Kawasaki Frontale 4 - 0 Nagoya Grampus
Hmmm, what is this strange feeling? Perhaps some kind of optimism? It’s been a while. Even at the end of last year when we were getting some good results I still don’t think we could say we were that optimistic. But now… well, we can start to dream a little. I should add to this that there should be a massive caveat to all of this. We have only played two games and the quality of the opposition in both is perhaps a bit of a mystery at this time of year. But, well, eight goals scored and none conceded in two games is not to be sniffed at. Seven different goal scorers too. In this game we had four goals all scored by products of our academy. But, yes, it’s still early days, so whilst we can enjoy these two wins, let’s not get too carried away. With the next game fast approaching, I’m getting this post out with the usual lack of detail and plenty of snark that you’d expect.
First, let’s deal with some stuff about us. It was a bit of a bummer to lose Sasaki to injury so early on in the game, but maybe not a surprise when you consider the way Nagoya seemed to have come prepared to play. He picked up his injury after being booted in the waist/guts by a flying Nagoya player. Naturally, we didn’t get a free kick. The injury is a bit of a mystery as he walked off the pitch quite freely but it seemed clear quite quickly that he couldn’t continue. Maybe a rib or something. Not sure, but I hope it’s not serious. Ito not being anywhere near the squad suggests that he’s injured. Likewise the fact that we haven’t seen anything of Ienaga yet. But as I apparently never tire of saying recently, it’s a bit difficult to judge these things from just two games. And it probably won’t get any easier after our next dead rubber match in the ACL on Tuesday. I guess it will be interesting to see if we get rotation in that match. We almost lost Sai to injury too after he got elbowed in the face whilst jumping for a header. The ref thought it was only a yellow card worthy physical assault though. More about him later. Aside from commenting that it was great to see Yamauchi score and assist for a goal that perhaps only Miyagi or Erison would have had the nerve to try and score, I guess I should praise some players and zoom out a bit and say something about the game as a whole. There are plenty of people I can praise. Patrick Verhon did well I thought. Kawahara also had a really good game. And Miura is now really showing what he can do. I would praise Yamaguchi for his second consecutive clean sheet, but the fact is that in those two games the opposition have only had one shot on target so he hasn’t been very busy. Perhaps that’s due to Takai and Maruyama looking good and solid in front of him. I wonder if Maruyama left Nagoya in bad circumstances. I say this because he looked very happy to have beaten them.
First, let’s deal with some stuff about us. It was a bit of a bummer to lose Sasaki to injury so early on in the game, but maybe not a surprise when you consider the way Nagoya seemed to have come prepared to play. He picked up his injury after being booted in the waist/guts by a flying Nagoya player. Naturally, we didn’t get a free kick. The injury is a bit of a mystery as he walked off the pitch quite freely but it seemed clear quite quickly that he couldn’t continue. Maybe a rib or something. Not sure, but I hope it’s not serious. Ito not being anywhere near the squad suggests that he’s injured. Likewise the fact that we haven’t seen anything of Ienaga yet. But as I apparently never tire of saying recently, it’s a bit difficult to judge these things from just two games. And it probably won’t get any easier after our next dead rubber match in the ACL on Tuesday. I guess it will be interesting to see if we get rotation in that match. We almost lost Sai to injury too after he got elbowed in the face whilst jumping for a header. The ref thought it was only a yellow card worthy physical assault though. More about him later. Aside from commenting that it was great to see Yamauchi score and assist for a goal that perhaps only Miyagi or Erison would have had the nerve to try and score, I guess I should praise some players and zoom out a bit and say something about the game as a whole. There are plenty of people I can praise. Patrick Verhon did well I thought. Kawahara also had a really good game. And Miura is now really showing what he can do. I would praise Yamaguchi for his second consecutive clean sheet, but the fact is that in those two games the opposition have only had one shot on target so he hasn’t been very busy. Perhaps that’s due to Takai and Maruyama looking good and solid in front of him. I wonder if Maruyama left Nagoya in bad circumstances. I say this because he looked very happy to have beaten them.
Unlike against Pohang where we went with a 4-4-2 with Wakizaka up front alongside, (or perhaps slightly behind Yamada), in this match we were back to 4-3-3. But it differed a bit from late Oniki’s 4-2-3-1 and looked more like a 4-1-2-3 or maybe a 4-1-2-2-1, with one defensive midfielder, two attacking midfielders in front, two wide players and one central striker. Other people seem to disagree and say that we played with two defensive midfielders, but I think it was more a case of either Kawahara or Yamamoto staying back whilst the other surged forward. They seemed to be swapping positions quite smoothly. I always think that formations are kind of in the eye of the beholder anyway, but it definitely felt like there were always two midfielders ahead of one who was staying further back. (I realise that this sentence would be true in every situation except for when two or more of them are standing in a perfectly straight line, but you know what I mean, don’t you?). With no Ienaga in the team the wide players did stay a lot more in their positions too, which I think also really helps. I think maybe if Ienaga comes back into the team it should be more in a Wakizaka type spot so that we can preserve our width. This is all starting to sound a little too informed so let’s knock that on the head right now. To add a note of negativity to this overly positive post, once again, we were pretty average in the first half before coming into the game in the second, this match going very similarly to the one against Pohang. But if that is the way we play now and we keep getting these kind of results, I’m sure we’ll all be happy. 45 minutes to feel out the opposition before accelerating and taking advantage of what we’ve learned from the first half, smashing in goals for fun. Presumably this will all come crashing down soon, but it’s been fun while it has lasted.
