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 Jubilo Iwata (away) 14/10/26 Levain Cup 3rd round

 

Jubilo Iwata 0 - 4 Kawasaki Frontale

Yet another game I missed. And it has set up a match that will truly hurt me to miss, Sagan Tosu away, the best away day in the J League. At least as far as I’m concerned. All I’ve seen from this game are the highlights so I’m not going to write much. But I will say that finally the midfield got changed and we scored four goals and conceded none. Admittedly, this was a much changed Frontale side against much changed lower league opposition. But from the stats, it looked like we had a decent amount of chances and took plenty of them. Kawahara’s goal was an absolute banger. The other three all came from headers and it was good to see Yamaichi get his first professional goal. I presume normal starting line up operations will be resumed at the weekend though. I still think Miura and Wakizaka should sit on the naughty step for a while. I don’t think not being in the team for a Levain Cup game was done as a kick up the backside / punishment, so I reckon they should have at least one more game on the bench. Young defender Takahashi got a first start for us. Apparently he did well. And then got injured. Yui and Kayke started too. Not sure how they did. Anyway, as I’m not sure about most things, let’s knock this on the head here and say that next up is Cerezo away on Saturday. I’ll be at the match, so if we’re totally shite again, you can at least partly blame me.

 

 

Team 

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon 
DF 35. TAKAHASHI Tetsuya
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (Yellow card 38') 
MF 26. YUI Kota
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
MF 34. OSA Ryuki
FW 93. KAYKE QUEIROZ

Subs

GK 21. HAYASAKA Yuki
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO (on for TAKAHASHI 46')  
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for MATSUNAGANE 80')  

MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki 
DF 13. MIURA Sota

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for OZEKI 88')  

MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (on for KAYKE QUEIROZ 80')  
MF 23. MARCINHO (on for OSA 71')  

Goals

MARUYAMA (Frontale) 17' 0-1
KAWAHARA (Frontale) 50' 0-2
PEDRO ROMANO (Frontale) 72' 0-3
YAMAICHI (Frontale) 84' 0-4

 

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 Tegevajaro Miyzaki (away) 8/10/26 Emperor's Cup third round

 

Tegevajaro Miyazaki 0 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

I’m ashamed to say this was another game I had to miss. After doubling up on the youth games last weekend, I would have loved to go to Miyazaki for this match, but work and money got in the way. With this in mind, there’s not that much to write really. We scored twice, and that’s about all I know. Flashscore was pretty useless for this match. According to that site every shot in the match was on target from both teams and we only had 27% possession. Maybe these things are true but it doesn’t seem that likely. Athough Hasebe did seem to stress that we weren't very good in the his post match interview so maybe the stats were right! Next up, Nagoya Grampus at home on Sunday. I will be at that game so will probably have something more to say next time. 

 

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 5. SASAKI Ashai
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC (Yellow card 31')  
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
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 21. HAYASAKA Yuki
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (Yellow card 72')  (on for DERIK LACERDA 65')  
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto (on for ITO 74')  
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon (on for MARUYAMA 83')
FW 34. OSA Ryuki (on for WAKIZAKA 83')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for MARCINHO 74')
FW 93. KAYKE QUEIROZ

Goals

MARCINHO (Frontale) 12' 0-1
MIURA (Frontale) 50' 0-2

 

Highlights

  

Vs Roasso Kumamoto (away) 29/9/26 Levain Cup 2nd round

Roasso Kumamoto 0 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale

 

I really wanted to go to this game. The draw of a new stadium was strong. But equally strong was staying in employment. And given that we are going to have an insane 24 hour trip for Nagasaki away coming up in the next couple of months, this and next week’s Emperor’s Cup game away at Miyazaki were both a bridge too far unfortunately. Aside from a new stadium, the other great draw for me of cup games is the excitement of a potentially rotated team. That didn’t really happen much for this match and it’s no surprise as we seem to be spread quite thin at the moment due to us having the main team, the U21 team and the U18 team all sharing certain players. I never write much about games I’ve watched online. For this one I didn’t even have that luxury, so there’s not really anything worth saying from me. A blessed relief! All I have seen is the highlights and the stats. Neither looked particularly good but I guess it’s not a massive surprise as this seems to quite often be the way we deal with these kind of games. It's just a relief we managed to progress! Pleased to see Uremovic score. Also pleased to see Hasebe’s funky white belt. We’re through to the next round where we’ll play Jubilo. Sadly, I already know I won’t be able to go to that one either. Next up for the main team, Tegevajaro Miyazaki next Wednesday. Next up for me, the U21 game at Todoroki on Saturday. I’m quite looking forward to it!

Team 

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon (Yellow card 84') 
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki 
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 97. DERIK LACERDA 

Subs

GK 21. HAYASAKA Yuki
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 69')  
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto (on for ITO 79')  
DF 30. NODA Hiroto
FW 34. OSA Ryuki (on for MARCINHO 79')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for MOCHIYAMA 79')
FW 93. KAYKE QUEIROZ (on for DERIK LACERDA 89')

Goals
UREMOVIC (Frontale) 58' 0-1

 

Highlights