Vs Avispa Fukuoka (home) 9/8/25 J League match 25

 

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 5 Avispa Fukuoka 

I have to say, I was quite looking forward to this match. Two new players to check out. A slight feeling of optimism about what they might bring. It had been a while since we had a game because… well, who knows why? It seems that we had a long break in order for J League clubs to play utterly pointless friendlies against the kids teams of European sides looking to squeeze some money out of Japan. I’m very pleased that we didn’t get involved in that. Perhaps no one wanted to play us! But anyway, any good feeling evaporated quite soon after the kick off. And as there was so much happening to get annoyed about, it seems that I only took one photo. So this blog post is going to be shoddy for multiple reasons. Lets get on with the shoddiness!

Us - 

What a shocker of a debut for Uremovic. And now he’s presumably banned for three games. I’ll write some more about that further down. It’s impossible to say if we’ve got a great player as he was sent off so quickly. Erison’s own goal was a cracker. And I didn’t realise till masochistically watching some of the incidents back that he actually scored two own goals in the first half. Least he got one at the other end too. It’s not very often that a player scores and then is the person to take the subsequent kick off, so that’s one thing to tick off the list. Romanov looked pretty good when he came on, if you want to read something slightly positive. But we didn’t stand a chance. Full credit to the players for trying to score even when we were down to nine players. In the past I have moaned about our fans clapping and cheering our players after truly woeful performances but on this occasion they deserved all the praise and credit they got for doing as well as they did in a horrible situation. And credit to our fans for staying to give them that praise. I don’t think it’s worth saying much else about us. The scoreline was a bit harsh on us, but utterly predictable given the way the match went. 

Them -

In the past I’ve never had much of a a problem with Avispa but blimey they’ve annoyed me now. An absolutely scummy team of diving cheats. Usui was the worst offender and I’d be delighted to never set eyes on him again. He was apparently dead after the Uremovic foul, got up to moan when a yellow was given but fell back to the floor when he saw it was getting referred to VAR. Definitely not faking right? But somehow he managed to recover enough to play 91 minutes. But they were all up to it. Long term readers of this blog will know that I love Nara. But that love affair is over as he was at it too. And also they were all constantly in the ref’s face whinging and asking for more cards. For the second yellow for Sai they didn’t seem happy with him merely being sent off and instead seemed to be campaigning for something like a prison sentence. Or perhaps they thought that if they whined enough the ref might send off another one of our players to quieten them down. Considering they don’t score many goals you might have thought that with the score at 5-2, playing with 12 men against 9, (I haven’t made a mistake with the numbers there), and with 10 minutes of injury time they might have tried to score some more to help their goal difference. They definitely would have had chances to. But instead they were wasting time. Wasting time against 9 players! Total scumbags. Even after this game their goal difference is only plus one. They could have made it a lot better. But instead they feigned injury and dithered over goal kicks. I know many teams also are, but Avispa are definitely now on my list of teams that I’d like to see lose every week and hopefully plummet to the JFL. Which funnily enough is probably about the right level considering their home crowds. But that’s totally understandable if the people of Fukuoka like to watch football rather than the play acting and grizzling that they get from Avispa. 

Ref and VAR -

Where do I start with this? Shimizu was an abomination and should never referee again. Apparently we made 17 fouls to their 10, (and there’s no way that some of them were fouls), and we got two reds and three yellows and they didn’t get a single card. He was so one-sided that he should be investigated. He has a reputation for not being very good and blimey he proved that to be true in this match. Stupid puffed-out chest and truly horrible lightly slicked back wet look hair. Even with the Uremovic red card he got it wrong, initially giving a yellow and having to get VAR to ask him to check it more carefully. There is something a bit weird about that decision too, as as far as I know, (and I checked this with qualified ref J Soccer Magazine), if you play an advantage a red card offence is supposed to be downgraded to a yellow, unless it is serious foul play. Perhaps that was what he was dithering over when he was at the monitor. He definitely played the advantage and given that VAR couldn’t decide and the ref had to watch it numerous times, I don’t think you can say it was seriously dangerous play. Most of the times we got a yellow card the Avispa player was already throwing themselves to the floor before any contact was made but the ref bought the dive every time. If you’re going to ref a match that way and throw the cards around willy nilly, at least do it both ways. Maybe it’s our fault as we didn’t dive enough and harangue the ref enough. When you’re a bit thick like it seems Shimizu is you need people to give you a bit of a hint and make things easier to understand. Presumably in the refs handbook he only looks at the pictures because he can’t read the text. That explains why he didn’t know about the advantage thing. The penalty looked soft too. But it was so inevitable by that stage that everything was going against us that it didn’t come as a surprise. Utterly useless piece of shit referee. What a shock…

As for VAR, well you know I hate it and I think this game shows why to a certain extent. To be fair to the VAR guy, at least he didn’t make any decisions himself. He left it to Shimizu to correct his own ‘mistakes’, possibly incorrectly on the first occasion. It’s just shocking, and I know I’ve said this numerous times, that VAR is intended to correct clear and obvious errors and in order to spot the clear and obvious error several people have to watch multiple replays for minutes at a time. And then in the case of the first red, ignore a rule of the game. Or probably more likely forget about a rule or not know it in the first place. After all, there are so many aren’t there? And quite a lot of the pictures in the handbook look similar. Poor old simpleton Shimizu. So in conclusion in this ref section, yeah, maybe the first one should have been a red, but also maybe not on a technicality. I’m not raging about this. I am raging about the fact that he couldn’t stop dishing out the cards to us and utterly failed to apply the same standards to the opposition. Avispa didn’t win this game themselves, the ref won it for them. When we had to play 55 minutes with 12 against 9, it was probably never going to happen for us. So in conclusion for the in conclusion section, FUCK OFF SHIMIZU YOU USELESS (and seemingly corrupt) ARSEHOLE.

