Kashiwa Reysol 1 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale
Hmmmm. Well that’s complicated things a little bit hasn’t it? Although there were some seeds of doubt sewn after the last slightly lacklustre match against Central Coast Mariners, we could say that the reason we were a bit rubbish was to do with us playing the reserves. We can’t say the same about this match though. We were back to almost full strength but our play was absolutely nowhere near any kind of concept of strength. Of course it’s still early days, so much too early to jump to any conclusions, but this match was quite reminiscent of mid to late period Oniki Frontale when it came to pointless passing at the back. The only twist being that instead of the passing being safe pointless passing, in this match every pointless pass came with a high level of danger. But I’m going to be slightly positive and say that this was in part due to Kashiwa being a fair bit better than in recent years. Thankfully they weren’t better enough to take all of their chances though. As there’s a not a great deal to say, (particularly when it comes to things other than “we were a bit crap”), let’s rattle through this.
What have we learnt from this game then? I’d say we can be sure that Yamaguchi is now definitely Hasebe’s first choice. Whether that is a good thing or not, well, I guess we’ll see when we face a more clinical team. Kashiwa had three shots on target in this game, so we finally had a chance to see what Yamaguchi can do. The two saves from the move in the first half that represented the first two of these were pretty good. There probably wasn’t much he could have done about their goal too as if they hadn’t scored after being given so much free space it would have been a crime against football. So, yeah, perhaps the jury is still out on him. I’m a bit confused about Ito and Ienaga, as I suspected both had been injured because they weren’t being included but then both were available today. Perhaps both were just minor injuries. With both involved today I’d say it’s clear that Ito is ahead of Ienaga for that starting spot. However, Patrick Verhon, whose position in the pecking order is also still a mystery was missing today so who knows what we can read into that. Still too early to work out if it’s just the fact that Hasebe rotates more, (and to be honest, everyone rotates more than recent Oniki). The problem today was just that we were so dull and lifeless. Of course at the start of this season we’ve come to expect a boring first half and then a stepping up of our level, but on this occasion us being boring coincided with the opposition trying to batter the door down, so a goalless and dull on our side first half looked like a real bonus. We struggled to even get out of our own half for most of it. Sadly the second half gear change didn’t really happen again. Well I guess we changed a little, maybe from neutral to first gear for a little while but then on occasions accidentally slipped into reverse. The second half was an improvement but that sounds a bit grand when you consider that the only possible way was up from the terrible (but fortunate) first half. I haven’t seen replays of what from my pretty bad angle looked like a certain penalty we were denied in the first half and our offside goal on the second half, but when I try to think of anything else of note in the game, all I can think of is the frustrating sight of our players trying to walk the ball directly though defenders and into the net. Yamada did not have a good game. Recently he never passes if he’s anywhere in the final third. We gave the ball away a lot and when we had it, more often than not did nothing with it. So not the most positive of performances. I was a bit confused by the subs. Kasahara wasn’t having a great game but Tachibanada had a dodgy one on Tuesday. And Ienaga on for Ito seemed like it would be a step backwards when it came to positive attacking (to be fair to him though, he did alright when he came on).
The problem was that nothing really worked at all, so maybe I should give some credit to Kashiwa, who I would say frustrated and nullified us, but to be honest I think a decent amount of nullification was self-inflicted. But it’s a great shame for us that they seem to have got their act together and no longer want to gift us goals. So a little praise for them here before I go on to make fun of the ridiculous music they played for their team announcement, an unusual and close to unlistenable mix of spaghetti western trumpets and Teutonic techno, all the time threatening to break into some classic J League style shit-rock, a style that is characterised by pounding electronic drum beats, weak trebly riffing and truly horrible fret-wanking. Aside from this ‘hilarious’ banter about their choice of music, all I have to say is that they defended stoutly, pissed around with the ball for an apparently random amount of time to lull us into a false sense of security and then attacked quickly and in numbers. We were lucky not to concede more. They were much better than us in the first half and I’m not sure I could say that we were sufficiently better than them in the second to deserve a draw. So with that in mind, let’s be kind of slightly positive. I don’t think they’ll finish near the bottom of the league this year, so maybe this will turn out to have been a pretty good result after all.
