Here's part two of my end of season individual player round up posts. Today it goes from Kobayashi to Miyagi. Part one is here and part three should be up tomorrow. All the end of season posts can be found here.
11. Yu KOBAYASHI (FW)
AP 37 M 1033 G 5 AS 2 Y 1 YY 0 R 0
A bit of a weird season for Kobayashi, and perhaps a transitional one. I think we all expect him to stay at the club for the whole of his career as I believe he’s been promised a position with us after he retires from playing. Given that he’s 37, this could be happening sooner rather than later. The fact that he featured 37 times but only played just over one thousand minutes hints at the fact that more often than not his appearances were only right at the end of games. He did show that he can still score goals and contribute though. I hope he will be satisfied with taking more of a back seat going forward as he has clearly been a great servant to the club. And the fact that his minutes per goal were the same as Marcinho suggest that he still has plenty to give. He got injured in Kengo’s retirement game but hopefully that won’t be too serious and won’t affect next year too much.
13. Sota MIURA (DF)
AP 35 M 2771 G 3 AS 5 Y 2 YY 0 R 0
In his first season with us, Miura has had his ups and downs but I think it has been a generally positive one for him. There were definitely high expectations for him, particularly as he got a look in for the national team last year. Naturally, given how bad our season was, those kind of ambitions had to be put on hold a bit, but I think towards the end of the year he really started to show his worth again. Absolutely much better at going forward than defending, but that does seem to be the way with full backs at Frontale. His free kicks have been pretty good for us too. Sadly he seems to have been taking corner kick lessons from Wakizaka as they didn’t seem to work out so well. Seems to have settled in well with the rest of the squad and I suspect that he’ll have an even better 2025. Fingers crossed.
14. Yasuto WAKIZAKA (MF)
AP 47 M 3833 G 8 AS 9 Y 2 YY 0 R 0
Something of a tough year for Wakizaka. Again the player who got our captaincy suffered from a severe drop off in form. But he was still a very important player for us. This was definitely not his best season though. To be negative, his corners are still horrible, he wasn’t dropped when others around him who were playing better were, and when he got injured and was out of the team, we got our best results of the year. On the positive side he did surprisingly well when moved to the right wing and got the most assists in the squad and a decent amount of goals. He was once again very emotional at the end of the season which last year I interpreted as him being about to leave, which he obviously didn’t. His speech at the end of this season suggested that he is staying. Maybe this is something to do with him being injured though. However, clearly he’s not getting any younger so perhaps if he wants to move overseas it will have to be sooner rather than later, But perhaps he’s settled into being the new Kengo in more ways than just wearing number 14. Interested to see what happens with a new manager and new ideas.
15. Shuto TANABE (DF)
AP 9 M 258 G 0 AS 0 Y 2 YY 0 R 0
Another quiet season for Tanabe, but he did get on the bench quite a bit. Perhaps this had more to do with our defensive injuries though. However, I feel that sitting on the bench and in the stands isn’t going to help him develop. Perhaps he’s another who is waiting to see where he stands under a new manager. Seem to remember there was a period at one stage in the season where Tanabe was the expert at being subbed on and immediately getting a yellow which is quite a skill. But I guess it does suggest that he is really trying to take his chances when he gets them.
16. Tatsuki SEKO (MF)
AP 35 M 1931 G 1 AS 4 Y 2 YY 0 R 0
The latest victim of the Frontale Rabbit shirt curse. If I buy someone’s shirt they then leave shortly afterwards. At least for Seko his departure was probably a step up, moving to the Stoke in the Championship. I think that he should have played more when he was with us, but Oniki had other ideas. There’s something kind of strange that under Oniki, players who he wasn’t quite sure about were the ones who moved on to a higher level. In his time with us, I thought he was our best set piece taker and a player who more often than not looked to go forward rather than meekly retain the ball. Sometimes this made it look like he was losing the ball a lot, but if you don’t take a chance you’re never going to score. I think we’ll miss him but once again we have too many midfielders so it’s not a great surprise that some of them want to leave because they’re not playing much.
17. Daiya TONO (FW)
AP 51 M 2415 G 6 AS 6 Y 4 YY 0 R 0
Only four players in the squad were involved in more games than he was in 2024. But plenty of players who played less games played more minutes than he did, (including Ominami, who left half way through the season…). As far as I knew, Tono was a striker, but the amount of time he spent playing in that position was severely limited in 2024. Got a decent amount of goals and assists for the time he was on the pitch, but the massive amount of appearances perhaps took the shine off those figures a bit. The most interesting thing is perhaps the fact that he has decided to leave us for a bunch of sailors down the road. If Oniki was still in charge, perhaps it might be understandable as maybe he wanted to play more in his preferred position and get more starts. The interesting twist is that the manager who he played under when on loan to Avispa and who desperately wanted to sign him is now in charge of us and Tono has left. I don’t know what this means, but it’s definitely interesting and perhaps slightly worrying for our 2024 prospects. I usually say good luck to players leaving us, but as he’s gone to YFM, it’s a little hard for me to think that way. Yes, I am very petty. But I don't hold it against him, so maybe I want him to score every game but for Marinos to lose every game.
