Vs Albirex Niigata (home) 13/10/24 Levain Cup Semi Final 2nd Leg

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 2 Albirex Niigata (1-6 on agg.)

With us needing to do a bit of work after a terrible first leg, one thing was certain before this game. It was going to be a GOAL RUSH! Plenty of attacking football. GOAL RUSH! Lots of shots and lots of goals. GOAL RUSH! Of course all of our attacking might mean that we gave away a few chances at the back, but we’d more than compensate for that by the amount of great goals we’d score. GOAL RUSH! Oh, unfortunately in a game where scoring three times to take it to extra time was the bare minimum required, we failed to score. And not only did we fail to score, we also conceded twice. So in the end we were just the six goals short of making the final. It says a lot that in all of the photos I took of the game, all of our players just seem to be hanging around doing nothing. I've only included one, as much like the game, the photos were even worse than they usually are. I’m totally fed up with wasting time writing these posts as there’s nothing left to say. It’s always the same old shit from Oniki. The opposition always know what to do. Even if Oniki nominally changes the formation, still the approach is the same. In the first leg we needed over 500 passes for one shot on target. In this game the stats were marginally better, but still the important one was the same. Zero goals. In a game we needed to win and they just needed to not concede four times, we ended up having significantly less shots than the opposition. Right from the start, aside from the immediate time wasting from Albirex, (not a criticism, a legitimate tactic which the ref seemed to notice and moan at them about but of course did nothing to prevent it happening again), you would really have thought that we were the team with the big first leg lead. The usual ridiculous amount of passing amongst the defence and then… nothing. As soon as we got the ball out of our half we gave it away. Even players who’ve stood out a bit recently for not being shit had a bad day. The only possible justification for our slowly slowly patient build up could be if the intention was to bore Niigata sufficiently that they fell asleep and then we’d be able to perhaps score a couple of goals past their prone snoozing bodies. Judging by our finishing though, I wouldn’t even say that would have been a given anyway.

I don’t think there’s much else for me to say. I don’t have anything amusing to write as there is nothing amusing about our games at the moment. It’s all shit. The end of the game was greeted with what was perhaps the most booing I think I have ever heard at Todoroki. As I always say, I’m not a booer myself, but I think it was totally justified. Although it might be a bit unfair as the target of the booing should clearly be the manager rather than the players. And he has very rarely come out after a game and, surprise surprise, that was a game we won. Usually he weasels away and lets everyone else take the criticism. Maybe the chairman could do with getting a bit of stick too. After all it’s him who clearly thought Oniki was the answer at the end of last season, (well actually, quite a bit before the end of last season but that new contract was particularly galling), and who still presumably thinks things are going well. It reminds me of his astonishment when Chanathip left, being surprised that he didn’t want to sit in the stands and wait for his chance (which clearly would only really come if all of Oniki’s favourites were either injured or got sold). Perhaps the chairman like Oniki, believes that we should all wait patiently for Oniki’s tactics to start working again. At the same time, try to dilute the home advantage as much as possible by allowing Niigata fans to take over almost half of the stadium. MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! However, this does explain how this game managed to almost be a sell out even though we are not only shit, but utterly dull right now. Why would anyone apart from the most masochistic of Frontale fans think that this would be a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The pre-game motivational video showing previous times we’ve come back from deficits and scored goals, (they had to dig quite a way back into the past to find some of that footage as recently we’ve been more often than not, throwing away points at the end of matches rather than gaining them), did a good job of getting the fans going and there seemed to be some kind of (clearly delusional) belief that we might be able to get the job done. This was all smashed to pieces as soon as the match started though. The video stated that statistically we had close to zero chance of winning the tie. I don’t know if it’s possible to have a minus % chance of something happening, but clearly that was going to be the only way our chance of winning would be going right from the kick off. Maybe some of the fans believed, but it didn’t seem like the players did. And who can blame them? They probably don’t know how to react when they hear an Oniki team talk now. ‘Really? That’s what you think we should do? Have you watched any of our games this year? Is your magnet board broken?’ And still the clown is in charge. Of course I don’t expect him to be fired, but at least give us the slight morale boost of announcing that he’ll leave at the end of the year. Please, I’m begging you. Please… won’t somebody think of the poor children!