Ahhhhh, what a shame. I wonder if along with our two new signings there was also a delivery of a hundred mirrors on their way to the ref of this game and one of our guys smashed the lot of them when taking their hand luggage out of the overhead locker. That would mean 700 years bad luck, but given that Shimizu seemed to take out a lot of his frustration on us in this game, perhaps we won’t have to go through the whole 700. This was a game ruined by the ref and it’s definitely put the final nail in the coffin of any hopes of us getting anything out of this year. I think we didn’t have a chance anyway, but not only did we lose this game, but due to Shimizu apparently being on some kind of performance related pay scheme where he got an extra bonus for every card he could give us and get away with without anyone punching him, we’re fucked for players for the next match too. Guess we still have the Levain Cup. We haven’t played a game in that competition yet, so that’s why we’re still in it. Don’t get me wrong though. I know this sounds doomy and gloomy but I’ve got nothing but praise for the players on this occasion. I was quite optimistic after we finally made some signings so it’s a shame that that optimism got torched so quickly. I thought that we might be able to make a little charge up the table but that’s not going to happen now… And next up we have the perennial banana skin that is Albirex Niigata away on Saturday. In the past a free midweek was very welcome, and  whilst it will allow the players to recover a bit from what must have been a physically challenging 90 minutes, it’s not going to make a difference for the suspended platers. Presumably we’ll give Niigata the three points as we often do in this fixture and that might help their survival chances. If they go down it will be a fun away trip that we’re losing, and possibly the only fun away trip in next year’s season of weirdness with the league split into east and west sections. Someone did say though that there is a chance that if the right teams go up and go down, we might bizarrely end up in the west section. Blimey. So I’ll do my best to enjoy Niigata at the weekend. Enjoy the city I mean. If it’s in any way possible to enjoy they game too, well that would be very nice indeed. 

 

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai (Yellow card 22', second yellow/red card 45+7')
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC (Red card 15')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (Yellow card 71')
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki (Yellow card 63')
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 9. ERISON
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
DF 4. JESIEL  (on for ITO 17')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for WAKIZAKA 78')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for YAMAMOTO 72')
FW 38. KANDA Soma
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro  (Yellow card 90+4') (on for MARCINHO 78')
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (on for ERISON 72')

 

My Twat Of The Match 

 

Without a doubt, 100%, certainly, it has to go to...

SHIMIZU Hayato - A disgrace not only to referees, but to humanity as a whole. I feel dirty just having been in the same stadium as this useless specimen.

 

Goals

TACHIBANADA (Frontale) 4' 1-0
OWN GOAL (Frontale) 24' 1-1
ERISON (Frontale) 28' 2-1
OWN GOAL (Frontale)  35' 2-2
NAGO (Avispa) 73' PEN 2-3
USUI (Avispa) 85' 2-4
KONNO (Avispa) 88' 2-5

Highlights

Vs Gamba Osaka (away) 20/7/25 J League match 24

Gamba Osaka 2 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale

What a crushingly predictable result this was. Recently we’re always terrible away at Gamba so in a season where we’re always at the most one game away from shitting the bed, it was absolutely nailed on that we’d lose this game. It’s a shame though that we seem to have to lose in such frustrating and irritating ways. A little bit of hope when we scored against the run of play and took the lead! And then absolute resignation to what was going to happen as we conceded right at the end of the first half after giving the ball away cheaply. I honestly can’t believe we’re so high up in the table. I can’t believe we’ve scored so many goals. Because it seems that at least once every ten days we put it an absolute turd of a performance. To be fair, this was far from being the worst of our recent ones. That honour surely must go to either Verdy away or the Sagamihara game, but even after we scored I felt it was unlikely we’d score again and when you gift the opposition at least one goal a game, you’re never going to win if you only score once. And once again, (how many times is it now? Maybe I should check), we scored first and then fucked it up. As we now have three weeks off, (nice work J League schedulers. Glad we played a game every three days for the first few months of the season), I want to get this out of the way so I can concentrate on other less obvious ways of making myself miserable.

