Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Shanghai Port
I think all the best writers always start everything they write with a massive cliche, don’t they? I think it’s a sign of someone being extremely skilled with words. With that in mind, football’s a funny old game isn’t it? Last Friday Oniki kept to his favoured 4-3-3, we started atrociously, conceded three times in the first half before playing a bit better in the second half, getting a late but utterly pointless consolation goal. Oh, and I was utterly pissed off with football. Fast forward to Tuesday when Oniki ditched his 4-3-3, we started brightly, scored three times in the first half before being pretty flat and getting kind of overwhelmed in the second half, conceding a late but utterly pointless goal. Oh, and I was somehow over the moon. So yeah, it’s a funny old game isn’t it? Well, it is if you forget the fact that we are always useless playing 4-3-3 recently and we’ve done considerably better when we play 4-4-2. So maybe football isn’t funny after all. Maybe the funny thing is that Oniki keeps going back to 4-3-3. I suspect we’ll see it again on Saturday in Kyoto as he does tend to revert to it after a win in order to reset us back to losing ways. I don’t know if he is now trying to change the formation to suit the game and the opposition. If this is the case, and I somehow doubt it is, perhaps someone at the club should point out to him that we have a significantly higher chance of not being shit when we play 4-4-2. Maybe that analyst we hired could tell him. But anyway, this was a win, and a very important one, so let’s not get bogged down in this moaning, and instead use some minor success as an opportunity to speed through a blog post in a slightly different format to usual, with Frontale Rabbit’s reasons to be cheerful.
Reason 1 - A right back at right back and a left back at left back.
I know this is something of a wild innovation for us recently, but you know, maybe it’s something we could stick with in the future. All over the pitch we had players playing in their preferred positions! Amazing! Well perhaps aside from Ienaga who was on the left wing. But let’s be honest, he did well! Maybe that was the secret Oniki has been working on unlocking for so long. Ienaga never really stays where he is supposed to be playing but was a bit more disciplined, (at least in that respect), in this game. With players in position our attack looked sharp and we scored goals with plenty of different players. Erison didn’t get one, but definitely put in a good performance. It was a nice game to watch and good to see our players looking a bit happier.
Reason 2 - We’re not out of this competition.
This was threatening to be a possibility if we lost to a team that had just won the Chinese league. Maybe they were slightly hungover from that achievement and we got them at the right time. Or maybe the Chinese league isn’t actually that good and our travails against Chinese teams are due to our own cock ups. But this win was crucial. We’ve moved up to 8th in the group, the last place that goes through to the next round. And our remaining games are against the two teams immediately above us and two who are below us. It seems that the group is quite open, and we should have a decent chance of going through. Unless he switches back to 4-3-3 for the remaining games. Hmmm. Now I’m not so confident….
Reason 3 - Oscar and Kevin Muscats would have been annoyed about the result.
