Vs Shonan Bellmare (away) 19/6/23 Levain Cup group stage game 6

Shonan Bellmare 2 - 3 Kawasaki Frontale

What an amazing game! A great performance! A truly superlative tactical masterclass from our great leader. Using the first 60 minutes to lull them into a false sense of security by refusing to pass the ball forwards, racking up those lovely completed pass stats with the ball going from Takai to Kurumaya, to Kamifukumoto, back to Takai (repeat). And what a start! Almost immediately conceding through a defensive clanger and then actually conceding a couple of minutes later, allowing Shonan to score what must be the easiest goal they’ll score all year. Praise be to Oniki! This game was utterly shit for the most part so I’ll spare you further sarcasm and keep this reasonably brief.

We’re crap and every week our starting tactics find new ways to avoid getting anywhere near scoring. Yet still Oniki ploughs on with them. It’s probably notable that no one who scored in this game actually started the match. It’s also notable that we only gained parity and got the winner once 4-3-3 had been ditched. But don’t worry those of you who don’t like change, I’m sure it will be back for the next game. The next game won’t be a Levain Cup game though as we’re out of the tournament now, finishing third in our group on equal points with the two teams in front of us and with a better goal difference, the first criteria when teams are on equal points being head to head record. But the damage was done in pretty much every other game of the group stage. In this game we squeaked past a Shonan reserve team with Oniki’s favoured starting line-up and tactics. The losses away at J2 Shimizu and at Urawa, (both of whom put the reserves out), have put us out of this competition. And probably the home draw against Shonan too. Urawa have gone through scoring five and conceding four in six games, with just the one win, (naturally against us), and five draws. It’s no wonder people hate this competition! I actually quite like it, as we get a chance to see some of the less played players. Oh actually that absolutely normally isn’t the case with Oniki in charge and aside from the first game wasn’t the case this year, with us being able to skip the U21 rule when we had two players at the U20 World Cup and on the other occasions playing Takai, who is now often a starter, as the U21 player. I think Oniki is out of ideas and to totally to blame. When all of your players are playing shit, you’ve got to look somewhere else. Sure, we don’t have as many good players as we used to, but we’ve still got a lot more good players than Shonan or Shimizu have. And Yokohama FC. And Gamba. And Niigata. And plenty more teams too, all who have outwitted our tactical genius. There were great celebrations from us fans at the end of a game where we won late on with a massive deflection after absolutely stinking the place up for over 60 minutes. Which all just obscures the fact that we ultimately couldn’t get through a favourable group and the fact that we’re just really really boring and quite bad in 2023. The very occasional highs of a win in a game that is ultimately pointless, often grabbed with a significant portion of luck, help to keep the morale up and stop people thinking about how things don’t necessarily have to be this way. 

As Shonan crossed the ball for their second goal, before Ohashi had made contact, I screamed ‘Oniki out!’ into the night air, so obvious was it that we were going to concede again. I’m sure we won’t get rid of him mid season. Last year I became numb to our situation and even started to feel a bit of pity towards him as he’s clearly clueless but is probably a nice guy. Right now, I’m wavering between that and thinking that we have to make change. We’re out of the title race in the league, we’re out of the Levain at the first possible stage. If anyone thinks he’s going to make up for that with a great ACL campaign, well, I think they should probably check Oniki’s record in that competition. So basically, just the Emperor’s Cup left to play for. And Oniki is notoriously shit at knockout competitions. Not looking great is it? So probably he’ll go at the end of the year, which even being generous is probably at least one year overdue, and then we’ll probably have an exodus of players who aren’t sure of their future whilst we scramble around for a new manager. Our situation doesn’t have to be terminal though, and a good first step would perhaps be making a change at the top now. It could spare us from any more of the absolute shit stuff we had to watch in the first half and have had to watch in plenty of other games this year. In these situations, people always ask what I’d do instead. ‘I don’t know as I’m not a manager’, is my usual answer. But I would probably ditch 4-3-3 though. And there are a few players who really shouldn’t be starting as many games as they are. Basically I’d ask Oniki what he would do and then I’d do absolutely anything else, as it would probably be more effective. A couple of days before this game I had a dream where I was at a game and getting frustrated with our football. In that game Damiao was playing at left back and was hitting every pass with such pace that the players couldn’t get there in time to receive them. In the same dream Joao Schmidt was repeatedly spraying long and backwards crossfield passes off the pitch and into the stands. It didn’t happen like that in this game but maybe my ‘dream’ scenario would have actually been a more effective approach than the one we went with. It also makes me wonder if this is how Oniki came up with our 2023 tactics. But rather than them coming to him in a dream, it’s probably more likely that he was looking for a cure for insomnia and found that the crushing dullness of Frontale’s 2023 style was enough to send most people to sleep. Sadly it doesn’t have that effect on me as it instead makes me just a bit angry. How much longer will we have to put up with it?

