Vs Gamba Osaka (home) 25/5/25 J League match 18

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 2 Gamba Osaka

Welcome to part two of ‘Shit home games that end 2-2’. I will forever remain astonished that some people are happy to come away from a game like this, (and Wednesday’s), with positivity saying that it was an entertaining match. Clearly they are better people than me, as my feelings were irritation, frustration and creeping pessimism. And then I followed up this game by watching my beloved Leyton Orient lose the play off final in the pub. Thankfully the many beers consumed softened the blow slightly. But needless to say, this was a truly shit weekend for football. But then again, we could have lost I suppose. So perhaps not the shittest weekend ever for football, but quite a shit one. Unbelievably, but somehow at the same time totally believably, YFM thrashed Kashima, so we had a good opportunity to claw back a little of the gap. However, this is suggesting that we still have some hopes of winning the league. I think they are evaporating with every successive game. But hey, let’s be positive and say we at least closed the gap by one point! Oh, but that shit game on Wednesday opened the gap by two points so our two disappointing draws have taken us further away from the leaders. And have taken me further towards negativity. I’m still not blaming Hasebe, but I’m losing a bit of patience with some players who seem to be getting worse game by game. Let’s get this over and done with and I can start thinking about a nice trip to Hiroshima next weekend, hopefully not distracted by the fact that we have to watch presumably another irritating game that ends in a frustrating draw there. (Or is that being too optimistic?).

Us -

People who don’t like negativity, maybe skip this part. There were a significant amount of players who didn’t do very well in this game as far as I’m concerned. Even with Erison out, Yamada didn’t start. And when he came on, perhaps he justified the fact that he didn’t start. I really want him to come good soon, but right now I’ve got to agree with Hasebe for starting Kobayashi ahead of him. His desperation to score somehow means he’s getting further and further away from being able to score, and less likely to pass. I don’t know what Kanda has done to not even be used from the bench. I don’t like saying it, but Yamada should be the one who’s an unused sub right now. Wakizaka had another poor game and seems to still be troubled by the ACL exit, if that is indeed the reason he has become quite bad at most aspects of football since we lost the final. He also shouldn’t be starting. Ienaga got my goat again, as he did in the Urawa game for his extremely slow exit from the pitch after he was subbed. It’s very amusing when he does it if we’re winning, but in this game we were drawing and still he was wasting time. Presumably the solution is to start with him on the bench and then it won’t happen. And finally, but perhaps most significantly, Yamaguchi had another nightmare. The situation is getting dangerously similar to that with Kamifukumoto in that it seems that at the moment, Yamaguchi in goal is basically giving the opposition a one goal head start. And when you consider we are missing good chances for fun, it makes it quite difficult to win games. Against Urawa he just watched the ball dribble into the net from a soft cross. In this game for their second goal, if he stood still it would have hit him, but instead he ran away from both the ball and the Gamba player, giving him a much bigger open goal to aim at. (And don’t forget that the reason Gamba won possession for this goal was because Wakizaka lost the ball trying a stupid little back heel in a dangerous area). It wasn’t all bad though. Sasaki and Yamamoto had really good games. And Ito looked dangerous when he came on. The problem was that the people who were supposed to be scoring couldn’t hit the target, (two shots on target out of 14), and the guy who was supposed to stop the ball going into our net but seems to be so scared of the ball that he runs away from it, only made one save in the game and let their other two shots on target in. I said above that I don’t blame Hasebe and then went on to say how people who are playing terribly shouldn’t be playing. I guess these two things don’t quite fit together perfectly, so maybe Hasebe needs to stop playing players who are woefully out of form. But I guess his thinking is that they are good players and they won’t get into form by not playing. Maybe we could just use one or two of them at a time and we wouldn’t be so shit? Oh, I almost forgot to do my marks out of ten. Considering that in the Urawa game I gave us 5.5, I definitely can’t justify going any higher even though the result was the same. The gutting late equaliser in that game was horrible, but the total shitness from plenty of players in this game makes me feel that 5.5 is way too optimistic. Let’s go right down the middle with a 5, because some players were tens and some were zeroes. I’m a bit worried though about how irritating this 5/10 game was, and how much more irritating a score below five might be. Hopefully we can avoid those for the time being.

