Vs Ventforet Kofu (away) 27/8/17, J-League match 24

 

Ventforet Kofu 2 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

Last season this game was a cracker. In fact both games against Kofu last year were 4-0 victories for us. This year we've ended up with two draws and perhaps this game has signaled the end of our title ambitions, at least until (fingers crossed), Kashima implode. We're now 6 points behind them, a team who it seems we can beat easily but no one else can, and draws against teams fighting relegation is not helping our cause. I think the same thing happened last year. We struggled against the teams that were in the relegation fight. I guess the knockout 'championship' format stopped us in our tracks eventually, but poor results against struggling teams prevented us from taking a stage victory or progressing straight to the final. We're nominally still in all the competitions, but without a big hand from a few other teams, the league is going to slip away. I wonder if this is a time for us to take stock and consider what exactly is our priority for the season. The first Emperors Cup game aside, we don't seem to be rotating the squad. I think we need to recognise that we're not going to win all four trophies with the same 16 or so players and generally speaking the same starting 11. Decisions need to be made. We'll see what happens on Wednesday against FC Tokyo I guess.

As alluded to above, it was pretty much the usual players on show. The starting line up remained the same as the last game with changes only coming on the bench due to the injury to Noborizato (out for 5 weeks apparently). His place was taken by Rhayner and I guess because of this, Edu was replaced by Itakura. My notes and photos are fairly limited for this game, (probably the best photo being the one at the top of the bizarre pile of snow that is still there after the height of summer for some reason), as somehow I found myself in the high action jumping section, holding on to that long rope/sheet thing. It was enjoyably loud and our supporters were definitely playing their part. From the start Kofu's game plan was evident. Pack the defence, sit back and soak up the pressure, then lump the ball forward for Dudu to chase. Not the prettiest of game plans, but it's one we should be used to now as plenty of people use it against us. As I find myself saying every time I write a blog post, we had plenty of possession and were making chances but our final balls were lacking and our shooting weak. We did manage to take the lead though. Ienaga won a penalty. From the other end of the pitch it looked fair enough, but things I've read seem to suggest that he really did earn it, rather than deserve it. Having seen the replay now, I'm ok with it. Kobayashi stepped up and put it away. So far so good, although not so satisfying a performance. Sung-Ryong had made a few decent saves and I thought Taniguchi was doing a good job (the internet disagreed with me on that too it seems...). Surely we'd just step things up in the second half and win comfortably...

Or not. We started the second half as we'd finished the first. Plenty of possession but no real threat. One difference though was that we were really starting to hang on. Things weren't at all comfortable. Neto was looking a bit ragged, far from his usual cool and calm self. Passes were going astray and we were not convincing. Still we were just about coping at the back. On 65 minutes Rhayner came on for Kengo, Ienaga moving into the middle. Shortly afterwards we conceded. I don't think it can be blamed on the sub as it was coming anyway. The goal was a bit of a disaster, with three players being beaten by one striker. Oshima was the first, and was maybe a little unlucky as he put in a tackle but the ball just bounced back to the striker. Elsinho was next. Possibly he couldn't do much from the position he was in, but you've got to wonder why he was in that position instead of getting between the player and the goal. After all he was the right back. Finally Nara slid in, but was too late. Sung-Ryong didn't make a very good fist of stopping it either. Way too much time and space was given to the striker. A very soft goal to concede. Four minutes later, (and considering the lengthy goal celebrations, this can't have been long after the restart), we were behind. It was another soft goal. A long punt forward looked like it was going to be dealt with by Taniguchi but Dudu won the ball, cleaning out Taniguchi in the process, and was through on goal. Nara came across but not in time and Dudu hammered the ball under the dive of Sung-Ryong, who probably really should have done better again. Route one stuff, their goalkeeper getting the assist. I'm not sure about the challenge on Taniguchi. I think if it had been a defender putting that kind of challenge in on a striker it would have been a yellow card. But this is probably just grasping at straws. We really shouldn't concede from their goal kick. Maybe the bounce deceived Taniguchi a little, but the defending was all round woeful. Now they had a lead, and could time waste with impunity. The ref was aware of what was going on and keep whistling, telling people to hurry up, but they didn't and he did nothing. One thing that always annoys me is that once someone has been booked, they can time waste all they want, as I've never seen someone get a second yellow and get sent off for time wasting. This wasn't an issue though, as the ref wasn't even giving out the first yellow. Their keeper was holding on to the ball for almost 30 seconds, kicks were constantly delayed, balls dropped. It was annoying. We had two rolls of the dice left, and the two changes were made quite soon after the second goal as time was running out. Ienaga was replaced by Morimoto and then shortly afterwards, Hasegawa came on for Kurumaya. We were piling forward trying to get an equaliser but the shots were still woefully inadequate, with the strength and accuracy of a back pass, being rolled directly to the keeper, who gratefully picked it up (and of course held on to it for ages). We managed an equaliser in the 90th minute. A Neto cross from the left (think it was shortly after he'd taken a corner), found Taniguchi at the far post. He headed back across the goal and Morimoto nodded in. It's weird. Even at this stage I think we could have got a winner if our shooting was better. The game was insanely stretched, both teams going for goal and the action switching from end to end. But there weren't to be any further goals and both teams had to settle for a point.

