Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 0 Central Coast Mariners
Obviously this was an absolute disaster. We are going to be relegated. The world will end soon. Everybody should be fired, including the supporters. Football should be outlawed. Many might be expecting me to revert back to my usual pessimism sooner or later after we opened the season with back to back 4-0 wins. People hoping for this to happen today will be slightly disappointed by this post, as although this was a pretty shitty game, it’s definitely not worth getting too worried about it. Looking from the outside, people might think I’m being entitled when I say that though we won, this was a crap game, but to be honest, in spite of the good result, I don’t think anything will live in the memory for long from this match. With our progress to the next stage already confirmed, and Central Coast’s elimination already confirmed, all that was left to play for were kind of meaningless league positions. Of course finishing in the top four would benefit us as then we would have the second leg of the next stage at home. And in theory the higher up we finished, the more chance we would have of getting an easier draw. The fact is though, that this group stage has been a bit of a weird one, with plenty of teams who you’d expect to do well being pretty bad and some teams who might usually be known for dominating their domestic league but then failing to do much in the ACL, actually getting some good results. Looking at the table after the match, it’s hard to say who we’d like to play. My personal feeling is that I’d like to avoid anyone we’ve beaten already as that might spell a revenge spanking. Perhaps Shanghai Shenhua could be a good team to play as we lost to them, albeit mostly due to going down to ten men within the first five minutes. There is only one team who can overtake us at the top of the table, so we’ll be playing a team who finishes either 7th or 8th. This means it will be Shanghai Shenhua, Shandong Taishan or Shanghai Port, depending on the outcome of this evening’s games. Perhaps by the time you read this, you’ll already know. So with that in mind and given that the next round will most likely be a free for all again, let’s not bother thinking any more about it and get on with some game chat.
Hmmmmm, now I understand why I extended the opening paragraph so much. There’s not much to say about his game. Under Hasebe we’ve so far played pretty boringly in the first half of games before going gangbusters in the second half. Sadly on this occasion, the pretty dull first half continued until about the 98th minute. It’s no surprise neither team were up for having a blood and thunder slug fest and consequently we got a pretty timid match. Also, Hasebe made PLENTY of changes. I still think it’s too early to make any pronouncements on his preferred players, but the reappearance of the until now absent Ienaga gave us something to think about. As a lot of this game felt like peak 2024 Oniki Frontale with plenty of possession and not much going on, instead of talking about our play, I’ll instead look a bit at how some players did. I’ll preface that though by saying that I don’t think anyone did themselves any favours when it comes to forcing their way into contention for a starting spot. Ando in goal was a shock, but came mainly due to Sung-Ryong getting a one match ban by the club for a minor traffic offence revealing that he’d forgotten to renew his driving license. I don’t think it’s particularly serious, but I think without the ban, I’m sure he would have started. Instead we got Ando, playing his first game in nine years for the club. Until this match, I think most Frontale fans had spent more time watching Ando play the drums than play football. I’m delighted he got a clean sheet, but once again, our tightness at the back had more to do with the opposition not doing very well, rather than any imperious defending or goal keeping. It’s now been three matches and in total, the opposition has had one shot on target. Neither Yamaguchi or Ando has done anything wrong, but that’s mainly due to them not having anything to do really, so, I’m still not sure who should be playing in goal. In defence Hasebe went with a centre back pairing of Kurumaya and Haydar, both of whom are pretty left footed. I was shocked to see quite how left footed Haydar was. There were a few dicey moments, and Maruyama coming on definitely shored things up a bit, but the feeling that the opposition would score soon definitely came more from my pessimism than anything I saw on the pitch. At full back we had Sai on the right, who with Sasaki’s injury, I guess is now back to first choice and Tanabe on the left. I thought Tanabe had a pretty good game. Unfortunately for him, he’s got Miura in front of him who has been one of our best players so far this year. But well done Tanabe.
