any opposition players for fear or contracting some kind of airborne disease. I would mention marking for the first goal we conceded, but their players were all in so much space that I don’t think you can really call it marking. One nil down in the second minute. The fact that we were able to equalise so quickly might have given some hope that this was going to be an exciting match, but let’s be honest, the majority of the game was utterly dull. We had two shots on target. One was the goal and the other was presumably the only other chance in the game where it looked even slightly likely that we might score when Osa tried a nice chip late on in the game. That was it. The rest of the match didn’t see us shoot anywhere even slightly near on target. And we endlessly gave the ball away. Basically we were shit. Utter shit. Two fairly significant things happened, neither of which were shown clearly on DAZN. One of them I’ll go onto later in the ref section, but the other was where Wakizaka and Miura squared up to each other. Always a good sign when your own players are shoving and shouting at each other. Miura had failed to return the ball to Wakizaka in the previous passage of play and then went on to lose it, so presumably this is what it was about, but it was all pretty pathetic. My guess to what was said was that Wakizaka said to Miura something like ‘that was shit’ and Miura presumably said back something like ‘have a look at your own performance in this game?’ I wouldn’t have minded seeing both of them taken off at half time and replaced with players who weren’t trying to fight each other whilst ignoring their own shortcomings and didn’t have a teammate who they didn’t want to pass to on the pitch. Nothing else happened. We were cack. Ozeki came on and almost immediately let the ball pass right through him for their second gaol. But I’m not going to blame a sub for us playing so poorly. This match has left us in our usual eighth position in the league and on this showing, that is a massive plus, as I don’t think I’ve seen us play so badly for a long time.

There’s not much to say about Nagoya. They weren’t any good either. However, considering how bad we were I think a team of toddlers would have been able to take the three points. When it comes to the ref though, there’s a lot to say. I’ve long been sick of Sutani and his absolutely lowest ever level of ability when it comes to refereeing. In the game against Hiroshima he absolutely gave them all the decisions and I was questioning his appointment for the game as once again we got a (kind of) local ref for a game at the Pee Swing who seemed to hate us. However after this match it’s clear that I owe Sutani an apology. I should never have questioned his impartiality. The reason for him being terrible in the games we have with him is just that he is absolutely dog shit bad at his job. To make a comparison which will only make sense for me probably, there is a craft beer brewery from his home prefecture of Shimane called Iwami. Iwami are famous for creating their Iwami method of making beer which involves putting it in a fridge in a plastic bag for part of the brewing process, allowing people who don’t have the usual brewing equipment to make beer. The usual unfortunate outcome of the Iwami method though is that the beer is infected and more often than not undrinkable. Sutani is to refereeing what Iwami is to brewing. There’s a definite feeling that they are doing something wrong, the result is wildly variable and usually awful but occasionally something turns out partially acceptable, but it’s absolutely more by chance than by any kind of skill or judgement. The second missed incident on DAZN was a very significant one. On the 85th minute the ball CLEARLY hit the arm of a Nagoya defender. Everyone in the stadium saw it apart from one guy. Mikuriya on VAR presumably only had the DAZN feed because he didn’t notice it either. But it was absolutely clear cut robbery against us. We didn’t deserve to get anything from the match but this was a disgraceful decision, the ball hitting an outstretched arm in the box. In the first half when Marcinho was running to try to keep up with a lofted long ball, the ball hit him on his arm which was behind him as he sprinted. Sutani correctly gave a free kick. But when the same thing happened in the box right in front of him and he’s looking right at it, he doesn’t see it. An absolute simpleton of the highest order. Sutani and Mikuriya as the two main officials. Jeez, that is a terrible combination. But it wasn’t just this lack of a decision. It was the complete random factor of everything he did. Nagai’s horrendous foul on Pedro Romano on 11 minutes was only a yellow apparently even though there was a raised boot and no attempt to play the ball. Towards the end of the first half, a Nagoya player goes straight through Derik to get the ball. Free kick. A minute or so later Yamahara plays the ball and slides into a Nagoya player who is also challenging for it and immediately gets a yellow. Absolutely mind boggling inconsistency. Add to this the fact that the prick was constantly getting in the way of everything happening on the pitch. Maybe his eyesight is so bad that he has to get close to the qction or something. And his interesting interpretation of playing the advantage. Get fouled near your own box but the ball makes its way to another defender, definitely play the advantage even though you’re not actually attacking and are nowhere near even leaving your own half and are under pressure from the opposition so would clearly prefer a free kick. If a foul is committed as a player races across the half way line with hardly any defence ahead of him, bring it back for the free kick. Fucking hell he is an awful ref. So awful that he clearly stands out in a league where pretty much none of the refs seem to know what they’re doing. Even in a massive pile of turds, sometimes there is a turd that is stinkier than the rest. Bravo Sutani!