Us -

Was nice to see Kobayashi score. Was nice to see Erison back on the pitch. Wasn’t so nice to see us still press on with the same pointless shit we’ve been playing for the last few years. There really isn’t much discernible difference between some of our recent matches and ‘peak’ Oniki Frontale. People might point to the fact that we get it forward a bit quicker these days, but that only really means we lose the ball from hoofing it after lots of pointless passing rather than lose it from a short pass after doing the pointless passing. With Erison back on the pitch we looked a little more likely to score, but the fact is we spent 80 minutes of the game failing to do so. I feel like maybe I’m being a bit harsh as we had twice as many shots on target as Gamba did but crucially they scored twice as many goals as we did. It’s difficult to speak with much certainty on a lot of this match as my view from the eaves of the stand was massively blocked by a big flag rendering the whole experience even more frustrating. It did look a bit like Yamaguchi didn’t cover himself in glory though. For the second goal the ball was hit straight at him and he still contrived to let it go in through him. Our centre backs for this game were Maruyama and Sasaki. So now the guy who’s maybe our best full back is one of our first choice centre backs and his biggest contribution there was perhaps his assist for Gamba’s first goal. According to Hasebe having Tsuchiya and Kamihashi on the bench shows that they’re both ready to step up and are good players but I don’t think they were ever going to be used in this game. Not sure what’s happened to Jesiel. Perhaps he’s being used sparingly. Seems like we have quite a few members of our squad who can’t be expected to play every game. Having two centre backs who you almost certainly aren’t going to use on the bench probably speaks volumes about our squad depth. Looking at the bench, it was no surprise to see the changes that were made. In fact you probably could have bet your life savings on them before the game started. More on this in a little Hasebe moan section later. Looking at who we could bring on and who we did bring on, of course Erison could make a difference. Ienaga on his day could too, but those days are becoming increasingly rare. Miyagi still seems to be suffering from the problem he’s had since… well maybe always. He looks like he might be able to do something but rarely does. And the fact that one of our ‘game changing’ subs spent the last few years bouncing around J2 not doing much is a bit of a worry too. But who else is there? No one really. I can’t think of anyone in the squad who right now makes me think I’d like to see more of them. We’ve lost two of last year’s starting 11. We’ve brought in… a player from a university who presumably won’t be getting anywhere near the squad for at least a year. So we don’t have players? Hmmm. Well we do, but they’re plying like donkeys. So whose fault is that? Hmmmm. I’m sorry Hasebe but the honeymoon is over. Same formation as last year. Same tactics as last year with an occasional hoof added. Same subs, like for like every time, with no obvious desire to change anything and the apparent belief that sooner or later everything will work out just fine. He needs to do something fast. Some might say we don’t have the players to play a different formation but I’d suggest that in recent games we don’t have the players to play the formation we’re playing at the moment. There would be a case for saying that this was one of our better recent games. AND WE FUCKING LOST! Best not think about that too long unless you want to get quite depressed. I don’t expect us to win every game. But it’s probably not too much to ask that every game isn’t the same crushingly dull and pointless stuff. Modern football seems to be all about possession and we’ve gone down this route a lot in recent years. But the fact is, recently, more often than not we don’t even have the pointless possession to hang on to anymore. As I said, before the game I knew this was a nailed on defeat so maybe I shouldn’t be so upset about it. But it just all seems so fucking pointless. As soon as we scored I knew there was no chance of us scoring again. Perhaps we just need a change in our fortunes, but right now we look dodgy up front, dodgy at the back and non-existent in the middle. Oh well, at least due to Kobayashi’s goal the club was able to put a clip up online of the goal and everyone could get excited and emotional that he scored whilst ignoring the fact that we lost again and we look shit. Wonderful stuff! I know the club is looking for someone to do English language stuff at the moment. Do you think I should send in my application? I don’t want to criticise Hasebe too much but he’s got to do something as we look more like relegation candidates right now. Change something in our tactics or somehow instill a bit of belief in the players. I know I’m legendarily pessimistic, but I think the players must be feeling similarly right now. Hasebe, it’s time for you to step up and use this little break to make your mark, in whichever way you want, but please let us see Hasebe Frontale in the next game, rather than a very slightly tweaked to no discernible advantage 2023 or 2024 Frontale.

Them - 

Gamba controlled long periods of the game, had much more possession than us and more shots. But still I feel like they didn’t really deserve to win. (Heheheh, naturally). I think an utterly boring goalless draw would have been a fair result. If we weren’t so bad at shooting and didn’t give away goals so freely I don’t think they would have won. Hummet seems like a bit of a prick. Happy to dish it out but flopping to the floor as soon as anyone comes close to him. Can’t really say much else about them though. Well apart from the fact that Poyatos is a whiny little bitch. He lost his mind when we took a throw before they could do their subs. Stamping his feet at the fourth official and having a right strop. Presumably they must have been absolutely urgent changes. Although not urgent enough to do the next time the ball went out as he delayed them. Considering we were never going to score for most of the match, there was a lot of time wasting from Gamba. Even from the ball boys. This kind of thing really annoys when it’s the opposition doing it, but probably is quite amusing when it’s your team dishing it out. Oh, and I wrote something about the large amount of those old Japanese flags with racist connotations behind the goal but have deleted it because it just looks like sour grapes and plenty of other teams do the same thing. But in case you were in any doubt, fuck those guys who wave those flags. (By the way, please do check previous posts on Gamba away for my usual rant about them moving us up to the top floor. That still pisses me off, as you probably can tell).

Ref - 

Nakamura again, and as has been the case since he got ref of the year, he was awful. Absolutely card shy and just a general wanker. I mean, I guess this is true, but I could hardly see anything because of that sodding flag and the fact that I was so high above the pitch that I could probably have touched a cloud if they’d removed the roof of the stadium.