Ahead of them things get a bit more complicated. Tachibanada was a regular last year but it seems that Hasebe might prefer Kawahara. On this showing I’d probably agree. He didn’t have a bad game but it seems to me that plying Kawahara and Tachibanada together is a bit like playing the same player twice and neither of them really benefits from it. This has long been a Frontale problem, trying to play two defensive midfielders together doesn’t really work. It’s notable that in recent games I feel we’ve been playing just the one player in the defensive spot with the other midfielders ahead of him and we’ve been doing better. There wasn’t much going on in our midfield in this game. What the formation was seems to be a bit debatable with the pregame lineup on the big screen not really corresponding with what was on the pitch. This is a common Frontale thing, but on this occasion, I thought a third approach might have been better. The screen said 4-4-2 with Miyagi up front with Erison and Ienaga on the right and Yamauchi on the left. It seemed to me to be more like Miyagi on the left, Ienaga on the right and Yamauchi in the Wakizaka spot in the middle. I don’t think Ienaga had a very good game. I think I said this in the previous post, but if Ienaga is going to play, I’d much rather see him in the Wakizaka spot rather than nominally on the right as when he plays on the right, well… he doesn’t really play on the right much. I think it makes more sense to give him some freedom in the middle. But that didn’t happen in this match. Presumably Hasebe noticed this too, but I don’t know what this might mean going forward as there’s a lot of competition for that Wakizaka spot. Yamauchi and Miyagi did ok, but I think they both did better as subs in the previous game. Poor old Erison up front huffed and puffed but seemed unable to get anything on target. It’s a shame as I think he really needs to play himself into some form to challenge Yamada, but even against our weakest ACL opposition he couldn’t get going really. So, I guess we’ll know more when we play Kashiwa this weekend, but I’m starting to think I slightly understand who Hasebe favours. Ito seems to be injured. Whether Ienaga was injured and now isn’t, I’m not sure. I suspect, (and hope), Hasebe will be more open to rotation than Oniki, but I guess we can’t be sure about that till things have settled down a bit. But even though this was a pretty dull game, in pretty cold conditions and I was delighted when the final whistle came, this is now three wins out of three, with no goals conceded, 10 scored and with eight different goal scorers, so plenty to be pleased about. But only time will tell if the fact that there has only been one opposition shot on target in three games is anything to do with the quality of our defence or of the opposition.
A couple of things to add as I wrap this up. Central Coast had a 16 year old playing and he looked pretty good! Sign him up! We also had a youngster in the squad with our U18 goalkeeper Izawa making it onto the bench due I imagine to certain discretions mentioned above. And Patrick Verhon’s assist and Marcinho’s finish for the second goal were class. Thankfully they both happened, otherwise this would have felt like a really boring game. As I’ve said above, we can deal with the boring first half to feel out the opponents, but when we’re still feeling them out at 90 minutes with only a single goal lead from a penalty, it doesn’t feel so much fun. There are numerous over reactions we could make to our record so far. Equally there are numerous qualifications we could make to undermine any positivity. Time will tell and that might be as soon as this weekend when we’re away to Kashiwa on Saturday. It always seems to piss it down when we go there. At the moment it says a 1% chance of rain, but I’ll probably still take my poncho. After that we’re away to Fukuoka in midweek and then back home against Kyoto the following weekend. Hope we can keep this nice run going and would be delighted if the next few games went on to show that we needn’t really bother playing a goalie, as our defending is so good that the opposition won’t get any shots.
Hmmmmm, now I understand why I extended the opening paragraph so much. There’s not much to say about his game. Under Hasebe we’ve so far played pretty boringly in the first half of games before going gangbusters in the second half. Sadly on this occasion, the pretty dull first half continued until about the 98th minute. It’s no surprise neither team were up for having a blood and thunder slug fest and consequently we got a pretty timid match. Also, Hasebe made PLENTY of changes. I still think it’s too early to make any pronouncements on his preferred players, but the reappearance of the until now absent Ienaga gave us something to think about. As a lot of this game felt like peak 2024 Oniki Frontale with plenty of possession and not much going on, instead of talking about our play, I’ll instead look a bit at how some players did. I’ll preface that though by saying that I don’t think anyone did themselves any favours when it comes to forcing their way into contention for a starting spot. Ando in goal was a shock, but came mainly due to Sung-Ryong getting a one match ban by the club for a minor traffic offence revealing that he’d forgotten to renew his driving license. I don’t think it’s particularly serious, but I think without the ban, I’m sure he would have started. Instead we got Ando, playing his first game in nine years for the club. Until this match, I think most Frontale fans had spent more time watching Ando play the drums than play football. I’m delighted he got a clean sheet, but once again, our tightness at the back had more to do with the opposition not doing very well, rather than any imperious defending or goal keeping. It’s now been three matches and in total, the opposition has had one shot on target. Neither Yamaguchi or Ando has done anything wrong, but that’s mainly due to them not having anything to do really, so, I’m still not sure who should be playing in goal. In defence Hasebe went with a centre back pairing of Kurumaya and Haydar, both of whom are pretty left footed. I was shocked to see quite how left footed Haydar was. There were a few dicey moments, and Maruyama coming on definitely shored things up a bit, but the feeling that the opposition would score soon definitely came more from my pessimism than anything I saw on the pitch. At full back we had Sai on the right, who with Sasaki’s injury, I guess is now back to first choice and Tanabe on the left. I thought Tanabe had a pretty good game. Unfortunately for him, he’s got Miura in front of him who has been one of our best players so far this year. But well done Tanabe.
