Vs Kashiwa Reysol (home) 8/2/26 J League East match 1

Kawasaki Frontale 5 - 3 Kashiwa Reysol

Football is back! And I was quite excited about it. I was on the J Talk podcast earlier this week and thought that maybe I might have jinxed our whole season by showing some kind of optimism. I’d predicted us winning 4-1 to various people last week, so was happy to score even more goals than my crazy jinxy prediction. I definitely couldn’t have predicted we’d still be so shaky at the back though. But maybe we should instead focus on Kashiwa being quite good at attacking. I’m working out how to go forward with this blog so I’m trying out some new headings. We’ll see how they go in the future. First attempt today.

1st half

We were unstoppable, their defence was awful! Well for a bit anyway and then they come into it a bit. Lots of players looked bright. Still looked a bit shaky at the back but nowhere near as shaky as last season. They had plenty of useless possession. Has Oniki taken over at Kashiwa? Goals! Excitement! Slight peril… 

2nd half

Bit of a heart in mouth half as we rode our luck. Given the scoreline though I guess we can still call it a thumping, right? Possession stat seemed pretty reflective of the game, but then again, Kashiwa continued with the Oniki style pass for the sake of passing. We took our chances. It was delightful. Lots of joy but with a large portion of heart in the mouth terror that we were going to mess up what started as a very comfortable lead. 

Good day...
 

...for some of the new signings. I was most excited about our defensive reinforcements but we still conceded loads. Brodersen can catch the ball and I think that saved us a few goals as I could clearly imagine Yamaguchi palming it off to an opposition attacker in the same situation. (A major way we conceded goals last year). Taniguchi seemed composed and an improvement. But I should mention again that we did still concede loads of goals. Matsunagane seemed to stand out more, even before he scored. Amazing that he came from playing right back at Fukushima intermittently and straight into the side at centre back. Obviously this was due to injuries, but… maybe he has a future there. Bravo! Konno and Yamahara were linking up really well in the first half and looked lively. Much more excited about them than I expected to be. Oh, and Erison scored the fastest ever Frontale hattrick. Great stuff.



Bad day...

Yamamoto stood out as someone who seemed very rusty. Wakizaka too, but he took the edge of it by scoring a nerves-easing goal late on. Miura had his ups and downs. I don’t want to watch the highlights, but I’ve heard that their goals did seem to come down his side. Maybe he’s still dreaming of Sweden. (This section isn’t necessarily just for our players, but on this occasion seems to be focused on them…).

Maybe a bad day also for people who like calm situations and steady defending. There wasn't much of either on display.

Any other business

- I enjoyed the weather trolling the league's ridiculous decision to shift the season to match the European one. I don’t really understand why they thought they needed to do it. I know they are planning a mid-season break, (and who doesn’t love a mid season break right? To break up all momentum and erm…), but if a match at the start of February in Kanto is close to being disrupted by snow, I can’t imagine how bad things will be further up north. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be in the stands, but I did prepare extremely thoroughly. And it definitely encouraged me to spend as little time in the stadium as possible which I imagine isn't a great thing for the clubs' finances. Massive lumps of snow occasionally falling off the top of the stand onto the people in the front row was amusing, but perhaps the amusement could have turned a bit dark if the massive lumps had been a bit more massive. Or frozen.

- It was surprising that our usual defensive crisis managed to kick in even before our first game with our big centre back signing being paired with Matsunagane, a relatively inexperienced right back. I’ve mentioned this kind of stuff above, but only having Hayashi (in the youth team last year) on the bench when it came to centre backs is a bit of a worry. I’m guessing everyone else is injured. But I suppose the only way is up from here, right? And even with our makeshift defence, we managed (just about) to win.

- Seems like Kashiwa away always cover up the ’STUPID’ part of the ‘WE’RE KASHIWA STUPID’ banner. I don’t blame them. Maybe they could work on that other ‘Play Dirty Go Hard’ flag next. Thank they probably need to cover the last three of those four words though. Or maybe get someone to proof read them before they order any new stuff.

WOW!

(Maybe this section should actually be called WOTW, and I’ll leave it to you to work out what the letters stand for. I’ll give you a clue though and say that the O, missing T and W are ‘of the week’). 

