Sanfrecce Hiroshima 2 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale
It’s a shame that the first game I’ve missed this season is this absolutely crucial match. Oh, well actually this was just the first leg I guess. And actually thinking about it, it’s actually completely insignificant really, as the victors on this tie get the glory of finishing seventh whilst the defeated team have to put up with the humiliation of finishing eighth. 20 minutes into the match I was delighted we’d been unable to get tickets as we were completely shitting the bed, and 2-0 down. At the final whistle, well, it was still all a bit pointless, but was nice to at least get one goal back. As I never write much when I don’t actually attend a match, I’ll just use a couple of brief paragraphs to whinge and then get out of here. So here we go.
I was surprised to Yamaguchi in goal again. Maybe after the Machida game you could have said he deserved to keep his place. But he didn’t really do much against Mito and we were saved more by our opponents’ lack of composure in front of goal than by any skills from our keeper. After conceding twice in 20 minutes I was all ready to get back on the Yamaguchi moan train again, but to be honest, he did alright. I’m not completely sure he stopped anything that wasn’t fairly easy to stop and I’m not sure he was beaten by anything unsavable, but I think we’ve just got to accept that we’re going to concede goals for fun whoever is in goal. So basically no real moans here. To be honest, I thought we did alright in this match and there were definitely periods where we looked like we were significantly better than them. But we did lose though and the stats were largely in their favour. Was lovely to see evergreen cheat Sasaki Sho absolutely fuck up for our goal. Particularly after he’d cheated not too long before his brain fart. Perhaps in keeping with the general lack of meaning of this match, I didn’t get too upset about anything really. We weren’t great, neither were they. The score was reasonably reflective of the game, especially when you consider how many decent chances we wasted. If we’re on our game in the second leg I don’t think we’ll have any trouble dispatching them. That’s a big if though as times when we’ve been on our game have been quite rare this year and even when we are there’s a high chance well drop a five minute goal-conceding disaster into the middle of an otherwise solid performance. So all to play for. But whether we actually play for it is another matter.
Maybe the only thing I actually want to moan about, aside from the pitch which looked pretty bumpy on the TV screen is… have a guess… yes, you’re right, it’s the ref! Looking back through previous posts about games we’ve had with Takasaki has proved that him being shit in this match was absolutely par for the course. Even when we won 4-0 in one those previous games I still felt the need to mention the ref’s absolute lack of skills. He’s a young guy, only 33, so clearly is a bright young thing in the J League ref community. He’s also absolutely useless. The thing that pissed me off the most was him giving Marcinho a yellow for something that wasn’t even a foul and this pissedoffness was massively multiplied by the fact that before the yellow he’d totally ignored any intrusive thoughts about giving a card when some arsehole tried to break Ito’s ankle. To double down he also didn’t allow our physios on to the pitch. I think there was definitely a case to be made for it being a red but we should probably count ourselves lucky we even got the free kick. Oh, Takasaki, you’re so shit. And the fact that you stand out as being especially shit in a league where the normal level is shit, probably means that you’re are extraordinarily shit to a super level of incompetence. Watching the game in the pub I made a, (hilarious I’m sure you’ll agree), joke saying he’s probably either from Onomichi, Kure or Fukuyama or is a massive YFM fan because his decisions were so biased. I did a quick Google and discovered that he actually is from Hiroshima! Pretty unbelievable that he can ref a game with his local team playing. Maybe the J League is certain that any kind of bias is ultimately squashed by his general shitness. Maybe to return the favour we could have Kengo ref the next match. Although Kengo would probably do everything fairly anyway. Takasaki though can fuck off.
Next up, Sanfrecce at home next weekend. I think it’s quite hard to get excited about this game but maybe the biggest incentive for the players would be to try to win it to piss off Takasaki. He’d probably cry into his purple pillows if we overturned the deficit. After that, a sweet few months where we can rebuild some kind of excitement or enthusiasm or alternatively completely forget about football. Either sounds fine to me.
