Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Avispa Fukuoka
Well, this was a game that was very much relegated to the shadows by everything that surrounded it. Not saying it was a bad match, it was actually pretty entertaining, but both teams had nothing to play for and were both losing long serving managers and presumably some players after the game. I would imagine that this blog post will become irrelevant quite quickly, as presumably now that the season is over, we’ll start getting all kinds of rumours flying around. I’ll deal with that in a paragraph later and give my predictions which will almost certainly be proved wrong immediately. First let’s briefly deal with the match.
It didn’t completely feel like a 3-1 win for us. Avispa had quite a few dangerous chances but didn’t seem to be able to finish them or were denied by yet another great Sung-Ryong display. I guess it’s simply a fact that we took more of our chances than they did. When I looked back at the stats I was kind of surprised to see how many shots we had. There really has been a big turnaround recently. This has coincided with a few things I feel. Firstly and most importantly, we finally changed our formation and tactics. Since then we’ve done significantly better. Particularly so since Oniki stopped changing back to his old favoured formation after getting a win using the new formation. Secondly, there definitely has been a pick up in results and performances since Oniki’s departure was announced. It’s a shame that he didn’t address the first point earlier and then we might not have needed to come to the second point. (I’d say it should have been done at least a year ago and probably longer. I feel that I should say here that my problem wasn’t with Oniki, it was with his apparent inability to change anything. Him finally having done that and us playing really well has probably presented plenty of people with some conflicting emotions). Thirdly, and possibly connected but probably only tangentially, is that since Wakizaka got injured we’ve done a lot better. I feel bad about saying this as it sounds like I’m blaming him. The truth is that with him in the team I think Oniki felt he had to play a certain way and that way just didn’t work. We scored three times in this match and all of them were fun goals. Their keeper made an absolute howler for the second. For the third I really enjoyed Ienaga in acres of space, controlling the ball, looking around to see he had loads of space and then instead of doing what everyone in the stadium expected him to do (dwell on the ball, slow things down, wait for someone to arrive who he could hold off), he instead whipped the ball in immediately and we scored. Lovely! What else should I put in this section? Sendachi was the ref and there was someone even more obscure doing the VAR. I guess it demonstrated quite how much the barrel was being scraped. You probably could make a case for this being the least important game of the day, so fair enough I guess. I thought Sendachi was at best average, but average is something of a compliment from me when referring to refs. He definitely could have booked a few more players I think. Particularly Wellington, who must be the most forgetful player in the league. Forgetful in the way that he’s always leaving things behind, like elbows or raised boots, long after the ball has gone. Poor guy, we all get a bit forgetful when we’re older, I guess. Finally, I’d like to ponder on why Marcinho seemed determined to try to hit at least 90% of his shots, passes or crosses with the outside of his boot. Perhaps he has succumbed to gout and his big toe was too painful to consider getting anywhere near the ball. The first couple of times he did it, it delighted me, the second couple of times were a bit frustrating, but then after that I just got used to it and accepted that was the way things were going to be.
After the game we had our end of season ceremony. Definitely wasn’t as much fun as it has been in the past. There were lots of tears from fans, players and managers. The first three quarters of this season were pretty terrible, so in a way it’s a miracle that we ended up in eighth, exactly as we did last year. Of course this year there are two more teams in the league so you could say this year was actually an improvement. It certainly didn’t feel like it was. For me it was just a season full of missed opportunities and I’m glad it’s over. I’m pleased Oniki finally did something and could leave on a semi-high. We’ve been scoring goals for fun recently and our ACL campaign is going ok, so at least we can end the season with a bit of a smile. One person who probably won’t be smiling though is the chairman, the announcement of his name before his speech resulting in the most lukewarm of applause from a significantly small proportion of the crowd. When he spoke about being moved by Oniki leaving he got massively heckled, with booing, shouting, whistling and feedback from the megaphones. It was deliciously uncomfortable. I haven’t liked him much since I saw his comment about Chanathip leaving, where he expressed his surprise that Chana didn’t want to stay watching games from the stand and his belief that if he let a bit more of his career dwindle away he’d surely get his chance soon. I felt this showed he was quite out of touch with football and probably didn’t know what he was doing. There has also been an exodus of staff in all positions since he took over, so something clearly isn’t going right behind the scenes. It’s a shame as the positive club culture seems to be being eroded slightly. Hopefully the heckling will cause some reflection on his part. Or maybe he’ll ask someone to explain why he got heckled as presumably he won’t understand it himself. At least if the message is conveyed, there is more of a chance of it being acted on. Of course us fans don’t know what goes on behind the scenes and there is no guarantee that any information we get is in any way accurate. At the same time, the number of staff leaving speaks volumes.