So another shite result which threatened to spoil the nice trip we had planned around the utterly futile 90 minutes of football. (As an aside, we went to Shiga on Monday to watch Grulla Morioka in the JFL. I can confirm that VAR has indeed ruined football as when Grulla scored their somewhat surprising first goal I wasn’t properly excited, thinking that presumably there was going to be a VAR check. Of course there wasn’t going to be one as there is no VAR outside of the top flight in Japan. But so accustomed have I become to the enjoyment-sapping influence of VAR that even when it definitely won’t be happening I still take it into consideration. Of course I’m not saying that there aren’t more correct decisions due to its influence. The problem is the referees are generally useless and totally inconsistent within matches and even more so from ref to ref. It’s a bit like having your partner’s parents visit your flat and painstakingly cleaning the kitchen to a sparkle but at the same time emptying the contents of the bin all over the living room. I know people say that if you delay the gratification sometimes the reward is heightened. Don’t think this really works when it comes to VAR though does it? The thrill is cut short and then if you’re lucky you get a feeling of light relief afterwards. Absolutely exhilarating. Anyway, clearly the horse has already bolted when it comes to VAR so there’s not much point talking about it. But if you were in any doubt, I still hate it). Three weeks off will hopefully bring either a rethink or some reinforcements or hopefully both. Please, please, please let it at least bring something other than just a break from the utter tedium of our football. As I said above, it’s a miracle we’re so high up in the table and have scored so many goals. It really doesn’t feel like we have. When the (possible) tedium recommences it will be at home against Avispa Fukuoka, which presumably will be a game Hasebe is quite up for winning. With that in mind he’ll probably go with the same team, formation and tactics. Sooner or later it will all come good, right? Just need to be patient and try not to expire from the tedium beforehand.

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for KAWAHARA 79')
FW 9. ERISON (on for KOBAYASHI 46')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for WAKIZAKA 79')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 70')
DF 27. KAMIHASHI Ryota
FW 38. KANDA Soma

DF 39. TSUCHIYA Kaito
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for ITO 71')

My Frontale Fan Of The Match

Maybe it's a surprise that I'm giving this out in this game and perhaps this is something of a left-field choice, but I think it has to go to...

 

THE MASSIVE FLAG (THAT BLOCKED MY VIEW FOR LARGE PERIODS OF THE GAME) - congratulations to the massive flag for winning this for the first time. There was a lot of mediocrity on show on the pitch, but the massive flag did a great job of protecting me from the shite that was going on way down below. What you can't see, can't hurt you. Thank you, massive flag!

Massive flag in its full view blocking glory!

Goals

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 9' 0-1
KURATA (Gamba) 45+3' 1-1
HUMMET (Gamba) 57' 2-1

Highlights

Vs SC Sagamihara (home) 16/7/25 Emperor's Cup 3rd round

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 0 SC Sagamihara (AET) (1-3 on penalties)

Beat league title favourites Kashima. Have a week off. Lose to Sagamihara on penalties. Wonderful. I would say it’s one step forward and two steps back but the truth is relating anything about this match to any movement other than in pointless little sideways triangles doesn’t make much sense as this was an utter borefest. I should have known we’d lose as we had the enticing prospect of a trip to Tohoku if we’d won. Admittedly, we always play Blaublitz but at least this time we might get to do it away from home. But no, now we’re out of the Emperor’s Cup at a horrendously early yet utterly predictable stage. Seems like not much has changed since Oniki, left, eh? Don’t worry, I’m not going to start getting negative about Hasebe yet. Although the truth is the there may be some logic in doing so. We’ve long heard that it might take some time for Hasebe to be able to put his stamp on our team as we had the ACL to contend with. Well ,that’s very much in the rearview mirror now but we still seem to be doing the same things we did last year. I guess any hopes of a change of formation have probably been squashed by the usual endless centre back problems, (transfers being added to the annual injury problems). Takai has gone and it seems that Haydar will be going too. Jesiel is back fit again, but who knows for how long. We’ve heard about Hasebe’s penchant for three at the back, but unless we make a centre back signing I can’t imagine any switch would be in that direction. Maybe we should give one at the back a go…. Not that we particularly had any problems at the back in this game. This slight positivity should be tempered by the fact that Sagamihara are a J3 team who came very much with the intention of sitting back, defending in numbers and maybe trying to hit us on the counter attack, but with more focus on taking the game to penalties. Up front, Yamada has gone and said goodbye to the fans in an emotionally charged farewell after this match. I think this transfer won’t change much for the club as he’s been awful this year so it represents a good opportunity for him to reset and get his career back on track. We have (potentially) got some money for a player who was doing nothing more than occupying a spot in the starting line up that someone else might do a better job of filling, The difference between the Yamada of last year and this year is unbelievable. I really hope he can turn things around. And I feel really sorry that he had to have his ceremony after such a shit game. Anyway, this is all to say that clearly things aren’t looking that bright for us right now. But the feeling does seem to change slightly from game to game, with the same dull and borderline dodgy performances sometimes resulting in wins and sometimes getting exactly what they deserve. Although we’re out of the Emperor’s Cup early, we really have done better than expected in the league. Well, when it comes to results anyway. I don’t think anyone could really name a game where we played well apart from the season opener. Even though the results have been good, there has been a hell of a lot of dross this year, even in games we’ve won. But, getting slightly back on track, I don’t think we’ve seen dross that is quite this drossy for a very long time.

