Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Shimizu S Pulse
This game saw us back at the (mostly) cursed (for us) National Stadium. It’s never a particularly fun experience to watch Frontale there, particularly from behind the goal, about 3km from the pitch. Add to this our results there in league games and you have a perfect misery cocktail. But somehow on this occasion we managed to actually get the job done. Although let’s be honest, there were numerous times in the match and plenty of occasions where it looked like we were going to mess it up again, exactly like we tend to do most weeks this season. There is really something a bit shitty about having games at the National Stadium. And it’s not just for the reasons I mentioned above. Unlike with clubs like Kashima, the majority of whose fans almost certainly live closer to the National Stadium than they do to Kashima, it seems a bit stupid for clubs to make the fans who go to their home games basically do an away trip. Admittedly, it’s closer to where I live than Todoroki is, (before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, Todoroki is the nearest home stadium to where I live so I do support my local team), but I still can’t really get on board with the whole “exciting experience” thing that it seems to be sold as. But all of this is basically a preamble to me saying that I understand that National Stadium games are probably a prerequisite for us at the moment. With the redevelopment of Todoroki happening next season we need somewhere to play, and I believe that using the stadium a few times is part of us showing good will and therefore being able to use it when we can’t use Todoroki. Perhaps people looking at the attendance for this match will think it was a disaster as we only got a bit over 37000 in. I should say though that the weather was horrible, and I presume that this knocked out a significant number of the free ticket crowd whose presence usually pads out the Kokuristu attendance figures. Anyway, last time we played a league game here we got absolutely hammered by YFM. Thankfully we managed to avoid a similar fate on this occasion and blimey, we actually won at the Kokuritsu in J1! As I don’t really know what to say about this match, I won’t use the semi-regular headings and will just lump everything together in a stream of consciousness splurge, perfect to make it as unreadable as possible, right?
Hasebe rotated for this match! I don’t know why he did this. And I don’t know why he changed the defence and strikers so much but left the midfield entirely intact. Of course, up front we don’t really have many options as I mentioned in the last post. On this occasion we went with Mochiyama which I think makes sense as Derik seems to get knackered quite quickly after he enters the pitch, so it probably makes more sense to use him as a sub rather than as a starter. Honma has been knocking in goals for fun for his university team, but unfortunately for us, this means he has been unavailable for us. Hopefully he’ll be able to provide us with another option soon. But you can’t really argue with Mochiyama starting, particularly as he scored after 23 seconds. It was a lovely goal and for the majority of the game it looked like it might be our only successful attack. I was a bit surprised when Hasebe took him off at half time, but I suppose when you’ve only got two (semi) fit strikers it might make sense to not overstretch either of them. At the back he went with a centre back pairing of Maruyama and Uremovic, which was a bit of a surprise. I think they did pretty well though. Well, apart from the one occasion where they both went for the same header and took each other out. I’ve never noticed Uremovic doing this before and maybe it was a tactic for this match, but I quite liked the fact that for every Shimizu long goal kick he would come charging out of defence towards the ball and more often than not bonk it forward with a high speed header. Konno more than justified his spot on the right I think. He was fouled for the red card, and also for the other red card that probably should have been given. (More on that later). He also got changed at half time but I wonder if it was more to do with the fact that he’d been absolutely smashed to pieces by Shimizu clogging. So that’s the non-regular-§starter business, I guess. So on to our play… I dunno, the same as usual really. Lots of possession, not many actual attacks, or at least attacks that were in any way likely to lead to an actual goal. But it did feel like we were very much on top… and would probably throw away another lead and regret not scoring more.
And we did. At least the first part. And at least for a while. You can’t argue with the penalty. And shockingly, I don’t think I even did argue about the penalty in the stadium, and I make it a matter of principle to argue with pretty much every decision these awful referees give. It was a shame as, you know, it would be nice to get a clean sheet sooner or later, right? We can only dream. Aside from the penalty, we dealt pretty well with everything Shimizu threw at us. Brodersen made some good saves. We hit the post, again. Before we managed to take the lead for the second time there was a really worrying panic that looked to be spreading through the team. You could see a lot of people getting frustrated and moaning at each other. Clearly and understandably confidence amongst the players is around the same level as it is amongst the fans. (I’m presuming everyone feels the same way as I do, which is a massive reach given how happy clappy a lot of our fans are, but definitely some people seem to feel the same way as I do). But thankfully, in spite of the efforts of the referee, we managed to score a second and then miraculously a third, making it a somewhat comfortable win in the end. We shouldn’t forget though that we played for about an hour against 10 men and even then managed to concede before we could extend our lead. One final point in this section before I go on to absolutely bitch about another predictably atrocious referee. Our second goal was absolutely amazing and everyone should watch a replay of it as it had everything. I could try to explain it but I think it’s just easier to watch the replay, but make sure you see the bit where Uremovic gets kicked in the face by a tumbling Shimizu player, fallsl to the floor clutching his face and as he does, kicks the ball (intentionally or not, who knows…) perfectly to Derik. It’s been referred to online as an ‘Ita ita through pass’ which I think is just perfect. Shimizu complained about the goal. I’ve got no idea what they were complaining about as it was clearly not offside. But even so we had a lengthy VAR delay, and then the goal was given. Then back for some more VAR to check for a possible red card. For whom, well it seems that no-one knew. And even the commentary when I watched it back didn’t know either. The kick in the face? The annoyed reaction from someone who got kicked in the face? Brodersen appearing and absolutely losing his shit? All in all, completely confusing and a perfect encapsulation of a useless officiating performance.