A few words on the ref. Without having seen replays of what I considered to be the two major dubious decisions in the match I’ll have to go with my gut on the large amount of other terrible decisions he made and say he was shit. I know there has been a rule change so that yellow cards don’t get handed out so often. However, on checking previous blog posts I’ve seen that Fukushima was always a ref that didn’t like to book players, so I guess it’s no surprise that he was even more reluctant this year. I can understand that maybe players getting bans from excessive yellows all the time is a drag, but I’m not sure the solution is to basically abandon the rules of the game. Yamada though on goal and hauled down by a defender, not even a yellow. Was delighted when the ref thwarted a promising Kashiwa attack by bringing play back for a Kashiwa free kick though. Great work Fukushima! In a way I guess I should just stop writing the ref section as we know they will be crap, and they are pretty much always crap, but you know, they are all crap in slightly different ways though. And they deserve having their feet held to the fire a little otherwise they might get even worse. Bring back Judge Replay on DAZN! Although I suppose that part of the reason it ended was because they were having to expose the incompetence of the refs on a weekly basis, so perhaps it wasn’t fulfilling the brief of educating the viewing public as to why decisions were made. After all, there are only so many ways you can say ‘the ref messed up’ before it all gets a bit repetitive. As I was in the front row of what is a pretty small stand, naturally my view wasn’t the best. But I’m pretty sure some of these moans are right. Hopefully… [A quick update, I’ve now checked the two ‘dubious’ decisions that went against us. The offside goal looks marginal and it seems that they only had one angle, (at least only one angle was shown on the replay), and looks a bit too close to have been checked so quickly but I do always say that VAR should be used for clear and obvious errors and this wasn’t really clear. Wouldn’t have minded a bit of a deeper check though, as with my Frontale cap on, I don’t think Marcinho is offside, particularly when you consider the linesman wasn’t level with the play and the replay isn’t properly side on either. But never mind, these things happen. The other major incident in the first half which I thought should be a penalty is a bit more confusing. Sure, the defender doesn’t know that Ito is about to appear in front of him when he swings his leg back to hoof the ball, but the fact that he does get between the defender and the ball and gets booted in the back of the leg but the ref gives a free kick to Kashiwa, seems a bit dubious. Actually, it seems baffling to me. Sure there was no intention but if a player accidentally handled in the box, I’m pretty sure it would be a penalty, so I don’t get what the difference is here. Perhaps it has a lot to do with the ref being pretty bad, but the VAR guy having an even lower profile. Basically the decision seems to have been that Ito fouled their defender either by hurting the defender’s foot by placing his leg in the way, or by unfairly surprising the poor delicate soul. The fact that Kashiwa fans behind the goal seem to be disgusted by Ito’s ‘foul’ is more than a little surprising. So, I reckon we were definitely robbed in at least one way, but you know, as we weren’t great, I’m not going to get too upset about it.]
I don’t know why I’m devoting a paragraph of its own to this, but what’s with the new goal kick thing that lots of teams are doing, where the centre back takes it and passes it to the keeper to start the usual interminable extremely slow build? I don’t think there’s been a rule change that has made this a desirable thing to do. I can’t work out why it is a desirable thing to do to be honest, as more often than not in this match it resulted in either a centre back or the keeper slice-hoofing the ball clear to an opposition midfielder. Maybe all J League managers saw a big foreign team doing it and thought that it had to immediately be implemented in the J League. I was initially kind of irritated that we’d come up with a new way to waste set pieces but then noticed that we were not alone and everyone was doing it. Anyway, I haven’t described it very clearly, but if you know what’s going on, please let me know as I’m a bit baffled.
Next up Avispa away on Wednesday for the Hasebe derby, (can we call it that? Perhaps…). They haven’t had a good start to the season and whilst we’d had a pretty good one, (at least until today), these kind of games where a team faces their recently departed manager do tend to go the way of revenge sometimes, so I’m not massively optimistic about it. But at the same time when you consider how much didn’t work in this game, you’ve got to think it’s good to get back in the saddle quickly and sort things out. There you go! It took me until right at the end, but I’ve found just a touch of that recently discovered Frontale Rabbit optimism again.