IKEUCHI Akihiko

- 

In the first half, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t have anyone to give this to, but don’t worry the ref Ikeuchi wasn’t going to stand for that. He’s been responsible for so many awful decisions in the past,  that it’s difficult to remember the details anymore. Some of those decisions resulted in him being demoted to J2 duty for a while. But clearly the league feels like he’s done his time and further equally idiotic judgements won’t matter. To be fair, I don’t think he was that much of a disaster or indeed a W in this match, but I did get quite annoyed with his apparent belief that any non-Japanese player with a serious face and a short haircut was definitely a tough guy cheat and would get nothing. Romanic was absolutely robbed by him on a few occasions. I don’t know what would have to happen to him for him to have got a free kick from Ikeuchi. Perhaps the only option would be if he was fouled by another foreign short haired serious faced player. It was kind of disgusting, but thankfully it didn’t matter in the end. Also seemed like he was absolutely blind to foul throws too. But then that’s not only down to him, I guess. Ikeuchi was shite, but not as shite as he has been in the past. High praise! So maybe not appropriate for this occasion, but his treatment of Romanic means that he definitely is the WOW. (For your information, the first W does not stand for winner, or wonder).

So, how did you like the new format? It seems to have gone on for about the same amount of time as it always does, so I might need to tweak that slightly. But you know, once I get going on moaning about a ref I can’t really stop myself. Next up, JEF Chiba away next weekend. I’ve got my ticket. The first game has gone well. Long may that continue!

Team

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
DF 3. TANIGUCHI Hiroto
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 18. KONNO Kazuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 9. ERISON

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 69')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for KONNO 74')
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for ITO 59')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
DF 30. NODA Hiroto (on for MIURA 74')
DF 32. HAYASHI Shunsuke
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (on for ERISON 69')


Man of the match 

There’s no way you can’t give this to someone who gets a hattrick, but maybe you can also give it jointly to someone else too so …

ERISON and MATSUNAGANE Yuto - The former scoring goals for fun and looking more dangerous than ever before in a Frontale shirt. The latter getting an absolutely out of the blue start, out of position and doing a really good job. Weird to say that when we conceded three goals, (and I haven’t checked the replays), but if we concede three and score five (one of them from Matsunagane) every week, I don’t think anyone’s going to complain too much! 

Goals

ERISON (Frontale) 6' PEN 1-0 
ERISON (Frontale) 11' 2-0

ERISON (Frontale) 25' 3-0
HOSOYA (Kashiwa) 38' 3-1
SEGAWA (Kashiwa) 60' 3-2
MATSUNAGANE (Frontale) 68' 4-2
YAMAUCHI (Kashiwa) 81' 4-3
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 90+4' 5-3

 

Highlights

 

New player songs

A new season means new songs to learn, so here's your homework. I have to admit I haven't listened to many of them yet.

3. TANIGUCHI Hiroto 

 

Taniguchi izayuke Hiroto
Taniguchi misero yo Hiroto
Taniguchi atsuku tatakae
Toshi moyashite tsukisusume

Original song:
https://youtu.be/ufc54RdoitM?si=SAXsxCZOLMvhlM2n

18. KONNO Kazuya



Konno la la la laa
Kazuya la la la laa
Konno la la la laa
Kazuya la la la laa oh ohh

Original song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H9bBGHkaWQ

20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke



Mochiyama Kyosuke
Laa laa laa, laa laa la laa
Tatakae Mochiyama

Original song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqDHYrVNa0 

22. Filip UREMOVIC



Ure Ure
Ure Ure
Ure Ure
Oo, Uremovic

Original song:
https://youtu.be/ekr2nIex040?si=hhBk2HAJxjJvPiP3
 

25. YAMAICHI Shuto



Yamaichi Shuto
La la la laa la, laa laa laa
Atsuku tatakae
Yamaichi Shuto 

Original song:
https://youtu.be/7njC5lgL61c?si=GWxL4A74zSR5hYod

29. YAMAHARA Reon



Saayuke Yamahara Reon
Kirisake Yamahara Reon

Original song:
https://youtu.be/jrvfCNv4lyE?si=exM2cDYEi7SV-GkN

49. Svend BRODERSEN



Brodersen, Brodersen
Auf gehts ‘dersen

Original song:
https://youtu.be/qRRBjpqZgrM?si=l4sPrrm5wHcljyf4

91. Lazar ROMANIC




Romanic, Roma goal
Romanic, Roma goal

Original song:
https://youtu.be/9BRLge0jen4?si=b0KFPJnq8RRzzOho

Players joining

Here are our new players for the 2026 season. Apologies to the official site for stealing their photo. I thought I needed something to make this post look slightly more appealing. 