Ah Jumpei Iida. As I never tire of shouting from the stands when he’s in charge of one of our games ‘FUCK OFF JUMPEI!”. I wasn’t sure whether I should be pleased to see him in charge as at least we could be sure that we’d be having a J League refereeing performance, instead of the random factor of a guest ref that we had for our previous two league games. And thankfully it wasn’t the awful Sutani or Mikuriya (I could name plenty more, but those two are in my recent memory). But don’t get excited it was the eternally hopeless Jumpei whose position as one of the more senior refs in the league can only be related to his age, and absolutely not to his abilities. I think part of the reason this season is so wild for us is that you never know what kind of ref you’re going to get from week to week. Well apart from it being a crap one. You just can’t be sure about the way in which they will be crap. But one things for sure, with Jumpei you always know you’re going to get all round incompetence. And we got it in spades. Add to this a guy on VAR who we’ve never had for a match, (so clearly a less ‘experienced’ ref), and you know you’re in for a shocker. I reckon Shimizu could have had three players sent off, so I suppose we should be grateful that they got at least one of the red cards. The first challenge on Konno that only warranted a yellow according to Iida looked bad to me. The red card was so blatant so it was a surprise that we needed a VAR review. But it seemed to be that VAR in this match was used like a new toy or a paid service that they were determined to make sure they got their money’s worth to cover the monthly subscription. One time I was very happy we had VAR, (and that’s something I VERY rarely say), was when Iida gave a horrendously clear and obvious corner / goal kick decision the wrong way, much to the disbelief of the players and the crowd. He was overruled by VAR, and fair to him put his hands up to apologise, but then that appeared to send him spiraling, giving each subsequent decision to make up for the previous one. “Oh, I made a stupid mistake here, I’ll even things up with this one. Oh that was a bit stupid, I’ll even things up with the next one…” etc. The first half ended with another insane decision when Ryo Germaine, Frontale tormenter when he was at Iwata, went down, apparently being taken out by a sniper in the third tier and ever un reliable Iida gave a free kick against Maruyama. Seriously, there were so many bad decisions in this game that I think people close to Iida might be considering staging an intervention. “Put down the whistle and slowly step away from it. It’s ok, you’re safe here. Don’t worry about that last clearly incorrect decision you made. No one’s going to shout “FUCK OFF JUMPEI!” at you. Well apart from Neil maybe, but he’s clearly an idiot”. In the second half he wasn’t bothered about a clear backpass, waving it away. But he was bothered about booking Marcinho either for a dive in the box, which he immediately got up after so clearly wasn’t claiming anything, (I believe the commentator said it couldn’t be simulation if there is any contact, but maybe I misunderstood him or misunderstand the rule) or for a fair tackle immediately afterwards. He also gave a nonsense free kick against Derik who took the ball cleanly and clearly later on. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but plenty of J League refs do seem to give more decisions against foreign players. Is it just me who thinks this? Anyway, all of this is to say that Iida was hopeless in the way that Iida is always hopeless. I was delighted to get some back up for once from other people in the crowd who also were pretty disgusted by both his announcement before the game and his general uselessness.
I’ve realised I’ve got to the end here and haven’t even mentioned Shimizu really. It was always going to be tough for them after going down to ten. They brought a decent amount of fans on a horrible rainy day to a not very good stadium for football. Regular readers will know that I don’t have anything against Shimizu really, so I have no interest in saying nasty things about them. So this paragraph is kind of pointless.
Next up Mito away next weekend. No midweek game makes it a bit confusing why Hasebe rotated so much, but given that we won, I don’t think anyone can say it was a mistake. After that we’ve got Kashima at home the following weekend. So an Ibaraki double header, one home and one away, and thankfully the Kashima game is at home. I’m not going to Kashima away this year because I’ve decided to stop doing things that are basically masochism. If you offered me three points from these next two games I’d bite your hand off for a loss at Mito and a win at home against Kashima, but I guess things don’t really work out that the way they would if there was any kind of justice in the world. As evidenced by us losing to scummy Machida. Although I suppose if you look at the form table for the last two games, Mito is by far the tougher game. 😉 Fingers crossed for six points, but I’d definitely take none and then three!