Us - 

Our third shot on target in this game was when we took the third penalty of the shoot out, which was of course saved and rebounded onto the crossbar. This is pretty astonishing. Well, maybe to some people but it’s become something I do worry about happening. Even the two previous shots on target, (one in the second half and one in the first period of extra time), didn’t exactly trouble their keeper. I wonder if it was an elaborate ruse to make sure that their keeper wouldn’t be warmed up properly when it came to penalties. This seems unlikely, but it really did seem like we were playing for them for long periods of the match. And in any case, this ruse backfired as the first two penalties wouldn’t have gone in even if their keeper had run off the pitch to go to the toilet. But there’s no point getting angry about the penalties as there is always a certain amount of luck involved with a shoot out. (Just as an aside, it’s no wonder we’re shit at penalties this year as we’ve only had one in 23 league matches and that one was taken by Miyagi who wasn’t even on the bench for this game). What we should get angry about is the utter crap that filled the 90 minutes of normal time and 30 minutes of extra time to the brim. And don’t forget this was an almost full strength team playing against a J3 team. I don’t know what the solution is up front if we are going to persevere with this formation. Neither Kobayashi or Kanda ever really had a real chance. Admittedly Sagamihara were playing with most of their team behind the ball and in their own penalty box. This probably contributed to quite how dull this game was. The thing is, we never really looked like we were going to concede, but we also never really looked like we were going to score. We never seem to be able to play against teams who sit back and defend. This is a problem that has endured for years now and teams who play like that aren’t exactly a rare thing so we should have had plenty pf practice by now. Maybe this suggests that we’d prefer to play against teams who want to attack, but this hasn’t worked so well in some games this year. Basically, our ideal opponents are Kashima, a team who think they are good but are actually shit. Well, them or someone like YFC who will score the goals for us as we will inevitably continue to struggle to hit the target. That lovely passing though, eh? Beautiful triangles, mainly in our own half. Who needs goals when you can have completed passes. 

Our players deciding whose turn it is
 to balloon the ball over the bar

The strange thing about this game is that it’s hard to say who didn’t play well. You can’t really say anyone had a nightmare, but you could definitely say that plenty of people seemed to do absolutely nothing at all, positive or negative. It was just a massive splodge of mediocrity. Very dull. People were playing with about as much verve as if it were a training match. The fact that drums weren’t allowed for the supporters in extra time because it was after 9pm and the stadium is in a residential zone somehow added to this feeling of utter pointlessness. It was difficult to get engaged with the match at any stage, as it was just so boring and with apparently so little jeopardy. Don’t forget, basically our first team, fresh after a week and a half break. We’re fucked. And as long as our players continue to believe that one solid object, (for example, the ball, or their own body), can pass through another solid object, (perhaps an opposition player), completely unopposed and unaffected, I think we’re going to struggle. And perhaps we’re going to struggle even more this weekend as Jesiel went off at half time, (perhaps to save him for the league and avoid injuries), Sai looked absolutely destroyed at the end of extra time and had to be changed and then Maruyama went off injured leaving us with ten men for the final few minutes. Not a great time to have two centre backs leave the club with no replacements coming in, eh? Tsuchiya getting a few minutes at the end of this game was nice for him, especially as he might be needed much sooner than anyone might have suspected. But as I said above, the problem isn’t at the back. The problem is that we pass and pass and pass and pass and don’t seem to ever be that interested in shooting. And then inevitably when that gilt edged chance finally miraculously appears we either leather it over the bar or wide of the goal, or softly cushion the ball directly into the arms of the keeper. Forget the defence, we really need some new ideas up front. The most important one of which might be ACTUALLY TRY TO SCORE A GOAL.

Them -

Fair play to Sagamihara, they came to do a job and they did it. I don’t have any moans about their players. I was impressed with their supporters in both the amount of people who came to the match, (probably more than Kobe brought on a Saturday. I know this isn’t true, but it’s not as untrue as you might imagine), and their attitude, I loved the ‘Good Vibes Only’ flag they had. I’m pleased that we had a chance to give them a clap at the end of the game. I think they were a bit shocked. I don’t like their manager, as I remember him being a jumped up little shit when I saw Grulla play YFC, but you can’t deny that he came up with a winning plan and his players carried it out to a tee.

Ref -

It was Iida. He’s crap, but he’s always crap and he wasn’t as crap as we were. He wasn’t the one endlessly passing to build up the necessary head of steam to make a chance to welly the ball anywhere but inside of the goal frame. But hang on, even that’s being a bit optimistic about how we did in this game. Six shots in 120 minutes. One shot every twenty minutes. One shot on target every sixty minutes. It’s really no wonder this game felt so dull. 