Positives and negatives. Let's start positive. Errrmmm... Morimoto scored. We rescued a point. Clutching at straws. The support was good. It didn't rain. I dunno. Negatives. Poor, poor result against a team who are struggling. Players looked like they were lacking energy and inspiration. Some dodgy defending and goalkeeping cancelling out any good defending and goalkeeping there had been earlier in the game. Terrible shooting, and not really enough shots to be honest. We had almost 60% possession but they had 15 shots to our 10. We you consider the quality of our shots this is even more disappointing. Passing wasn't up to our usual standard either. A general lacklustre performance which I hope is just one of our blips, but might hint at deeper problems. We just aren't using our squad. It's the same players all the time and they're getting burned out. We have to prioritise our competitions. If the same 11 start in the Levain cup against FC Tokyo this week, I hope that's because we've decided to aim for that cup, rather than that we don't have a plan B. I suspect that maybe we don't at the moment. The reason the league is slipping away from us is that despite demolishing Kashima twice this season, we've drawn twice with Kofu. We really need a hand from some other teams now to make up the six point gap. But we also need to win all our games, which I can't be particularly confident about us doing right now.

Next up, we have two Levain cup games against FC Tokyo, the first at home on Wednesday and then away on Sunday. We've done pretty badly against them this year so far, and they don't have anything left to play for apart from the Levain Cup so I'm guessing they'll be up for it. A couple of fine victories would maybe put a spring in our step again. Not sure what a defeat would do. Whatever happens, we've got to use some different players. We're getting too tired and too predictable. And because I too am tired and predictable, I'll finish half-heartedly with my usual, but this time slightly weary Go Frontale.

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 36')

FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki (on for IENAGA 77')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for KURUMAYA 82')
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
MF 22. RHAYNER (on for NAKAMURA 65')
DF 28. ITAKURA Ko


My Frontale Man Of The Match

Jeez, I don't know for this game. General underwhelming performances all round. I thought Taniguchi was doing ok in the first half and he did get the assist for the equaliser. But I think, let's just leave it on this occasion.


Goals 

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 35' (PEN) 1-0
LINS (Kofu) 70' 1-1
DUDU (Kofu) 74' 2-1
MORIMOTO (Frontale) 90' 2-2

Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want. 

 

Vs Urawa Reds (home) 23/8/17, ACL Quarter Finals

Kawasaki Frontale 3 -1 Urawa Reds

My first game back after my holiday and it was a cracker. We were back on ACL duty again, although this game didn’t have quite the usual exotic excitement of an ACL tie, what with us being up against familiar opponents Urawa Reds. Since we last faced them (and totally demolished them I should add!), they have had a change of manager and had gone on a decent run, being undefeated till this game. Pleasingly, we were able to put that run to bed. It was a good performance from us, with perhaps the only downside being the goal we conceded. But, if we manage to go to their place and score once, we’ve cancelled that out and have given them a mountain to climb. It’s not over though, as they came back from a similar position against Jeju in the last round. I’m keeping my pessimist hat firmly on, very much enjoying this result, but not counting any chickens yet.