Hasebe rotated for this match! I don’t know why he did this. And I don’t know why he changed the defence and strikers so much but left the midfield entirely intact. Of course, up front we don’t really have many options as I mentioned in the last post. On this occasion we went with Mochiyama which I think makes sense as Derik seems to get knackered quite quickly after he enters the pitch, so it probably makes more sense to use him as a sub rather than as a starter. Honma has been knocking in goals for fun for his university team, but unfortunately for us, this means he has been unavailable for us. Hopefully he’ll be able to provide us with another option soon. But you can’t really argue with Mochiyama starting, particularly as he scored after 23 seconds. It was a lovely goal and for the majority of the game it looked like it might be our only successful attack. I was a bit surprised when Hasebe took him off at half time, but I suppose when you’ve only got two (semi) fit strikers it might make sense to not overstretch either of them. At the back he went with a centre back pairing of Maruyama and Uremovic, which was a bit of a surprise. I think they did pretty well though. Well, apart from the one occasion where they both went for the same header and took each other out. I’ve never noticed Uremovic doing this before and maybe it was a tactic for this match, but I quite liked the fact that for every Shimizu long goal kick he would come charging out of defence towards the ball and more often than not bonk it forward with a high speed header. Konno more than justified his spot on the right I think. He was fouled for the red card, and also for the other red card that probably should have been given. (More on that later). He also got changed at half time but I wonder if it was more to do with the fact that he’d been absolutely smashed to pieces by Shimizu clogging. So that’s the non-regular-§starter business, I guess. So on to our play… I dunno, the same as usual really. Lots of possession, not many actual attacks, or at least attacks that were in any way likely to lead to an actual goal. But it did feel like we were very much on top… and would probably throw away another lead and regret not scoring more.
And we did. At least the first part. And at least for a while. You can’t argue with the penalty. And shockingly, I don’t think I even did argue about the penalty in the stadium, and I make it a matter of principle to argue with pretty much every decision these awful referees give. It was a shame as, you know, it would be nice to get a clean sheet sooner or later, right? We can only dream. Aside from the penalty, we dealt pretty well with everything Shimizu threw at us. Brodersen made some good saves. We hit the post, again. Before we managed to take the lead for the second time there was a really worrying panic that looked to be spreading through the team. You could see a lot of people getting frustrated and moaning at each other. Clearly and understandably confidence amongst the players is around the same level as it is amongst the fans. (I’m presuming everyone feels the same way as I do, which is a massive reach given how happy clappy a lot of our fans are, but definitely some people seem to feel the same way as I do). But thankfully, in spite of the efforts of the referee, we managed to score a second and then miraculously a third, making it a somewhat comfortable win in the end. We shouldn’t forget though that we played for about an hour against 10 men and even then managed to concede before we could extend our lead. One final point in this section before I go on to absolutely bitch about another predictably atrocious referee. Our second goal was absolutely amazing and everyone should watch a replay of it as it had everything. I could try to explain it but I think it’s just easier to watch the replay, but make sure you see the bit where Uremovic gets kicked in the face by a tumbling Shimizu player, fallsl to the floor clutching his face and as he does, kicks the ball (intentionally or not, who knows…) perfectly to Derik. It’s been referred to online as an ‘Ita ita through pass’ which I think is just perfect. Shimizu complained about the goal. I’ve got no idea what they were complaining about as it was clearly not offside. But even so we had a lengthy VAR delay, and then the goal was given. Then back for some more VAR to check for a possible red card. For whom, well it seems that no-one knew. And even the commentary when I watched it back didn’t know either. The kick in the face? The annoyed reaction from someone who got kicked in the face? Brodersen appearing and absolutely losing his shit? All in all, completely confusing and a perfect encapsulation of a useless officiating performance.