New signings

Svend BRODERSEN

One of two big signings in this window. Regular readers will probably know that I have my doubts about Yamaguchi so I was delighted to see us sign Brodersen from Okayama where he’d been one of their best players. Only missed one match for them last year and that was due to a red card ban. With him in goal they conceded significantly less goals than we did last year, even though they had only just been promoted. Surely will be first choice…. won’t he? Surely he will. I remember he seemed like a nice chap who had a bit of a laugh with us behind the goal when he was playing for Yokohama FC a couple of years ago. I like to think that he will be one of the missing pieces in our jigsaw. Please let this be true…

KONNO Kazuya

Signed from Avispa to link up again with his former manager Hasebe. A short midfielder, (we seem to be a bit low on our complement of them at the moment, hehe), who will presumably challenge for the right wing spot. Ito has long said he prefers to play on the left, so maybe we won’t be quite as reliant on Marcinho as in previous seasons. It’s good that it seems like we will actually have some decent options and competition in 2026.

MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke

Played very briefly for us once last season away at Nagoya but now has a proper contract. Plays as a supporting striker but I think he came on on the left in that Nagoya game. Seems to widely be considered as one to watch so hopefully we’ll get that opportunity in 2026.

OSA Ryuki

Left-sided midfielder who scored 16 goals in 47 appearances for his high school in the Takamado U18 PL East last year. Don’t know much else about him but the stats at least sound promising.

TANIGUCHI Hiroto

The other big signing of the off season and one which has given me a bit of optimism about our chances. Not only was he Verdy’s best defender he was also their second top scorer. And his hattrick against us the season before last is still quite fresh in the memory. Clearly our big weakness last year was defending, and Taniguchi looks like he could play a massive part in sorting that out. Fingers crossed.

YAMAHARA Reon

Right-footed full back signed from Shimizu. Can play on either the right or left of the defence. (Another player with Yama in his name. Could we name a whole starting eleven with Yama players? Maybe). Aside from injury was pretty much an ever present for Shimizu last year. Seems to have only received four yellow cards in five seasons! Presumably he’ll be sent off as soon as he gets on the pitch for us. Clearly the Sai replacement, but I guess time will tell whether we have upgraded or have just gone for someone on a lower wage. (Pure speculation from me here).

YAMAICHI Shuto

Central midfielder joining us from Waseda University. Although he did make the bench for a couple of games at the end of last season. To be honest, I don’t know anything else about him.

Returning from loan

HAYASAKA Yuki

Returned from a season on loan at Iwaki, where he was starting pretty much every game and then disappeared from sight. Not sure what happened, but I suppose at least he got a bit of experience. Unlikely to be able to get anywhere near starting this year, barring any injury disasters, but if he’s not going to play, I’d rather it is with us than with a J2 team on loan.

MATSUNAGANE Yuto

Back with us after a couple of reasonably successful years on loan at Fukushima. Still young and whilst I don’t think he’ll be immediately challenging for a starting spot, will hopefully be useful back up if injuries or transfers occur. Knowing Frontale, presumably both will. 

YUI Kota

Returning from a season on loan at Fukushima United where he didn’t play a great deal, but started to get a bit more pitch time towards the end of the season. If I remember correctly from his time in our youth team, he’s a defensive midfielder. Presumably won’t be getting much involvement this year and maybe will go out on another loan for a bit more experience.

Promoted from youth team

HAYASHI Shunsuke

Centre back promoted from our youth team. Seems to have played once for both the U17 and U19 national team. And that’s about all I know about him. 181cm tall. Presumably will spend this year training in the first team before being loaned out, perhaps in the summer.

KAN Noriharu

I feel a bit sorry for Kan, as I picked him out as one of the best players in our youth team last year, so now he has presumably been cursed. An all action left back who’s taller than some of our centre backs. According to some cursory research I’ve done, he seems to have Chinese citizenship which came as a bit of a surprise. 