A quick player round up before we wrap this up. Kobayashi is out for 6 weeks I think. Sung-Ryong was absent from both practice and this squad, rumours (started by me) saying that he’s maybe leaving us. But perhaps he’s just injured. Chanathip is apparently going back to Thailand. Matsui has gone on loan to Machida, is PLAYING IN MIDFIELD and has scored a goal. And Einaga has gone on loan to Mito, despite seemingly being Oniki’s third choice on the right up front. This had led me to think that maybe we have someone lined up in that position coming in soon. Totally unconnected to this, Miyoshi was back at the club the other day having lunch…

 

Bit of a lack of fun, jokes, detail and photos in this post, eh? So sure was I that we were going to lose, I started taking random photos of things thinking that they would be the amusing part of this blog post. But unbelievably we came back and won! However, I’m left with these photos and with this crappy idea for a joke, so you’ll have to make do with it. Sorry! Hopefully they’ll have helped break up the moaning. Next up we have… oh fucking hell, not Urawa away again?! Presumably they won’t play their reserves this time and presumably we’ll go with 4-3-3 and the same approach…Lord help us! Better have a few drinks on the way.

Team 

 
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 29. TAKAI Kota
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei
 

Subs

 

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for OSHIMA 63')

FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for IENAGA 73')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for NOBORIZATO 82')

FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (Yellow card 85') (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 63')

MF 49. KOZUKA Kazuki (on for JOAO SCHMIDT 63')

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

Given that our starting line up and tactics in this game were utterly useless, I’ll give this to….

ALL OF THE SUBS - sure, some played no part in the game, but by doing nothing they did better than those who’d done worse than nothing in the whole first half.

Goals

 

OHASHI (Shonan) 6' 1-0

OHASHI (Shonan) 59' 2-0

SEKO (Frontale) 73' 2-1

YAMADA (Frontale) 88' 2-2

TONO (Frontale) 90+4' 3-2

 

Highlights

 

Vs Urawa Reds (away) 24/5/23 Levain Cup group stage game 5

Urawa Reds 2 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale

I’m going to be a bit busy in the next few weeks as I’m playing a concert in Kobe and I’m woefully underprepared. This is why I’m writing this on my phone on the way home from another exhilarating 2-1 defeat. Little did we know that after three minutes we’d only see another 2 shots on target in the remaining 91 minutes. I remember one of them, (Ienaga’s pretty tame shot straight at the keeper (good to see we’re carrying on from where we left off against YFC)), but if you offered me a winning lottery ticket to describe our other shot on target I’m sad to say I’d fail and be even more depressed than I am after watching another shocking game. (I’ve watched the highlights now and it was an Ienaga header). There’s not much to grasp on to if you’re looking for something positive. Sure we almost got a draw, but it was a draw that would be pretty much against the odds and against the run of play. Unbelievably, we had more possession in the second half, but as usual we did next to nothing with it.  Last time we went to the Saitama Stadium we had three keepers on the bench, and even then we couldn’t fill it. This time we’ve got plenty more players to choose from but a manager who hasn’t got a clue who to pick. And to be honest, it doesn’t really matter who he picks as whoever starts, we play the same dull stuff. If you’re looking for positives, well, Sung-Ryong did a lot better than Kamifukumoto has recently. Ominami looked decent at right back. Tono made a difference when he came on. Kozuka probably had his best game for us that I can remember. But all of this is against a backdrop of three shots on target. Another amazing Oniki half time team talk saw us drop from top of the group at half time to bottom (and barring a miracle in four different games, out of the cup), at full time. And the same team talk resulted in us fluffing a chance and then conceding from the next attack only five minutes into the second half. I’ve been saying Oniki is out of his depth and out of ideas since Mitoma left. Well, actually also a bit before then as 2019 was also pretty awful. Perhaps people are bored of hearing me say it. Or perhaps some people might be agreeing with me now. I still don’t expect any change in management before the end of the season though. Instead we’ll keep on plugging away, perhaps avoid relegation, Oniki will leave and so will probably lots of players who are unsettled by the fact that we’re utterly shite and will be manageress. We’ll also be back to the drawing board, starting with a new manager and (hopefully) new ideas which will take some time to bed in. So basically, the next six months are utterly pointless and probably so will be the first part of next season. 