Once again for an Urawa game, we decided to hand them far too many tickets. I know we are a friendly club, but I think it’s kind of stupid to diminish our home advantage in this way. Because of ACL rules, the standing terraces behind the goals were closed, so already our capacity was reduced. Urawa fans filled the usual away end and spilled over into our sections down both sides of the pitch. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t do the same for us at their ground. As usual, their support was pretty rubbish given their numbers. Before the game they were silent aside from briefly singing a song about Kashiwagi (who got injured in the warm up and didn’t start). Similarly, when the game started there wasn’t much coming from their area. Finally, when they were two behind they did start singing a little but I am still yet to be impressed by their support. When they do sing, it’s pretty loud, but it does feel a little like they can’t be bothered most of the time. Although given what their team was producing, maybe it’s not that surprising that they couldn’t be bothered.

Our team was as expected. Sung-Ryong in goal with the recent back four of Elsinho, Nara, Taniguchi and Kurumaya. Neto and Oshima were in front of them and the front four were Ienaga on the left, Kengo in the middle, Kobayashi on the right and Abe ahead of them, although as usual this was somewhat fluid. It seems that we have been able to change the ACL registered players as Edu was on the bench. Also there were Noborizato, Tasaka, Morimoto, Hasegawa, Moriya and Arai. We started the game pretty brightly, pushing forward a lot and were dominating on both possession and chances, although our final ball wasn’t quite getting there. We were however maybe pushing forward a bit too much as when we did lose the ball we were leaving a few gaps at the back. We were defending well though, if a little nerve-janglingly. Neto was totally controlling his part of the pitch. Urawa’s tactics seemed to be desperately defend and then when they won the ball, hoof it forward. Considering that they have a positive reputation for the football they play, it seemed that they were playing more like Kashima, perhaps judging by recent results, looking to come away with a 3-1 defeat, rather than a 4-1 defeat. (Please allow me this joke as it’s not often we hammer Urawa and Kashima so close together). The game was played in an unbelievably laid back style, at walking pace sometimes. Perhaps this was due to the heat (it was a very sticky summer’s evening), or perhaps this is our natural speed but the attentions of the opposition normally force us to speed things up a little. Urawa didn’t seem interested. Surely they weren’t coming with damage limitation in mind? They just sat deep and let us play the ball across our back line even when they were losing. It was really weird actually. We took the lead through some good work from Kengo, who played a one-two with himself if such a thing is possible. He looked like he wanted to lay the ball off to Ienaga, but Ienaga didn’t realise he was involved and Kengo collected his own pass, took the ball to the line and was able to pass to Kobayashi who was waiting on the penalty spot to slot it into the corner, totally unmarked. Pretty poor defending from Urawa, but I’ll let Kengo take the credit. Fantastic dummy from Ienaga too... It was no more than we deserved though as we were making plenty of chances, although our usual accuracy problems were on show. However, if you make loads and loads of chances, I guess it doesn’t matter so much if only a third are on target. So, in we went at half time with a lead and looking like we were pretty comfortably on top.

Within five minutes of the start of the second half we’d doubled our lead. We broke quickly with Neto playing a lovely ball through for Kobayashi. His shot was parried by the keeper and fell to Elsinho who was just about able to divert it into the back of the net, even though it looked like it was dropping behind him. Quite a strange looking finish! Once again, Urawa’s defence was nowhere to be seen. Early on in the half, we were making loads of chances. Urawa were very sloppy, not seeming able to pass or control the ball. It looked like it could be another demolition, but then Urawa came back into the game a bit. I guess that sooner or later both the team and their fans would wake up. They started to peg us back in our half a little but once again the whole team were defending well, if a little desperately at times. On 70 minutes, Nobori replaced Kengo, who’d once again done a good job. We were still having to defend a bit, but we were also back making chances again and Nobori was looking lively. On 76 minutes things got a little tense as Urawa pulled a goal back. It looked way offside from where I was sitting and my first views of some replays looked the same, but I think he was just about played onside by Elsinho. So now they had an away goal and the lead was cut in half. Time for me to feel some tension. We didn’t give up and go more defensive though. We were still attacking and looking to reestablish our two goal lead. Classic Frontale I guess. Nobori had to be subbed off on 83 minutes due to an injury. He didn’t look too bad limping off, so I hope it’s nothing too serious as he’s had more than his fair share of injuries. Tasaka came on to replace him. And soon after our two goal lead was back again! This time Ienaga was the provider, beating an Urawa defender with a burst of speed and floating the ball over from the goal line for Kobayashi to head unmarked into the net. It was another nice move and no more than what we deserved. This was Kobayashi’s last contribution as he was already due to be replaced by Morimoto, who did a decent job of putting himself about up front for the last few minutes and caused them a few problems. I think we would have had a fourth if he had a bit more pace as there was a lovely through ball played for him, but he really, really couldn’t get there in time. From here you might have imagined that the game would peter out, but there was still action at either end of the pitch. Urawa tried to claw a goal back and we still pushed forward, perhaps looking to rack up consecutive 4-1 victories over Urawa. But it ended 3-1 and we celebrated wildly in the stands. A comfortable victory in that we had more possession and eighteen shots compared to their four, but it wasn’t without some moments of worry. But we’ve got a decent lead to hang on to at their place in a few weeks. Although knowing us, I imagine (and I hope) that we won’t go there trying to hold on to what we have and instead go looking for a goal to hopefully kill them off and progress. Fingers crossed…

