Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 Machida Zelvia
(Frontale win 5 - 4 on penalties)
As I mentioned in the last post, I had quite extensive plans to lessen the pain of watching another awful match. As it turned out, both the plan and the awfulness of the match didn’t turn out as I might have expected. I over indulged to the extreme on Saturday night so my carefully planned route for walking to the stadium via a few beer places and thereby getting exercise and refreshment was an absolute non-starter as soon as I woke up, very much hungover. And even more shockingly, this was actually a pretty good game for us. We absolutely destroyed Machida and looked like we were actually playing some good football. Naturally though, with six minutes of normal time remaining, we were trailing. I don’t know what kind of curse or bad luck we’ve managed to pick up but it was in full effect in this match. That is until something finally went our way. I think we probably only got the penalty because there were two absolute nailed on penalties that could have been given in the same move. If there was any way of the always useless ref Araki not giving us a decision he surely would have gone with that option. But the weight of evidence from two absolutely clear penalties meant that even Frontale-phobe Araki, who spent a while at the monitor looking at replays which were absolutely crystal clear on first viewing, had to cave in and give just the one decision our way. More on him later. A quick spoiler for that section, he still is absolutely shite. But yeah, we played well, we should have scored more and were kind of robbed for their goal. What strange unknown feeling is this? Is it… positivity?
Us -
Was pleased to see Mochiyama finally make the bench and have one blaster of a shot (which unfortunately didn’t go in). Maybe Hasebe read my last blog post. Whilst it was disappointing to see us once again hoping that the 4-2-3-1 might pay off, there did seem to be some kind of slight morale boost within the camp. I don’t know what happened to Erison, but Romanic did a good job I thought. Of course as is the case when Frontale play a team with three centre backs, we went with a lone striker. It doesn’t matter who the manager is, some things never change. Perhaps someone with some kind of tactical knowledge can tell me why this might be a good idea, but as far as I could see, it just meant that every time Romanic won the ball up front there was no one for him to give it to. But we still made chances! We hit the post twice and whilst a lot of our shots were going straight at their keeper, we were, whisper it, shooting, and shooting on target! Wakizaka had what I think was his best game of the season. Perhaps this was as a reaction to him being called up for the all-star team or whatever they are calling that absolutely joke of a fixture. Before this match, Wakizaka being named in the side was also a joke as far as I was concerned. I don’t think any of our squad should have been in contention, let alone a player who has been markedly under performing all year. But maybe this was what Wakizaka needed to get back on track. He did really well. Yamaguchi was in goal against his old team. His double save in the shoot out was great. He only had two other shots to deal with in the whole game and unfortunately one of them went in. I’m not sure if Hasebe was giving him a chance to show his worth or was just rotating things for the sake of it, but thumbs up to Yamaguchi for making that save in the shoot out and for psyching out Sento to make him think he should attempt to put his penalty out of the stadium rather than into the goal. A delightfully shocking miss. And well done to Mochiyama for having the guts to step up and put the winning penalty away.
As usual, (depending somewhat on our result but not always, we won against Verdy and that game was AWFUL), I’m vacillating on Hasebe again. I don’t know what he did but he seems to have restored a bit of faith in the squad. This was a much improved performance. I still have my doubts as to whether Hasebe has the ideas to actually turn our talented squad into a team that remembers how to win again, but you’ve got to feel sorry for him as he seems to be just unbelievably unlucky. But let's give him credit for giving some youngsters a go. Perhaps this is something to do with us having nothing to play for, but it’s definitely not something Oniki would have done. And Hasebe, (or one of his staff), has come up with a nice new corner routine where we leave two players out wide near the corner taker which basically gives us three different types of potential cross from each corner. It didn’t quite pay off in this match, but I think there’s something in it. And definitely better than us just hitting it to the first defender. So basically, a massive improvement on recent matches. It’s an unfortunate time to possibly come into some form, but maybe if we can finish the season well, it might put us in a good place for next year. Fingers crossed.