What have we learnt from this game then? I’d say we can be sure that Yamaguchi is now definitely Hasebe’s first choice. Whether that is a good thing or not, well, I guess we’ll see when we face a more clinical team. Kashiwa had three shots on target in this game, so we finally had a chance to see what Yamaguchi can do. The two saves from the move in the first half that represented the first two of these were pretty good. There probably wasn’t much he could have done about their goal too as if they hadn’t scored after being given so much free space it would have been a crime against football. So, yeah, perhaps the jury is still out on him. I’m a bit confused about Ito and Ienaga, as I suspected both had been injured because they weren’t being included but then both were available today. Perhaps both were just minor injuries. With both involved today I’d say it’s clear that Ito is ahead of Ienaga for that starting spot. However, Patrick Verhon, whose position in the pecking order is also still a mystery was missing today so who knows what we can read into that. Still too early to work out if it’s just the fact that Hasebe rotates more, (and to be honest, everyone rotates more than recent Oniki). The problem today was just that we were so dull and lifeless. Of course at the start of this season we’ve come to expect a boring first half and then a stepping up of our level, but on this occasion us being boring coincided with the opposition trying to batter the door down, so a goalless and dull on our side first half looked like a real bonus. We struggled to even get out of our own half for most of it. Sadly the second half gear change didn’t really happen again. Well I guess we changed a little, maybe from neutral to first gear for a little while but then on occasions accidentally slipped into reverse. The second half was an improvement but that sounds a bit grand when you consider that the only possible way was up from the terrible (but fortunate) first half. I haven’t seen replays of what from my pretty bad angle looked like a certain penalty we were denied in the first half and our offside goal on the second half, but when I try to think of anything else of note in the game, all I can think of is the frustrating sight of our players trying to walk the ball directly though defenders and into the net. Yamada did not have a good game. Recently he never passes if he’s anywhere in the final third. We gave the ball away a lot and when we had it, more often than not did nothing with it. So not the most positive of performances. I was a bit confused by the subs. Kasahara wasn’t having a great game but Tachibanada had a dodgy one on Tuesday. And Ienaga on for Ito seemed like it would be a step backwards when it came to positive attacking (to be fair to him though, he did alright when he came on).
The problem was that nothing really worked at all, so maybe I should give some credit to Kashiwa, who I would say frustrated and nullified us, but to be honest I think a decent amount of nullification was self-inflicted. But it’s a great shame for us that they seem to have got their act together and no longer want to gift us goals. So a little praise for them here before I go on to make fun of the ridiculous music they played for their team announcement, an unusual and close to unlistenable mix of spaghetti western trumpets and Teutonic techno, all the time threatening to break into some classic J League style shit-rock, a style that is characterised by pounding electronic drum beats, weak trebly riffing and truly horrible fret-wanking. Aside from this ‘hilarious’ banter about their choice of music, all I have to say is that they defended stoutly, pissed around with the ball for an apparently random amount of time to lull us into a false sense of security and then attacked quickly and in numbers. We were lucky not to concede more. They were much better than us in the first half and I’m not sure I could say that we were sufficiently better than them in the second to deserve a draw. So with that in mind, let’s be kind of slightly positive. I don’t think they’ll finish near the bottom of the league this year, so maybe this will turn out to have been a pretty good result after all.