Next up, who gives a shit? Well actually it’s Gamba Osaka for another Friday Night J League. As the game is kind of meaningless, maybe we’ll get something from it. Nothing to play for means that we now have the oppotunity to give some other players a chance. But of course we probably won’t because of the clown who is picking the team. Maybe it’s important for him to try to not get his worst ever league finish when he’s thinking of future employment. But to be honest, I think most of us don’t really care if we finish 11th or 16th. We’ve been so bad in 2024 that we deserved to get nothing. And that’s exactly what we’re going to get. 

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 52')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (Yellow card 40')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 9. ERISON

Subs

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for MIURA 46')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for YAMADA 57')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 67')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for YAMAMOTO 67')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (Yellow card 90+1') (on for ERISON 57')
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR

Goals

KOMI (Niigata) 31' 0-1
OTA (Niigata) 89' 0-2

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

A somewhat surprising return of this section, particularly because this game was so bad. But it has to go to...

JUNG Sung-Ryong - If we hadn't had him in goal we would have been humiliated in both the home and away legs of this tie.


Highlights

Vs Albirex Niigata (away) 9/10/24 Levain Cup Semi Final 1st Leg

Albirex Niigata 4 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale

With a two legged-tie, the first leg can sometimes be a tough sell. We never do particularly well away at Niigata and this fairly hastily arranged game on a Wednesday evening, with us having a shit year definitely fitted that bill. So instead I went to work, feeling confident that we might do the business as recently my absence from our games has meant that we play well and my attendance meant that we just pass the ball endlessly. And as this is basically only the first half nothing would really be decided and all the excitement would come in the second leg on Sunday, right?  Well, unless we got so utterly battered to the point of almost making the second leg irrelevant. It’s a bit of a shame that happened, particularly after we smashed Machida last weekend. But somehow utterly predictable. You might imagine I would have run out of original ways to get irritated by Oniki but perhaps I’ve found another relatively new one after this match. We’ve done well in a few games recently where Oniki has finally given in to the calls to play 442 with an approach that puts a bit more emphasis on trying to score than trying to rack up passes. Yamamoto and Erison were back in the team together, (admittedly due to Oniki running out of options so definitely more by luck than judgement), and were playing well. Quite why Oniki decided to break up that partnership for every game that followed a good performance, I don’t know. All the years he’s been sticking with the same formation and the same line up in spite of us playing awfully. Finally he perhaps accidentally came up with something that did work and suddenly he wants to rotate and change the formation between every match. It’s almost as if he got a win to take the pressure off and then decided to immediately revert to working on his plan of getting his favoured formation and players back and blasting regardless of the fact that it is a terrible idea and there’s any evidence it will ever happen. Even when he’s won some games doing something different he still thinks that his original way is the best. It’s infuriating, but utterly predictable.

As I have only seen the highlights of his match, I’m not going to write anything about it apart from the moan above. Actually highlights isn’t really the right name for them. From our point of view It was more like a blooper reel. I think I can only remember two shots of ours being in there and the rest was Yamaguchi looking frustrated whilst picking the ball out of the back of the net. 568 passes for just the one shot on target. Really awful stuff, real Oniki stuff. Barring an insane comeback, Oniki’s fucked another competition at almost the first time of asking. I am really looking forward to the end of the season. Well, as long as it brings the end of his time with us. If it doesn’t, I might look into the possibility of somehow hibernating for the whole of 2025. I think we’ve reached the stage now where all of the success that he brought us has been undermined by his utter uselessness for the last three or four years. If we somehow managed to win this tournament it would be kind of undeserved as we were parachuted in to the quarter finals against a J2 team and barely scraped through. And to be honest, as petty as it sounds, I don’t really want Oniki to finish his time with us with any kind of success. He should have gone a long time ago. We shouldn’t have offered him at least the last two contract extensions, but equally he shouldn’t have accepted them. I think he’s going to be really shown up in his next job, particularly if it’s at a big money basket case team.