Them -
It was a very poor attendance considering that Machida is pretty local. It’s unsurprising though given that they don’t have many fans even at their home games. Or should I say ‘blokes’ rather than fans? Clearly someone went to the UK at some stage and is trying to inject a bit of original colour to their support. 'Blokes'. So weird. Almost certainly not what they were hoping to conjure up when they chose that word for a couple of their big flags. 'Some bloke down the pub'. 'One of those blokes who voted for Brexit'. Definitely not the camaraderie kind of feeling that I’m guessing they were aiming for. ‘Don’t mess with us. We’re the blokes!’ said no one ever. In a way, perfectly fitting that a pretty plastic club has gone with a inapporpriate choice of word. Machida were shit in this game and it was delightful. Everything about the club makes them unlikeable. The clogging, the long throws, the petulance, the... blokes. And of course ‘power hara Go’ on the sidelines. I noticed when checking some things on Dazn that he is now accessorising his usual outfit, (which come to think of it is absolutely something a ‘bloke’ would wear down the pub in the commuter belt, so maybe that explains it), with a couple of weird bracelets. I can’t imagine they are friendship bracelets given the character of the man who is wearing them, (unless he gave them to himself. I guess that Kuroda’s biggest admirer is Go Kuroda). So maybe they are some kind of weird cult membership sign or some kind of anger management crystals thing. Or maybe Machida are starting some kind of pyramid scheme to attract new fans and once you’ve signed up 25 people you get the kind of bracelet that a tie-dye-clad, Lennon-specs-wearing fifteen year old who’s desperately trying to express their individuality through their alternative fashion and music choices might reject for looking a bit tacky. Anyway, Machida lost on penalties which is also amusing as on the Odakyu line they keep showing these adverts of Tani saving penalties. Didn't stop so many on this occasion, eh? I’m still sore about his diving and whining when he was playing for Shonan. So Machida probably is the perfect fit for him! And Erik. He can still fuck off. Irksome little man. There are plenty more, but given that we won, I feel we should just focus on the most scummy of them in order not to appear to be bad winners. Hehehe. We won. Machida lost.
Ref -
Araki is going to the World Cup! It was announced before the match and I was astonished to see people applauding him. He is always one of the worst refs for us. I don’t know if he hates us, but it certainly seems like he does. And maybe in this match it seemed even more like he did, given that he gave us almost nothing. He gave Romanic a yellow which I thought was a bit harsh and then moments later didn’t even give us a free kick when a Machida player kicked him in the head. So Araki at the World Cup. There isn’t much competition, but surely he can’t be the best Japan has to offer. At least as there are no Frontale players at the World Cup he might be able to be a bit more impartial rather than automatically giving the decision against anyone associated with our club. Araki always seems to me to be the kind of person who when wanting to express his most deeply thought through beliefs would start with the phrase ‘I’m a reasonable guy and in no way are a racist or a bigot, but…’. Or maybe that should say ‘a reasonable bloke’. Two absolutely nailed on penalties that both him and his linesman both missed until the relatively unknown VAR guy plucked up enough courage to say he should have a look. And still he dithered in the face of obvious evidence. And their goal came from something that wasn’t a foul and then was offside. He did his best to screw us in this match, but even his best efforts couldn't stop up from claiming a wonderful two points. The glory! Hopefully Araki will decide he loves the US so much that he decides to stay there. Let's start the campaign here. MTJLGA - Make the J League Great Again, keep Araki in the US whether he likes it or not.
So kind of weird. We beat Verdy in 90 minutes and it was truly terrible and I moaned. In this match we just about scraped a draw and managed to win on penalties, but I'm happy. The games were so different though. This was the first match for a while where there were some signs of positivity. Maybe we were a bit unlucky, but there was actually something worth cheering for. Long may that continue! Next up Mito away on Sunday. Then we have the ultra exciting play off games. If I am correct it will be against either Gamba, Cerezo, Sanfrecce, Okayama or Shimizu. Hopefully I’ll be able to go. I can’t imagine there will be a lot of interest in a game to decide which utterly mid-table position we’ll finish in. But maybe people will be delighted to get the opportunity to watch a game outside of Kanto. I’m still baffled every time I hear people saying how much fun this mini league has been. Even if we weren’t so bad I still think I’d be pretty bored with these dull away days. As I think I said before, perhaps this season has made it clear to me that I like travel more than I like football! In any case, would he nice if we could see a few more goals before the end of the year. And hopefully use some more youngsters. And maybe even get a clean sheet!