Players departing

Transferred to another team

Sung-Ryong JUNG

Transferred to Fukushima. Maybe it was the right time given that the club seemingly thought that Yamaguchi was a better option. Was a great servant to the club and will be greatly missed. I’ll try to get to a Fukushima United game this year to cheer him on.

TANABE Shuto

I think Tanabe did a pretty good job when he was called on. I guess the problem for him is that those situations weren’t particularly regular occurrences. Transferred to Tokyo Verdy where hopefully he can pick up a lot more pitch time. Good luck to him!

YAMAUCHI Hinata

Spent half of last season on loan at Vegalta Sendai after getting involved early on in the season but never quite fulfilling his potential. Perhaps dropped down the pecking order slightly and that is why he has decided to move to Kashiwa Reysol. I know he was wanted by Urawa earlier in his career. Perhaps this was when Rodriguez was in charge, and therefore his move to Kashiwa would make sense. Definitely a feeling that we might live to regret this transfer, but at the same time, you can’t really blame either club or player for wanting it to happen. Good luck to him.

Out on loan

PATRICK VERHON

After spending half of last season on loan at Imabari, he has now moved to Oita Trinita on loan. It didn’t quite happen for him with us after a bright start and then maybe he didn’t quite take off in the way I might have expected when he went out on loan. Pretty much the same story as with Yamauchi! I’m sure there’s a great player in there so he just needs to get some regular minutes and then he’ll hopefully be off and running.

TSUCHIYA Kaito

Following the usual route of our youth team promoted players by spending a season in the first team not doing much and then going out on loan. I think he’s too good for J3, but that should hopefully mean that he can play plenty of games and pick up some experience at Fukushima this year. I’m sure he’ll be back with us sooner or later. (By the way, I don’t know if I mentioned the curse of my shirt choice before. Basically whoever’s shirt I buy leaves shortly afterwards. I was fully aware this was going to always happen so last year got Tsuchiya’s shirt with the hope that his departure would be for experience on loan and this is exactly how it turned out. With these great powers I have, I will forever have to choose my next shirt carefully).

Not offered a new contract

JESIEL

Perhaps his injury record was the reason he was let go. It’s a shame, as like Ando he was a lot more involved in 2025 than in some previous years. I think he can still do it and hope he finds a new club soon. I believe he wants to stay in Japan. 

VAN VERMESKERKEN Sai

Maybe the most surprising of the departures. Was playing quite a bit at right back so a bit of a shock to see him leave. Especially given that Miura and Sasaki will both potentially leave for Europe at some stage. (Them going on holiday to London together has made me think it might come sooner rather than later…). At the moment doesn’t have a club, which is a shock. Perhaps was on a higher salary than some others which might explain why he has left and why he hasn’t found a new club yet. I hope he can find somewhere soon. Good luck to him.
 

Retired

ANDO Shunsuke

Something of a shock retirement especially considering he had a lot more involvement last year than previously. His retirement is likely to have any significant effect on our fortunes. Now is an assistant goal keeping coach with the club. I’m pleased we’ve managed to keep him involved. 

KURUMAYA Shintaro

Another slightly shocking retirement, but one which probably makes sense as he seemed to be feeling the pace a bit. Not sure why he wanted to convert to centre back as I always preferred him out wide. I hope he enjoys his retirement!

Blog update

Just a quick post to update you on what’s happening with this blog. Maybe you might have noticed through the lack of end of season posts, but I’ve kind of lost enthusiasm for writing blog posts. Whilst I am still enjoying going to games and will continue to do so, there are some other things that I feel like I should be focusing on a little bit more rather than writing blog posts. I will however continue to do them for each game, but they will hopefully be significantly shorter. At times I did enjoy writing loads even about very boring matches, but I think I was repeating myself quite a bit and felt that on the whole it was a bit of a waste of time for everyone involved. I haven’t really worked out how the new style posts will go yet and I guess it will probably be a work in progress for the time being. I’ll do a players in and out post soon, which will also hopefully be briefer than in the past and then when the first game comes round, expect to hear from me again. Any feedback or suggestions will be gladly received. Thanks for reading.

