JEF Utd 0 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale
(Frontale win 9-8 on penalties)
After the barn-storming yet pant-squeaking start to the season we made against Kashiwa last week, I guess there was only ever going to be one way to go when it came to excitement. That’s perhaps underselling it a bit as this was an end to end game. But on this occasion end to end meant something like a kids game where they all chase after the ball one way and then someone steps on it and falls over, at which point they all charge up the other end of the pitch and someone shoots, slicing the ball so badly that it barely touches the ground before it goes off for a throw (this actually happened with one of their attacks). To be fair to JEF, their shots on target required Brodersen to have to make a good save most of the time. Whereas our shots could for the most part have been stopped by a solitary bowling pin placed in the middle of the goal. But the both sides scored the same amount of goals. I’m writing this after getting home so that game is fresh in my mind. I am also writing this after getting home in order for me to be able to move on and forget about this match as soon as possible.
First half -
Not the best first half. They had a lot of good chances but we came into it a bit at the end and probably could have done without half time coming when it did. Wakizaka and Yamamoto not with it again. Ref utterly corrupt as predicted. JEF Utd., or as I should probably call them because I don’t know them very well, Jeffrey United, were quite a physical team. It wouldn’t be crazy to use the word cloggers I feel.
Second half -
Much like the first really. Lots of chances for both teams but a low chance of any chances becoming good chances and therefore no chance of goals really, just wasted chances. What are the chances of that!? Last week we looked like we could score at will and were getting goals for fun. This week it looked like there would be more chance of taking the train through Maihama and not seeing any Disney related merchandise than there would be of a goal being scored. A back and forth battle fighting for the privilege of failing to take chances. Credit to JEF, their defence looked a lot more solid than Kashiwa’s. But we definitely should have tested it a bit more.
Penalties -
I was hoping we might go through the whole season without having to do the ridiculous 90 minutes and then straight to penalties thing, but that hope has been dashed quickly. Our penalties looked good for the most part. Brodersen looked like he wasn’t going to stop any of theirs. But then he did, so bravo to him!
Good day -
Good day for people who like seeing penalties scored. Even though I think having penalties at the end of every drawn match makes the league look like a joke, on this occasion they did at least allow us to come away with the feeling that we’d achieved something. Also another good day for Matsunagane, (well, up until the shoot out…), who is still playing out of position and blocked at least four goal bound shots. I don’t think anyone could have expected that he’d have started the first two games at centre back and have done really well.
Bad day -
Bad day for fans of clinical finishing. Both teams struggled to even hit the target and pretty much all of our ‘shots’ on target were most definitely in the pea roller category. And another bad day for Yamamoto and Wakizaka. They were very underwhelming again. I’m not sure if the fact that the ball was for the most part hoofed over them was the cause for this, or whether it was vice versa, and them not doing very well was the reason for the hoofing. Also a bad day for people who get annoyed by fans' hot takes on the internet. Apparently there are people complaining about Ito because he doesn't defend enough. I'd say in his defence that he isn't helped by having Miura behind him who after about 55 minutes decided to mostly stop running. I don't think I want Ito to be focusing on his defending anyway, particularly considering that we failed to score or make many decent chances in this game. I try to always be conscious of my own ignorance when talking about football as all I do is watch from the stands every week, and maybe I don't always succeed in this respect. So seeing people turning on one of our best players because they saw him substituted is a good reminder to not get too excited and worked up about anything.
Any other business -
- Blimey, getting into the stadium was bad. This game was a very unwelcome return to the old practice of queuing outside the ground for hours before the game to get a decent spot in the sold out unreserved seating. That part isn’t much fun, and thankfully we haven’t had to do it very often recently. But damn, once the queue started moving, it still took us 35 minutes to get in. It was almost Kashiwa-esque for pre-entry tedium. Maybe it’s a Chiba thing.
- The linesman nearest us was very short. Seeing him warm up, I decided that he had the kind of face that you’d expect from an Urawa Reds player. You know, the ones without the centre parting who look like they could start a fight in an empty room? In attempting to work out how short he was we started comparing him to other things we could find out the height of. He was the same height as the corner flag. I know this for sure as he seemed to be trying to square up to it at one stage. Guess it’s that Urawa thing coming out again. I wouldn’t mention any of this really if he hadn’t made a few horrendous judgements in the first half. After discovering he was very short it then became amusing to imagine that he had a very high-pitched voice too. You’ll have to imagine the hilarity for yourself as it’s impossible to write it down in a way that reveals the humour. Maybe I should have put humour in italics or something. I though it was funny anyway.
First half -
Not the best first half. They had a lot of good chances but we came into it a bit at the end and probably could have done without half time coming when it did. Wakizaka and Yamamoto not with it again. Ref utterly corrupt as predicted. JEF Utd., or as I should probably call them because I don’t know them very well, Jeffrey United, were quite a physical team. It wouldn’t be crazy to use the word cloggers I feel.