Maybe I’m crazy and none of these things happened. I didn’t see any mention of either the absolute nailed on penalty denial or the fisticuffs in any of the player or manager comments. I guess you wouldn’t expect that though, would you? At least there did seem to be an acknowledgment that we’d been absolutely cack though, which I guess is something. Whether this will cause anything to change, who knows. Today it was announced that Taniguchi has an injury so that’s another player unavailable. To be honest though, he hasn’t had a great season so far so maybe it’s not such a loss. But jeez we’re awful. It never really looks like we’ll score. it always looks like we’ll concede. It never looks like anything will change tactically. Every not awful result erases any hopes of us trying something different. To be fair, right now I’d settle for the same tactics and the change being that we just don’t play so fucking awfully. Players fighting amongst themselves is an interesting new wrinkle to the whole thing though. Don’t say they never try anything new. Hopefully there were some harsh words spoken after the game as something needs shaking up. If we’d got that penalty and scored it a lot of people would be happy about us coming back for behind and securing a wonderful draw against a team who had secured six points and scored seven goals in their previous eight games and had lost four in a row in the league. That would have made people happy! Maybe these people are better than I am, but I would have considered a late equaliser and one point a massive disappointment and a massive underachievement. Goddam this was awful. Next up Jubilo away on Wednesday in the Levain Cup and then Cerezo away on the league on Saturday.  

 

 

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon (Yellow card 40') 
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO 
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto 
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 97. DERIK LACERDA

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for YAMAHARA 64')  
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for YAMAMOTO 72')  
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (on for DERIK LACERDA 64')
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto 
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
FW 34. OSA Ryuki (on for MARCINHO 72')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for WAKIZAKA 83')

Man of the match

 

There is only one man who this could go to and that man is…

FILIP UREMOVIC - absolutely in the right place at the right time to intercept Wakizaka and Miura as they shouted at each other. We can perhaps be grateful that Sutani didn’t think him getting between the two of them was a reason to send him off. Although it probably was another thing in the match that he didn’t notice happening. 

Goals

FUJII (Nagoya) 2' 0-1
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 4' 1-1
YAMAGISHI (Nagoya) 73' 1-2

 

Highlights

 

Vs Kashima Antlers (home) 19/9/26 J League match 8

 

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 3 Ashima Kantlers

Damn I hate Kashima. I won’t say that my Silver Week is ruined, but this definitely felt more like a loss, even though some people might have been elated by the late equaliser. Of course after they lost three league games in a row, it always looked like playing us was the perfect opportunity for Kashima to bounce back. So I suppose we can be happy that we at least ruined that for them. But goddam it, they are shit. And goddam it, they seem to keep getting away with being shit. With over a week off, (and quite a bit longer than that if you only consider league games), I’ve got the perfect opportunity to spend a long time writing a carefully crafted blog post. At the same time, I want to forget this match as quickly as possible so you’ll have to make do with the usual thrown together crap, which this time will be chock full of moaning about scummy Kashima and the useless referee and will only briefly talk about us.