Talking of leaving, we know Oniki is going. Who else might follow him? Kurumaya is rumoured to be going. Segawa too. Ze Ricardo had gone missing until he turned up after the game yesterday. At that stage it even took me a little while to work out who he was so complete has his exile been. There are always rumours about Ienaga after every season. You might imagine he might want to go somewhere else with a new manager coming in. Takai will probably leave to go overseas. Sasaki has been linked with someone I think. I should stress that probably most of this is nonsense, but it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see a significant turnover at the end of the season. I hope that the new manager, (if that decision has been made already, which it presumably has, hopefully has…), is having some say in these decisions. I think we’ve had too many transfer decisions made recently without the input of the person who picks the team. Also Wakizaka was very emotional during his captain’s speech. At the same time he talked about fighting on in the ACL. Regular readers will remember me saying his emotional speech at the end of last season made me think he was leaving, so with that in mind, perhaps he won’t be going anywhere. But he was really choked up at points in his speech. There are a hell of a lot of things that need to be sorted out before next season. And don’t forget, thanks to the ACL, next season starts in early February. I could probably list loads more players here. but it seems kind of pointless as if instead of speculating, we just hang on a bit, we’ll all know what’s happening. it’s definitely going to be interesting though.
Finally, I guess we need to talk about Oniki. Without a doubt, he’s a Frontale legend. I wish things had gone a bit differently in the last few years, but of course I’d say that. In his speech he talked about how good it was that our fans don’t boo the players and I have to agree with him. There have been a lot of frustrating times this year and there has been hardly any booing of our players. I have never done it. The closest I got was shouting ‘fucking shit’ at the final whistle away at Sagan Tosu and then just crossing my arms and staying quiet. On reflection, perhaps that was a bit over dramatic but at the same time, I think it was a fair assessment of what could have been our worst performance this year. The culture of our club suits someone like Oniki, who it seems was well loved by everyone around the club. I wish I could have loved him a bit more, but at times, it did feel like he was doing things to intentionally and specifically annoy me. If players who haven’t even been picked that much by him still find it sad that he’s leaving that really says something. We’ll see how long the good feeling lasts if he goes to Kashima as expected and of they then hammer us. We all would have liked it to end with a title, but I guess things don’t always work out how we’d like them to. And we have already had our fair share of fairytale endings throughout his tenure. There’s definitely something slightly amusing about the fact that Kashima finished above us, and hammered us in our last meeting but still our manager is probably joining them. Something equally funny about the same situation potentially happening with Avispa’s manager joining us. They finished below us and we’ve just whacked them. It feels a bit like there is a bit of a dearth of options available right now and instead of anything revolutionary happening about a third of J League teams are just going to swap around their managers and see what happens. Hasebe potentially joining us isn’t massively inspiring, but of course I’m not going to write him off before he’s even been confirmed, let alone taken charge of a game. Hopefully we’ll have some idea of what’s happening soon and then when can start speculating about something else instead.
So another season is done and what exciting things have we got to look forward to next year? Three teams are coming to J1 and they are Shimizu (again), Yokohama FC (again) and Okayama (oh, that’s a new one!). The plus of having a new ground to visit next year in Okayama is slightly undermined by the fact that two really good away days have gone. Please come back soon Sapporo and Tosu! Also, watching the playoff final, Okayama’s ground looked a bit dodgy, but apparently it’s walkable from the station and Okayama is a great place to do some day trips from. Just you wait, it will end up being on a Wednesday evening or something. In the next few weeks, I’ll do my usual end of season posts. I might skip the player stats one this time as it’s a major pain in the arse to do. Or perhaps I’ll just grab the stats from another site and do it. I’m about to go away for my Christmas holiday so perhaps I’ll have plenty of free time to do these things. At the same time though, I might decide it’s more fun to not bother. I’m also considering starting a Substack as it might be an easier way for people to get these posts now I’m not on Twitter. Anyway, if I’m not back on here before, I hope everyone has a happy Christmas and a happy New Year. And let’s hope for an exciting and successful new Frontale era starting soon.