Second half -
Much like the first really. Lots of chances for both teams but a low chance of any chances becoming good chances and therefore no chance of goals really, just wasted chances. What are the chances of that!? Last week we looked like we could score at will and were getting goals for fun. This week it looked like there would be more chance of taking the train through Maihama and not seeing any Disney related merchandise than there would be of a goal being scored. A back and forth battle fighting for the privilege of failing to take chances. Credit to JEF, their defence looked a lot more solid than Kashiwa’s. But we definitely should have tested it a bit more.
Penalties -
I was hoping we might go through the whole season without having to do the ridiculous 90 minutes and then straight to penalties thing, but that hope has been dashed quickly. Our penalties looked good for the most part. Brodersen looked like he wasn’t going to stop any of theirs. But then he did, so bravo to him!
Good day -
Good day for people who like seeing penalties scored. Even though I think having penalties at the end of every drawn match makes the league look like a joke, on this occasion they did at least allow us to come away with the feeling that we’d achieved something. Also another good day for Matsunagane, (well, up until the shoot out…), who is still playing out of position and blocked at least four goal bound shots. I don’t think anyone could have expected that he’d have started the first two games at centre back and have done really well.
Bad day -
Bad day for fans of clinical finishing. Both teams struggled to even hit the target and pretty much all of our ‘shots’ on target were most definitely in the pea roller category. And another bad day for Yamamoto and Wakizaka. They were very underwhelming again. I’m not sure if the fact that the ball was for the most part hoofed over them was the cause for this, or whether it was vice versa, and them not doing very well was the reason for the hoofing. Also a bad day for people who get annoyed by fans' hot takes on the internet. Apparently there are people complaining about Ito because he doesn't defend enough. I'd say in his defence that he isn't helped by having Miura behind him who after about 55 minutes decided to mostly stop running. I don't think I want Ito to be focusing on his defending anyway, particularly considering that we failed to score or make many decent chances in this game. I try to always be conscious of my own ignorance when talking about football as all I do is watch from the stands every week, and maybe I don't always succeed in this respect. So seeing people turning on one of our best players because they saw him substituted is a good reminder to not get too excited and worked up about anything.
Any other business -
- Blimey, getting into the stadium was bad. This game was a very unwelcome return to the old practice of queuing outside the ground for hours before the game to get a decent spot in the sold out unreserved seating. That part isn’t much fun, and thankfully we haven’t had to do it very often recently. But damn, once the queue started moving, it still took us 35 minutes to get in. It was almost Kashiwa-esque for pre-entry tedium. Maybe it’s a Chiba thing.
- The linesman nearest us was very short. Seeing him warm up, I decided that he had the kind of face that you’d expect from an Urawa Reds player. You know, the ones without the centre parting who look like they could start a fight in an empty room? In attempting to work out how short he was we started comparing him to other things we could find out the height of. He was the same height as the corner flag. I know this for sure as he seemed to be trying to square up to it at one stage. Guess it’s that Urawa thing coming out again. I wouldn’t mention any of this really if he hadn’t made a few horrendous judgements in the first half. After discovering he was very short it then became amusing to imagine that he had a very high-pitched voice too. You’ll have to imagine the hilarity for yourself as it’s impossible to write it down in a way that reveals the humour. Maybe I should have put humour in italics or something. I though it was funny anyway.
- Not sure what happened to Yamaguchi as Hayasaka was on the bench today. As I'm not sure, there doesn't seem much point me speculating about it.
WOW! -
As much as I’d love to give this to the ref again, (Nagamine seems to hate us), I can’t say he particularly did anything majorly wrong. And if I give out this prestigious award just for the sake of it, I think it might water down the significance of it, so on this occasion, no WOW whatsoever. Much like the match.
Next up, FC Tokyo at home next weekend. It will be interesting to see what Hasebe does. It feels like he’s carefully wielding his adjustment screw driver, tuning the attacking fun dial right now. Definitely against Kashiwa it was open a bit too much. Plenty of excitement but lots of goals in the wrong end too. In this game he’d gone too far the other way and had over adjusted so that both teams became unable to score. This is all a joke obviously, but it is quite strange how we could swing from one attacking extreme to the other toothless extreme in one week with the same players on the pitch. I know we always play worse against promoted teams, so maybe this explains it, but I reckon he’s still got a bit of work to do because this game wasn’t much fun to watch and we didn’t even have the consolation of grabbing a dubious winner in a boring game. As this season is something of a joke, I wouldn’t mind a bit of tinkering before the next match. We’ll see if that actually happens…
Team
GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
DF 3. TANIGUCHI Hiroto
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 18. KONNO Kazuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 9. ERISON
Subs
GK 21. HAYASAKA Yuki
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 85')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for ITO 61')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for WAKIZAKA 85')
DF 30. NODA Hiroto
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for KONNO 61')
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (on for ERISON 70')
Man of the match
It’s a bit of a shame to not award this on only the second game of the season, but there wasn’t anyone who stood out particularly. Work in progress hopefully…
Goals
None
(And I'm going to make the decision now that I'm not going to write out penalty takers and results in these kind of games).
None
(And I'm going to make the decision now that I'm not going to write out penalty takers and results in these kind of games).
Highlights
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