Next up Gamba Osaka away on Sunday. I presume we’ll still be stuck up on the third floor, making a game that we always do quite badly in even less enjoyable again. Gamba also lost on penalties in the cup, but they were playing a J2 team, and they managed to actually score some goals. I can’t see us ever scoring again at the moment. Big changes need to happen and I can’t say I’m particularly confident they are going to. I don’t have a problem with us losing. After all that’s what happens in football. I do have a problem with us serving up such turgid shit though. I know that also happens in football, but it would be nice if it didn’t have to happen quite so often, wouldn’t it? How can I finish this on a positive note? I honestly don’t know… We’ve been linked with a Serbian striker, presumably to replace Yamada. That’s obviously not going to happen before Sunday if at all. And it does seem anyway that whoever is up front never really gets a chance because the ball never makes it to the striker. No, I haven’t got a clue how to end this on a positive note…. AH! I found one. We can at least be sure that Sunday’s match won’t go to extra time and penalties, so hopefully we’ll be able to get to the pub a bit earlier than we did on Wednesday. If there is nothing remotely entertaining or enjoyable on the pitch, well you’ve got to find your fun somewhere else, right?

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for JESIEL 46')
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for MARCINHO 83')
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 64')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for TACHIBANADA 90+5')

MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 38. KANDA Soma (on for KOBAYASHI 64')

DF 39. TSUCHIYA Kaito (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 115')

My Frontale Fan Of The Match

Me. I'm the best. And this definitely shouldn't go to any fans who clapped the team at the end of the game as we were fucking terrible. I'm not going to boo them, but I am 100% going to stand there with my arms crossed and a moody expression.

Goals

Nothing, barely even a shot

Penalties

MUTO (Sagamihara) 0-1
KAWAHARA (Frontale) 0-1 (missed)
PYTLIK (Sagamihara) 0-1 (saved)

YAMAMOTO (Frontale) 0-1 (missed)
TAKEUCHI (Sagamihara) 0-2
KANDA (Frontale) 0-2 (saved)
KATO (Sagamihara) 0-2 (missed)

OZEKI (Frontale) 1-2

TAKANO (Sagamihara) 1-3

Highlights

Vs Kashima Antlers (home) 5/7/25 J League match 23

 

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 1 Kashima Antlers 

Ahhhhh. This was a lot of fun, wasn’t it? I’ve long been saying that Kashima aren’t as good as their league position suggests. When we played them at the National Stadium they were pretty bad, and were fortunate to catch us on a day when we were terrible. And don’t forget that they have had an unbelievable amount of penalties whereas we’ve had just the one in 23 games. Some might say that their luck turned in this match and I’d agree to some extent but I’ll go into that in more detail later. So it’s great to win and it’s also great to enjoy defeating a horrible club. Some Frontale fans might have mixed feelings given that they have our old manager. They seemed again to think that they’d stolen him from us given the way they were chanting his name before the game. I expect they weren’t chanting his name in the same way afterwards. I don’t have any personal enjoyment from beating the new team of our old manager per se, but when that team is a scummy one who have seemed to get the rub of the green more often than not this year, (something which continued to a certain extent in this match), well then, I actually do enjoy it a lot. Perhaps the one big downside was that everyone else won in the top five, so it hasn’t helped us out when it comes to the title race. But I don’t really believe we’re seriously in that anyway. Particularly when you consider that Takai has just left and Ito is now injured. We need reinforcements fast I think. But the rest of the top five winning meant that it was a bigger blow to Kashima so I guess that’s a good thing. Hopefully the other scummy teams who are up there, (looking at you Kobe), can experience similar big blows for the rest of the season. We’ve now got a bit of time off till our next game. Time to recuperate and hopefully get some players back from injury. Although Ito wasn’t at the Fan Event yesterday and was on crutches after the game on Saturday, Erison was there and was dancing, so fingers crossed we’re using that as part of his recovery schedule. 

Us -

It was a bit of a mixed start for us in this game. Whilst we looked a bit brighter and were definitely getting the ball forward more quickly and causing them problems, we were blighted by the usual awful finishing that seems to be a Frontale thing recently. The stats look kind of positive with ten shots but the reality is that only four were on target and I think all of them were about as powerfully and accurately hit away from the keeper as a back pass from a defender would have been. Kashima were even worse in attack but naturally managed to score after they were gifted a goal by some dodgy defending by us. If we ever manage to stop shooting ourselves in the foot we might make some real progress. Thankfully we scored at the end of the first half though, as to have gone in one down after having so many chances would have been a real gut punch. We did our best to mess it up though as Yamada almost got the goal canceled due to him being offside. Yamada still isn’t playing particularly well, and his call up to the national team is absolutely baffling, but maybe there are some green shoots of recovery starting to show. He seems to pass a bit more than previously. Admittedly previously he didn’t pass at all though. I have to admit, I don’t really have that many strong memories of our performance in the rest of the game. Well, apart from the massive let off when Jesiel’s red card which he revived very soon after coming on at half time was canceled. Phew. I don’t think we were mind-blowingly good in this game, but we definitely did enough to win. We ended up with fifty percent more shots and possession than Kashima so I think they’d be clutching at straws to think they deserved to get anything. 