It didn’t completely feel like a 3-1 win for us. Avispa had quite a few dangerous chances but didn’t seem to be able to finish them or were denied by yet another great Sung-Ryong display. I guess it’s simply a fact that we took more of our chances than they did. When I looked back at the stats I was kind of surprised to see how many shots we had. There really has been a big turnaround recently. This has coincided with a few things I feel. Firstly and most importantly, we finally changed our formation and tactics. Since then we’ve done significantly better. Particularly so since Oniki stopped changing back to his old favoured formation after getting a win using the new formation. Secondly, there definitely has been a pick up in results and performances since Oniki’s departure was announced. It’s a shame that he didn’t address the first point earlier and then we might not have needed to come to the second point. (I’d say it should have been done at least a year ago and probably longer. I feel that I should say here that my problem wasn’t with Oniki, it was with his apparent inability to change anything. Him finally having done that and us playing really well has probably presented plenty of people with some conflicting emotions). Thirdly, and possibly connected but probably only tangentially, is that since Wakizaka got injured we’ve done a lot better. I feel bad about saying this as it sounds like I’m blaming him. The truth is that with him in the team I think Oniki felt he had to play a certain way and that way just didn’t work. We scored three times in this match and all of them were fun goals. Their keeper made an absolute howler for the second. For the third I really enjoyed Ienaga in acres of space, controlling the ball, looking around to see he had loads of space and then instead of doing what everyone in the stadium expected him to do (dwell on the ball, slow things down, wait for someone to arrive who he could hold off), he instead whipped the ball in immediately and we scored. Lovely! What else should I put in this section? Sendachi was the ref and there was someone even more obscure doing the VAR. I guess it demonstrated quite how much the barrel was being scraped. You probably could make a case for this being the least important game of the day, so fair enough I guess. I thought Sendachi was at best average, but average is something of a compliment from me when referring to refs. He definitely could have booked a few more players I think. Particularly Wellington, who must be the most forgetful player in the league. Forgetful in the way that he’s always leaving things behind, like elbows or raised boots, long after the ball has gone. Poor guy, we all get a bit forgetful when we’re older, I guess. Finally, I’d like to ponder on why Marcinho seemed determined to try to hit at least 90% of his shots, passes or crosses with the outside of his boot. Perhaps he has succumbed to gout and his big toe was too painful to consider getting anywhere near the ball. The first couple of times he did it, it delighted me, the second couple of times were a bit frustrating, but then after that I just got used to it and accepted that was the way things were going to be.
After the game we had our end of season ceremony. Definitely wasn’t as much fun as it has been in the past. There were lots of tears from fans, players and managers. The first three quarters of this season were pretty terrible, so in a way it’s a miracle that we ended up in eighth, exactly as we did last year. Of course this year there are two more teams in the league so you could say this year was actually an improvement. It certainly didn’t feel like it was. For me it was just a season full of missed opportunities and I’m glad it’s over. I’m pleased Oniki finally did something and could leave on a semi-high. We’ve been scoring goals for fun recently and our ACL campaign is going ok, so at least we can end the season with a bit of a smile. One person who probably won’t be smiling though is the chairman, the announcement of his name before his speech resulting in the most lukewarm of applause from a significantly small proportion of the crowd. When he spoke about being moved by Oniki leaving he got massively heckled, with booing, shouting, whistling and feedback from the megaphones. It was deliciously uncomfortable. I haven’t liked him much since I saw his comment about Chanathip leaving, where he expressed his surprise that Chana didn’t want to stay watching games from the stand and his belief that if he let a bit more of his career dwindle away he’d surely get his chance soon. I felt this showed he was quite out of touch with football and probably didn’t know what he was doing. There has also been an exodus of staff in all positions since he took over, so something clearly isn’t going right behind the scenes. It’s a shame as the positive club culture seems to be being eroded slightly. Hopefully the heckling will cause some reflection on his part. Or maybe he’ll ask someone to explain why he got heckled as presumably he won’t understand it himself. At least if the message is conveyed, there is more of a chance of it being acted on. Of course us fans don’t know what goes on behind the scenes and there is no guarantee that any information we get is in any way accurate. At the same time, the number of staff leaving speaks volumes.