 

I’m fully aware that whatever team Oniki picked I would find something to moan about but this one seemed to underwhelm in every possible way. Still grimly sticking to the same formation and tactics. Resting some of the big names although some of them deserved to be dropped anyway. It was a mystery as to whether it was a first choice side with some changes or a reserves side with some changes. Whichever it was, it didn’t work, so I guess it’s pointless thinking about it too much. Marcinho seems to have now joined Damiao in the mystery zone. Get injured, come back for one game and then disappear. I suspect Damiao has a transfer lined up and we don’t want him to get injured. Perhaps Marcinho has too. (Actually, today it’s been announced that he’s injured again, in training, our for three months, another victim of our full-contact cage fighting training methods). I wonder who of our players might not want to get out of the club at the first opportunity. I can’t blame those who want to leave. At the moment going to these games feels more like an addiction than any kind of hobby or fun pastime. There’s certainly not much pleasure to be found. A third minute goal and then hanging on and not doing much for the rest of the game. Sure it’s a game of small margins. If Kobayashi had scored and we had gone 2-0 up at the start of the second half, it would have obviously been a different game. If we hadn’t conceded a clanger of an own goal we might have scraped a point. But when things aren’t going well, you do seem to get this kind of luck. But is it really luck? We’ve been crap, and we’ve got the results a crap team should get. In fact perhaps we’ve got better than expected results considering how bad we’ve been. That was certainly the case for the whole of the 2022 season. I’ve also said this before, but it’s not who we pick, it just seems to be the whole approach. I’m sure Oniki will comment and say that Urawa just wanted it more, we need to make better decisions when we’re shooting and some of the other usual platitudes he wheels out. He won’t consider changing the formation. He won’t shake up the line up too much. He won’t actually suggest to the players that we try to actually shoot instead of sideways pass. What a shit season. What a shit manager.

Urawa looked alright. I think it was very much a reserves team that we lost to. Their fans even made some noise. Perhaps the ACL title has put them in a good mood. The pre-game music is still unbelievably awful. A mix between the shittest of shit ROCK MUSIC!!!! and upbeat house versions of what were already pretty camp songs in their original form. This time they added some dull country rock too, probably with lyrics about good old boys, drinking whisky and some kind of relationship ups or downs. I guess the stadium is pretty much in the countryside though. And maybe this love of good old Southern country music, combined with their fans' previous penchant for slightly exclusionary politics might explain why they use a burning cross in their scoreboard graphics. Cheeky and a bit of an on the nose way for them to express certain elements of their ultras politics quite so openly. 

