Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 Cerezo Osaka
After an Oniki masterclass managed to snap us out of our run of four consecutive draws by throwing in a defeat (to a lower league team which put us out of the cup at the first stage where we didn’t play a team that wasn’t made up of amateurs), we’re back again to those beautiful throw-away-the-lead draws. What’s the point of going to these games anymore? What’s the point of me writing these posts? Every week it’s the same. The only difference is a slight tweak to the players involved but absolutely no change to the tactics that have failed us for about three years now. The only thing I can presume is that Oniki is actively trying to get sacked, but he’s so useless that he can’t even sabotage us properly. Death by a thousand cuts is a familiar concept, but I wonder if this year we can change that to relegation by a thousand draws? Oniki needs to have a look at himself and decide what he wants his Frontale legacy to be. I think if he doesn’t want to totally trash his reputation he should probably quit immediately, as clearly, barring a massive change in character with him finally realizing that the same shit tactics might not come good after the hundredth unsuccessful attempt, he is not up to the job of keeping us in J1. Astonishingly after this match day, we’ve climbed one spot in the table. But don’t get too excited about that. Instead of being five point off 19th, we’re now three points from second bottom. Yes, we now have six teams behind us instead of five, but the fact is five of those six are one win away from overtaking us. A defeat next weekend away at Kashima could see us in the relegation zone if results don’t go our way. And if that happens, well, let’s expect the usual stuff from Oniki in his post match comments. ‘We wanted to win with so many fans supporting us’. ‘We tried to score a winner but couldn’t manage it’. ‘We will fight hard in the next game’. I don’t really know what the point of publishing these comments is. They are even more predictable than our awful play. For some reason, after this game he didn’t say he was to blame, like he usually does, presumably realising that no-one believes him when he says it, as they have heard him say it numerous times and then respond by changing fuck all. I guess the one consolation in this fifth consecutive league draw is that for once the opposition didn’t score shortly after an Oniki masterclass defensive change as they have done in quite a few of these last few games. In this game the eaualiser came a massive 12 minutes after Oniki’s visionary substitutions. I suppose in his defence you could say that the defensive change was forced on him this time due to the injury to Van Wermeskerken. But who am I kidding? It’s a certainty that we would have conceded anyway. The real miracle is that we haven’t managed to turn any of these draws into defeats.
What can I say really? There were the same issues with this starting line up as there have been with most starting line ups for the last couple of years. There was the same lack of ideas. The same kind of soft goal conceded. In this game that goal almost appeared to be in slow motion. When I watched it back on DAZN I thought the play speed must have been adjusted, so slow were both the attack and the celebration from the goalscorer. So inevitable is it that we’ll concede an equaliser every time we go ahead that I think if the opposition decided to spend the whole of the second half sitting down in the centre circle, we’d still find a way to concede. Not just any manager can make this possible. It takes a special one to consistently be able to snatch failure from the jaws of victory. But still he ploughs on. If he quit now, at least he won’t have our relegation on his CV. Of course it’s already at least two years too late for him to quit, but as our results get steadily worse, Oniki clings desperately onto his job, knowing that each week his stock as a capable manager drops further. If he quit now and let someone else take over, hopefully ditching Oniki’s shit tactics, we probably would have ample time to get at least a couple of wins and draw clear of the drop zone. But instead, Oniki seems determined to draw his way to J2, which is presumably is as high a level a job as he’ll be able to get next. Who am I kidding? There will definitely be some ‘big’ J1 club who are notorious for bad managerial appointments and love to throw cash around who’ll take him. That club, like many J League ‘experts’ on Twitter, having noticed that he won a few titles whilst ignoring the fact that it’s been rapidly diminishing returns for the past few years as Oniki gets rid of any traces of skill and capability that might still be leftover from previous managers. I think the only reasonable thing to do at this stage is to start singing the following lyrics to the tune of ‘Blame it on the Boogie’:
Don’t blame on our players,
Don’t blame it on the other team,
Don’t blame it on the referee,
Blame it on Oniki!