Us - 

We threw away a lead again. I guess it goes without saying really as it seems like it’s something that we do so often that you might imagine it’s a contractual obligation. When the chairman was shopping around the club’s soul, he really should have held out for better terms. I was astonished to see that Yamamoto was the Man of the Match on Flashscore. Perhaps it was recency bias, but I thought he’d had a bit of a dodgy game, misplacing pass after pass, until he put in the admittedly great cross for our 90+7 minute goal. (Amusingly the match stats make him our best passer, so there is a high likeliness that I am talking out of my backside here. But Yamamoto did make one particular poor attempt at scoring which like the Mochiyama swing and a miss is lingering in my memory…). At the back, Miura, perhaps because he knew Sasaki was on the right so was less likely to take his spot, put in a classically shit Miura performance, going missing for most of Kashima’s good chances. The fact is though, that we totally dominated this game and should have won easily. I could probably list all the easy chances we missed, (sometimes actually missing the ball completely), but as that would require me watching the game back again, I won’t do it. If you score three times in a match and don’t win, it’s a bit of a problem. But then if you look at the bench it becomes clear that we’re just about hanging in there when it comes to putting together match day squads. Maybe we thought it would be useful to have two centre backs on the bench in case we decided to go to a back six at some stage of the match. Just the one striker because… we don’t have anyone else. And we didn’t even use all of our subs. And three out of four of them were made with less than ten minutes of the game left. (As an aside, Derik looked a lot fitter and lasted 84 minutes. Probably could have been changed a bit earlier though as he looked cooked midway through the second half). How can we have so few options so early in the season? So, considering all of this, I probably should be happy with the result. But I’m not, as it pissed me off something rotten. Talking of rottenness, let’s move on to the opposition and the ref.

Them and the ref - 

It’s not my usual way to lump these two together but on this occasion I think it makes perfect sense as they seemed to be working in tandem, in perfect harmony. If the ref Nakamura wasn’t wearing his YUMA shirt under his ref’s shirt he definitely had put it out ready for hm to sign after the game. His affection for Kashima’s be-nappied whinger in chief was clear from the start of the game and he even went as far as to display this affection publicly when he gave him a little bit of a massage after Suzuki had filled his diaper and was having a little cry on the floor after an assault on Brodersen didn’t get what he thought was in order, the dissolution of Kawasaki Frontale and Kawasaki city as a whole. Everyone knows Suzuki is a moaner, a fouler, a cheat and a diver, which makes it all the more surprising that refs are happy with letting him do what he wants, including screaming in the officials’ faces. I’m not sure if Suzuki’s bright pink hue was a result of him spending too long on the sun bed or whether he’s just become a full on gammon now. He certainly likes to whinge like a gammon. There is no doubt in my mind that Suzuki did enough to get at least a couple of yellow cards but, surprise surprise, he didn’t get booked at all. And instead was basically given free rein to go around kicking people all over the pitch. It was on one of these ridiculous occasions, where a clear piece of Suzuki fouling didn’t get even half the punishment that it deserved, that Oniki lost his rag and got booked. There must be something in the water in Kashima as they all seem so aggro. Maybe there’s a meth lab at the reservoir that supplies the drinking water for the area where the players and staff live. (Yes, I’ve just googled chemicals that make people angry). Although I guess they probably don’t live in Kashima, right? Why would you if you had any kind of other option? At the end of the match when Ito got booked, (for what, who knows. Perhaps being a Frontale player?), some bearded twat on the Kashima bench seemed to be attempting to start a fight. Obviously no point in punishing him though, right? Because he’s one of the guys in red. The only meaningful yellow he gave one of their team was for Kunto Misao. And let’s be honest, he should, (and normally does), get an automatic red just for being his usual dickhead self. None of the other horrendous fouls they committed was deemed worthy of a card. But at the same time Nakamura was flinging them around to our players for anything. I didn’t make that many notes during the game but looking back at them the descriptor ‘atrocious’ is used for the ref on multiple occasions. So let’s just say it one more time here. NAKAMURA IS ATROCIOUS. The yellow card for Derik was a joke and the free kick the twat gave Kashima lead directly to their first gaol. Nakamura, do one.

