Avispa Fukuoka 1 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale
Another win! Maybe we don’t want to go into too much detail about the game though as it wasn’t the most exciting or uplifting match. One thing that was kind of interesting though was the proof of the power of my reverse jinxing. Before the game I posited that recently we seem to have reverted back into Oniki like line ups, tactics and performances. To prove me wrong we came out firing in this match and I felt a bit stupid. Right up until I wrote ‘we’ve had a good positive start’ and then we proceeded to do nothing at all positive for the next 30 mins. I am also taking credit for Erison’s goal. Literally 10 seconds before he scored I said perhaps factually inaccurately to my wife, ‘Erison hasn’t even had a touch yet’ and then he scored a cracker. I’d love to say I’m using these reverse jinxes as a way to make us do well, but the amount of times I moaned about certain players being pretty average in this match resulting in them continuing to do exactly that suggests otherwise. Clearly this was never going to be as easy a game as it perhaps looked like it might be on paper. Avispa were winless and had lost a few important players since we last played them. Also we now have their old manager who presumably knows all of their secrets. (Apparently this is why we changed ends when given the option, Hasebe saying that he knew that they are more likely to score in the second half when shooting towards their own supporters if the atmosphere is good). But at the same time there was probably a feeling in the club that they might want to get one over on their old manager so previous results and form, (if you can even talk about form so early on in the season), go out the window. And of course, we have a reputation for not doing particularly well in Kyushu. But we managed to get the job done. As I’m currently on a train, not due home for hours and I have to work tomorrow and then we have a game on Saturday, let’s not go into too much detail and get this done.
As I said above, far from a convincing win or performance, so excuse me for being slightly negative. Tachibanada had another game to forget, Wakizaka did some nice touches but made more horrible mistakes, both of the centre backs lived very dangerously at times and the Avispa goal looked extremely soft with our defenders turning off completely. Yamada passed occasionally but in general dribbled and dribbled till he lost the ball or blasted over. I feel like I’m being a bit harsh on him, but I don’t think he deserves to be an automatic selection on this form. This is perhaps my big point in this post. I’ll be very encouraged if Hasebe rotates this weekend as certain definite starters either need a rest, or need a bit of a kick up the backside to let them know they won’t necessarily always play. Oniki never did this, so I hope that Hasebe will. I think Erison should start at the weekend, particularly as he scored. No one is ever going to play themselves into form by just getting only eight minutes at the end of each match. Therefore it was nice to see Erison come on a bit earlier and score. I think if Yamada scored he'd keep his spot, (unless we’re playing much weaker opposition and might do wholesale rotation), so in theory Erison should start on Saturday. It’s still early in the season so talking about resting players might seem premature, but we have had a fairly intense schedule so far. I’d say Wakizaka needs a rest too. And given that Ienaga did pretty well in this game, why not give him a go in that position? I think it might suit him better. Although in this match he did seem to be under instructions to not wander as much and did stay on the right more than I would have expected. But in that spot on the right we have Ito, Verhon and maybe even Yamauchi, so why not give one of them a go? Whilst we’re being positive, I think one good change from Oniki Frontale to Hasebe Frontale is the fact that we’re crossing the ball a lot more. We had two headed goals in this match from great deliveries by Miura and Ito. This is one aspect of 2025 Frontale that we can definitely be pleased with. Also we seem to be a bit more direct, or at least we’ve cut out about 50% of the intensely pointless pissing / passing around. On occasion during a potentially promising attack we revert to Oniki style passing back to the centre back, but I think we might be moving slightly beyond passing for passing's sake. Praise the lord! I still think it’s too early to draw any strong conclusions, particularly as many opposition teams are slightly unknown quantities at this stage, but considering we’re a work in progress, seven points out of nine is a pretty positive return so far. So as much as I’m moaning, (you would have been particularly aware of this if you were anywhere near me in the stands), you’ve got to be at least a little pleased with how things are going so far. As no one likes too much positivity on here, I should say that whilst it is also too early to judge players too, I’m still not convinced by Yamaguchi as first choice goalkeeper. Of course I’m a big Sung-Ryong fan so this makes me biased, but I don’t feel completely sure about Yamaguchi in goal right now. I’m not saying he should be dropped, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything that gives me a great deal of confidence in him yet. Sure, he’s made a few good saves, but the goal in this game looked soft, (but admittedly it was mainly the defence’s fault), so I’m hoping we’re not repeating the same mistakes as last year and that Yamaguchi isn’t the new Kamifukumoto. But take this as more of a fingers crossed comment than a criticism as he’s not ‘done a Kami’ up till this point, so I should probably just shut up.
Hmmm, feels like we’re approaching the end of this post and no mention of the ref or opposition. Let’s just say that Nago is a diving wanker but just about managed to stop himself leaving the field of play as he twizzled his way back and forth like some kind of slightly chubby Catherine Wheel that hadn’t been anchored quite right after a challenge that he thought deserved an immediate prison sentence for our player. And Ben Khalifa similarly was strongly appealing for a red card for a challenge that didn’t even warrant a free kick. Nago is ex-Kashima so I guess that’s where his wankerness comes from. As for Ben Khalifa, well people normally associate the Swiss with measured neutrality, but maybe this needs to be reassessed. I think it’s probably not a coincidence that he was taken off at half time shortly afterwards as he seemed to be doing his nut. The ref was Kimura and gave out cards pretty easily as I think he usually does. Was a bit worried when Marcinho did a classic Marcinho tackle in the second half. Thankfully it didn’t have the usual red card result though. I don’t have much of a beef with Kimura otherwise. Don’t often say that I guess, so I’ll put it down to him being merely not very good, as opposed to the usual refs who operate more on the disastrous level.