Ah Jumpei Iida. As I never tire of shouting from the stands when he’s in charge of one of our games ‘FUCK OFF JUMPEI!”. I wasn’t sure whether I should be pleased to see him in charge as at least we could be sure that we’d be having a J League refereeing performance, instead of the random factor of a guest ref that we had for our previous two league games. And thankfully it wasn’t the awful Sutani or Mikuriya (I could name plenty more, but those two are in my recent memory). But don’t get excited it was the eternally hopeless Jumpei whose position as one of the more senior refs in the league can only be related to his age, and absolutely not to his abilities. I think part of the reason this season is so wild for us is that you never know what kind of ref you’re going to get from week to week. Well apart from it being a crap one. You just can’t be sure about the way in which they will be crap. But one things for sure, with Jumpei you always know you’re going to get all round incompetence. And we got it in spades. Add to this a guy on VAR who we’ve never had for a match, (so clearly a less ‘experienced’ ref), and you know you’re in for a shocker. I reckon Shimizu could have had three players sent off, so I suppose we should be grateful that they got at least one of the red cards. The first challenge on Konno that only warranted a yellow according to Iida looked bad to me. The red card was so blatant so it was a surprise that we needed a VAR review. But it seemed to be that VAR in this match was used like a new toy or a paid service that they were determined to make sure they got their money’s worth to cover the monthly subscription. One time I was very happy we had VAR, (and that’s something I VERY rarely say), was when Iida gave a horrendously clear and obvious corner / goal kick decision the wrong way, much to the disbelief of the players and the crowd. He was overruled by VAR, and fair to him put his hands up to apologise, but then that appeared to send him spiraling, giving each subsequent decision to make up for the previous one. “Oh, I made a stupid mistake here, I’ll even things up with this one. Oh that was a bit stupid, I’ll even things up with the next one…” etc. The first half ended with another insane decision when Ryo Germaine, Frontale tormenter when he was at Iwata, went down, apparently being taken out by a sniper in the third tier and ever un reliable Iida gave a free kick against Maruyama. Seriously, there were so many bad decisions in this game that I think people close to Iida might be considering staging an intervention. “Put down the whistle and slowly step away from it. It’s ok, you’re safe here. Don’t worry about that last clearly incorrect decision you made. No one’s going to shout “FUCK OFF JUMPEI!” at you. Well apart from Neil maybe, but he’s clearly an idiot”. In the second half he wasn’t bothered about a clear backpass, waving it away. But he was bothered about booking Marcinho either for a dive in the box, which he immediately got up after so clearly wasn’t claiming anything, (I believe the commentator said it couldn’t be simulation if there is any contact, but maybe I misunderstood him or misunderstand the rule) or for a fair tackle immediately afterwards. He also gave a nonsense free kick against Derik who took the ball cleanly and clearly later on. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but plenty of J League refs do seem to give more decisions against foreign players. Is it just me who thinks this? Anyway, all of this is to say that Iida was hopeless in the way that Iida is always hopeless. I was delighted to get some back up for once from other people in the crowd who also were pretty disgusted by both his announcement before the game and his general uselessness.
I’ve realised I’ve got to the end here and haven’t even mentioned Shimizu really. It was always going to be tough for them after going down to ten. They brought a decent amount of fans on a horrible rainy day to a not very good stadium for football. Regular readers will know that I don’t have anything against Shimizu really, so I have no interest in saying nasty things about them. So this paragraph is kind of pointless.
Next up Mito away next weekend. No midweek game makes it a bit confusing why Hasebe rotated so much, but given that we won, I don’t think anyone can say it was a mistake. After that we’ve got Kashima at home the following weekend. So an Ibaraki double header, one home and one away, and thankfully the Kashima game is at home. I’m not going to Kashima away this year because I’ve decided to stop doing things that are basically masochism. If you offered me three points from these next two games I’d bite your hand off for a loss at Mito and a win at home against Kashima, but I guess things don’t really work out that the way they would if there was any kind of justice in the world. As evidenced by us losing to scummy Machida. Although I suppose if you look at the form table for the last two games, Mito is by far the tougher game. 😉 Fingers crossed for six points, but I’d definitely take none and then three!
Team
GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 22. Filip UREMOVIC
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 18. KONNO Kazuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 20. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke
Subs
GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 3. TANIGUCHI Hiroto
DF 4. PEDRO ROMANO
DF 13. MIURA Sota (on for SASAKI 82')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for TACHIBANADA 73')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 23. MARCINHO (Yellow card 72') (on for KONNO 46')
MF 25. YAMAICHI Shuto (on for ITO 90+3')
FW 97. DERIK LACERDA (on for MOCHIYAMA 46')
Man of the match
MARCINHO - only played a half, but got more goals than anyone else in the stadium and if you don’t put even the simple chances in, you don’t win games. As we are well aware of this season. Also I like his Val La dance.
Goals
MOCHIYAMA (Frontale) 1' 1-0
OH (Shimizu) 68' PEN 1-1
MARCINHO (Frontale) 77' 2-1
MARCINHO (Frontale) 90' 3-1
MOCHIYAMA (Frontale) 1' 1-0
OH (Shimizu) 68' PEN 1-1
MARCINHO (Frontale) 77' 2-1
MARCINHO (Frontale) 90' 3-1
Highlights
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