The Kashima twattery was not just confined to the team and the staff though. As you’d expect, their fans are also idiots. Before the match the mere mention of ‘Kawasaki Frontale supporters’ was enough to send them into a chorus of boos. Much like the apparently ‘great’ fans of Urawa, they love a boo. I think it might say something about how they’re feeling at the moment. Triggered by a mention of the opposition? Feeling maybe a bit insecure? Three losses in a row and then a draw against a team whose results are basically randomly assigned from week to week? They are right to feel worried. Their team is awful and hopefully their bad run of results will continue for the rest of the year. Actually the rest of the century. They’ve been getting away with being shit and still somehow winning for too long. I think we’d all enjoy seeing some chickens coming home to roost. To everyone involved in the club from the first team through the reserves and youth set up, to the staff, board and right up to the supporters, fuck off the lot of you. 


Hmmm. A draw. The late equaliser was fun at the time, but sitting in the pub made me pretty miserable as once again we’d messed up. We had so many chances to win the game. And we had plenty of chances to stop them scoring. Certainly we weren’t helped by the ref, but ultimately we shit the bed again. After the final whistle as the Kashima players got a bit of a booing from their fans (of course they did. Kashima fans probably boo their children’s first steps), for some reason our fans kept singing. They were still singing as I left the stadium after the players had come to the supporters section and done their little bow. Whilst I don’t think we should be booing our team, being so delighted by a late equaliser in a game we should have clearly won does make us look a bit simple. You could say we appreciate the effort the players put in. But such a joyous response at the end of the game feels a bit like being delighted you shat all over the toilet floor. Some feeling like, ok, you didn’t do it in the actual toilet, but at least you managed to not soil yourself in the living room. When the only satisfaction you can draw from a result is the slight pleasure of knowing that the opposition fans are disappointed, there’s probably not that much to celebrate in reality. But I suppose it could have been worse. Next up, Kumamoto away in the Levain Cup on the 29th. This will be the first game I miss this season. To be honest, maybe the break might be good for me. I don’t think we’re shit, but I am getting a bit fed up with our relentless pursuit of randomness and inconsistency.

 

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 3. TANIGUCHI Hiroto
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO (Yellow card 90+1') 
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki (Yellow card 37') 
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (Yellow card 90+8') 
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto 
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 97. DERIK LACERDA (Yellow card 43') 

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for TACHIBANADA 86')  
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (on for DERIK LACERDA 84')
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto 
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
FW 34. OSA Ryuki (on for MARCINHO 67')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for ITO 86')

Man of the match

 

It’s a bit weird, considering the result, but I’m actually going to give this out today. One player did a great job after a few dodgy performances earlier in the season, and the other really got involved. So I’m giving it to…

SASAKI Asahi & ITO Tatsuya - The former kept Yuma Suzuki quiet (well, in footballing terms, of course he didn’t shut up moaning for the whole game), and the latter scored a lovely goal, gave 100% effort and was involved in most of the good things we did. Also, if Ito's mystery yellow card was for winding up the Kashima bench, extra kudos to him!

Goals

LEO CEARA (Kashima) 44' 0-1
MARCINHO (Frontale) 45+4' 1-1
ITO (Frontale) 54' 2-1
LEO CEARA (Kashima) 67' 2-2
MATSUMURA (Kashima) 83' 2-3
PEDRO ROMANO (Frontale) 90+7' 3-3

 

Highlights

  
 

Vs Mito Hollyhock (away) 12/9/26 J League match 7

Mito Hollyhock 0 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale 

Oh my god, two wins a row! Oh my god, a clean sheet! Both of these things happened for the first time in the league this year in this game. And you have to go back to our game against Verdy in May to find our last clean sheet, even including cup games. Some might say this is the dawning of a great new era. Maybe they’re right. There were periods of this game where we looked really good I thought. We did still only manage to score once though. And although the stats say we had ten shots on target, I can’t remember many of them being particularly likely to actually go in. But this win and clean sheet are not to be sniffed at. After all Kashima went to the same stadium a few weeks ago and conceded four times. And Mito definitely don’t look anything like the mugs that many people might have thought they’d be in J1. Of course mainly due to the result, but also to a few other things I’ll go into shortly, all in all, a surprisingly pleasant day out!