18. Bafetimbi GOMIS (FW)
AP 15 M 636 G 3 AS 0 Y 1 YY 0 R 0
His signing was another bizarre piece of business from our club, given that he seemed to be brought in to replace Damiao, who was at the same time getting too old but significantly younger than his replacement. I don’t think our system suited him and I don’t think he ever got to show us what he could really do. But at least we got to see his goal celebration in the first half of the one game he scored all of his goals for us in. I don’t know if part of the reason for his singing was for him to pass on his experience to the younger players. Certainly he seems to have had an impact on Kanda, who Gomis thinks will be a great player in the future. Given the fact that we signed Chanathip and then let him rot in the stands, whilst enjoying the commercial benefits of him being a Frontale player, I suspect that getting Gomis might be the latest equivalent signing and the real reason for him joining could have been a bit more cynical. Someone who can raise people’s awareness of our club but might not necessarily play much. It doesn’t particularly seem like a good way to run a football club, but what do I know? I’m glad that he seemed to enjoy his time in Japan and that he still feels an attachment to us. There’s no doubt he’s a very nice guy. I just wish he could have had a bigger impact as I’m sure that’s what he was hoping for.
19. So KAWAHARA
AP 18 M 1124 G 0 AS 0 Y 2 YY 0 R 0
A mid season signing to reinforce the area that… we had absolutely loads of cover for. Which is a bit bizarre, but that’s the way things seem to go with our club recently. Seemed to come in banging but then dropped off a bit. He was great for his first few games, but I felt a bit sorry for him as when he was playing well, the team as a whole was playing pretty badly. Didn’t make as many appearances towards the end of the season but I can’t really blame Oniki for not changing things much when we finally started playing a bit better. Can’t help but feel that he was signed to fit into a system that we stopped playing shortly after he joined. Hopefully he’ll have a decent start under a new manager as I thought he did well when he had the chance. Oh, and he’s probably our best corner taker now.
20. Shin YAMADA (FW)
AP 56 M 2769 G 21 AS 6 Y 3 YY 0 R 0
Goals galore from Yamada, but quite a lot of them came late on in the season. Our top scorer and came close to being the league’s top scorer so clearly had a good season. Love the fact that he seems to be able to bulldoze his way though opposition defenders with the ball glued to his boot. And that he is definitely a 100% effort player. And of course love his new Vai De La technique. Not as keen on the fact that there were quite a few occasions where instead of passing the ball for a guaranteed goal he instead tried to score himself and failed. Also, he’s not so useful at the other end of the pitch. In the 5-4 win against Verdy, Yamada was directly involved in most of the goals, at both ends of the pitch. Clearly he’s not in the team to defend though. 2025 will be an interesting year for him. If he keeps scoring he will presumably attract more attention so it might just be a matter of how long we can keep hold of him.
21. Shunsuke ANDO (GK)
AP 0 M 0 G 0 AS 0 Y 0 YY 0 R 0
Nothing to say here again apart from once again I feel sorry for Ando as he seems destined to never have a chance no matter how many inujuries the keepers ahead of him get. Wasn’t named in the ACL squad which could suggest he’s leaving, but I can’t really imagine that will happen. Maybe he’ll get more of a chance under the new manager, but I suspect he won’t. Definitely approaching Frontale legend status though not for the usual reasons you might expect.
22. Yuki HAYASAKA (GK)
AP 1 M 90 G 0 AS 0 Y 0 YY 0 R 0
Feel sorry for him as in his one start he conceded three goals. I don’t think he can be blamed for that though as we were just woeful at that stage of the season. Immediately after that game we got Yamaguchi in and that was the last we saw of Hayasaka. Going on loan to Iwaki next year which will probably do him the world of good. With Yamaguchi joining permanently, going out on loan and actually playing some football should be a good next step for Hayasaka.
23. MARCINHO (FW)
AP 54 M 3308 G 16 AS 3 Y 4 YY 1 R 2
It’s all been happening for Marcinho in 2024. A decent amount of goals, loads of minutes, three red cards, some sublime moments of skill and an equal number of not so good passes after good runs. Has definitely been in and out of form, but even in his worst moments, still seemed like he was Oniki’s first choice. And for long periods of the season he was our only route to goal, which was a bit scary. There were some rumours that he might be leaving and to be honest, I don’t know how I feel about that. Feel sorry for him with his red cards as clearly he can’t tackle and the awful state we were in meant that he was getting in more situations where he needed to try to tackle. Feel like we’ve relied too heavily on him for too long. But as with many of these player write ups, I just have to say, if he stays, we’ll see what happens under our new manager.
24. Ten MIYAGI (FW)
AP 5 M 89 G 0 AS 1 Y 0 YY 0 R 0
After a few years away Miyagi was back, perhaps due to being injured at the end of his last loan spell. As far as I could tell from his limited time on the pitch for us this year, he still seems to be the same kind of player and have the same issues, in that he looks good but doesn’t really deliver. Certainly he hasn’t been helped by his injuries and may benefit from a fresh start with a new manager, but I imagine if he wants to further his career, he might be better off doing it elsewhere, at least for the time being.
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