Them -

Gamba seemed to be pretty going very physical in this match. Usami started the game by sliding into Maruyama’s ankle with his studs showing and the ball long gone. Ref didn’t even notice it. More on him and his accomplices later on. There was lots of overly physical play from Gamba I thought, but given that the ref was doing nothing, I guess it made sense as a game plan. Juan Kalano is still as unlikeable as he has always been, constantly with a scowl on his face, looking like he’s being made to play football with bits of lego in his boots. (Please note, that was note a typo when I wrote his name. Say it out loud if it doesn’t make sense). I think last time I saw him I got annoyed about the midget Yamashita’s diving and naturally that continued in this match along with him generally appearing to be a shithead. Of course he was always going to score, wasn’t he? Usami seemed to get injured late in the game. I wonder if it was just a way to waste some time and prolong an already planned sub. It happened after he’d ballooned the ball over the bar but if he was really injured I think the injury probably came from when he sprinted across the pitch to get up in the ref’s face not long before. It’s probably no surprise Gamba were employing rough tactics and general shittiness when you consider their manager though. Dressed in the classic wanker outfit of suit jacket and trainers, he was constantly whinging about everything. Fortunately for him, because he’s so special he was allowed to have a discussion with the ref over every incident that he thought hadn’t gone his way. He should have been sent off for his barrage of abuse at the officials when our second goal wasn’t ruled out. But instead he got a yellow card and an opportunity to air his grievances at length. Send the arsehole to the stands! And scuff up his trainers. That’ll teach him. Gamba weren’t that good in the first half and once again we really paid the price for not scoring more when we were clearly on top. A familiar story. But they did come into it later on and after their first goal, I don’t think we really made it out of our own half till we’d conceded another. So an entertaining game and a fair result? Well maybe, according to some. But fuck me it was an annoying afternoon.

Ref -

Sendachi was back at Todoroki. I checked my last two blog posts on his games with us and found one big win where I said he went unnoticed and one in the final game of last season where I said he let everything go. Well, I guess he at least kept up half of those two things in this game. Every decision he made, (when he actually did something), was probably one level too low. Regular fouls were ignored and we only got free kicks for things that merited yellow cards which of course he didn’t give. At the end he started throwing cards around everywhere, but to be honest it was too little too late. Perhaps he’d set himself a card target and realised that time was running out so he’d better start booking people. At one stage he played the advantage for a foul on a Gamba player, they played on and lost the ball, and then he took it back and gave them the free kick anyway. Very generous of him! Not wanting to be left out, the linesman in front of us also had a nightmare, constantly getting things wrong. There was an absolutely clear corner for us at the end that he gave as a goal kick. At one stage the ref overruled him for a decision he made about a throw. You have to be really, really shit to get overruled by such a shit ref. Even the useless Sendachi knew that one was a mistake. Apparently the linesman on the other side made a cock up for an offside against Gamba where they went on to shoot and Yamaguchi saved it. It’s a shame for Yamaguchi as that save might have made his stats look a bit better if the linesman hadn’t messed up. I guess the big decision that people will talk about is our second goal. Yamada seemed to be doing his best to get the goal ruled out by just wandering around in an offside position. Maybe the deflection helped us as when you consider the direction Ito was shooting in was well out of the way of Yamada until it was deflected. I dunno really. I think the rule is stupid. The problem is the whole interfering with play thing is that it’s another rule wildly open to interpretation. I don’t know why football is constantly trying to overcomplicate rules by making them subjective. Perhaps it’s to justify the continuing use of VAR. In this case, VAR checked it and wasn’t interested. Poyatos had his meeting and couldn’t sway the ref. I wouldn’t have been surprised if VAR had said the goal was good, Sendachi had gone over to Poyatos for their meeting, booked him and then canceled the goal. Something for everyone that way. Anyway, just another shit ref, this time with a couple of shit linesman friends with him. Guess we’d had a few games with nothing much to moan about from an officiating point of view so we were due a bad one. But blimey did he give both sets of fans plenty to complain about.

Next up, Hiroshima away… next Saturday! Wow! We have a midweek off. Not sure it will help the injury situation much as we seem to be cursed with lots of serious ones at the moment. I really hope Hasebe makes some changes otherwise we’re going to get battered. I really hope I don’t have to say at the end of the first half as I seem to be saying all the time recently, ‘I really hope we don’t regret not taking more of those many good chances’, before we go on to absolutely regret not taking more of those many good chances. This match, combined with the Orient game has made me very grateful for the Wednesday off. There was a total of one save in this game! One save! I’d take one save in Saturday’s game, but only if we make the save and we also have ten shots on target, all of which naturally we score from. Or maybe if we go with the same players again we’ll just have to hope that Sanfrecce field an ineligible player and we get awarded a 4-0 win when it’s discovered after the match finishes.