Us - 

No real surprises in the line up again. Well, perhaps apart from Derik dropping out of the squad and being replaced by Kayke, who didn’t get the chance to make his full team debut but after the match looked like he’d had a fun time sitting on the bench. (I’ve just seen the lineup for the U21 game today and both Kayke and Osa, unused subs in the game yesterday are starting. Does this mean that the U21 game is affecting the changes we’re making in the senior game? That seems a bit weird….) Our play was unsurprising too, pretty much the same as ever, although we did seem to be just a little bit better than recently. Hasebe always says after games that we’re improving little by little, game by game, and whilst in the past this has been quite hard to believe or notice, maybe he was right all along. One thing that stood out was how good we were at nicking the ball back off of Mito in this match. There must be a technical term for this, I guess. It wasn’t particularly through tackles, but more by us seemingly knowing where the pass was going to go and getting in the way and intercepting it. It was very pleasing to see this. For most of the game, Marcinho was having one of his off days, not being able to pass or shoot and then he cropped up with a lovely finish. It’s weird as he constantly seems to get in these kind of positions, which I guess says a lot about him as a player. By contrast on the other wing, Ito never really seems to get the same chances. I don’t know why this is. One kind of interesting or maybe amusing, or perhaps worrying, thing about this match was our subs. In the past I’ve complained about Hasebe doing like for like subs and changing nothing else. In this match, I guess we’d have to describe the changes as unlike for like. The first two subs were as expected. (Not sure why both Taniguchi and Romano missed the last game and were changed in this game. Perhaps they’re not in perfect condition or something. Or perhaps it’s Hasebe playing 4D chess style mind games). The second batch was where things got a bit confusing. Sasaki came on for Marcinho but unlike the previous time where Hasebe went with Miura on the wing and Sasaki at left back and Miura pretty much gave up on any kind of defensive duties, this time Hasebe put Sasaki further forward. It would have been interesting to see how he did, but he didn’t get long there before he got switched to centre back after Romano went off. As Mochiyama had run himself into the ground he also made a change up front, bringing on… Ozeki?! That one was a bit weird, given that we had a striker on the bench. Maybe he was hanging on to what we had slightly, but I don’t think it really worked. The final change saw Kawahara on for Romano so Tachibanada then had a turn on the left wing. To be honest, there wasn’t that much time to see if any of these last three changes would work, but it definitely blunted us going forward and seemed to confuse things a bit. If we, (and let’s be honest, this season it would be a very likely scenario as it’s happened over and over), went on to concede after these changes, I think I wouldn’t be finding them quite so amusing and entertaining. And Mito did hit the post, so it very nearly happened. In conclusion, I thought we were a bit better than we have been so far this year, but still aren’t getting anywhere near scoring from most of the chances we make. Plenty of pea-roller ‘shots’ straight to the keeper. But definitely a step in the right direction!

Them -

Mito probably could consider themselves to be a bit unlucky they didn’t get anything from this match. Especially when they hit the post. That’s about all I have to say from a footballing point of view… This year they’re playing in a different stadium. It looked like it was going to be a pain in the arse to get to. But to be honest the train from Mito wasn’t too busy either way and the shuttle bus was free, quick and well organised. Blimey! I know nothing about Pokemon really but the stadium felt like an evolved version of the previous one. There’s still a running track but the stands are a bit bigger and the elevation is better. Also behind the goal there’s only the slightest bit of grass and the stand is mostly seated rather than the picnic friendly but football viewing and  calf muscle unfriendly grass verge at the K’s Denki stadium. The bench type seats were spacious and the vending machines were very reasonably priced! Super thumbs up! But there are woefully few toilets. I missed the start of the second half because of this. There are extra portaloos outside the stadium but they had queues too and it seemed a toss up as to which would be quicker. Or rather less slow. It was a shame as otherwise this was a pretty good stadium. (Of course there’s a running track, which is obviously shit, but so many teams’ stadiums have them, including our one, that you realistically have to reassess what good means). Few other things. Mito’s song to greet their players is Daydream Believer which is nice. They really could have done a better job of making the words fit the tune though. Definitely felt like they’d done the lyrics first before having someone else who hadn’t seen the lyrics select the tune. And during the respect speeches before the match, unless I’m going crazy, there was that kind of quiet and emotional piano music playing in the background. You know the kind of music you might expect on a program where a kid is reading out a thank you letter to their struggling single parent mum. ‘Okaasan, thank you for everything you do for me every day. We may be poor but we have each other and we’re happy. Fair play blah blah, respect the referees and opponents blah blah. Kawasaki Frontale captain Yasuto Wakizaka’. I have to say I quite enjoyed the juxtaposition.