I feel a bit bad about still moaning about Kevin Muscats. He was by far the least annoying and least obnoxious of the three Australian YFM managers. (I’m not including the current guy as we’ve only encountered him once and he’s not got the profile of the others. And also, checking if he was in charge for our last disaster against YFM, I discovered that he is, perhaps erroneously, down as coming from Malta on Flashscore). But even so, it’s nice to get one over on Kevin Muscats. It was something of a surprise to see him wearing a big puffer jacket with the hood up during the game whilst I was in short sleeves. I thought he was one of football's hardest hard men. So, sorry Kevs, for being happy in your disappointment. It’s not about you, it’s about the club you used to manage who I dislike intensely. On the other hand, what a delight to see that little shit Oscar lose the match and stomp over to the ref at the final whistle as if his team had been mortally cheated. Quite ironic given that about five minutes previously he had done an unbelievable bit of cheating to get Ienaga sent off. It’s kind of annoying that VAR, which seems intent on destroying most moments of excitement in a match can’t intervene when Oscar gets felled by a waft of fresh air and a useless ref gives Ienaga a second yellow for it. There was so much wrong with this decision that it’s irritating that VAR couldn’t do anything. There didn’t seem to be any contact. Even if there was, it was more of a shrug than anything. Oscar clutched his face which absolutely nothing had touched. The ref signaled an elbow as he took out the card but surely if the situation was as Oscar was claiming and he was elbowed in the face it should have been a straight red? I think perhaps the issue was that with such ridiculous simulation and both players on a yellow, the ref was going to have to send someone off and just went for the easy option in order to avoid a Brazilian mega-sulk. I guess it’s a positive for Oscar that he was able to recover so quickly from his fractured skull that he was able to cry to ref at the end of the game and stomp off down the tunnel as quickly as possible. Perhaps also, when he got back home he was able to have a soak in his golden bathtub full of cash. Oscar definitely loves cheating, but perhaps judging from the fact that he went from playing in the English Premier League to the Chinese league and has stayed there ever since, he probably loves cash more than anything. I’m kind of surprised he’s still there to be honest, given that the money has dropped out of that league but you can be sure he’s still getting loads of cash. And judging by the reactions of some of his other foreign teammates to him being generally not that good apart from cheating, (numerous misplaced easy passes), I’d guess that they aren’t too happy with him either. Clearly he still believes that he’s the best player on the team. But aside from the dark arts parts, I think he was probably one of the weaker links. It’s a totally hacky to say something like this, and unfortunately I still haven’t been able to make the cliche work properly, but considering he’s a player who loves to try to portray something that isn’t actually happening, Oscar is worthy of an Oscar. But the truth is that Oscars are supposedly given for good acting and I think it was pretty clear to everyone in the stadium apart from the clueless officials that Oscar’s acting was very unconvincing. So maybe let’s stick to saying something like Oscar gave himself that nickname because he wanted to pursue a career in acting, but all the castings he went to found him ridiculously over the top and unconvincing. Not only is Oscar a terrible actor, the officials in this game are terrible at both officiating a football match and also at interacting with performing arts, particularly in the thespian field. I guess their favourite movie is Tommy Wiseau’s ‘The Room’, mainly because they find themselves getting lost in the movie because due to the strength of the performances, and they just can’t believe it’s fiction rather than a documentary.
No blog post on here would be complete without a bit of pessimism, so let’s finish here with a small dose of reality. We won this game fairly easily, but with a couple of caveats. I’m not sure that if we hadn’t built up decent lead with a good first half performance that we would have held on. As soon as they scored we looked like we were really wobbling and I was quite worried. If their goal hadn’t come so late I’m not sure we would have hung on for the win. And boy oh boy, did they miss some good chances in the game. Perhaps it was a good time to play them, three days after they’d won their league on the final day. So we rode our luck a bit. Once again we had a good half, and a not so good half. Thankfully on this occasion we managed to score when we were on top. The Kashima game could have been very different if we’d managed to take some of our very good chances. The fact is though, that I suspect most of us had somewhat written off this year and this tournament and it was just a matter of finishing off those remaining games and actually finally securing our J1 status, presumably with a 0-0 draw at home to a team with nothing to play for. Whilst we are still not mathematically guaranteed to survive, (or perhaps we are, I haven’t looked into all the permutations of teams having to play each other), there are so many teams that need to overtake us, it would be a huge shock if we went down. This result gave us a bit of excitement to take with us down to Kyoto to a game that looks quite like being a 1-0 defeat. And we were also treated to the first bench appearance of Kanda. Of course he didn’t come on though. Presumably he’ll have to do the season-on-loan-after-a-first-season-of-sitting-in-the-stands thing that almost all of our young exciting players do. But then again, we’ll have a new manager next year, so maybe that will change and we’ll get a chance to see him play before he’s loaned to a team in the Belgian league. Back to the pessimism, I suspect we’ll play 4-3-3 on Saturday with the at least one midfielder or striker playing at full back. And as I said above, I suspect we’ll lose. But at least it’s a nice away trip. After this one we’ve only got Tokyo Verdy away, (well, and the second half of Urawa away, but that’s no more enticing), so let’s enjoy this weekend and hope that we’re only marginally distracted from having a nice weekend by the football game. Remember, don’t let a shocking away performance ruin what could be a fun time!