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for YAMAMOTO 90')

DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for KAWAHARA 71')
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 58')
FW 18. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for MARCINHO 57')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (Yellow card 90+8') (on for KOBAYASHI 57')
FW 38. KANDA Soma
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Kind of said this above but two people really stood out in what was a game of mixed fortunes for players.

SASAKI Asahi & YAMAMOTO Yuki - two bright lights in a day with plenty of gloomy performances. They were both at the heart of most of the good things we did in this match.

Goals

MARCINHO (Frontale) 32' 1-0
USAMI (Gamba) 53' 1-1
YAMASHITA (Gamba) 60' 1-2
ITO (Frontale) 79' 2-2


Highlights

Vs Avispa Fukuoka (home) 8/12/24 J League match 38

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Avispa Fukuoka 

Well, this was a game that was very much relegated to the shadows by everything that surrounded it. Not saying it was a bad match, it was actually pretty entertaining, but both teams had nothing to play for and were both losing long serving managers and presumably some players after the game. I would imagine that this blog post will become irrelevant quite quickly, as presumably now that the season is over, we’ll start getting all kinds of rumours flying around. I’ll deal with that in a paragraph later and give my predictions which will almost certainly be proved wrong immediately. First let’s briefly deal with the match.

It didn’t completely feel like a 3-1 win for us. Avispa had quite a few dangerous chances but didn’t seem to be able to finish them or were denied by yet another great Sung-Ryong display. I guess it’s simply a fact that we took more of our chances than they did. When I looked back at the stats I was kind of surprised to see how many shots we had. There really has been a big turnaround recently. This has coincided with a few things I feel. Firstly and most importantly, we finally changed our formation and tactics. Since then we’ve done significantly better. Particularly so since Oniki stopped changing back to his old favoured formation after getting a win using the new formation. Secondly, there definitely has been a pick up in results and performances since Oniki’s departure was announced. It’s a shame that he didn’t address the first point earlier and then we might not have needed to come to the second point. (I’d say it should have been done at least a year ago and probably longer. I feel that I should say here that my problem wasn’t with Oniki, it was with his apparent inability to change anything. Him finally having done that and us playing really well has probably presented plenty of people with some conflicting emotions). Thirdly, and possibly connected but probably only tangentially, is that since Wakizaka got injured we’ve done a lot better. I feel bad about saying this as it sounds like I’m blaming him. The truth is that with him in the team I think Oniki felt he had to play a certain way and that way just didn’t work. We scored three times in this match and all of them were fun goals. Their keeper made an absolute howler for the second. For the third I really enjoyed Ienaga in acres of space, controlling the ball, looking around to see he had loads of space and then instead of doing what everyone in the stadium expected him to do (dwell on the ball, slow things down, wait for someone to arrive who he could hold off), he instead whipped the ball in immediately and we scored. Lovely! What else should I put in this section? Sendachi was the ref and there was someone even more obscure doing the VAR. I guess it demonstrated quite how much the barrel was being scraped. You probably could make a case for this being the least important game of the day, so fair enough I guess. I thought Sendachi was at best average, but average is something of a compliment from me when referring to refs. He definitely could have booked a few more players I think. Particularly Wellington, who must be the most forgetful player in the league. Forgetful in the way that he’s always leaving things behind, like elbows or raised boots, long after the ball has gone. Poor guy, we all get a bit forgetful when we’re older, I guess. Finally, I’d like to ponder on why Marcinho seemed determined to try to hit at least 90% of his shots, passes or crosses with the outside of his boot. Perhaps he has succumbed to gout and his big toe was too painful to consider getting anywhere near the ball. The first couple of times he did it, it delighted me, the second couple of times were a bit frustrating, but then after that I just got used to it and accepted that was the way things were going to be.