I think there’s still a bit of bad feeling between us and Nagoya after their dubious match postponing antics a few seasons ago. Since then, we’ve struggled to do well against them, in spite of our intensified urge to beat them, Nagoya normally coming out on top. So this was a nice bit of revenge. And the physical approach they came with getting bested by our attacking is the perfect type of revenge. They were pretty dirty in the first half I thought, but we weren’t really getting much protection from the ref. The return of Mateus to their team looked like being something to worry about. I was surprised to see that his hair seems to have turned white. I guess that is due to the very real worry of going to Saudi Arabia for a big payday and discovering that you have so much money that you don’t know what to spend it on. Must be a terribly anxiety inducing situation. Along with their aim of booting us around the pitch, in the first half they did come quite close to troubling us. Thankfully their shooting wasn’t up to scratch. Right now we are probably getting a bit of luck go our way. Long may that continue! Mateus seemed to have a bit of a strop when he got subbed, walking straight down the tunnel. Lovely! Little was he to know that we were going to score from the free kick he ridiculously gifted us by catching the ball before it had left the pitch. Also lovely! Some Nagoya fans online seem to think the goal should have been ruled out for offside, one keyboard warrior saying that it was clearly offside, but wasn’t disallowed because VAR didn’t have the correct angle, somewhat undermining his conviction that there was any clarity there. Perhaps DAZN has angles that the VAR people don’t get, eh? It did look close though, so maybe we got a bit of luck go our way again. But then again, the whole VAR thing is supposed to be ruling out clear and obvious errors. I always think that this makes lengthy checks slightly less credible. We had to check over and over for literally minutes to have enough evidence that the mistake was so clear that it didn’t need lengthy checking… oh.
Whilst we’re on officiating, It would be remiss of me not to say that the ref Takasaki had another disaster of a game. We haven’t encountered him since 2023 and when writing about that game I said he was ‘by far the worst ref we’ve had for absolutely years!’. The intervening 18 months apparently haven’t changed him or my opinion of him. He was a disaster in the first half, making decisions apparently at random. I wondered if in search of the refereeing holy grail of consistency he thought his best chance of fulfilling the brief was to consistently give every decision to Nagoya. Consistent! Then maybe I thought that perhaps his attempt at consistency was to consistently get every decision wrong. But that wasn’t the case. It was just a big old mess of randomness. It seems he’s still only 32, so in theory he has plenty of time to improve, but given that everything I wrote about him in 2023 is still glaringly present in 2025, I suspect that however long you polish this turd of a ref, he’ll still be incompetent. It would be nice if the referees got even just a little bit better, but one thing that remains an absolute constant through every passing year is that the officials are useless and in the case of Takasaki, you could probably get more accurate results by rolling a dice to make the decisions rather than having someone who’s supposed to know what he is doing in charge. Never looks good to moan when you’ve won 4-0, but for refs, I think we all need to keep expressing how utterly terrible they are. It’s a tough job for sure, but it would be nice if they weren’t quite so shit at it, wouldn’t it?
Next up Central Coast Mariners at home in the ACL on Tuesday. They are rock bottom of the ACL group, so in theory this should be our easiest game of the campaign. Presumably a heavy defeat for us coming soon then! After that, we’re away to Kashiwa on Saturday. Fingers crossed we can keep these good times rolling through those two games.
Team
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
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 28. PATRICK VERHON
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO (Yellow card 3')
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 77')
FW 9. ERISON (on for YAMADA 82')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 82')
MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for PATRICK VERHON 77')
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai (on for SASAKI 16')
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
My Frontale Man Of The Match
Normally it would be easy to decide who to hand this award to after a 4-0 win, but truly, there were so many good performances that I think I’ll have to give it to…
THE WHOLE TEAM - well done everyone. Spreading the goals around and making it a joy to watch us again. Bravo!
THE WHOLE TEAM - well done everyone. Spreading the goals around and making it a joy to watch us again. Bravo!
Goals
TAKAI (Frontale) 58' 1-0
YAMADA (Frontale) 67' 2-0
YAMAUCHI (Frontale) 79' 3-0
MIYAGI (Frontale) 88' 4-0
Highlights
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