A few words on the ref. Without having seen replays of what I considered to be the two major dubious decisions in the match I’ll have to go with my gut on the large amount of other terrible decisions he made and say he was shit. I know there has been a rule change so that yellow cards don’t get handed out so often. However, on checking previous blog posts I’ve seen that Fukushima was always a ref that didn’t like to book players, so I guess it’s no surprise that he was even more reluctant this year. I can understand that maybe players getting bans from excessive yellows all the time is a drag, but I’m not sure the solution is to basically abandon the rules of the game. Yamada though on goal and hauled down by a defender, not even a yellow. Was delighted when the ref thwarted a promising Kashiwa attack by bringing play back for a Kashiwa free kick though. Great work Fukushima! In a way I guess I should just stop writing the ref section as we know they will be crap, and they are pretty much always crap, but you know, they are all crap in slightly different ways though. And they deserve having their feet held to the fire a little otherwise they might get even worse. Bring back Judge Replay on DAZN! Although I suppose that part of the reason it ended was because they were having to expose the incompetence of the refs on a weekly basis, so perhaps it wasn’t fulfilling the brief of educating the viewing public as to why decisions were made. After all, there are only so many ways you can say ‘the ref messed up’ before it all gets a bit repetitive. As I was in the front row of what is a pretty small stand, naturally my view wasn’t the best. But I’m pretty sure some of these moans are right. Hopefully… [A quick update, I’ve now checked the two ‘dubious’ decisions that went against us. The offside goal looks marginal and it seems that they only had one angle, (at least only one angle was shown on the replay), and looks a bit too close to have been checked so quickly but I do always say that VAR should be used for clear and obvious errors and this wasn’t really clear. Wouldn’t have minded a bit of a deeper check though, as with my Frontale cap on, I don’t think Marcinho is offside, particularly when you consider the linesman wasn’t level with the play and the replay isn’t properly side on either. But never mind, these things happen. The other major incident in the first half which I thought should be a penalty is a bit more confusing. Sure, the defender doesn’t know that Ito is about to appear in front of him when he swings his leg back to hoof the ball, but the fact that he does get between the defender and the ball and gets booted in the back of the leg but the ref gives a free kick to Kashiwa, seems a bit dubious. Actually, it seems baffling to me. Sure there was no intention but if a player accidentally handled in the box, I’m pretty sure it would be a penalty, so I don’t get what the difference is here. Perhaps it has a lot to do with the ref being pretty bad, but the VAR guy having an even lower profile. Basically the decision seems to have been that Ito fouled their defender either by hurting the defender’s foot by placing his leg in the way, or by unfairly surprising the poor delicate soul. The fact that Kashiwa fans behind the goal seem to be disgusted by Ito’s ‘foul’ is more than a little surprising. So, I reckon we were definitely robbed in at least one way, but you know, as we weren’t great, I’m not going to get too upset about it.]
I don’t know why I’m devoting a paragraph of its own to this, but what’s with the new goal kick thing that lots of teams are doing, where the centre back takes it and passes it to the keeper to start the usual interminable extremely slow build? I don’t think there’s been a rule change that has made this a desirable thing to do. I can’t work out why it is a desirable thing to do to be honest, as more often than not in this match it resulted in either a centre back or the keeper slice-hoofing the ball clear to an opposition midfielder. Maybe all J League managers saw a big foreign team doing it and thought that it had to immediately be implemented in the J League. I was initially kind of irritated that we’d come up with a new way to waste set pieces but then noticed that we were not alone and everyone was doing it. Anyway, I haven’t described it very clearly, but if you know what’s going on, please let me know as I’m a bit baffled.
Next up Avispa away on Wednesday for the Hasebe derby, (can we call it that? Perhaps…). They haven’t had a good start to the season and whilst we’d had a pretty good one, (at least until today), these kind of games where a team faces their recently departed manager do tend to go the way of revenge sometimes, so I’m not massively optimistic about it. But at the same time when you consider how much didn’t work in this game, you’ve got to think it’s good to get back in the saddle quickly and sort things out. There you go! It took me until right at the end, but I’ve found just a touch of that recently discovered Frontale Rabbit optimism again.
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 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for KAWAHARA 62')
FW 9. ERISON (on for YAMADA 82')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto (on for MIURA 82')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 82')
MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for ITO 72')
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
My Frontale Man Of The Match
Hmmm not a massive amount of options here, but I’ll give it out in the interest of saying something positive. If his goal had been allowed, Ito might have got this for sentimental reasons, but as aside from that well taken finish he didn’t do that much, I’ll give it to…
MARUYAMA Yuichi and MIURA Sota - the former seems to have really come on recently and is a crucial part in Takai doing reasonably well I think. He also seemed to be giving advice and encouragement to lots of players so I think his influence is a lot greater than we might think. Miura’s crossing is great and he can really take a set piece well. Great assist for the goal. I suspect he is going to have a stand out season this year. Hopefully that doesn’t mean we’ll lose him to the Belgium second division too soon.
MARUYAMA Yuichi and MIURA Sota - the former seems to have really come on recently and is a crucial part in Takai doing reasonably well I think. He also seemed to be giving advice and encouragement to lots of players so I think his influence is a lot greater than we might think. Miura’s crossing is great and he can really take a set piece well. Great assist for the goal. I suspect he is going to have a stand out season this year. Hopefully that doesn’t mean we’ll lose him to the Belgium second division too soon.
Goals
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 50' 0-1
KOIZUMI (Kashiwa) 57' 1-1
Highlights
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