After the game we had our end of season ceremony. Definitely wasn’t as much fun as it has been in the past. There were lots of tears from fans, players and managers. The first three quarters of this season were pretty terrible, so in a way it’s a miracle that we ended up in eighth, exactly as we did last year. Of course this year there are two more teams in the league so you could say this year was actually an improvement. It certainly didn’t feel like it was. For me it was just a season full of missed opportunities and I’m glad it’s over. I’m pleased Oniki finally did something and could leave on a semi-high. We’ve been scoring goals for fun recently and our ACL campaign is going ok, so at least we can end the season with a bit of a smile. One person who probably won’t be smiling though is the chairman, the announcement of his name before his speech resulting in the most lukewarm of applause from a significantly small proportion of the crowd. When he spoke about being moved by Oniki leaving he got massively heckled, with booing, shouting, whistling and feedback from the megaphones. It was deliciously uncomfortable. I haven’t liked him much since I saw his comment about Chanathip leaving, where he expressed his surprise that Chana didn’t want to stay watching games from the stand and his belief that if he let a bit more of his career dwindle away he’d surely get his chance soon. I felt this showed he was quite out of touch with football and probably didn’t know what he was doing. There has also been an exodus of staff in all positions since he took over, so something clearly isn’t going right behind the scenes. It’s a shame as the positive club culture seems to be being eroded slightly. Hopefully the heckling will cause some reflection on his part. Or maybe he’ll ask someone to explain why he got heckled as presumably he won’t understand it himself. At least if the message is conveyed, there is more of a chance of it being acted on. Of course us fans don’t know what goes on behind the scenes and there is no guarantee that any information we get is in any way accurate. At the same time, the number of staff leaving speaks volumes.

Talking of leaving, we know Oniki is going. Who else might follow him? Kurumaya is rumoured to be going. Segawa too. Ze Ricardo had gone missing until he turned up after the game yesterday. At that stage it even took me a little while to work out who he was so complete has his exile been. There are always rumours about Ienaga after every season. You might imagine he might want to go somewhere else with a new manager coming in. Takai will probably leave to go overseas. Sasaki has been linked with someone I think. I should stress that probably most of this is nonsense, but it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see a significant turnover at the end of the season. I hope that the new manager, (if that decision has been made already, which it presumably has, hopefully has…), is having some say in these decisions. I think we’ve had too many transfer decisions made recently without the input of the person who picks the team. Also Wakizaka was very emotional during his captain’s speech. At the same time he talked about fighting on in the ACL. Regular readers will remember me saying his emotional speech at the end of last season made me think he was leaving, so with that in mind, perhaps he won’t be going anywhere. But he was really choked up at points in his speech. There are a hell of a lot of things that need to be sorted out before next season. And don’t forget, thanks to the ACL, next season starts in early February. I could probably list loads more players here. but it seems kind of pointless as if instead of speculating, we just hang on a bit, we’ll all know what’s happening. it’s definitely going to be interesting though.

Finally, I guess we need to talk about Oniki. Without a doubt, he’s a Frontale legend. I wish things had gone a bit differently in the last few years, but of course I’d say that. In his speech he talked about how good it was that our fans don’t boo the players and I have to agree with him. There have been a lot of frustrating times this year and there has been hardly any booing of our players. I have never done it. The closest I got was shouting ‘fucking shit’ at the final whistle away at Sagan Tosu and then just crossing my arms and staying quiet. On reflection, perhaps that was a bit over dramatic but at the same time, I think it was a fair assessment of what could have been our worst performance this year. The culture of our club suits someone like Oniki, who it seems was well loved by everyone around the club. I wish I could have loved him a bit more, but at times, it did feel like he was doing things to intentionally and specifically annoy me. If players who haven’t even been picked that much by him still find it sad that he’s leaving that really says something. We’ll see how long the good feeling lasts if he goes to Kashima as expected and of they then hammer us. We all would have liked it to end with a title, but I guess things don’t always work out how we’d like them to. And we have already had our fair share of fairytale endings throughout his tenure. There’s definitely something slightly amusing about the fact that Kashima finished above us, and hammered us in our last meeting but still our manager is probably joining them. Something equally funny about the same situation potentially happening with Avispa’s manager joining us. They finished below us and we’ve just whacked them. It feels a bit like there is a bit of a dearth of options available right now and instead of anything revolutionary happening about a third of J League teams are just going to swap around their managers and see what happens. Hasebe potentially joining us isn’t massively inspiring, but of course I’m not going to write him off before he’s even been confirmed, let alone taken charge of a game. Hopefully we’ll have some idea of what’s happening soon and then when can start speculating about something else instead.