Reason 1 - A right back at right back and a left back at left back.
I know this is something of a wild innovation for us recently, but you know, maybe it’s something we could stick with in the future. All over the pitch we had players playing in their preferred positions! Amazing! Well perhaps aside from Ienaga who was on the left wing. But let’s be honest, he did well! Maybe that was the secret Oniki has been working on unlocking for so long. Ienaga never really stays where he is supposed to be playing but was a bit more disciplined, (at least in that respect), in this game. With players in position our attack looked sharp and we scored goals with plenty of different players. Erison didn’t get one, but definitely put in a good performance. It was a nice game to watch and good to see our players looking a bit happier.
Reason 2 - We’re not out of this competition.
This was threatening to be a possibility if we lost to a team that had just won the Chinese league. Maybe they were slightly hungover from that achievement and we got them at the right time. Or maybe the Chinese league isn’t actually that good and our travails against Chinese teams are due to our own cock ups. But this win was crucial. We’ve moved up to 8th in the group, the last place that goes through to the next round. And our remaining games are against the two teams immediately above us and two who are below us. It seems that the group is quite open, and we should have a decent chance of going through. Unless he switches back to 4-3-3 for the remaining games. Hmmm. Now I’m not so confident….
Reason 3 - Oscar and Kevin Muscats would have been annoyed about the result.
I feel a bit bad about still moaning about Kevin Muscats. He was by far the least annoying and least obnoxious of the three Australian YFM managers. (I’m not including the current guy as we’ve only encountered him once and he’s not got the profile of the others. And also, checking if he was in charge for our last disaster against YFM, I discovered that he is, perhaps erroneously, down as coming from Malta on Flashscore). But even so, it’s nice to get one over on Kevin Muscats. It was something of a surprise to see him wearing a big puffer jacket with the hood up during the game whilst I was in short sleeves. I thought he was one of football's hardest hard men. So, sorry Kevs, for being happy in your disappointment. It’s not about you, it’s about the club you used to manage who I dislike intensely. On the other hand, what a delight to see that little shit Oscar lose the match and stomp over to the ref at the final whistle as if his team had been mortally cheated. Quite ironic given that about five minutes previously he had done an unbelievable bit of cheating to get Ienaga sent off. It’s kind of annoying that VAR, which seems intent on destroying most moments of excitement in a match can’t intervene when Oscar gets felled by a waft of fresh air and a useless ref gives Ienaga a second yellow for it. There was so much wrong with this decision that it’s irritating that VAR couldn’t do anything. There didn’t seem to be any contact. Even if there was, it was more of a shrug than anything. Oscar clutched his face which absolutely nothing had touched. The ref signaled an elbow as he took out the card but surely if the situation was as Oscar was claiming and he was elbowed in the face it should have been a straight red? I think perhaps the issue was that with such ridiculous simulation and both players on a yellow, the ref was going to have to send someone off and just went for the easy option in order to avoid a Brazilian mega-sulk. I guess it’s a positive for Oscar that he was able to recover so quickly from his fractured skull that he was able to cry to ref at the end of the game and stomp off down the tunnel as quickly as possible. Perhaps also, when he got back home he was able to have a soak in his golden bathtub full of cash. Oscar definitely loves cheating, but perhaps judging from the fact that he went from playing in the English Premier League to the Chinese league and has stayed there ever since, he probably loves cash more than anything. I’m kind of surprised he’s still there to be honest, given that the money has dropped out of that league but you can be sure he’s still getting loads of cash. And judging by the reactions of some of his other foreign teammates to him being generally not that good apart from cheating, (numerous misplaced easy passes), I’d guess that they aren’t too happy with him either. Clearly he still believes that he’s the best player on the team. But aside from the dark arts parts, I think he was probably one of the weaker links. It’s a totally hacky to say something like this, and unfortunately I still haven’t been able to make the cliche work properly, but considering he’s a player who loves to try to portray something that isn’t actually happening, Oscar is worthy of an Oscar. But the truth is that Oscars are supposedly given for good acting and I think it was pretty clear to everyone in the stadium apart from the clueless officials that Oscar’s acting was very unconvincing. So maybe let’s stick to saying something like Oscar gave himself that nickname because he wanted to pursue a career in acting, but all the castings he went to found him ridiculously over the top and unconvincing. Not only is Oscar a terrible actor, the officials in this game are terrible at both officiating a football match and also at interacting with performing arts, particularly in the thespian field. I guess their favourite movie is Tommy Wiseau’s ‘The Room’, mainly because they find themselves getting lost in the movie because due to the strength of the performances, and they just can’t believe it’s fiction rather than a documentary.