Positives and negatives. Plenty of positives. Really good result in the first game of a two leg tie and it has put us in a great position to progress to the semi final. Speaking as someone who really doesn’t like them, it’s always nice to beat Urawa, whatever the competition and satisfying to be the first team to defeat them under their new coach. Couple of decent goals from Kobayashi, the kind of easier finishes that you want your striker to be putting away for fun. Goals breed confidence, so hopefully more of the spectacular ones will start going in soon. Lovely cross from Ienaga for the third goal. He seems to be be delivering what we hoped for now. Good performances from pretty much all the team and one player in particular who’ll be mentioned below. Negatives, not many, but as a natural pessimist I’ll find some. Lots of shots but less than a third of them were on target. To be honest, I never really paid much attention to these stats until I started writing this blog, so maybe I’m unnecessarily concerned, but I reckon if we want to keep progressing in all competitions we probably need to be hitting the target a bit more regularly. Nobori got injured, but hopefully it’s not serious. We are relatively light on injuries at the moment, so by the law of averages and given that we’re playing the same group of players pretty much every game, I guess we’re going to get some soon. And finally, a bit of a sloppy goal to concede. But to be honest, I’m kind of grasping at straws to find that many negatives, which has to be a good thing!

Next up, we are away to Ventforet Kofu on Sunday. I really enjoyed this fixture last year so I am hoping for great things again. It helps that there’s a nice beer place in the town. After that, we’re at home on Wednesday to FC Tokyo in the Levain Cup. And in case you were wondering, our next ACL game will be on the 13th September. Looking forward to that one too. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO (Yellow card 58')

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for NAKAMURA 70')
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke (on for NOBORIZATO 83')
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki (on for KOBAYASHI 86')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
DF 23. EDUARDO


My Frontale Man Of The Match

Quite a few candidates. Kobayashi got the two goals, Ienaga and Kengo put in some good work and an assist each and everyone had a decent game, but perhaps controversially I'm going to give it to...

EDUARDO NETO - Totally shut down Urawa in the midfield for most of the game, put some very important tackles and blocks in and raced forward on a few occasions too. Very important to us at the moment I think.

Goals 

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 32' 1-0
ELSINHO (Frontale) 50' 2-0
MUTO (Urawa) 76' 2-1
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 85' 3-1

Highlights

Vs Consadole Sapporo (home) 19/8/17, J-League match 23

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 1 Consadole Sapporo

The last match I will miss due to my holiday and it was another win, perhaps not as convincing and exciting as the Kashima one, but a decent result against a team that frustrated us at their place earlier in the season. I was on the plane as the game was taking place so everything I know, I know from the brief highlights video and the game stats. There were a few unusual things I noticed. We dominated on shots, but only had 51% possession, which is a bit unusual for us. Also we got four yellow cards and Consadole got none. Again, slightly unusual. The result takes us up to third, level on points with second placed Cerezo and four points behind Kashima who are top. We're going to need them to slip up a few times. Let's hope that happens soon! The goal we conceded was a bit of a clanger. I'm just glad that it didn't cost us anything in the end. Better to get those kind of things out of our system when we're leading by two goals I guess!

Next up is Urawa at home in the ACL on Wednesday. Hopefully we can get a good result. And then we're away at Kofu next Sunday, one of my favourite away games, so I'm looking forward to that. Normal blogging service should resume for these games hopefully. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO (Yellow card 10')

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki (Yellow card 30')

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO (Yellow card 51')

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 90+2')

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for NAKAMURA 62')
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke (on for ABE 84')
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki (on for KOBAYASHI 87')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro
DF 23. EDUARDO


Goals 

NAKAMURA (Frontale) 13' 1-0
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 75' 2-0
REIS (Consadole) 80' 2-1


Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want.