To make a very clumsy cooking comparison, when he took over from Kazama, he basically had to only make the change of putting the deliciously cooked meal on a plate and serving it, rather than employing the risky but admittedly more exciting route of flinging it across the room, forkful by forkful directly into the diner’s mouth. As the years have passed Oniki has used up all the pasta, run down the spice rack, gone through everything in the freezer and is now wondering why no one has done the shopping. At the same time, the kitchen is now about to properly catch on fire. Although he accidentally avoided a massive inferno on a few previous occasions by accidentally turning the gas off whilst trying to switch the lights on, he’s made sure to go back and set things on fire again immediately afterwards as he was worried that going straight from building catching fire to safety was a bit too much of an adventurous step. He’s still trying to make that original meal without realising he’s put all his new ingredients into the wrong containers. And let’s be honest, after we’ve been made to eat the same meal for eight years, even if the cooking had improved it would still be quite boring. As it is, it’s now an almost inedible mess and the best we can hope for is that we don’t get food poisoning from it. On a couple of occasions he had a go at using the rice and curry sauce he found to make a curry and it was nice! But a bit too spicy for his taste, so afterwards immediately went back to attempting to use the rice and curry sauce to make an omelet instead and was shocked when it didn’t seem to work. I know this lengthy analogy doesn’t really work, but writing it was marginally more fun than watching us play football right now.

Next up, our almost certain elimination from another competition due to our manager completely fucking things up. As I didn’t see this game, some of you might think it’s a bit unfair to criticise Oniki so much. But don’t worry, I’ve seen plenty of his uselessness already, so even from a distance feel I can spot an Oniki dog’s dinner when I see one. After that, we have Gamba at home next Friday for yet another Friday Night J League. Let the joy overflow!

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (Yellow card 81')
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 17. TONO Daiya
FW 9. ERISON

Subs

GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 46')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for MARCINHO 54')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi (on for CESAR HAYDAR 54')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for TONO 46')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for TACHIBANADA 69')

Goals

TANIGUCHI (Niigata) 25' 1-0
OTA (Niigata) 45' 2-0
HASEGAWA (Niigata) 50' 3-0
HOSHI (Niigata) 53' 4-0
SEGAWA (Frontale) 71' 4-1

Highlights

Vs Ventforet Kofu (away) 8/9/24 Levain Cup Quarter Final 2nd Leg

Ventforet Kofu 1 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale (1-2 on agg.)

This was an absolutely disgusting win. I feel kind of dirty. Not saying Kofu were robbed though. I think this was probably the kind of game in which the fairest result would have been a 0-0. But then that undermines the fact that they scored. But it was from a free header because one of the usual suspects wasn't doing what he's supposed to be doing. Us scoring late does make a nice change from conceding late on. On those occasions there was a certain inevitability about it though, our play being pretty bad and it only being a matter of time. In this match you can't say at all that it was inevitable that we would score. Blimey we left it late. Left it late for quite a few things actually. Left it till the end of the first half to have our first shot. Left it till the 93rd minute to have our first and only shot on target. It’s fair to say this was not a game of the highest quality. And don’t forget we had the easiest possible draw in the round. And we still almost messed it up. The main thing to write about this game is that we were absolutely awful so let's just do a couple of bullet points and get this over with.