Team
GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (Yellow card 28')
Subs
GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for TACHIBANADA 72')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (on for ROMANIC 72')
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
MF 23. MARCINHO (on for MIYAGI 65')
DF 32. HAYASHI Shunsuke
FW 34. OSA Ryuki (on for ITO 72')
FW 38. KANDA Some
Man of the match
Feel like as I’ve been slagging him off, (justificably so in my opinion), for most of the year, I should acknowledge him when he does well so it goes to…
WAKIZAKA Yasuto - was at the heart of a lot of our good moments. Really pleased he's finally got back to some of his old form as this year has been pretty tough for him.
Us -
Was pleased to see Mochiyama finally make the bench and have one blaster of a shot (which unfortunately didn’t go in). Maybe Hasebe read my last blog post. Whilst it was disappointing to see us once again hoping that the 4-2-3-1 might pay off, there did seem to be some kind of slight morale boost within the camp. I don’t know what happened to Erison, but Romanic did a good job I thought. Of course as is the case when Frontale play a team with three centre backs, we went with a lone striker. It doesn’t matter who the manager is, some things never change. Perhaps someone with some kind of tactical knowledge can tell me why this might be a good idea, but as far as I could see, it just meant that every time Romanic won the ball up front there was no one for him to give it to. But we still made chances! We hit the post twice and whilst a lot of our shots were going straight at their keeper, we were, whisper it, shooting, and shooting on target! Wakizaka had what I think was his best game of the season. Perhaps this was as a reaction to him being called up for the all-star team or whatever they are calling that absolutely joke of a fixture. Before this match, Wakizaka being named in the side was also a joke as far as I was concerned. I don’t think any of our squad should have been in contention, let alone a player who has been markedly under performing all year. But maybe this was what Wakizaka needed to get back on track. He did really well. Yamaguchi was in goal against his old team. His double save in the shoot out was great. He only had two other shots to deal with in the whole game and unfortunately one of them went in. I’m not sure if Hasebe was giving him a chance to show his worth or was just rotating things for the sake of it, but thumbs up to Yamaguchi for making that save in the shoot out and for psyching out Sento to make him think he should attempt to put his penalty out of the stadium rather than into the goal. A delightfully shocking miss. And well done to Mochiyama for having the guts to step up and put the winning penalty away.
As usual, (depending somewhat on our result but not always, we won against Verdy and that game was AWFUL), I’m vacillating on Hasebe again. I don’t know what he did but he seems to have restored a bit of faith in the squad. This was a much improved performance. I still have my doubts as to whether Hasebe has the ideas to actually turn our talented squad into a team that remembers how to win again, but you’ve got to feel sorry for him as he seems to be just unbelievably unlucky. But let's give him credit for giving some youngsters a go. Perhaps this is something to do with us having nothing to play for, but it’s definitely not something Oniki would have done. And Hasebe, (or one of his staff), has come up with a nice new corner routine where we leave two players out wide near the corner taker which basically gives us three different types of potential cross from each corner. It didn’t quite pay off in this match, but I think there’s something in it. And definitely better than us just hitting it to the first defender. So basically, a massive improvement on recent matches. It’s an unfortunate time to possibly come into some form, but maybe if we can finish the season well, it might put us in a good place for next year. Fingers crossed.