Vs Kashima Antlers (home) 13/8/17, J-League match 22

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Kashima Antlers

Another cracking performance and result. Our Jekyll and Hyde season is on an upswing again. If we could play like this every week, we would walk the league. Unfortunately, that's obviously not really going to happen, but this result has blown the title race right open again and put us well back in there. If Kashima had won they would have started to look difficult to catch, but thankfully they didn't and although I couldn't go to the game due to still being on holiday, I was able to watch on my phone screen. Still probably not exactly enough to be able to write anything much about it but I'll give it a little go. 

Kobayashi dropped to the bench for this game due to a thigh strain. Edu's absence from the squad meant that Rhayner was able to get involved again, (and get another yellow. I don't know what it is about him, but he always seems to get booked for doing nothing much). Ienaga got a chance, his first start since he scored his first goal against Thespakusatsu. After a bit of criticism about his contribution in the Jubilo game (where let's be honest, no-one did particularly well), it was once again time for him to step up and be counted and he did a pretty good job! Our third goal was a beauty from him, a move that started deep in our own half, winning the ball back from a Kashima throw and breaking fast. This goal was particularly satisfying as we'd put the ball out for an injury and instead of returning the ball to us, Kashima played on. Ienaga also got the assist for our first (if you can get an assist for an own goal, but surely Oshima was about the bury it when the defender slid in and did the job. Amazing dummy by Abe, by the way). The second was a nice finish from Abe after a decent cross from Elsinho and lovely lay off by Nobori. Oh, and we conceded, but who cares about that goal?

All in all, this was a great performance. We made Kashima look pretty normal. You would never have guessed they were the league leaders. We scored three nice goals, defended pretty well for the most part and Sung-Ryong was there to save us when we didn't. Ienaga did a great job and is finally showing his worth. It's good to see that we have some more options. Rhayner gave us a reminder of what he can do too. I don't really understand what happens to us from game to game sometimes. We've smashed Kashima twice this season but have also stumbled to some rotten results. Kashima cemented their position in my mind as a not very nice team who play unattractive football and are quite unlikable. I can't remember the details, but I think the horrible Leandro was lucky to stay on the pitch for a bad challenge. Kanazaki and Suzuki are still nasty little kicking, tripping, diving, moaning shits, (in my opinion). Let's hope that we can continue with the good results and cut out some of the bad ones. We're back in touch but still need to make up some ground so we can't afford to trip up again. Fingers crossed.

Next up is Consadole Sapporo at home, perhaps just the kind of game where we do tend to trip up. We didn't do particularly well against them earlier in the season but this time we really need to win to keep things going. This will be the last match I am missing, and I really will be missing it as I'll be on a plane whilst it's taking place. Let's hope we can put in another good performance. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki 

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke (on for IENAGA 90+3')
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for NAKAMURA 72')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 22. RHAYNER (Yellow card 67') (on for NOBORIZATO 64')
DF 28. ITAKURA Ko


Goals 

NISHI (Kashima) OWN GOAL 45+1' 1-0
ABE (Frontale) 46' 2-0
IENAGA (Frontale) 72' 3-0
SUZUKI (Kashima) 87' 3-1


Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want. There's also now some other match related content exclusive to the Frontale channel, so that's the bottom video.

 

Vs Albirex Niigata (away) 9/8/17, J-League match 21

  Albirex Niigata 0 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale 

Another game I missed, so I won't waste too much of your time pretending I know anything about it. Seems like it was a decent win against an Albirex team who put up a good fight against us last year and did so again this time. We had significantly less shots than against FC Tokyo but managed to score twice. The first was a comparitively easy finish by Kobayashi after some great work from Kurumaya. The second was a bit more fortunate, some nice build up but with a bit of soft keeping allowing Kengo's shot to go in. On the highlights video it seems that we were up against it a bit after we took a two goal lead, Sung-Ryong making some great saves to keep us in it. We didn't have as much possession as we are used to but we are still not really hitting the target that much, with only three out of nine on target. So, different week, same problem really. But, if we're winning, I'm not going to complain.