A few words about the ref. Kimura is a useless ref. I always say this so even this part is a repetitive waste of time. In posts about him in our games this year I’ve described him as’ an absolute disgrace’, ‘so useless he needed the the help of the [opposition] players’ and ‘really struggling to understand even the basic aspects of [his] job’. He continued in the same way in this match. But don’t get me wrong, as I sang above, I don’t blame him. But the VAR for our disallowed goal was quite annoying. I guess this is the fault of the VAR guy though, who was the equally jumped up and useless Yamamoto. If they only had the angles they showed us on DAZN and I presume this is the case as otherwise why would they not show us the evidence, they are presumably using their x-ray eyes to see through Ienaga to prove that the ball was off the pitch. Maybe it was, but I’m pretty sure that there was not the Mitoma World Cup goal level of attention to detail for the decision and instead Yamamoto dithered, remembered he hates us and then decided to rule it out. It seems a bit of a stretch to say that it was a clear and obvious error, especially considering that perhaps the ‘proof’ was by no means conclusive. Add to this that Cerezo won the ball back twice in the extended build up and gave it back to us both times, which I thought meant that the passage of play was over. I’ve looked at the rules and of course, as seems to be the case with many of the new regulations, (particularly ones related to VAR), that have been brought in to make the game more accurate and clear cut, there is a ridiculous amount of subjective opinion needed to make what I thought were now supposed to be unequivocal and evidence based decisions. People say the mistakes are supposed to even themselves out over the season, but that was also said before we had VAR and in those days we didn’t have the game killing boredom of waiting for a decision to be, (often incorrectly), made and the let down of having the celebrations of yet another ‘goal’ we’ve scored demolished. The feeling after VAR rules out a goal you’ve gone nuts about is probably something like the feelings of the kid who calls their teacher mum by accident in class. You’ll get over it, but it’s going to feel a bit embarrassing or disappointing for at least 24 hours. Oh and whoever that 4th official was, he’s a snitch. I don’t know why our translator got sent off. If he’d called the ref a useless wanker I think it would have been well worth it. I wish someone would say something similar to Oniki to be honest to snap him out of his bizarre self belief in his tactics. It might have actually done us good on this occasion though, as presumably afterwards Ze Ricardo would have not understood what Oniki was trying to tell him to do, so at that stage we had at least one player who wasn’t being constantly misdirected to the point of incompetence. If only it had been Oniki who’d been sent off! Maybe we could have got the win. One of the three magnet boards that now seem to be on our bench could have taken over. I’m pretty sure they would have done a better job at inspiring and motivating the players. I certainly would have more faith in them.
So another game where I left quite quickly after the final whistle. I don’t know why, but at away games I feel like I should at least hang around and give the players a clap even if the game has been terrible. But at home games, I just want to get out of there as soon as possible. After a quick trip to the toilet I discovered that there wasn’t any booing on this occasion, but there was a bit of murmuring. The party line still seems to be to keep happy clappy about everything though. Next up, Kashiwa away with exactly the same tactics I’m sure. Presumably the best we can hope for is a draw. But given that they are close to us in the table, I expect we’ll lose. I also expect some people to lose their rag. But of course, Oniki won’t ever lose his job.
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (Yellow card 33')
FW 9. ERISON
FW 23. MARCINHO
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| The perfect photo for this game! Not very high quality, people seem to have fallen over for no reason and the officials apparently just staring into the middle distance |
What can I say really? There were the same issues with this starting line up as there have been with most starting line ups for the last couple of years. There was the same lack of ideas. The same kind of soft goal conceded. In this game that goal almost appeared to be in slow motion. When I watched it back on DAZN I thought the play speed must have been adjusted, so slow were both the attack and the celebration from the goalscorer. So inevitable is it that we’ll concede an equaliser every time we go ahead that I think if the opposition decided to spend the whole of the second half sitting down in the centre circle, we’d still find a way to concede. Not just any manager can make this possible. It takes a special one to consistently be able to snatch failure from the jaws of victory. But still he ploughs on. If he quit now, at least he won’t have our relegation on his CV. Of course it’s already at least two years too late for him to quit, but as our results get steadily worse, Oniki clings desperately onto his job, knowing that each week his stock as a capable manager drops further. If he quit now and let someone else take over, hopefully ditching Oniki’s shit tactics, we probably would have ample time to get at least a couple of wins and draw clear of the drop zone. But instead, Oniki seems determined to draw his way to J2, which is presumably is as high a level a job as he’ll be able to get next. Who am I kidding? There will definitely be some ‘big’ J1 club who are notorious for bad managerial appointments and love to throw cash around who’ll take him. That club, like many J League ‘experts’ on Twitter, having noticed that he won a few titles whilst ignoring the fact that it’s been rapidly diminishing returns for the past few years as Oniki gets rid of any traces of skill and capability that might still be leftover from previous managers. I think the only reasonable thing to do at this stage is to start singing the following lyrics to the tune of ‘Blame it on the Boogie’:
Don’t blame on our players,
Don’t blame it on the other team,
Don’t blame it on the referee,
Blame it on Oniki!