So another season is done and what exciting things have we got to look forward to next year? Three teams are coming to J1 and they are Shimizu (again), Yokohama FC (again) and Okayama (oh, that’s a new one!). The plus of having a new ground to visit next year in Okayama is slightly undermined by the fact that two really good away days have gone. Please come back soon Sapporo and Tosu! Also, watching the playoff final, Okayama’s ground looked a bit dodgy, but apparently it’s walkable from the station and Okayama is a great place to do some day trips from. Just you wait, it will end up being on a Wednesday evening or something. In the next few weeks, I’ll do my usual end of season posts. I might skip the player stats one this time as it’s a major pain in the arse to do. Or perhaps I’ll just grab the stats from another site and do it. I’m about to go away for my Christmas holiday so perhaps I’ll have plenty of free time to do these things. At the same time though, I might decide it’s more fun to not bother. I’m also considering starting a Substack as it might be an easier way for people to get these posts now I’m not on Twitter. Anyway, if I’m not back on here before, I hope everyone has a happy Christmas and a happy New Year. And let’s hope for an exciting and successful new Frontale era starting soon.
 

 

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong (Yellow card 78')

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi

DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 20. YAMADA Shin

 

Subs

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 4. JESIEL
FW 9. ERISON (on for KOBAYASHI 75')
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 64')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for YAMAMOTO 64')
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai 
FW 32. KANDA Soma (on for YAMADA 90+1')

Goals

IENAGA (Frontale) 8' 1-0
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 27' 2-0
MARCINHO (Frontale) 48' 3-0
MATSUOKA (Avispa) 51' 3-1

Highlights

Vs Shimizu S Pulse (home) 19/4/23 Levain Cup group stage game 4

Kawasaki Frontale 6 - 0 Shimizu S Pulse 

2023 has so far been something of a year of misery for Frontale fans, watching a squad of talented players flailing around and failing to reach anything near the level that their potential might suggest. There have been a couple of highlights, (Kashima away and Sapporo away), but neither really suggested that we were a force to be reckoned with. Kashima seem to be absolutely useless this year, (what a shame, eh?), and games against Sapporo are always a bit random. But now we’ve won a watch where we didn’t require some intervention from VAR or some gifts from an opposition keeper. Well, perhaps there was a little of the latter, but not till we were already pretty much home and dry. It’s always seems to be fun for people to make snooty comments about the relative worth of the Levain Cup compared to pretty much anything else in Japanese football or even in any aspect of anything really. These comments usually come after bad results with second string teams playing. After a big win in the cup it seems like it would be equally hyperbolic to get excited about the start of a new period for us. But I guess we can enjoy it as a nice little pick-me-up after some truly mind-numbing games recently. As we have a weekend game fast approaching and I have a lot of stuff I need to do, let’s get this out of the way quickly and not bother with bullet points.

We started the game with… I dunno anymore. Was it a second string? Was it the best players available? Was it just another spin of the wheel or random slinging of the magnets? Kamifukumoto was back in goal and I don’t think we particularly learnt much more about him. He has had three clean sheets in a row now which is great, but he did let in three in his first game against Shimizu. And all of these matches were with Levain Cup level opposition starting line-ups. I’m not downplaying his performances but merely mentioning this as a slight antidote to the people on Twitter who are demanding he starts. I think we clearly still don’t know who is the better keeper. At right back we had Yamane who did alright, seemed to be more disciplined and was running up the right and crossing which was very welcome. He was captain for the night, so maybe the responsibility caused him to give a bit more of a shit. He was substituted on 72 minutes along with Miyashiro and Schmidt which suggests that some if not all of them will be used for Sunday’s game against Urawa. In the middle were Takai and Kurumaya and on the left was Sasaki, who I thought had a really good game, and should be in with a shout for getting his place in the side back, I think. It’s a bit difficult to assess the defence really though, as Shimizu either didn’t really turn up or were wonderfully controlled by the mastery of our players (delete as to your opinion). A bit like with Kamifukumoto, anything we think we might be able to learn from a clean sheet is perhaps undermined by the fact that they didn’t have to do a great deal. Our starting midfield was Joao Schmidt, Seko and Chanathip. Chanathip picked up another injury and left the pitch on a stretcher. It didn’t look very good, so fingers crossed for him. Before that happened I thought we were looking quite good. There seems to be some different ideas about our formation with some saying that it was 4-2-3-1 and me thinking it was pretty much the usual 4-3-3. Much like with our clean sheet, I don’t think we can draw too many positive or negative conclusions from a potential formation change. Particularly when people can’t agree what that formation is. Up front we went with Tono on the left, Yamada on the right and Miyashiro in the middle. We scored quite a few times, so you’ve got to say that it worked well. There were a few gift goals in there though. It’s always nice to see Okubo in goal for Shimizu at Todoroki as he does tend to give us some nice opportunities. If I recall correctly a dodgy roll out or kick of the ball was pounced on by Kengo a few seasons ago and the same thing happened in this game, with Seko being the scorer. Also let’s not forget that the goal which sent us on our way was a shot that was going well wide before it was kindly deflected into the net by a Shimizu player. (Thanks a lot Kololli! I have had a grudge against him since he crocked Oshima away at Shimizu a year or two ago (so many Oshima injuries, it’s difficult to keep up with them). He seemed a bit bummed out by his deflection of a definitely-not-goal-bound shot and spent the rest of the match being very aggro).