Next up is Kashima at home, a crucial match as they are now top of the league and are on a good run. We spanked them at their place earlier in the season but they always seem to beat us when it matters. And we're getting to the stage where these things matter. Fingers remain firmly crossed I guess. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota

MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for HASEGAWA 57')

MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro (on for NAKAMURA 72')
DF 23. EDUARDO (on for ABE 87')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro


Goals 

 

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 39' 0-1
NAKAMURA (Frontale) 62' 0-2


Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want.

Vs FC Tokyo (home) 5/8/17, J-League match 20

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 FC Tokyo

Another game I missed and it seems like I missed another disappointing performance. I haven't even  seen the goals yet. I'm just putting this up here as there's probably nothing I can say that you won't know equally from watching the highlights video. By the way, thanks to Kaoru for the photo. From the sound of it on twitter, both teams thought they could/should have won it. I heard that Kengo had a stinker which is a bit worrying. I heard this from a big Kengo fan as well. Potentially a bit confusing is the fact that we had a rotten game last week and yet still started with the same eleven this week. I'm all for giving people a chance to make up for their mistakes, but I think it's probably more a case of us not having much of a clue what to do when we get past our best eleven. So now, we've dropped down to fifth and are eight points off the top, but with a game in hand. We really need to start winning again soon though. My final word on the game will be the fact that once again we had a load of shots and dominated possession (23 shots and 61% possession). The crucial thing is that we only had five shots on target. This really is not good enough.

Next up is Albirex Niigata away on Wednesday and then Kashima Antlers at home next Sunday. Fingers crossed. Oh, and go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 23. EDUARDO

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO (Yellow card 53')

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki (on for NOBORIZATO 78')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya (on for ABE 82')
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro (on for NAKAMURA 72')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

Goals 

 

NAKAJIMA (Tokyo) 49' 0-1
TANIGUCHI (Frontale) 89' 1-1


Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want (not available just yet, sorry...). There's also now some other match related content exclusive to the Frontale channel, so that's the bottom video.

Vs Jubilo Iwata (home) 29/7/17, J-League match 19

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 5 Jubilo Iwata

Thankfully for me I wasn't able to go to this game. I was disappointed before, but when I saw the result it was actually a relief. Consequently, I'm not going to write much, as I only know the same as anyone who watched the game on TV, which I masochistically did on Sunday morning. I really hope that I’m not a lucky mascot for us as I’m missing the next few games due to being back in the UK for a holiday. I think in my last post I said that the mid season break was coming at exactly the wrong time for us and on Saturday we lost any momentum that we might have built up over the last few fixtures. Losing 5-2 at home is a stinker. I think the score didn’t really reflect the game particularly, but our optimism at the supporter’s event in relation to us taking the title now looks a little bit embarrassing. I’m not going to go through the whole game blow by blow as I don’t really want to think about it that much, but here are a few things that I thought whilst Jubilo scored goal after goal and we repeatedly lost the ball when we got to their box.

It seems that the main complaints and excuses from the fans after the game related to the conditions and the ref with a few moans about the players. Admittedly, the conditions were bad, but it’s something both teams had to deal with. And if the surface wasn’t good for our normal passing game we should have had some kind of plan B. I think this has been a problem for us all season to be honest. If our plan A doesn’t work (pass pass pass pass etc. and eventually score using pretty much the same starting eleven every week), we really start to wobble. Recently it seems that teams have worked us out a bit. Jubilo packed their defence. It seemed like they had five at the back with two defensive midfielders in front of them. For some reason we seemed determined to still try to pass the ball all the way to the net. With such a congested area it was obviously going to be difficult, but we still seemed unwilling to shoot from outside the box. With regards to complaints about the ref, of course he was useless, (as seems to be the case most weeks), but I don’t think we can really blame him. Some of his decisions were a bit bewildering and for periods of the second half he was giving a foul for every tackle made it seemed.  But I wouldn’t say his decisions caused us to concede any of the five goals we did. Jubilo came with a plan to disrupt us with some meaty tackles and quite often were leaving the boot in. I don’t like this kind of play but I understand why people do it against us, as it does seem to work quite often.