Ahead of them things get a bit more complicated. Tachibanada was a regular last year but it seems that Hasebe might prefer Kawahara. On this showing I’d probably agree. He didn’t have a bad game but it seems to me that plying Kawahara and Tachibanada together is a bit like playing the same player twice and neither of them really benefits from it. This has long been a Frontale problem, trying to play two defensive midfielders together doesn’t really work. It’s notable that in recent games I feel we’ve been playing just the one player in the defensive spot with the other midfielders ahead of him and we’ve been doing better. There wasn’t much going on in our midfield in this game. What the formation was seems to be a bit debatable with the pregame lineup on the big screen not really corresponding with what was on the pitch. This is a common Frontale thing, but on this occasion, I thought a third approach might have been better. The screen said 4-4-2 with Miyagi up front with Erison and Ienaga on the right and Yamauchi on the left. It seemed to me to be more like Miyagi on the left, Ienaga on the right and Yamauchi in the Wakizaka spot in the middle. I don’t think Ienaga had a very good game. I think I said this in the previous post, but if Ienaga is going to play, I’d much rather see him in the Wakizaka spot rather than nominally on the right as when he plays on the right, well… he doesn’t really play on the right much. I think it makes more sense to give him some freedom in the middle. But that didn’t happen in this match. Presumably Hasebe noticed this too, but I don’t know what this might mean going forward as there’s a lot of competition for that Wakizaka spot. Yamauchi and Miyagi did ok, but I think they both did better as subs in the previous game. Poor old Erison up front huffed and puffed but seemed unable to get anything on target. It’s a shame as I think he really needs to play himself into some form to challenge Yamada, but even against our weakest ACL opposition he couldn’t get going really. So, I guess we’ll know more when we play Kashiwa this weekend, but I’m starting to think I slightly understand who Hasebe favours. Ito seems to be injured. Whether Ienaga was injured and now isn’t, I’m not sure. I suspect, (and hope), Hasebe will be more open to rotation than Oniki, but I guess we can’t be sure about that till things have settled down a bit. But even though this was a pretty dull game, in pretty cold conditions and I was delighted when the final whistle came, this is now three wins out of three, with no goals conceded, 10 scored and with eight different goal scorers, so plenty to be pleased about. But only time will tell if the fact that there has only been one opposition shot on target in three games is anything to do with the quality of our defence or of the opposition.
A couple of things to add as I wrap this up. Central Coast had a 16 year old playing and he looked pretty good! Sign him up! We also had a youngster in the squad with our U18 goalkeeper Izawa making it onto the bench due I imagine to certain discretions mentioned above. And Patrick Verhon’s assist and Marcinho’s finish for the second goal were class. Thankfully they both happened, otherwise this would have felt like a really boring game. As I’ve said above, we can deal with the boring first half to feel out the opponents, but when we’re still feeling them out at 90 minutes with only a single goal lead from a penalty, it doesn’t feel so much fun. There are numerous over reactions we could make to our record so far. Equally there are numerous qualifications we could make to undermine any positivity. Time will tell and that might be as soon as this weekend when we’re away to Kashiwa on Saturday. It always seems to piss it down when we go there. At the moment it says a 1% chance of rain, but I’ll probably still take my poncho. After that we’re away to Fukuoka in midweek and then back home against Kyoto the following weekend. Hope we can keep this nice run going and would be delighted if the next few games went on to show that we needn’t really bother playing a goalie, as our defending is so good that the opposition won’t get any shots.
Team
GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
MF 24. MIYAGI Ten
FW 9. ERISON
Subs
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
GK 50. IZAWA Haruki
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for YAMAUCHI 66')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 85')
MF 23. MARCINHO (on for MIYAGI 66')
FW 28. PATRICK VERHON (on for IENAGA 85')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi (on for KURUMAYA 75')
DF 36. NODA Hiroto
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
My Frontale Man Of The Match
Like I said, no-one particularly shone in this match so with that in mind I’m going to go slightly left-field and give it jointly to…
ANDO Shunsuke & TANABE Shuto - The former had nothing much to do and did it peerlessly. The latter avoided his usual immediate booking and went on to do pretty well I thought, particularly one spin and run into the box in the first half.
ANDO Shunsuke & TANABE Shuto - The former had nothing much to do and did it peerlessly. The latter avoided his usual immediate booking and went on to do pretty well I thought, particularly one spin and run into the box in the first half.
Goals
ERISON (Frontale) 36' PEN 1-0
MARCINHO (Frontale) 90+8' 2-0
Highlights