Vs Urawa Reds (away) 6/12/25 J League match 38

Urawa Reds 4 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale

What a horrible end to a mixed season. At least I think it was a mixed season. I can’t quite remember the good times right now. I suppose we scored some goals (five more than any other team), but jeez conceding so relentlessly to lose points takes the shine off it a bit. Whilst this was a horrible end to the season it was also an utterly appropriate one in the way that it came about. We’ve clearly gone well off the boil recently and I guess thats to be expected when you consider we had nothing to play for. I was still a bit shocked quite how lacklustre plenty of our players were. I wonder if we will have some people leaving being announced soon. Yamamoto looked like he was doing his best to keep out of the way of everything so maybe he has a transfer lined up. There have been rumours for other players too. I suspect next season will be one of rebuilding. Which you could say we should have been doing this year. Perhaps it will be more of a complete demolition and start again from new foundations kind of thing. Anyway, as I have no desire to prolong this year, let’s get this out of the way.

Us -

There were hardly any positives to be taken from this game. Perhaps we could say that Noda looked good when he came on. Also Myogan got his first J1 minutes and did alright. Elsewhere… hmmm. Wakizaka and Yamamoto were terrible, the former giving the ball away again and again and the latter seemingly to be actively getting out of the way of any action. And neither contributing to any kind of attacking threat. I wonder if Marcinho’s time with us is coming to an end. With our only usual attaching option Ito banned for the game a lot of responsibility fell to Marcinho. But he was pretty ineffective in the way that he can be sometimes. If the ball went to him during a rare attack you could guarantee that would be the end of the attack as he’d either dribble till he lost it or miscue his pass straight to the opposition. I don’t want to blame him too much though as given the anonymity of our midfield the only thing we did was endlessly hoof the ball forward so weren’t ever really that likely to score. There was absolutely no imagination, no inspiration and not a lot of motivation. To be honest though, the scoreline was ridiculously flattering to Urawa. Sure, there was no way we deserved to win and we never looked like scoring so the 0 on our side was absolutely correct. But fuck me, Yamaguchi was awful. It’s interesting but also unwelcome that he is coming up with new ways to concede soft goals. He repeated the tactic from the last game of just sitting down rather than attempting a save in this match. We didn’t get one of his usual flying dive to palm it perfectly to the unmarked striker at the back post performances which was something of a surprise. The second goal was horrific, when as Urawa crossed, Yamaguchi decided to throw himself across his goal parallel but crucially well behind the cross rendering him helpless to even think about making a save as they slotted the ball home. But still somehow people seem to think he’s a good keeper. Maybe it’s because he occasionally flings himself into the air to stop a regulation shot. It seems to me that the only on target shots he normally saves are ones that are hit straight at him. And at the same time, he quite often seems to be trying to get out of the way of the ball rather than in the way to save a shot. If he is our number one next year, we’re fucked. I’d say we’re fucked if he’s even making the bench next year. Of course it’s not all his fault, but you can guarantee that recently it’s usually mostly his fault. I don’t really understand expected goals, but I guess if a team concedes almost double the goals as the xg, the keeper has maybe had a mare? I have nothing against Yamaguchi personally, but the adoration he gets from a surprisingly large amount of people baffles me. And I also hate the way he blames anyone after a goal that is almost certainly his fault. You could probably point the finger a bit at Hasebe again in this match, as his triple change at half time seemed to have a thoroughly negative effect rather than the positive one he might have been hoping for. But the truth is that this game didn’t matter so he definitely could easily give some fringe players a chance. And even with fringe players involved you wouldn’t expect one of your starters to fuck up so massively, repeatedly. Guess we’ll really be able to judge our manager when we see what he does in the off-season. Hopefully we might try a change of system, formation or approach, or any combination of them. Please just try something…