No blog post on here would be complete without a bit of pessimism, so let’s finish here with a small dose of reality. We won this game fairly easily, but with a couple of caveats. I’m not sure that if we hadn’t built up decent lead with a good first half performance that we would have held on. As soon as they scored we looked like we were really wobbling and I was quite worried. If their goal hadn’t come so late I’m not sure we would have hung on for the win. And boy oh boy, did they miss some good chances in the game. Perhaps it was a good time to play them, three days after they’d won their league on the final day. So we rode our luck a bit. Once again we had a good half, and a not so good half. Thankfully on this occasion we managed to score when we were on top. The Kashima game could have been very different if we’d managed to take some of our very good chances. The fact is though, that I suspect most of us had somewhat written off this year and this tournament and it was just a matter of finishing off those remaining games and actually finally securing our J1 status, presumably with a 0-0 draw at home to a team with nothing to play for. Whilst we are still not mathematically guaranteed to survive, (or perhaps we are, I haven’t looked into all the permutations of teams having to play each other), there are so many teams that need to overtake us, it would be a huge shock if we went down. This result gave us a bit of excitement to take with us down to Kyoto to a game that looks quite like being a 1-0 defeat. And we were also treated to the first bench appearance of Kanda. Of course he didn’t come on though. Presumably he’ll have to do the season-on-loan-after-a-first-season-of-sitting-in-the-stands thing that almost all of our young exciting players do. But then again, we’ll have a new manager next year, so maybe that will change and we’ll get a chance to see him play before he’s loaned to a team in the Belgian league. Back to the pessimism, I suspect we’ll play 4-3-3 on Saturday with the at least one midfielder or striker playing at full back. And as I said above, I suspect we’ll lose. But at least it’s a nice away trip. After this one we’ve only got Tokyo Verdy away, (well, and the second half of Urawa away, but that’s no more enticing), so let’s enjoy this weekend and hope that we’re only marginally distracted from having a nice weekend by the football game. Remember, don’t let a shocking away performance ruin what could be a fun time!
Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. TONO Daiya
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 86', second yellow/red card 90')
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
FW 9. ERISON
MF 17. TONO Daiya
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 86', second yellow/red card 90')
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke
FW 9. ERISON
Subs
GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 4. JESIEL (on for SASAKI 85')
GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 4. JESIEL (on for SASAKI 85')
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for YAMAMOTO 64')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for SEGAWA 79')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 64')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for TONO 79')
FW 32. KANDA Soma
MF 34. YUI Kota
Goals
IENAGA (Frontale) 12' 1-0
SEGAWA (Frontale) 13' 2-0
VAN WERMESKERKEN (Frontale) 33' 3-0
VARGAS (Shanghai) 83' 3-1
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for SEGAWA 79')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 64')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for TONO 79')
FW 32. KANDA Soma
MF 34. YUI Kota
Goals
IENAGA (Frontale) 12' 1-0
SEGAWA (Frontale) 13' 2-0
VAN WERMESKERKEN (Frontale) 33' 3-0
VARGAS (Shanghai) 83' 3-1
Highlights
No comments:
Post a Comment