- Quite pleased to say that I predicted the line up almost exactly correctly. The only difference I had was that I thought Kurumaya would have started instead of Haydar. And maybe he would have if he wasn’t (perhaps) injured. I’m only guessing he is, but he went from starting to not even being in the match day squad. I predicted Tachibanada at right back too. Am I a genius? No. Because I got the score wrong. I thought we’d be the ones conceding a late goal to crash out. But I did get the line up and the fact that we’d be shite correct. But once again I’ll undermine myself by saying that it’s not difficult to guess these kind of things because recently Oniki is even more predictable than he is useless. After he was so pleased with our first half against Sapporo, which to most people was an atrocity of a performance, it’s not surprising that he brought back his 'big guns' for this important game. Equally unsurprising was the fact that the 'big guns' played awfully. You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for the players who started against Kofu in the first leg. They won a match, something that the first choice players haven’t done recently and which those first choice guys still didn’t manage to do in this game. But they were dropped. Well apart from Wakizaka and Tachibanada of course, who Oniki would probably pick to start even if they had completed a transfer to another team. Wakizaka was awful again. But once again, perhaps not as bad as Miura. Oniki taking him off at half time was a shock, but a very welcome one. I still don’t like to blame players for what I wholeheartedly believe is Oniki’s fault though. His football depresses me so much that I can’t begin to imagine how terrible it makes the players feel to have to play it. Surely they don’t sit there listening to his match plan and think that this is definitely the way to win. They must have their doubts. I just wish someone would speak up and say something. I’m presuming no one has. Or perhaps the ones who have been exiled said something. Anyways let’s just remember that once again his starting line up failed to do anything and it was only when he made changes that we really started to even make chances.
 

- I’m not sure there’s any need for this second bullet point. I really can’t get past the fact that we were terrible. Oniki’s post match comments are just baffling. It feels like he’s been watching a different game. Perhaps he should spend less time looking at his magnets. Perhaps he, like me, doesn’t like to criticise the players. Although to be honest, I think that this only applies to some of them. I don’t know what he is watching during the matches sometimes. His apparent obsession with pressing and passing and absolute lack of interest in shooting or scoring is quite baffling. Of course to do the latter you need to do the former, but quite how he thinks us doing only the former makes for a good game, I don't know. He’s really lucky our supporters are so happy clappy. I don’t think other clubs’ fans would put up with this utterly pointless stuff. We’ve often said that our football has at times become like an art installation, where the beauty of passing is being displayed. Perhaps this is still true but the thinking behind the installation has changed and now it's intention is to demonstrate the futility of life through endless and pointless repetition. Oniki’s ideal super cut video on YouTube would be a video of us breaking with numbers into the opposition half, then carefully working the ball back to our keeper. Over and over again. Oniki probably thinks margarine tastes better than butter. When he’s feeling a bit wild and wants to go crazy he probably listens to Oasis, (although they are a bit challenging musically for him). His favourite beer is undoubtedly Asahi Super Dry, a beer that pairs perfectly with every food because of its absolute bland tastelessness. He once went crazy and had two glasses. He accidentally burped though so had to have a lie down. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike him. But it’s getting increasingly difficult to retain this opinion as our football gets even more pointless and boring. And, I kind of don’t even get the point of him being there anymore. We always do exactly the same thing, the same players, the same formation, the same tactics, the same subs, so maybe we could just replace him with a set of instructions he could write at the start of the season. He’s even admitting nothing changes in his post match comments. Someone asked about the subs and he said something along the lines of how we just swapped some players and didn’t bother changing the formation much. I think plenty of people are so desperate to see some method in his madness that they are seeing changes that Oniki hasn’t noticed. And to be honest anyway, it’s not the formation that’s the problem, it’s the system and approach. As I have said on numerous occasions. And apparently will continue to do so, wasting both my time and your time too. So let’s just finish this here.

Next up a relegation 6-pointer against Sagan Tosu at home on Friday. With no midweek game this week it will give Oniki the perfect opportunity to use the same players who haven’t achieved anything and some time on the training ground to work on practicing exactly the same ineffective things we’ve done for the last three years. Who needs new ideas when you’ve just magnificently overcome/scraped through with a very late goal against tough opposition/a team doing almost as badly in J2 as we are in J1. Delete as you prefer. Not meaning to be rude to Kofu. I quite like them and would be very happy to see them back in J1 as I like the away trip. Actually, depending on Friday’s result we might be able to do the trip next year anyway. I’m pretty sure that if we do end up in the relegation zone Oniki won’t have what it takes to get us out of it. After that, we start our ACL campaign against, surprise surprise Ulsan. Confident about that?