 

Considering it’s still part of the greater Tokyo sprawl there is a surprising feeling of being in an absolute wasteland with a baffling amount of houses for the apparent total lack of amenities. And don’t forget them playing the whole of East 17’s house of love accompanied by a video where their club crest looks like it’s being spied on by a pervert, zooming in on various areas and lingering a little too long, as the crest assembles and disassembles itself in 3D like some kind of AI generated sexy video made by a heraldic loving pervert artificial intelligence. Presumably the reason for the song choice is that there is a house (or big long building) on the top of their crest. But is that really enough of a reason? The crowd loved it though and politely applauded at the end of the video, as if they’d just seen their grandchildren doing a hip-hop dance demonstration. Probably the same way FC Tokyo fans feel when the flame cannons get wheeled out. The only other observations I have about the Urawa crowd is that they still clap Kurumaya for some reason. And that they also seem to think that incessant booing and whistling when their opponent has possession will spook them. Honestly, there’s no need to bother trying. We are more than likely going to give away the ball without the interaction of either the opposition fans or even the opposition players. They could all stay rooted to the spot from kick off and we’d still contrive to lose the ball to their ‘high press’.

Oh, we had Yamashita, the J League’s new female ref, and aside from one occasion when we were once again absolutely robbed by an awful failure to play the advantage, I can’t say I have anything to moan about. The linesman nearest us, well, that’s a whole different matter. He was an absolutely useless arsehole of the highest order, who seemed to find it more difficult to see things the closer he was to them. But forget the officials. They didn’t rob us. We just had nothing much to give and therefore nothing much to be robbed of. Same old crap again.

Next up Kashiwa at home in the league. They had a slight new manager bounce but then lost in the Levain. What’s the betting that we can give them a gift wrapped three points on Sunday, further cementing our absolute shiteness against teams near the bottom of the league. Who knows who’ll play? I think if Kamifukumoto is back in goal it will just be baffling, but at the same time totally predictable. Once again we sang the team off the pitch. Well, I say we, but this time unlike last weekend, I was out of there at the final whistle. At this stage the relentless positivity is just making us look like we’re severely damaged people utterly out of touch with reality. 

Team 

 
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

MF 49. KOZUKA Kazuki (Yellow card 47')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

Subs

 

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for KOZUKA 73')

DF 13. YAMANE Miki

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for WAKIZAKA 73')

FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for SEGAWA 58')

FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei (on for KOBAYASHI 73')

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 88') (on for YAMADA 79')

Goals

 

SEGAWA (Frontale) 3' 0-1

KANTE (Urawa) 51' 1-1

OWN GOAL (Frontale) 89' 2-1

 

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 Urawa Reds (home) 5/4/23 Levain Cup group stage game 3

 

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 0 Urawa Reds

Back home again after last weekend’s excitement and we’re back to the 0-0 games again. So was the Consadole game just a freak result? Perhaps, but then again Consadole games are always slightly freakish events so we were never really going to be able to learn a lot from it about where we are at the moment. As this game was 90 minutes of wild excitement, … oh hang on, that should have said ‘mild excitement’, this is not going to be a massively long post. As we left the ground, once again having failed to score, I checked the Flashscore app to see just how many chances we’d missed and was a little shocked to see that neither team had had any shots in the second half of the game. A little shocked but not massively surprised. The app later updated itself and I found out we’d actually had quite a few shots in the second half. But the shocking thing is, when I saw no shots from either side I found it perfectly plausible. This was another game with lots of play in the middle of the pitch, Frontale still working on that perfect artistically created goal, but once again failing to score it. Recently we’ve really gone back to the stage of our play being like a work of art, carefully created and crafted for display in a well curated museum. I’m not sure yet whether the work of art comes from the latticework of passes, triangles of passes repeating at a slightly more acute angle each time resulting in a beautiful kaleidoscopic image. Or is it some kind of large scale artwork where every blade of grass is coloured when a backwards or sideways pass touches it until the whole pitch is covered? Or is it just some kind of performance art piece, a comment on the ultimate futility of life, we are born (kick off), we live fulfilling no purpose (the game) and then we die (the final whistle), the result being that absolutely nothing has changed or been achieved? Perfect nihilism! The fact that this 0-0 didn’t feel that bad is clearly more of a sign that my expectations have dropped down a few more levels rather than any improved performance. I think we would have failed to score if we’d played for another 90 minutes to be honest. 