A few words about the ref. Kimura is a useless ref. I always say this so even this part is a repetitive waste of time. In posts about him in our games this year I’ve described him as’ an absolute disgrace’, ‘so useless he needed the the help of the [opposition] players’ and ‘really struggling to understand even the basic aspects of [his] job’. He continued in the same way in this match. But don’t get me wrong, as I sang above, I don’t blame him. But the VAR for our disallowed goal was quite annoying. I guess this is the fault of the VAR guy though, who was the equally jumped up and useless Yamamoto. If they only had the angles they showed us on DAZN and I presume this is the case as otherwise why would they not show us the evidence, they are presumably using their x-ray eyes to see through Ienaga to prove that the ball was off the pitch. Maybe it was, but I’m pretty sure that there was not the Mitoma World Cup goal level of attention to detail for the decision and instead Yamamoto dithered, remembered he hates us and then decided to rule it out. It seems a bit of a stretch to say that it was a clear and obvious error, especially considering that perhaps the ‘proof’ was by no means conclusive. Add to this that Cerezo won the ball back twice in the extended build up and gave it back to us both times, which I thought meant that the passage of play was over. I’ve looked at the rules and of course, as seems to be the case with many of the new regulations, (particularly ones related to VAR), that have been brought in to make the game more accurate and clear cut, there is a ridiculous amount of subjective opinion needed to make what I thought were now supposed to be unequivocal and evidence based decisions. People say the mistakes are supposed to even themselves out over the season, but that was also said before we had VAR and in those days we didn’t have the game killing boredom of waiting for a decision to be, (often incorrectly), made and the let down of having the celebrations of yet another ‘goal’ we’ve scored demolished. The feeling after VAR rules out a goal you’ve gone nuts about is probably something like the feelings of the kid who calls their teacher mum by accident in class. You’ll get over it, but it’s going to feel a bit embarrassing or disappointing for at least 24 hours. Oh and whoever that 4th official was, he’s a snitch. I don’t know why our translator got sent off. If he’d called the ref a useless wanker I think it would have been well worth it. I wish someone would say something similar to Oniki to be honest to snap him out of his bizarre self belief in his tactics. It might have actually done us good on this occasion though, as presumably afterwards Ze Ricardo would have not understood what Oniki was trying to tell him to do, so at that stage we had at least one player who wasn’t being constantly misdirected to the point of incompetence. If only it had been Oniki who’d been sent off! Maybe we could have got the win. One of the three magnet boards that now seem to be on our bench could have taken over. I’m pretty sure they would have done a better job at inspiring and motivating the players. I certainly would have more faith in them.
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| Truly exhilarating form! |
So another game where I left quite quickly after the final whistle. I don’t know why, but at away games I feel like I should at least hang around and give the players a clap even if the game has been terrible. But at home games, I just want to get out of there as soon as possible. After a quick trip to the toilet I discovered that there wasn’t any booing on this occasion, but there was a bit of murmuring. The party line still seems to be to keep happy clappy about everything though. Next up, Kashiwa away with exactly the same tactics I’m sure. Presumably the best we can hope for is a draw. But given that they are close to us in the table, I expect we’ll lose. I also expect some people to lose their rag. But of course, Oniki won’t ever lose his job.
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (Yellow card 33')
FW 9. ERISON
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 65')
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 65')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for OSHIMA 46')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for ERISON 58')
FW 17. TONO Daiya
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for YAMADA 82')FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for ERISON 58')
FW 17. TONO Daiya
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for MARCINHO 65')
Goals
MARCINHO (Frontale) 36' 1-0
VITOR BUENO (Cerezo) 77' 1-1
VITOR BUENO (Cerezo) 77' 1-1
My Frontale Man Of The Match
This section will be going on hiatus until we are not as useless as we are right now. Maybe some time next year.
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