 

 

I’d said before the game that I felt like our formation or player selections were less important at the moment than us getting a bit of luck, noting that we needed to get a goal with a shot going in off an opposition player’s backside in order to free us from our current lack of confidence. I now wish I’d stopped halfway through the word backside and then I would have looked like a real sage. That goal gave us some long awaited self-belief which I think led to us scoring a lot and moving from the bottom of the group to second with a very nice goal difference which might count almost as a bonus point. If it also signals a new dawn for us in the league, well we’ll see on Sunday against Urawa. I hoped that the win against Sapporo might have perked us up a bit, but after that game we reverted back to making no chances, drew 0-0 once in the Levain and then lost twice in the league, scoring only one goal in three games. So basically fingers crossed really. I felt at the start of the game that we still weren’t shooting much but that definitely changed once the first couple of goals went in. We finished up having almost 30 shots, with plenty of them on target. Honestly, it was a bit of a miracle. But a miracle that will not count for much if we’re back to double defensive midfield, sideways passing and hoping for a 0-0 on Sunday. 

 

No big moans about the ref, not anything in particular to bitch about or be snarky about, so let’s just finish up here. Short and possibly sweet. Perhaps it’s more difficult to write blog posts when we do well. Or perhaps it’s just because I have some other work that I need to do this afternoon and probably need to clean the house. I've just realised though that I didn't mention Kobayashi and Oshima being back from injury! And also didn't question where Damiao and Segawa have gone. All a mystery really, I guess. Next up, as mentioned numerous times, Urawa at home in the league on Sunday. Then after that, a golden week extravaganza of Fukuoka away and Kyoto away in the league. Two teams who are both doing better than expected this year. Would be quite nice in we came out the other side of Golden Week in the top half of the league, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer, so let’s not count our chickens yet. And why not some more cliches as well… game of two halves, all that glitters is not gold, every cloud has a silver lining…

Team 

 
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 29. TAKAI Kota
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (Yellow card 61')

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

MF 18. CHANATHIP

FW 20. YAMADA Shin

FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei

FW 17. TONO Daiya

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for YAMANE 72')

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for JOAO SCHMIDT 72')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for MIYASHIRO 72')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for CHANATHIP 31')

FW 26. EINAGA Takatora (on for TONO 79')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

After weeks of not doing this, I’m going to give it to a few people on this occasion. As I said above, it’s a bit difficult to judge whether any defenders had good games as it seemed like they didn’t have much to do. With that in mind, I’m going to give it to…

SEKO Tatsuki, TONO Daiya, YAMADA Shin, SASAKI Asahi - Seko was great in the midfield, constantly looking for forward passes which didn’t always come off but definitely led to us having a different approach. Tono scored twice assisted at least once (I think) and never stopped running. Pleased to see him get a chance to play further forward. You can say most of the same things about Yamada, who was a constant menace but just couldn’t get a goal. Snatched at a few chances but really contributed to our success. Oh and I said I couldn’t give it to a defender but well done Sasaki. After being in and then mainly out of the team he’s come back and given Oniki a difficult decision for the next match.