 

Once again we reverted to the old 4-3-3, which once again failed to deliver the goods. But this was pretty much a reserve team out against an Urawa reserve team. We made ten changes from the last match and the only player who remained in the starting line up was Yamane, who let’s be honest will always remain in the starting line up if at all possible as long as Oniki is in charge. It was nice to Damiao get his first start back after injury. The fact that we failed to score with him up front in the middle suggests that it’s not a personnel problem, it’s an approach problem. With our 4-3-3 the starting striker pretty much never scores. This year, pretty much no-one ever scores, but we’re still mostly sticking with it. Oniki has in the past talked about playing the ball around at the back to draw out the opponents. We were doing this again, but it seemed like the actual reason for drawing out the opponent hadn’t been communicated, so as we’d draw the Urawa strikers in, we’d play the ball a few meters forward and they go back to trying to draw them out again as if the drawing out was the ultimate aim. Wakizaka was back and looked lovely on the ball and was passing well. Sadly his set pieces were awful and his shooting similar, missing two good chances. We had Kozuka on the pitch too but didn’t try letting him take some. It was nice to see Einaga back again, after having only played, (I think), 45 minutes in the whole of last year during which he managed to score. And it was great to see Takai make his home debut too. I thought the defence looked fairly solid in this match again. Back to that lovely defensive solidity, along with the lack of attacking ability that always seems to come with it. Any hopes of the Consadole game being a new dawn were clearly unfounded. We’re still a long long way away from being any good. And then after the match we had a protest banner from the main supporter group against the chairman. The main gist of it was that since he took over we’re losing our connection to the community and that important staff members are quitting. Not sure if the protest would have been made if we were banging the goals in and winning games, but if what they are claiming is true, it is a bit of a worry as we are rightfully proud of being a community club. Perhaps there is some bad feeling amongst the staff of the club about the new guy’s leadership and the stink is passing itself through to the coaching staff and squad too. That would certainly explain how lacklustre we’ve been this year. But I dunno, from my position of relative ignorance it’s difficult to say. I wonder if he will respond to the supporter’s claims. I hope he does and it solves all of our issues. Don’t say I’m never optimistic!

A few words on Urawa. Ito is still a diving cheating arsehole. He was felled by a waft of fresh air near the corner flag and looked like he’d been seriously maimed. Thankfully for him he managed to make a full and surprisingly quick recovery once he hadn’t got the whole of our team sent off. Or even a free kick. Their fans are still excited by the thrill of being naughty ‘lads’, ‘boys’ or ‘garcons’. We had a group of four of them walking along the length of the back stand home area wearing shirts and holding aloft their towels, presumably looking to irritate and provoke someone, but thanks to the nature of our fans, failing to do so. Feel like the stewards probably could have done something, but at the same time, that would also probably be what the attempted agitators would have wanted, so perhaps it was a good idea to just let them feel like they hadn’t even been noticed. Ideally we would have scored whilst they were doing their promenade, but we’re pretty shit this year so that was unlikely. I didn’t think Urawa looked particularly good. Certainly not like a team that had won four in a row. But I guess this is not a team made up of the players who’d won four in a row. You know I love niche references on here, so I’m pleased to be able to make a joke about the Abyssinians album title and say that Urawa’s approach was less ‘Forward On To Zion’ and more ‘Pass it back to Zion’. But yeah, we weren’t much better than them when it came to making chances and attacking and we weren’t any better when it came to scoring goals. Normally I moan about the ref when I’m talking about the opposition, but to be honest, I have no complaints really about Kawamata. Of course, during the match I had plenty but right now, the only thing I can say is that he seemed happy for Suzuki to hold the ball in his hands for ages and at one stage gestured to him to get on with it rather than penalise him for holding on to it for too long. But that rule is way down the list of things people want enforced I’d guess, so there are clearly more important things to sort out first. But yeah, well done ref. If only some of the big name refs could officiate in a similar way. But I guess the big name refs are more concerned about retaining their big name status. 