I was surprised to Yamaguchi in goal again. Maybe after the Machida game you could have said he deserved to keep his place. But he didn’t really do much against Mito and we were saved more by our opponents’ lack of composure in front of goal than by any skills from our keeper. After conceding twice in 20 minutes I was all ready to get back on the Yamaguchi moan train again, but to be honest, he did alright. I’m not completely sure he stopped anything that wasn’t fairly easy to stop and I’m not sure he was beaten by anything unsavable, but I think we’ve just got to accept that we’re going to concede goals for fun whoever is in goal. So basically no real moans here. To be honest, I thought we did alright in this match and there were definitely periods where we looked like we were significantly better than them. But we did lose though and the stats were largely in their favour. Was lovely to see evergreen cheat Sasaki Sho absolutely fuck up for our goal. Particularly after he’d cheated not too long before his brain fart. Perhaps in keeping with the general lack of meaning of this match, I didn’t get too upset about anything really. We weren’t great, neither were they. The score was reasonably reflective of the game, especially when you consider how many decent chances we wasted. If we’re on our game in the second leg I don’t think we’ll have any trouble dispatching them. That’s a big if though as times when we’ve been on our game have been quite rare this year and even when we are there’s a high chance well drop a five minute goal-conceding disaster into the middle of an otherwise solid performance. So all to play for. But whether we actually play for it is another matter.
Maybe the only thing I actually want to moan about, aside from the pitch which looked pretty bumpy on the TV screen is… have a guess… yes, you’re right, it’s the ref! Looking back through previous posts about games we’ve had with Takasaki has proved that him being shit in this match was absolutely par for the course. Even when we won 4-0 in one those previous games I still felt the need to mention the ref’s absolute lack of skills. He’s a young guy, only 33, so clearly is a bright young thing in the J League ref community. He’s also absolutely useless. The thing that pissed me off the most was him giving Marcinho a yellow for something that wasn’t even a foul and this pissedoffness was massively multiplied by the fact that before the yellow he’d totally ignored any intrusive thoughts about giving a card when some arsehole tried to break Ito’s ankle. To double down he also didn’t allow our physios on to the pitch. I think there was definitely a case to be made for it being a red but we should probably count ourselves lucky we even got the free kick. Oh, Takasaki, you’re so shit. And the fact that you stand out as being especially shit in a league where the normal level is shit, probably means that you’re are extraordinarily shit to a super level of incompetence. Watching the game in the pub I made a, (hilarious I’m sure you’ll agree), joke saying he’s probably either from Onomichi, Kure or Fukuyama or is a massive YFM fan because his decisions were so biased. I did a quick Google and discovered that he actually is from Hiroshima! Pretty unbelievable that he can ref a game with his local team playing. Maybe the J League is certain that any kind of bias is ultimately squashed by his general shitness. Maybe to return the favour we could have Kengo ref the next match. Although Kengo would probably do everything fairly anyway. Takasaki though can fuck off.
Next up, Sanfrecce at home next weekend. I think it’s quite hard to get excited about this game but maybe the biggest incentive for the players would be to try to win it to piss off Takasaki. He’d probably cry into his purple pillows if we overturned the deficit. After that, a sweet few months where we can rebuild some kind of excitement or enthusiasm or alternatively completely forget about football. Either sounds fine to me.
Team
GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO (Yellow card 35')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke
Subs
GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for YAMAMOTO 9')
FW 18. KONNO Kazuya (on for MARCINHO 69')
DF 22. UREMOVIC Filip
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
DF 32. HAYASHI Shunsuke
FW 34. OSA Ryuki (on for ITO 69')
FW 38. KANDA Soma (on for TACHIBANADA 88')
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (on for MOCHIYAMA 69')
Wanker of the match
GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO (Yellow card 35')
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke
Subs
GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for YAMAMOTO 9')
FW 18. KONNO Kazuya (on for MARCINHO 69')
DF 22. UREMOVIC Filip
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
DF 32. HAYASHI Shunsuke
FW 34. OSA Ryuki (on for ITO 69')
FW 38. KANDA Soma (on for TACHIBANADA 88')
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC (on for MOCHIYAMA 69')
Wanker of the match
An absolute gimme. It has to go to...
TAKASAKI Koji - absolutely useless referee. Should be ashamed of himself.
Goals
NAKAMURA (Sanfrecce) 11' 1-0
KATO (Sanfrecce) 20' 2-0
ITO (Frontale) 43' 0-1
NAKAMURA (Sanfrecce) 11' 1-0
KATO (Sanfrecce) 20' 2-0
ITO (Frontale) 43' 0-1
Highlights
(coming soon)
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