 

Goals

 

TONO (Frontale) 13' 1-0

TONO (Frontale) 16' 2-0

KURUMAYA (Frontale) 58' 3-0

SEKO (Frontale) 69' 4-0

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 84' 5-0

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 89' 6-0

 

 

Highlights

 

Vs AC Nagano Parceiro (home) 9/6/21 - Emperor's Cup 2nd round

 

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 AC Nagano Parceiro (AET) (4-3 on penalties)

Phew! We scraped through. Coming into this game unbeaten and with us playing a J3 side who were struggling there seemed only one logical outcome in this game. Yes, that’s right, a real wobble from us, just about managing to avoid losing. At certain stages of the night it looked like being a great evening for either us, YFM or FC Chofu fans as within the trio of rivals there was always one team who seemed to be doing their best to embarrass themselves. I guess the one positive from your team losing to weaker opposition would be if your rival also did, particularly if it were to even weaker opposition. However, Frontale, perhaps the team who have the strongest rivalry with the other two (not downplaying the FC Tokyo and YFM rivalry, especially after events in recent years, but both of them almost certainly hate us more than they hate each other), managed to come up smelling of roses again with a slightly nervy win on penalties, with the added bonus of their two neighbours going out to a university team and an amateur team. I don’t want to hear about Honda FC’s strength and how they are actually better than some J1 teams. It’s much more fun to concentrate on the fact that they are in the JFL. Why let facts get in the way of fun? The win sees us take on JEF United in the next round, although that will probably have to be rescheduled as we’ll be away on ACL duty. Which will also be the competition our next game, (against Daegu on the 26th June), is part of. So a bit of a break now. Lovely! Get the international players back and have a bit of a rest and then get ready and firing for the ACL hopefully. Here are the usual bullet points before we all have a couple of weeks off.

Us -

In usual Frontale cup style we started with our probably strongest line up and toiled. Of course this is with the caveat that we had those five international players still missing. Probably the big surprise in the line up was Kozuka starting in midfield. Oniki has done this before, and much like the previous time he was replaced at half time. I thought this was a bit unfair both times as I couldn’t see he was any worse than anyone else, but maybe he wanted to put some players together who have played more alongside each other as we were trailing. Clearly Oniki sees something in him to have given him a couple of starts but I’m wondering how much longer that will go on. Personally, I wonder if he’d have more joy playing further forward. He’s apparently a more attacking midfielder so perhaps playing up front would suit him better. Another starter who was withdrawn relatively early was Issaka, who I thought did OK again. But his replacement at right back Tachibanada did really well, so you can’t argue about that change. Tachibanada has been growing in stature recently. (Metaphorically speaking. Literally, well if that were true he would have had to have started from a very low place if he’s grown to where he is now!). In both this and the YFC game I think he’s really seized his opportunity and looks like a great prospect. Another interesting prospect who got a surprise runout was Miyagi Ten. He came on for Hasegawa and it seems that he’s been learning quite a lot from him and Mitoma as his game seemed to be all about dribbling, beating the man and shooting. He could have scored a beauty. Which is a nice link to talking about almost all of the front players. They all could and probably should have scored but were denied by wayward targeting and last ditch defending. We hit the bar a couple of times and there were numerous goal line clearances and scrambled blocks. Full credit to Nagano for this, but you’ve got to wonder if we’ll get so many opportunities in our upcoming ACL games.

 

We did our best in this game when we moved the ball forward a bit more quickly. Nagano were understandably defending in numbers, particularly when they were ahead. We spent much too long building slowly. I say building, but it was building in the way that you can build a really long wall that stretches for miles but if you don’t add a few layers and a roof and join it up with some other walls you’re never going to get an actual building but instead will just have a long line of bricks. When we moved forward quickly and ran at them we made chances. And then missed chances, but that’s slightly beside the point. When we pondered we didn’t even make chances for us to miss. The big standout thing for me in this game was our passing and control. It was pretty bad! I would be surprised if we completed more than 60% of them. They were weirdly hit and off target. Attempted traps pinged off the boot or the body. Of course, I’d love to blame the ball, which seemed to be behaving like one of those little hard rubber super bouncy balls, which when I was young we referred to as ‘bouncy balls’ (perhaps not the technical name, but pretty descriptive, I’m sure you’ll agree). I wish we’d been able to adjust a bit more quickly to it as if the ACL decides to use a beach ball for this season's competition we need to be prepared to adapt a bit quicker. All in all, we looked a bit tired and a bit off the pace, but we really did have a lot of possession and a lot of shots and aside from some stout Nagano defending we would have won this easily. But you can guarantee that other teams will defend like that against us, so I’d hope we get a bit better at taking our chances soon.