So on we trot. Still no wins at home in 2023. We’re dealing with the Levain Cup like we do with the ACL, making an absolute mess of the group stage for no apparent reason. Three games played, two points, two goals scored and they were both in the game we lost. Perhaps Oniki just can’t do cups. It certainly seems to be the case. But to be honest this year, he can’t really do the league either. It seems like a strange thing to say, but I hope the supporters group’s protest has some effect and I hope it shakes things up behind the scenes a bit. Especially if the behind the scenes stuff is what’s causing us to be so crap at the moment. On we go to the weekend, when we travel to Gamba Osaka for a league game on Sunday. I imagine the line up will change quite a bit, but I’m not sure we’ll be back to playing the strikers on the wings. But we did score in that game though, and if you disregard that game we haven’t scored at all in the other last four games. Perhaps Oniki will surprise us with some brave selections and new tactics. But the real issue is whether the approach can change, as I think that’s holding us back more than anything at the moment. Still. Since perhaps the middle of the 2021 season. Fingers crossed, eh?

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

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

MF 49. KOZUKA Kazuki

FW 26. EINAGA Takatora

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 15. TANABE Shuto

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for KOZUKA 73')

MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for EINAGA 73')

MF 18. CHANATHIP (on for WAKIZAKA 80')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 64')

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for SEGAWA 80')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

Hmmm, another 0-0 means that it probably can’t go to anyone whose job was connected to scoring. With that and my usual sentimentality in mind, I’ll give it to…

TAKAI Kota - solid debut for him. That’s about all there is to say really, but well done.

 

Goals

 

None!

 

Highlights

 

Vs Shonan Bellmare (home) 26/3/23 Levain Cup group stage game 2

 

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 0 Shonan Bellmare

In the way that most J League fans treat the Levain Cup like the class weirdo at a school reunion, I’ll not spend too much time on this post. However, that’s not because I don’t think these games are important. It’s more that there’s nothing new to say. Before the match seeing the starting line-up I tweeted that we were going to get a 0-0 draw and we did. I would say this is great forecasting from me, but the truth is that the starting line-up combined with our current utter lack of ability in front of goal, general football skills and confidence screamed out that we weren’t going to score. At the same time, the double defensive midfield and recent tightening up of things at the back screamed we probably weren’t going to concede. And so it turned out to be. Once again I’m going to freshen up the bullet points this week as this really was a game of two (unequal in appearance and length, but in outcome identical) halves. I’m not going to bother with any ref chat as we had the English guest ref and although I had plenty to shout at him about, I don’t really have any legitimate grumbles. Two games into our Levain campaign and we sit at the bottom of the group with one point, two goals scored and three conceded. The competition was supposed to be a chance for some youngsters to get a chance, but knowing Oniki, that always seemed likely to be a bit of a stretch, and now with Tanabe back with us and having to start, (therefore fulfilling the young players requirement), it seems that we’re going with the same old faces who’ve failed to do anything so far this year. Perhaps it makes sense to play them into some form and confidence in an ‘easier’ game, but it hasn’t really worked out like that, has it? Anyway, here we go with two new sections, but basically the same old stuff.
 