Talking of leaving, we know Oniki is going. Who else might follow him? Kurumaya is rumoured to be going. Segawa too. Ze Ricardo had gone missing until he turned up after the game yesterday. At that stage it even took me a little while to work out who he was so complete has his exile been. There are always rumours about Ienaga after every season. You might imagine he might want to go somewhere else with a new manager coming in. Takai will probably leave to go overseas. Sasaki has been linked with someone I think. I should stress that probably most of this is nonsense, but it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see a significant turnover at the end of the season. I hope that the new manager, (if that decision has been made already, which it presumably has, hopefully has…), is having some say in these decisions. I think we’ve had too many transfer decisions made recently without the input of the person who picks the team. Also Wakizaka was very emotional during his captain’s speech. At the same time he talked about fighting on in the ACL. Regular readers will remember me saying his emotional speech at the end of last season made me think he was leaving, so with that in mind, perhaps he won’t be going anywhere. But he was really choked up at points in his speech. There are a hell of a lot of things that need to be sorted out before next season. And don’t forget, thanks to the ACL, next season starts in early February. I could probably list loads more players here. but it seems kind of pointless as if instead of speculating, we just hang on a bit, we’ll all know what’s happening. it’s definitely going to be interesting though.
Finally, I guess we need to talk about Oniki. Without a doubt, he’s a Frontale legend. I wish things had gone a bit differently in the last few years, but of course I’d say that. In his speech he talked about how good it was that our fans don’t boo the players and I have to agree with him. There have been a lot of frustrating times this year and there has been hardly any booing of our players. I have never done it. The closest I got was shouting ‘fucking shit’ at the final whistle away at Sagan Tosu and then just crossing my arms and staying quiet. On reflection, perhaps that was a bit over dramatic but at the same time, I think it was a fair assessment of what could have been our worst performance this year. The culture of our club suits someone like Oniki, who it seems was well loved by everyone around the club. I wish I could have loved him a bit more, but at times, it did feel like he was doing things to intentionally and specifically annoy me. If players who haven’t even been picked that much by him still find it sad that he’s leaving that really says something. We’ll see how long the good feeling lasts if he goes to Kashima as expected and of they then hammer us. We all would have liked it to end with a title, but I guess things don’t always work out how we’d like them to. And we have already had our fair share of fairytale endings throughout his tenure. There’s definitely something slightly amusing about the fact that Kashima finished above us, and hammered us in our last meeting but still our manager is probably joining them. Something equally funny about the same situation potentially happening with Avispa’s manager joining us. They finished below us and we’ve just whacked them. It feels a bit like there is a bit of a dearth of options available right now and instead of anything revolutionary happening about a third of J League teams are just going to swap around their managers and see what happens. Hasebe potentially joining us isn’t massively inspiring, but of course I’m not going to write him off before he’s even been confirmed, let alone taken charge of a game. Hopefully we’ll have some idea of what’s happening soon and then when can start speculating about something else instead.
So another season is done and what exciting things have we got to look forward to next year? Three teams are coming to J1 and they are Shimizu (again), Yokohama FC (again) and Okayama (oh, that’s a new one!). The plus of having a new ground to visit next year in Okayama is slightly undermined by the fact that two really good away days have gone. Please come back soon Sapporo and Tosu! Also, watching the playoff final, Okayama’s ground looked a bit dodgy, but apparently it’s walkable from the station and Okayama is a great place to do some day trips from. Just you wait, it will end up being on a Wednesday evening or something. In the next few weeks, I’ll do my usual end of season posts. I might skip the player stats one this time as it’s a major pain in the arse to do. Or perhaps I’ll just grab the stats from another site and do it. I’m about to go away for my Christmas holiday so perhaps I’ll have plenty of free time to do these things. At the same time though, I might decide it’s more fun to not bother. I’m also considering starting a Substack as it might be an easier way for people to get these posts now I’m not on Twitter. Anyway, if I’m not back on here before, I hope everyone has a happy Christmas and a happy New Year. And let’s hope for an exciting and successful new Frontale era starting soon.
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong (Yellow card 78')
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong (Yellow card 78')
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
SubsDF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 4. JESIEL
FW 9. ERISON (on for KOBAYASHI 75')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 64')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for YAMAMOTO 64')
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
FW 32. KANDA Soma (on for YAMADA 90+1')
Goals
IENAGA (Frontale) 8' 1-0
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 27' 2-0
MARCINHO (Frontale) 48' 3-0
MATSUOKA (Avispa) 51' 3-1
IENAGA (Frontale) 8' 1-0
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 27' 2-0
MARCINHO (Frontale) 48' 3-0
MATSUOKA (Avispa) 51' 3-1
Highlights