Them -

There’s not much to say about Nagano that I haven’t already referred to. They were very unlucky. They defended well and scored a wonder goal. They had a player called Kammera Shuto which delighted me. You’ve got to feel sorry for them losing this game, but at least they did it on penalties to a team who are unbeaten and leading the division two above them. Full credit to them. I’m a bit worried how poorly we dealt with their long throws. I hope this won’t be picked up on by other teams. I never imagine these games will be easy, but they made it a lot harder than everyone expected it would be. Nice work Nagano!

Ref and VAR -

This was the best game for VAR so far this season... because it’s not used in this tournament. The ref was a new name for me, Sendachi. I thought he looked a bit out of his depth, perhaps being unwilling to make any bad decisions and as a consequence not really making any decisions. He wasn’t bothered about time wasting or shirt pulling and even if we played for days I don’t think Damiao would have got a decision given his way. He also tackled Kozuka, which I don’t think he’s really supposed to do, causing us to lose the ball and he didn’t stop the game for a drop ball as I’ve seen other refs do. I’m not going to complain too much though as given that this is the first time I’ve seen his name I guess he’s not that experienced. (Turns out from some research that he's not refereed a top flight game before and before this match has only taken charge of 8 games. He's only 31 too!). If it had been Nishimura or Iemoto doing the same I’d be far more inclined to have a rant.

Other stuff -

We had an earthquake before the game. It was the first time I’ve felt one whilst in the stadium I think. The JFA is still flexing their muscles and showing they’re in control of the Emperor's Cup by controlling the build up music before the game and it’s the same horrible crap they played last year. Endlessly looping guitar-solo-funky-rock-workout and then slightly traditional sounding intro song which gear changes into a soft techno beat mess. Rotten stuff! But quite funny I suppose and it does mark this out as a different competition. Oh and one point that could have gone in the ‘us’ section. Jesiel attempted an overhead kick in this game. At FC Chofu Leandro seems to be spreading grumpiness to his countrymen. At Frontale Leandro Damiao is instead convincing his compatriots to try an overhead at every opportunity. Lovely stuff!

This could have been a very different blog post if we hadn’t managed that equaliser. Full credit to Tachibanada for putting the ball in the net! We were really motivated toward the end of the game but couldn’t do actually score, so without his goal we would have been screwed. Maybe we should try the same insane formation we had at the end of the match for the ACL games, with everyone playing everywhere and loads of attacking players on the pitch. (Kurumaya was definitely left and centre back with Nobori and Jesiel up front). Probably best not to, but it was clear that Oniki was throwing every attacking option he had at the game in order to avoid an embarrassing defeat. And he did. Next up, the ACL. No one has the TV rights at the moment but hopefully that will change nearer the time. Otherwise the upcoming blog posts are going to be very brief. Probably a blessing. Let’s have a rest then get ready and then hopefully make a decent stab of it this year. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 15. ISSAKA Zain

DF 4. JESIEL

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki

MF 8. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki (on for JOAO SCHMIDT 81')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for ISSAKA 65')

FW 19. TONO Daiya (on for WAKIZAKA 81')

MF 22. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for KOZUKA 46')

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for HASEGAWA 85')

MF 28. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for HASEGAWA 112')

 

Goals   

FUJIYAMA (Nagano) 42' 0-1

TACHIBANADA (Frontale) 90+1' 1-1

Penalties
FUJIYAMA (Nagano) 0-1
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 1-1
MIZUTANI (Nagano) 1-1 (saved)

YAMAMURA (Frontale) 2-1
AZUMA (Nagano) 2-1 (saved)
KURUMAYA (Frontale) 3-1
YAMAMOTO (Nagano) 3-2

TONO (Frontale) 3-2 (saved)

YOSHIMURA (Nagano) 3-3

IENAGA (Frontale) 4-3

 

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

This was a weird game where things just didn’t seem to be going our way. For most of the game it would have been difficult to pick someone for this but I’ve ended up going with two people for different reasons. Let’s give it to....

Sung-Ryong JUNG and TACHIBANADA Kento - Sung-Ryong basically won us the game by saving two out of the five Nagano penalties. If you save one penalty in a shoot out that’s great so two is definitely deserving of this prestigious accolade. Tachibanada gave us a lot more drive when he came on and he scored the goal that got us back in the game so he clearly deserves this too. Bravo to both of them!

 

Highlights