So, what was the reason we lost so badly? I think most of their goals were pretty soft. We weren’t defending very well and our attacks were getting broken up so easily by their packed defence, the ball then being pumped forward for a counter attack. We were asleep for their first, the second was bad marking, the third went right through Sung-Ryong’s legs, the fourth came from a dodgy back pass from Ienaga and then a bad clearance and the fifth was non-existent defending again. In the whole game they had only 32% possession and 11 shots, but managed to turn this into five goals. Either they are amazing (which probably isn’t the case) or we were at fault. In contrast we had loads of possession, twice as many shots but could only score twice. Admittedly we hit the post a lot in the last five minutes and on a few other occasions, and if one of the early ones had gone in, maybe it would have been a whole different game. When you add on the numerous attacks we had where we gave the ball away softly before shooting, it’s even more frustrating. It’s fair to say that we weren’t having a great game up front. Kobayashi and Abe were both having off days, Kengo wasn’t really with it and no-one can be said to have played particularly well. It speaks volumes that we looked most dangerous in the last ten minutes when Edu was also up front. We were just outnumbered up there for the majority of the game. I think the tactics really didn’t work. It wasn’t really Oniki’s day to be honest. His double substitution in response to their third was a bit strange with Moriya on for Neto and Ienaga on for Nobori and resulted in us conceding two more quick goals and Jubilo putting the game beyond our reach. I feel that Moriya and Ienaga were brought on mainly because they scored in the last game (the other later sub Morimoto also scored in that game!) but the only thing that game and this one had in common was the bad rain probably. Thespakusatsu Gunma and Jubilo are pretty different teams.

I probably don’t really need to restate the negatives and there weren’t really any positives to take from this game. The only one I can think of is that Morimoto scored again and if he could get into some kind of form he would give us something a little different up front as an option. But I think he’s some way off still. It’s a shame that we have a fit and eager Rhayner waiting on the sidelines but he can’t play as we already have three foreigners in the team. Not sure who would make way for him, but Elsinho didn’t have a great game and Neto has been getting subbed a bit recently. And Rhayner hasn’t always played fantastically when he has had his chances so who knows if he'd make a difference. I want to put this down as just a blip with too many players having an off day at the same time. I think tactically we got things wrong though. It also currently doesn’t feel very clever for us to have had a big party last weekend at the supporters event. I’m sure it didn’t have too much of an effect on the performances, but it just feels a little awkward when our next result is a 5-2 home defeat. And also, one last moan, but the DAZN coverage is just horrible, isn’t it? They seem averse to showing replays of anything you might want a replay of, instead showing endless shots of players walking back into position with the ball out of play. Thankfully, I very rarely have to watch DAZN as I’m normally at the matches, but the coverage feels like it is being put together by someone who has only recently become aware of the existence of the sport. I thought all this ranting would get things off my chest, but it has instead filled me with an impending sense of doom. Hopefully we can get back on the right track in the next game. We've got some big matches coming up very soon.

Next up is FC Tokyo at home on Saturday and then Albirex away next Wednesday. We’re playing a lot of games in August and I’m missing the next four so expect more posts like this, but hopefully a bit more positive! I can’t say it with too much conviction at the moment, but I’ll finish with a slightly half-hearted ‘Go Frontale!’ for the sake of tradition.

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 18. ELSINHO (Yellow card 64')

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 23. EDUARDO

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

FW 8. ABE Hiroyuki (Yellow card 60')

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota
DF 3. NARA Tatsuki
MF 6. TASAKA Yusuke
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki (on for OSHIMA 75')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro (on for NETO 58')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for NOBORIZATO 58')


My Frontale Man Of The Match

I almost didn't bother mentioning this today, but I'm being optimistic and hoping that this is him continuing his road back to being a decent player.

MORIMOTO Takayuki - Not a great deal of competition for this award in this game. Pleased to see him score again and the fact that he was only on the pitch for 15 minutes means he can't be blamed for the rest of the horror show. Pretty confident finish for someone who is probably not that confident at the moment.

Goals  

 

KAWABE (Jubilo) 8' 0-1
NETO (Frontale) 12' 1-1
SAKURAUCHI (Jubilo) 24' 1-2
KAWABE (Jubilo) 55' 1-3
ADAILTON (Jubilo) 59' 1-4
KAWAMATA (Jubilo) 61' 1-5
MORIMOTO (Frontale) 82' 2-5


Highlights

The Frontale youtube channel usually has longer highlights provided by DAZN, but given that last year's highlights got wiped when the broadcaster got changed, I'm going to stick with the official J League ones. But you can watch the longer highlights here if you want.