Them (marginally, but actually mainly more moaning about us) -

It’s quite annoying that they beat us so easily as their fans were sulking and doing the whole ‘we won’t sing unless you give us something to sing about’ thing mentioned in their pre-game banner. To be honest, during the game it wasn’t so different from a normal Saitama Stadium experience as most of the time they just boo anyway and apparently they were still allowed to do this when we had the ball. It wast perhaps more baffling that we kept singing as the game continued as we were absolutely shit. I’d still probably rather have it that way though, rather than go down the bad boy supporters route. Their silent treatment really exposed the pointlessness of our ‘don’t sing when we don’t have the ball’ policy though. There were long periods of silence as they played the ball around at the back and we just twiddled our thumbs. After half time I was doing my best to keep supporting, even though the first half had been horrible. And then one shocking Wakizaka pass knocked the stuffing out of me and I was pretty much done for the day apart from singing some of the subs songs. I wanted to make a joke mentioning about how I’d finally worked out the real reason for them always playing East 17 before the game. As it turned out, I’ll have to reflect it back on us instead though, as although Urawa usually follow the Bryan Harvey approach of metaphorically blacking out after eating too many baked potatoes and running themself over in their own car, they’ve finished above us now and if anyone was in a massive stodge coma in this match it was clearly us. As I don’t really have anything else to have a go at them about I’ll leave it here. Well, with just the short postscript that on leaving the station I noticed a political party handing out leaflets. I didn’t recognise the name but a quick google search informed me that the party’s ideology is apparently Japanese ultranationalism, which was utterly predictable given the passing foot traffic and which I imagined was going to form a hilarious part of this blog post presumably provoking an angry response about how all the horrible elements of their fanbase are just a tiny proportion of Urawa fans etc. But as appropriate as the political party’s choice of venue to hand out leaflets may have been, I can’t even be bothered to make a joke about it. Hmmmmph.

Ref -

Koya, who was once known on Flashscore as K. Hut, a fact which I still enjoy, seemed pretty useless and utterly card shy. But even his shiteness was smothered beneath the disastrous performance from Yamaguchi, so I guess Mr. Hut should buy him a beer for taking the heat off of him. Delighted I won’t have to watch another atrocious J League ref for the next three months. 

Fuck all of this. I can’t believe I wrote this much. I guess my irritation about Yamaguchi has propelled me on. Plenty for us to do in the off-season and I think plenty of shocks coming about more departures. As I said, I reckon Yamamoto might be one. There is a small chance that I might do some end of season posts, but right now I feel like I don’t want to waste my time thinking about this season anymore. If there is any demand for it, I might do my survey, but honestly I don’t know if even I can be bothered to answer the questions, let alone compile and post the answers. We’ll see. Anyway, let’s put 2025 behind us and I hope you can enjoy some kind of end of year festive fun. The safest way is do that is probably to get smashed and then hopefully a flashback of a horrible Frontale 2025 moment won’t interrupt your good times. 

 

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis 
DF 31. VAN VERMESKERKEN Sai

DF 4. JESIEL

DF 22. Flip UREMOVIC  (Yellow card 72')
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So 
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto 
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. ERISON

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke

DF 13. MIURA Sota (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 46')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for (IENAGA 46')
FW 29. MYOGAN Toya (on for KAWAHARA 76')
DF 30. NODA Hiroto (on for JESIEL 66')
MF 34. YAMAICHI Shuto

FW 38. KANDA Soma
DF 39. TSUCHIYA Kaito
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (on for ERISON 46')

Goals

GUSTAFSON (Urawa) 44' 1-0
THIAGO (Urawa) 54' 1-0
NEMOTO (Urawa) 58' 1-0
KIESE (Urawa) 77' 1-0

Highlights  

Vs Sanfrecce Hiroshima (home) 30/11/25 J League match 37

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 2 Sanfrecce Hiroshima

On this blog I generally try to steer clear of anything too informative and instead focus on the other more... interesting maybe... (maybe not) stuff. With this match that is something of a relief as this was for the most part a pretty tedious encounter with opponents who also had nothing to play for. They did seem to be a bit more up to the job though, as perhaps demonstrated by the relative league positions of the two teams. The most exciting thing from a Frontale point of view was maybe the starting line up. Well, perhaps exciting isn’t the right word. Given that since the previous game we’ve found out that plenty of players are leaving. They are Sung-Ryong, (his choice I believe), Jesiel (no new contract offered), Ando (no new contract offered, and will retire), and Kurumaya (think a new contract was possible but he felt he wasn’t up to it and is retiring). All of these departures are sad for me and I’ll deal with them later. But with this in mind it was nice to see Jesiel and Kurumaya start at centre back. Given that we have nothing to play for, it was great to see Hasebe give them an opportunity to say goodbye to the fans. Not sure why Sung-Ryong didn’t get the same opportunity and instead had to start on the bench. If he’d been able to start we could have brought on Ando for the last few minutes and given them all one last chance to play. I would have thought Hasebe would have been up for it, so maybe it was a decision driven by a player’s wishes perhaps. It’s nice to see Hasebe is an emotional human being. There’s no way Oniki would have done that. I remember countless end of season dead-as-a-doornail rubbers where he continued with exactly the same players as always. I was pleased to see Sung-Ryong get a clean sheet for the time he was on the pitch. Unfortunately we had conceded two really soft goals before he'd made it on to the pitch. I thought Jesiel really looked like he had a point to prove and I think he proved it. Kurumaya did well too, I thought. It was especially nice to see him finish the game playing at left back where I feel he really belongs, Well maybe it’s not so nice because that situation came about due to an injury to Sasaki. Hopefully it’s not serious. But it was satisfying to see Kurumaya’s career come to an end where it started. 