So that’s it. I know this is detail light but what were you expecting? I feel bad moaning at all given that we’re winning games. But I get the feeling that we’ve been a bit lucky in a few of our matches. Hopefully we’ll see some rotation in the next match and a decent performance. Competition for places is always a good thing and it’s something that hasn’t been paid much attention to in the past. Fingers crossed for another win against Kyoto on Saturday.
As I said above, far from a convincing win or performance, so excuse me for being slightly negative. Tachibanada had another game to forget, Wakizaka did some nice touches but made more horrible mistakes, both of the centre backs lived very dangerously at times and the Avispa goal looked extremely soft with our defenders turning off completely. Yamada passed occasionally but in general dribbled and dribbled till he lost the ball or blasted over. I feel like I’m being a bit harsh on him, but I don’t think he deserves to be an automatic selection on this form. This is perhaps my big point in this post. I’ll be very encouraged if Hasebe rotates this weekend as certain definite starters either need a rest, or need a bit of a kick up the backside to let them know they won’t necessarily always play. Oniki never did this, so I hope that Hasebe will. I think Erison should start at the weekend, particularly as he scored. No one is ever going to play themselves into form by just getting only eight minutes at the end of each match. Therefore it was nice to see Erison come on a bit earlier and score. I think if Yamada scored he'd keep his spot, (unless we’re playing much weaker opposition and might do wholesale rotation), so in theory Erison should start on Saturday. It’s still early in the season so talking about resting players might seem premature, but we have had a fairly intense schedule so far. I’d say Wakizaka needs a rest too. And given that Ienaga did pretty well in this game, why not give him a go in that position? I think it might suit him better. Although in this match he did seem to be under instructions to not wander as much and did stay on the right more than I would have expected. But in that spot on the right we have Ito, Verhon and maybe even Yamauchi, so why not give one of them a go? Whilst we’re being positive, I think one good change from Oniki Frontale to Hasebe Frontale is the fact that we’re crossing the ball a lot more. We had two headed goals in this match from great deliveries by Miura and Ito. This is one aspect of 2025 Frontale that we can definitely be pleased with. Also we seem to be a bit more direct, or at least we’ve cut out about 50% of the intensely pointless pissing / passing around. On occasion during a potentially promising attack we revert to Oniki style passing back to the centre back, but I think we might be moving slightly beyond passing for passing's sake. Praise the lord! I still think it’s too early to draw any strong conclusions, particularly as many opposition teams are slightly unknown quantities at this stage, but considering we’re a work in progress, seven points out of nine is a pretty positive return so far. So as much as I’m moaning, (you would have been particularly aware of this if you were anywhere near me in the stands), you’ve got to be at least a little pleased with how things are going so far. As no one likes too much positivity on here, I should say that whilst it is also too early to judge players too, I’m still not convinced by Yamaguchi as first choice goalkeeper. Of course I’m a big Sung-Ryong fan so this makes me biased, but I don’t feel completely sure about Yamaguchi in goal right now. I’m not saying he should be dropped, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything that gives me a great deal of confidence in him yet. Sure, he’s made a few good saves, but the goal in this game looked soft, (but admittedly it was mainly the defence’s fault), so I’m hoping we’re not repeating the same mistakes as last year and that Yamaguchi isn’t the new Kamifukumoto. But take this as more of a fingers crossed comment than a criticism as he’s not ‘done a Kami’ up till this point, so I should probably just shut up.
Hmmm, feels like we’re approaching the end of this post and no mention of the ref or opposition. Let’s just say that Nago is a diving wanker but just about managed to stop himself leaving the field of play as he twizzled his way back and forth like some kind of slightly chubby Catherine Wheel that hadn’t been anchored quite right after a challenge that he thought deserved an immediate prison sentence for our player. And Ben Khalifa similarly was strongly appealing for a red card for a challenge that didn’t even warrant a free kick. Nago is ex-Kashima so I guess that’s where his wankerness comes from. As for Ben Khalifa, well people normally associate the Swiss with measured neutrality, but maybe this needs to be reassessed. I think it’s probably not a coincidence that he was taken off at half time shortly afterwards as he seemed to be doing his nut. The ref was Kimura and gave out cards pretty easily as I think he usually does. Was a bit worried when Marcinho did a classic Marcinho tackle in the second half. Thankfully it didn’t have the usual red card result though. I don’t have much of a beef with Kimura otherwise. Don’t often say that I guess, so I’ll put it down to him being merely not very good, as opposed to the usual refs who operate more on the disastrous level.
So that’s it. I know this is detail light but what were you expecting? I feel bad moaning at all given that we’re winning games. But I get the feeling that we’ve been a bit lucky in a few of our matches. Hopefully we’ll see some rotation in the next match and a decent performance. Competition for places is always a good thing and it’s something that hasn’t been paid much attention to in the past. Fingers crossed for another win against Kyoto on Saturday.
Team
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota (Yellow card 24')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (Yellow card 33')
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO (Yellow card 78')
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 69')
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
FW 9. ERISON (on for YAMADA 69')
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 69')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for TACHIBANADA 58')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 81')
MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 28. PATRICK VERHON
My Frontale Man Of The Match
There aren’t that many people to chose from for this but given that I thought his inclusion might have been a mistake and then he proved me wrong, let’s give it to…
IENAGA Akihiro - broadly stuck to the right hand side, showed plenty of energy, scored a nice goal and got peed off in the way that I like to see him do.
IENAGA Akihiro - broadly stuck to the right hand side, showed plenty of energy, scored a nice goal and got peed off in the way that I like to see him do.
Goals
BEN KHALIFA (Avispa) 15' 1-0
IENAGA (Frontale) 42' 1-1
ERISON (Frontale) 85' 1-2
Highlights
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