Them -
It was a very poor attendance considering that Machida is pretty local. It’s unsurprising though given that they don’t have many fans even at their home games. Or should I say ‘blokes’ rather than fans? Clearly someone went to the UK at some stage and is trying to inject a bit of original colour to their support. 'Blokes'. So weird. Almost certainly not what they were hoping to conjure up when they chose that word for a couple of their big flags. 'Some bloke down the pub'. 'One of those blokes who voted for Brexit'. Definitely not the camaraderie kind of feeling that I’m guessing they were aiming for. ‘Don’t mess with us. We’re the blokes!’ said no one ever. In a way, perfectly fitting that a pretty plastic club has gone with a inapporpriate choice of word. Machida were shit in this game and it was delightful. Everything about the club makes them unlikeable. The clogging, the long throws, the petulance, the... blokes. And of course ‘power hara Go’ on the sidelines. I noticed when checking some things on Dazn that he is now accessorising his usual outfit, (which come to think of it is absolutely something a ‘bloke’ would wear down the pub in the commuter belt, so maybe that explains it), with a couple of weird bracelets. I can’t imagine they are friendship bracelets given the character of the man who is wearing them, (unless he gave them to himself. I guess that Kuroda’s biggest admirer is Go Kuroda). So maybe they are some kind of weird cult membership sign or some kind of anger management crystals thing. Or maybe Machida are starting some kind of pyramid scheme to attract new fans and once you’ve signed up 25 people you get the kind of bracelet that a tie-dye-clad, Lennon-specs-wearing fifteen year old who’s desperately trying to express their individuality through their alternative fashion and music choices might reject for looking a bit tacky. Anyway, Machida lost on penalties which is also amusing as on the Odakyu line they keep showing these adverts of Tani saving penalties. Didn't stop so many on this occasion, eh? I’m still sore about his diving and whining when he was playing for Shonan. So Machida probably is the perfect fit for him! And Erik. He can still fuck off. Irksome little man. There are plenty more, but given that we won, I feel we should just focus on the most scummy of them in order not to appear to be bad winners. Hehehe. We won. Machida lost.
Ref -
Araki is going to the World Cup! It was announced before the match and I was astonished to see people applauding him. He is always one of the worst refs for us. I don’t know if he hates us, but it certainly seems like he does. And maybe in this match it seemed even more like he did, given that he gave us almost nothing. He gave Romanic a yellow which I thought was a bit harsh and then moments later didn’t even give us a free kick when a Machida player kicked him in the head. So Araki at the World Cup. There isn’t much competition, but surely he can’t be the best Japan has to offer. At least as there are no Frontale players at the World Cup he might be able to be a bit more impartial rather than automatically giving the decision against anyone associated with our club. Araki always seems to me to be the kind of person who when wanting to express his most deeply thought through beliefs would start with the phrase ‘I’m a reasonable guy and in no way are a racist or a bigot, but…’. Or maybe that should say ‘a reasonable bloke’. Two absolutely nailed on penalties that both him and his linesman both missed until the relatively unknown VAR guy plucked up enough courage to say he should have a look. And still he dithered in the face of obvious evidence. And their goal came from something that wasn’t a foul and then was offside. He did his best to screw us in this match, but even his best efforts couldn't stop up from claiming a wonderful two points. The glory! Hopefully Araki will decide he loves the US so much that he decides to stay there. Let's start the campaign here. MTJLGA - Make the J League Great Again, keep Araki in the US whether he likes it or not.
So kind of weird. We beat Verdy in 90 minutes and it was truly terrible and I moaned. In this match we just about scraped a draw and managed to win on penalties, but I'm happy. The games were so different though. This was the first match for a while where there were some signs of positivity. Maybe we were a bit unlucky, but there was actually something worth cheering for. Long may that continue! Next up Mito away on Sunday. Then we have the ultra exciting play off games. If I am correct it will be against either Gamba, Cerezo, Sanfrecce, Okayama or Shimizu. Hopefully I’ll be able to go. I can’t imagine there will be a lot of interest in a game to decide which utterly mid-table position we’ll finish in. But maybe people will be delighted to get the opportunity to watch a game outside of Kanto. I’m still baffled every time I hear people saying how much fun this mini league has been. Even if we weren’t so bad I still think I’d be pretty bored with these dull away days. As I think I said before, perhaps this season has made it clear to me that I like travel more than I like football! In any case, would he nice if we could see a few more goals before the end of the year. And hopefully use some more youngsters. And maybe even get a clean sheet!
Team
GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (Yellow card 28')
Subs
GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for TACHIBANADA 72')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (on for ROMANIC 72')
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
MF 23. MARCINHO (on for MIYAGI 65')
DF 32. HAYASHI Shunsuke
FW 34. OSA Ryuki (on for ITO 72')
FW 38. KANDA Some
Man of the match
Feel like as I’ve been slagging him off, (justificably so in my opinion), for most of the year, I should acknowledge him when he does well so it goes to…
WAKIZAKA Yasuto - was at the heart of a lot of our good moments. Really pleased he's finally got back to some of his old form as this year has been pretty tough for him.
Goals
YENGI (Machida) 40' 0-1
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 89' PEN 1-1
YENGI (Machida) 40' 0-1
WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 89' PEN 1-1
Highlights