 

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
FW 9. ERISON (on for YAMADA 71')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 71')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for WAKIZAKA 80')
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai (on for MIURA 46')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for OSHIMA 90+5')

Goals

SON (Kofu) 31' 1-0
TONO (Frontale) 90+3' 1-1

Highlights

 

Vs Ventforet Kofu (home) 4/9/24 Levain Cup Quarter Final 1st Leg

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 0 Ventforet Kofu  

After perhaps what was one of the most infuriating experiences of the season we’ve moved on to what was perhaps one of the most… erm… underwhelming wins of the season. Parachuted into the Levain Cup with only eight teams remaining, at the start of the year this would certainly have looked like the easiest way for us to get our hands on a trophy this year. With our campaigns in every other competition lying in tatters, the Levain Cup is now our only way of getting anything out of what has been an even worse season than last year. With the return leg coming up soon, this post will be in the shorter style that I always attempt but which often gets thwarted by my waffling. Here we go.

- This was a win but it was far from convincing. Before the game, imagining that it would be exactly the same team as it always is, I suspected we’d draw the match and then lose late on in the second leg. An uncharacteristic rotation from Oniki, (more on that in a minute), meant that I was actually quite excited to watch this match. As it was, this was pretty much the same as ever really, with some ponderous build up finally resulting in some bad shooting, all just with some different faces on the pitch. The long ball tactics that Oniki conjured up for the Consadole defeat and which were a crucial part of what he thought was a good first half performance in that game are now gone. I couldn’t see any unique approach for this game. And let’s be honest, even when Oniki does change something, it’s basically the equivalent of swapping the tangerine slices for mandarin ones in his fruit salad, a change which is pretty difficult to notice and which has no real significance or effect. All of which underlines the fact that Oniki’s negative influence remains strong. This was the absolute easiest possible game for us in this stage of this cup. A home leg against a J2 team who are resolutely mid-table this year. But we only managed to win thanks to a mis-hit shot in the first half before a lot of wasting of chances. Due to the new rules, Kofu using a concussion sub meant that we could have made six changes from our bigger than usual bench. But the master Oniki only made four, and even those made us play worse than we had been doing before he intervened. I don’t know what the opposite of a golden touch is, but whatever it is, Oniki seems to have it. The fact that he rotated, whilst both welcome and extremely surprising, was also quite confusing. He usually doesn’t do this kind of thing apart from against non-league teams. Does this mean that he is really worried about relegation and is saving our ‘best’ players for the league? Does it mean that he saw how awful we were against Consadole and wanted to shake things up? There’s no way to tell. Particularly as he obviously included Wakizaka, who’d played pretty badly against Consadole. Oh and of course Tachibanada, but at right back naturally. I suspect for the next match he’ll revert to the Consadole line up, but maybe with one change. I think he’ll drop Sai (for absolutely no reason), play Tachibanada at right back and put Kawahara in midfield. Maybe I’ll be proved completely wrong, but that’s my guess.

- A bit about the stinker performances in this match. I mentioned Wakizaka above and whilst people might think I have an agenda against him, this was definitely another terrible game for him. He seems obsessed with desperately trying to do something fancy and is prepared to make stupid mistake after stupid mistake in pursuit of this ultimately pointless goal. Along with that I guess I’m sore because he tried to shoot when a simple sideways pass would have presented a teammate with an open goal which would have made the second leg a bit less worrying, and the fact that he seems so determined to dominate the score sheet that he was blocking Erison’s goal bound shots. (Do I need to put the winking face in here? Or do people understand this is not entirely serious?) He’s obviously not a bad player but he’s not playing well at the moment and Oniki’s insistence on including him endlessly is pissing me right off. Another kind of unfair thing to say but which I apparently seem to feel obliged to declare is that at the moment Miura really doesn’t seem to be as good as people think he is. Sasaki was much better at left back and we got worse after he was switched to the right. This all feels a bit harsh though as it’s not the players’ fault. It is Oniki’s fault. And as it’s not a great look to whinge when we’ve won, I’ll leave the moaning at this and then presumably pick it up again after the next match. In conclusion, we won, but it wasn’t a massive test, and thanks to our one dimensional approach, it’s one that we could easily have failed.