I felt we were kind of lucky to be drawing at half time. It’s a strange thing to say as we were leading up until the 48th minute. We hadn’t done much though and had looked in trouble on a few occasions. At the same time, I think we could have felt disappointed to be drawing at half time and indeed to lose the game, as the goals we conceded were very very soft. I still don’t have much confidence in Yamaguchi. I feel like people think he’s great because he makes some dramatic saves, (perhaps with the drama turned up to transform a regulation save into a dramatic one. There was one occasion in the match when he did a high flying dive and palmed the ball off the pitch even though it was way off target and was going off anyway. It was kind of reminiscent of the goal he seems to concede once a match where he pats the ball to the unmarked attacker at the back post, but on this occasion there was no-one there so instead he put it out for a corner). The fact is though, that it looked like he dived way too late for the first one and for the second goal just sat down rather than trying to save it. Of course it’s not all his fault, but you could tell he felt at least slightly responsible because he didn’t scream and shout too much at his defenders like he usually does. There have been rumours about a possible new keeper coming in who would presumably be the number one for next year. Given that we only have two goalies on the books now, (or maybe three if Hayasaka comes back from his loan) and one of them is Lee, with absolutely zero experience, there will definitely be something happening in that area of the pitch. 

Maybe a quick mention of the ref here. The last time we had Takasaki we won 4-0 but I still said the ref had had a shocker. On this occasion it was amateur hour again I thought. Reckon we might have got a little lucky with Ito's yellow and the card probably contributed to him being subbed at half time. It was a shame as he was our only attacking threat really. Erison was trying his best but the ref seemed to give every challenge he was involved in as a foul against him. The thing that pissed me off the most was when the dozy bastard of a ref totally blocked Kawahara from getting the ball and then gave him a yellow afterwards for complaining. Reckon Sanfrecce could have had their keeper sent off for a handball outside the box in the first half. I thought it was handball and so did Erison, (who was quite a but closer), but maybe the fact that the ball didn’t go out of play for a few minutes afterwards diluted the possibility of it being reviewed. To be honest we'd had more than enough VAR in the match anyway. But it would have been fun to see Osako get sent off. 

What else do I need to say here before I get on to the players leaving? Maybe the fact that it’s pretty bad that we couldn’t really trouble Sanfrecce's creaking Grandads back three. To be honest though, I still don’t think we would have scored yet if we were still playing now. Can’t really blame our players for being on the beach already though. I don’t think they were slacking particularly, but definitely there was a feeling of a bit of pointlessness about our play. Sanfrecce’s long throws were gross, as any long throws are. I guess the occasional one could be excused and is maybe something we should try as I think Sai can do them, but the endless dithering over their stupid little fucking towels was really getting on my nerves. But at least it gave me something to get involved with, as the rest of the match was quite dull. The only thing that is in any way interesting about the one remaining match away at Urawa is the possibility that they will do their silent treatment thing again that they’ve been doing in the last few matches. Hopefully they will all stay after the game and continue the silence all through the end of season ceremony too as then the train will be a lot better. Would be lovely to beat them on the last day of the season.  Looking back, this year has been a mixed bag and I don't think we’ve really actually done the whole season of transition thing that people expected particularly. Maybe we’re saving that for next year, (god help us…). With one game to go, as long as we don’t get hammered and concede four goals in our next game we will have got more points, scored more goals, conceded less goals and finished higher than last year. So even though some points of this season have been deeply disappointing, not losing on the final day will mean that our hosts will be even more disappointed. Again. As they are pretty much every year. In a intensely amusing way. 