Them - 

Sure they’re going to complain about the ref and I am going to do the same in the section below. I think their big problem is that they didn’t get a penalty in this game. That seems to be what normally happens. They didn’t look that good and hopefully they’ll tumble down the league. I’m not sure they’d have scored if we hadn’t put a goal on a plate for them. Perhaps they might think they’re going through a slump but I suspect that they’ve been massively lucky so far this year and are now getting what their play deserves. In spite of the massive wealth the club has and employing the most successful manger in the league, they still might struggle to crawl out of their usual spot in third or fourth. There is a classic Oniki way of playing, (note the singular here. There really is only one), but for some reason he isn’t using it at Kashima. Some might say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but recent results make it look like it is broken. Whether he has the character or the power to change things, I don’t know. Kashima is one of those teams where it seems that whoever they hire or buy, things rarely change that much. I’d put Urawa and FC Tokyo in that category too. They seem to have some scumbag players and some scumbag fans so I guess that works out quite well. I still remember with great amusement that video clip of a group of furious Antlers fans being held back by a thin plastic fence so low that it could be stepped over by a Dachshund and so poorly supported that it could be toppled by someone turning on the extractor fan in the changing rooms. I guess it was the single old man security guard that repelled them. Somehow though this fearsome reputation of their tough guy fans seemed to convince the ref that things should go their way though. 

Ref and VAR - 

Ahhhh, Araki. Last time we had you there wasn’t much to moan about which was an absolute miracle. Thankfully for the sake of consistency he was back to his awful… best… worst in this match. Maybe it was the rolled up shorts and blonde dye job that terrified Araki so much but Suzuki should absolutely have been sent off for a second yellow card. There was another very dodgy decision from the ref at the end of the game, when someone absolutely clattered (I think) Sasaki off the ball and off the pitch and the ref did nothing. Maybe by that stage he already thought he was in enough trouble with the Kashima fans. He’d really done his best to please them only to have his decisions overturned by VAR. I suppose I have to give him some credit for listening to the VAR though. But he was an absolute bottler when it came to doing things that Kashima might not like. Praise the lord though, we had someone good on VAR. I recently praised Kawamata and he’s done well again. I haven’t really dared look back at the Jesiel red card he canceled as it looked a cert at the time. Thankfully we were saved by offside. And Kawamata also allowed the Ito goal. From the first replay it did seem like it might get canceled due to Yamada looking like he was in the way, but from another angle, he’s not really anywhere near the keeper and to his credit he tries to get out the way of the ball rather than trying to nick the goal for himself and get it ruled out in the process. Even when we praise the VAR guy though, we shouldn’t forget that for one of these decisions he was having to correct an error that the twerps on the field made. I think the thing that made me most angry towards Araki was when two Kashima players tackled each other, ending up in a heap on the floor. Araki apparently thought that counted as a half foul on them and decided to stop the match to let them get treatment, (neither of the players were actually injured), and then gave them the ball from the restart. Truly baffling nonsense from a predictably bad referee. Araki, go and do one. Kawamata, thank you again for your skills and knowledge.

Ahhh, lovely stuff. A win against horrible opposition a good old moan about the ref! Great times! Next up, Sagamihara at home in the Emperor’s Cup the Wednesday after next. I would say that presumably we’ll see some rotation in that match, but I’m not sure we have that many players to rotate right now. Hopefully we can all enjoy the little break and preserve the little bit of form we got back in this match. 

 

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi 
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 80')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya 

Subs

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
DF 4. JESIEL (on for MARUYAMA 46') (Yellow card 82')
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for MIURA 84')

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 78')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for ITO 46')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for IENAGA 90+3') 

FW 38. KANDA Soma

Goals

LEO CEARA (Kashima) 25' 0-1
ITO (Frontale) 25' 1-1
MARCINHO (Frontale) 58' 2-1

Highlights  

Vs Tokyo Verdy (away) 29/6/25 J League match 22

Tokyo Verdy 1 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale 

It’s been said a few times, but I think most people would agree that this was the worst Hasebe Frontale performance there has ever been. It was so bad, I don’t even know where to start moaning. It was an immensely frustrating game. Of course, anyone thinking we were the greatest team in the league after putting three past Albirex was definitely not right. But it was a shame to go from scoring three and attacking a bit to this match where we did absolutely nothing. Given how bad we were it feels like I should say the better team won the game. I can’t really say that though as Verdy were as crap as we were. There were some similarities between the two sides and one massive difference. Both teams looked like they’d struggle to score even if their first eleven were playing the oppositions under 7s five a side team. Both teams made error after error and couldn’t do any of the basic skills usually required for football. And most of all, apparently shared the same desire to repeatedly do the same thing, over and over, much to the frustration of their fans and to very little effect. We went with the ‘fantastic, silky’ pointless passing. They went with the hoof it forward as soon as possible. That was the one difference. Well, apart from the fact that they managed to score. It would have been a miracle if we had done so. It was an utterly pointless 90 minutes with the same problems rearing their heads again. This game has left me quite irritated.