- A few words about the debutants. Kawahara was probably the stand out player. Which isn’t exactly great news when you consider that’s the one area of the pitch that we have the most cover in. He looked good in the tackle and had a nice range of passes. I’m optimistic about his future, IF he gets a fair crack. Hayder had a solid debut too I thought. It looks a bit like he’s going to be the Jesiel replacement. I don’t know if Jesiel will be leaving us but the fact that he keeps getting injured is a bit of a concern. We haven’t seen the best of Jesiel for a few years now, so hopefully Hayder can fill the gap that Jesiel has left due to his injuries. Having a reliable centre back would free up Sasaki to play on the left where I think he’s better. But anyone who remembers when Jesiel joined us will recall that in spite of him looking better than the rest of our centre backs, he was only given a shot once there were no other options, so maybe we shouldn’t expect Oniki to see Hayder have a good game and then play him again. Yamaguchi did fine but was only really tested on a couple of occasions. I’m still a bit miffed by Oniki’s treatment of Hayasaka who now seems to be back to third choice after a defeat where he wasn’t at fault. It was also kind of baffling to see Yamaguchi given man of the match in the stadium considering how little he had to do and the level of the opposition. I presume Oniki doesn’t pick this award, but jeez, it seemed like there was some kind of emotional bullying going on to both Hayasaka (who after coming through our youth team finally got a chance, was shockingly let down by the players in front of him and was immediately exiled) and Tono, who would have been expected to get it given that he scored the only goal. Yamaguchi did his job and made a couple of decent saves, but when you consider that Kofu didn't really have many chances and the fact that it wasn't some kind of against all odds protection of a goal that was getting battered it seems a bit strange to single him out for special praise.

- Once again, nothing about the opposition or the ref. This was a fairly uneventful game. It was a shame that Erison’s goal was ruled out by VAR but even from the initial replay on the big screen before VAR was even mentioned I wondered if it might be. We in the stadium certainly didn’t see enough replay angles to make any conclusive decision but there seemed to be enough for the ref to change his mind when at the monitor. He did have to watch it quite a few times though to decide on what I guess is supposed to be a clear and obvious error. The cancellation of the goal really took the wind of our sails though. That wind was only a light breeze though, but I guess it shows quite how on edge everyone is at the moment and how their confidence is pretty fragile. But I have no issues with the decision, and the subs Oniki made had a greater negative impact anyway. Oops here I go again with the whinging…

Next up the second leg in Kofu on Sunday. I made my team prediction above and don’t particularly want to predict a result. And don’t need to predict anything tactical, do I? 😉 After that we have a relegation six pointer against Sagan Tosu the following Friday. Way too much Friday Night J League remaining this season for my liking. If we do slip up on Sunday and then go on to slip up again next Friday we could be in a hell of a lot of trouble. There are a lot of teams behind us but at the same time the points difference isn’t much and recently we’ve been known to give our rivals in that area of the table a gift-wrapped three points for free. And after Sagan Tosu we still have to play Kyoto… And when the ACL starts will have a fixture pile up. And presumably still just the one idea. Blimey.

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki (Yellow card 61')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (Yellow card 51')

FW 9. ERISON
FW 17. TONO Daiya

 

Subs

GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki

MF 6. ZE RICARDO

DF 13. MIURA Sota (on for YAMAMOTO 74')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 74')
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for SEGAWA 83')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for WAKIZAKA 74')

Goals

TONO (Frontale) 27' 1-0

My Frontale Man Of The Match

In such an underwhelming game I wouldn’t normally give this out but given that the decision in the stadium was a bit of a weird one I feel like I should balance that out. No offence to Yamaguchi but as he didn't really have that much to do, it’s going to…

KAWAHARA So and SAKASI Asahi - Kawahara looked a lot better than some others who’ve played in midfield for us this year and looks very promising. Sasaki had a good game in his preferred position. Presumably if Oniki continues to Oniki he won’t get the chance to do that very often though.

Highlights