With four players leaving, and the end of season ceremony, we actually spent more time in the stadium after the match than we did when the actual game was taking place. I definitely wanted to stay though as I wanted to show my appreciation for the players who were on their way out. Regular readers will know I love Sung-Ryong so obviously I’m gutted about him going. However, perhaps the time has come. I don’t think he deserved to be demoted to second fiddle this year, but at the same time, I’m not sure he would have been the answer to play in every game. Definitely a department that needs attention in the off season. I suspected that Jesiel might go, but I thought he would want to go back to Brazil, given he’s just had a baby. Apparently though he wanted to stay with us and will remain in Japan. It’s still a massive frustration for me that he had his career slightly ruined by Oniki who played him straight back from injury in a totally pointless end of season game away at Sagan Tosu and then he got seriously injured again. Definitely he has been quite injury prone in recent years, but he also has consistently been one of our best defenders. I hope he can stay injury free and show us what we’re missing. Ando seems to have been unceremoniously dumped which is a shame more from an emotional point of view rather than a practical one. There is a certain irony in him not getting a new contract after a season in which he has played a lot more in than in the last five or six years put together. He’s been an amazing servant to the club, so I hope he can be offered a position in the club somewhere. I kind of admire Kurumaya’s decision to retire. He definitely could have continued playing at a lower level, but leaves us having been a one club man. I was never sure about him wanting to move to centre back, but I guess with Nobori, and then Sasaki, and then Miura at the club, he was probably going to get more of a chance in the middle. It would have been interesting if we’d tried him in a back three. I remember him playing there at times near the start of his career. I will always consider him as a left back though. Maybe if Sasaki is inured we might see him play left back away at Urawa! All of the farewell videos were of course tear jerking. I think Jesiel’s speech affected me the most as he was clearly gutted. I mentioned above Hasebe’s compassion in playing most of the players leaving one more time being a very welcome thing. This was in stark contrast to the kind of ruthlessness when it comes to moving people on that maybe people would say is essential for our club to progress. Maybe it is essential, but it’s also quite out of character for us, so it came as a bit of a shock. I don’t know if it was a business decision made by the chairman, who once again in the end of season ceremony made himself appear quite unlikeable. As Sung-Ryong started his farewell speech which he was making in Japanese with “Sung-Ryong desu” Hasebe giggled, apparently with real affection. At the same time the chairman stood stony-faced looking like he was scanning the crowd for dissenters who he could get thrown out of the stadium. 

 

There has been some criticism of him for his lack of understanding of football and some of his decisions and reactions. I still remember him not understanding why Chanathip wanted to play football rather than train and just sit in the stands. I wonder if that signing, and maybe also the signing of Gomis, were his idea, to extend our reach in Asia and raise our profile overseas, with the ultimate aim being to get more MONEY MONEY MONEY! And then there’s also the upheaval amongst the staff which also might have something to do with him. You can’t help feel that we’ve lost our way a bit recently and it just happens to have coincided with his tenure at the top of the club. Basically, I’m still quite suspicious of him. As I’ve probably made abundantly clear. 

Well that all went on a lot longer than you might have expected for such a boring and pointless game. As I said above, hopefully we can finish the season with a bit of excitement away at Urawa. It’s not too much to ask, is it? And then we get a nice break and all the fun of the off-season. There’s definitely some work to be done before we’re back playing again in early February. My regular pre-match drinking establishment is called Progress, and whilst I think that could be said in some ways about 2025, I remain cautiously hopeful that we could see some more forward steps in 2026. Nice to finish on something positive! 

 

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis 
DF 31. VAN VERMESKERKEN Sai

DF 4. JESIEL (Yellow card 84') 

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (Yellow card 72') 
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto 
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya (Yellow card 33') 
FW 9. ERISON

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG (on for YAMAGUCHI 81')
GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke

MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for MARCINHO 72')
DF 22. Flip UREMOVIC (on for SASAKI 61')
DF 27. KAMIHASHI Ryota
DF 30. NODA Hiroto (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 81')
MF 34. YAMAICHI Shuto

FW 38. KANDA Soma
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for ITO 46')

Goals

ITO (Frontale) 12' 1-0
KAWABE (Sanfrecce) 45+4' 1-1
NAKAMURA (Sanfrecce) 56' 1-2

Highlights