Ref -

Astonishingly, I have very little to say in this section. I don’t think I even shouted at the ref in the match. Well actually I did, but just a little bit when I made a note to check something and I reckon my initial feeling was right. (This was the disparity between the yellow cards for Romano and the one the Mito player got shortly afterwards. They definitely didn’t feel like they should have got the same thing). Aside from this one matter I thought the ref was alright. Always easier to say this when you win though, isn’t it? And there was no VAR too. At least not noticeably. Lovely!

So a very welcome win which in retrospect might turn out to be a much better result than we might think it is right now. Next up, Kashima at home next Saturday. And then on Sunday there will be an U21 game I can go to away against FC Tokyo. So a Frontale heavy weekend. I said before this game that I’d happily lose to Mito if it meant we could hammer Kashima. As we’ve beaten Mito I’ll have to change that to ‘I’ll happily take a 1-0 against Mito if it means we can hammer Kashima’. Not too greedy, right? Given that they’ve lost three in a row, I fear we might revert to early season style and oblige with a few soft goals for the opposition and then fail to hit the target ourselves. It would be very nice if my relentless pessimism could be proved to be completely wrong next weekend. This is the end of the usual business part of the post but I’ve written a little bit about the U21s below.

 

 

U21s round up - 

I really want to go to the U21 games. Unfortunately quite a few of our home games are at our training ground and any kind of singing or shouting isn’t allowed. So might as well watch it on DAZN, right? We beat Shimizu 5-1 but the scoreline was probably a bit affected by the fact that they only brought 3 subs and we used six of ours so at the end of the match Shimizu looked knackered and that’s when we scored most of our goals. Ienaga was on the bench and came on! Kawahara had a good game as you’d expect. Kayke got his first goal after winning and converting a penalty. Kimura and Hirose from the U18 team came off the bench and both scored. I think Kimura will be a very tricky player. And he’s only a second grade high school student. Lee looked good in goal. In fact everyone looked pretty good. Hopefully I will have a bit more to say after watching the U21 game in person next weekend. I never really trust what I see on DAZN. It was quite funny when it got dark as it looked like the game was being played in the middle of nowhere, which I guess it was to some extent. (The Asao ground isn’t the most urban area of Kawasaki). The pitch was kind of illuminated, but it didn’t seem as bright as you might expect. And then anything further than a metre away from the touchline was in almost total darkness. It looked kind of fun, but I’m still not convinced I’ll go because of that no noise policy. 

 

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO (Yellow card 87')
DF 3. TANIGUCHI Hiroto
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya 
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto 
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for MARCINHO 83')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for MOCHIYAMA 83')
MF 18. KONNO Kazuya (on for ITO 76')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for PEDRO ROMANO 90')
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC (on for TANIGUCHI 76') (Yellow card 80')
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto

FW 34. OSA Ryuki
FW 93. KAYKE QUEIROZ

Man of the match

 

I think I should pay a bit more attention at games. We played kind of well but I still can’t really pick out anyone in particular for this. I think that’s definitely due to me rather than a lack of players having a good game. Sorry! 

 

Goals

MARCINHO (Frontale) 59' 0-1

 

Highlights