Us - 

Utter shit. Maybe those two words might be all that is necessary. Our game was perfectly encapsulated in a period of about 90 seconds in the second half when we passed the ball around in our own half without ever leaving it, EVEN THOUGH WE WERE LOSING AND RUNNING OUT OF TIME. Fantastically beautiful possession football with absolutely no end product. We had five shots in a terrible first half, none of which were on target. Surely the only way was up, right? Not really. Apparently we had six shots, five of which were on target in the second but I don’t think we can honestly say that we ever troubled their keeper and instead just passed the ball directly to him instead of trying to shoot. 70% possession in that second half and fuck me it was dull. After I said in the last post that maybe our injury situation is getting better we lost Sung-Ryong in the warm up and Marcinho after 12 minutes. I know I’ve previously said that Marcinho should get a rest as he’s been playing a lot, but blimey after he went off, it was clear why Hasebe hasn’t dared rest him yet. If he’s seriously injured we are utterly fucked. A quick run through some of the performances. Wakizaka had a bad game. Oshima was anonymous. Soma had a couple of decent chances but headed both over. At least he tried to score. The other people who shot seemed not to want to score. Miyagi got a good chance to show what he can do in this match. If he did show what he can do, that’s a bit worrying because it was almost nothing. Even the usually reliable Sasaki and Miura had bad games. The Verdy goal came from a weird pass from Sasaki that Miura and Yamaguchi both seemed to not bother with that lead to the first of a series of corners which we inevitably conceded from. Yamaguchi made one save when the ball was kicked pretty much straight at him. I don’t know what he was doing for the goal. I do know that him diving after the ball had already passed him irritated me again. Tachibanada wasn’t very good. Yamada when he came on did exactly what you’d expect him to do right now, never ever fucking pass. There was one chance that particularly annoyed me when he tried to score through a couple of defenders from an impossible angle instead of fucking passing the ball. It’s really annoying that outside of the final third all we do is fucking pass and pass and then when passing might actually get us a goal, he tries to score from a ridiculous position. He shouldn’t be playing if he’s going to do this kind of thing. I think Hasebe knows it, but in this match it’s not like we really had any other option. After a dogshit first half I pondered what we might be able to do and didn’t really see anything on the bench that might help us. Never mind eh, Kashima lost so at least they didn’t extend their lead over is. It seems that when Kashima lose, we always also do. The thought that we are even in competition with them is ridiculous. And we’re playing them next. Confident? I’m not. We need a major rethink and even if that happens I’m not sure we have the players to pull off a win. Well, we have the players, but sadly most of them have forgotten how to play football. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep Kashima in single digits for goals scored. If we keep up that passing and possession we could hopefully grind out a 3-0 defeat. 

Them - 

Nothing much to say. Their football was as annoying as ours but in a different way. Matheus seems like a right moody git. I reckon a ref who was more keen to make a name for himself could well have sent him off for a second yellow for dissent, after he got his first yellow for… dissent. He was constantly moaning the whole game. Quite an unlikeable fellow. Nice of us to try to cheer him up by giving him a quiet 90 minutes and three gift-wrapped points. Verdy fans before the game were lamenting how terrible they had been recently, all of which in my mind meant that they had a nailed on win coming. And so it proved. The only possible bit of amusement I have is the weird use of quotation marks for the 

‘drinks’ break

Felt a bit like they were casting doubt on whether the players were actually drinking or doing something else. Maybe they were having soup. Even though you eat it, you are kind of drinking it, aren’t you? That must be it!



Ref and VAR -

I won’t go as far to say that this is the post where we lose and I say the ref had a good game as I was giving him some real stick during the match. But on checking the contentious decisions I noted down, I found he didn’t seem to have cocked up. He was a crackpot with the cards though. Nothing for ages and then once the seal was broken he was throwing them around like they were going out of fashion. I really don’t understand how their defender didn’t get one from knocking over Ito as he broke through. But perhaps if he had started giving them so early in the game we would have ended up with multiple sending offs. Maybe he was also worried about breaking the seal in a more conventional way, as I think he forgot the 

‘drinks’ break 

in the first half. I was a bit baffled to see a Verdy fan saying that he’d given us everything as I was very much of the opposite opinion. The truth probably is that with both teams playing so badly, both sets of fans probably wanted someone to vent their anger at. So, it’s not a ‘well done ref’ on this occasion, but he wasn’t a disaster. 

Next up Kashima at home on Saturday, And then the fan event on Sunday. The atmosphere is going to be a bit weird if we get hammered on Saturday. Takai won’t be at the latter as he’ll be traveling to Europe for a medical so presumably Saturday will be the last time we see him. Bit worrying that, isn’t it? Soon we might have an attack that can’t score and a defence that can’t keep goals out. And if the midfield is anything like it was on Sunday, well, you can probably rule them out too. Hopefully a midweek with no game might help us be a bit fresher, but seriously… looks like it’s not going to be much fun. By the way, if you’re wondering where the man of the match section has gone, I’ve run out of ways of saying everyone was shit so I’ve ditched it for now. What a weird season this has been. I can’t remember that many games where I’ve thought we’ve been good, but we’ve got the second best attack in the league according to the table. Absolutely insane. I was trying to think of the best league game this season, and even after looking at the results I can’t think of one where we’ve been anything approaching great. By contrast, there are no shortage of candidates for worst match of the season already. Maybe this season feels weird because we thought it would be a transition season and surprisingly we’ve done a bit better than expected. Bit of a miracle really. I think it’s time for Hasebe to start putting his mark on the team a bit more. Hopefully he can do that to good effect starting from Saturday. 

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi 
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya (Yellow card 69')
FW 38. KANDA Soma
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
DF 4. JESIEL
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for OSHIMA 46')

FW 10. YAMADA Shin (on for KANDA 46')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for TACHIBANADA 65') 
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 13') 
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for ITO 74')

Goals

FUKAZAWA (Verdy) 32' 1-0

Highlights