First 70 minutes -

Don’t bother reading this if you’re read any of the other recent blog posts. We were awful again. Tachibanada and Joao in the middle again to sure things up and at the same time totally blunt our attack. I’m thinking that as I have to repeat the same things in every post, maybe I should make a list of them and just cut and paste. We should play one of them, and not both of them if we want to score. More often than not if we play both, we don’t score. The new tactics were back again and were useless again. Yamane moving into the middle might work, but he’s playing so badly this year that it really isn’t. And asking him to do that removes one of our previous best options of attack. It seemed that at times when Yamane wandered to the centre circle to watch the ball move around him like a cat following a laser pointer which it was obviously unable to stop, Ominami moved into the right back spot. This was a new interesting development, but Yamane’s total lack of ability this year meant that this new development wasn’t much use and we were basically playing with 10 men. We can’t shoot for shit. Almost every shot in the entirety of this game was a pea roller cushioned pass directly into the goalkeeper’s gloves. Total waste of time. Marcinho still is off the boil. It says a lot though that the majority of our chances came through him even though he’s out of form. It’s no surprise that Kobayashi didn’t have much luck up front, as much like in our previous game against Shonan, we were basically playing one up front against three centre backs. It didn’t work last time and it didn’t work again. I don’t know how many times Oniki will start with the 4-3-3, find it doesn’t work and them change to a 4-4-2 with about 20 minutes to go. The first half of this game seemed like an eternity. After endless toothless play, I looked up at the clock to see how long we had left till half time and was astonished to see that what had felt like a few hours had only been 28 minutes. I’m sure the rain had an effect on the attendance, but you can’t help but feel that the psychological experiment that we seem to be conducting on our crowds at the moment might also cause some people to decide that instead of going to the ground and taking part in a study on the effects of pointless repetition and boredom on the human mind, it might have been more fun to stay at home. And oh, that lovely repetition, most evident when we try to play a goal kick short to a centre back, which goes back to the goalkeeper and then to the other centre back, then back to the keeper who under pressure has to boot it up the field. At least there was a little variation in this game, as the jeopardy seemed to be increasing each time, with us getting increasingly sloppier and Shonan cottoning on to the fact that we were going to do the same thing over and over, each time slightly worse. I thought we’d probably concede from a cock up in this situation so it was something of a relief to get to the end of the game without doing so. The second half started much the same as the first had finished, Oniki made some subs, using his tactical nous and deciding to not switch the formation and instead keep on going with the utterly ineffective approach that has blighted 2023 so far. Unsurprisingly, it was equally ineffective. In this game I tried to wear my glasses for the first time since COVID started. I’m a part time spectacle wearer and so far haven’t been able to perfect any of the tricks for stopping my glasses steaming up when I’m wearing a mask. I thought that since the masking regulations had finished I might try to do the whole mask under the nose thing and wear my glasses. It didn’t work and to be honest it was a bit of luck, as I think if I had to have watched the game in more detail and were still wearing my glasses, I might have decided to smash out the lenses and grind the broken remains into my eyeballs to free me from watching the tedium. Thankfully I didn’t because around 70 minutes in, after over an hour of utter pointlessness, 4-3-3 was once again ditched.
 

Last 20 minutes -

Ah, those glorious last 20 minutes! We still failed to score, but at least it was a little more exciting, and a lot less frustrating. With Yamada and Miyashiro up front together, (something I called for in a recent blog post), Segawa on the right and Tono on the left we finally looked like we wanted to make some chances. Of course we didn’t take them, but at least it prevented us from all leaving the ground utterly depressed, instead leaving quite downcast instead. I’m not sure why we have to play awfully in a system that doesn’t work for the first 70 minutes of every game though. If we look back at almost every game this year, (I could say this with more confidence if I actually did look back at the games, but to be honest, I can’t really be bothered to check, as why would I want to relive such misery?), we’ve been useless in our opening 4-3-3 formation and have only done anything when that plan is abandoned. There was a Twitter post from the J League English account about ‘Oniki time’, noting that we have scored our goals late on. I think it could easily have been renamed ‘after Oniki’s opening tactics have been abandoned time’. I guess in the last few years we’ve been spoilt a bit by having some nice matches to watch. It’s an established fact that you stop appreciating nice things if you have too much of them. Maybe this season is the universe giving us some grounding. By subjecting us to stuff that is so pointless when it comes to both getting results and entertaining that it seems more like modern dance than football, we can then appreciate some nice football when it eventually comes. Perhaps at the next game I should wear headphones and listen to music during the game and then I might understand better the reasons behind so much backwards and sideways passing when I listen to the intended accompaniment simultaneously. Anyway, hang on, this was supposed to be the positive section. Truth is though that even in the last 20 minutes we still couldn’t score. Actually, still couldn’t shoot, so it’s no wonder we couldn’t score I guess. So, will Oniki ever start a game with 4-4-2, or do we always have use the original plan which gets screwed up and thrown away with less than a quarter of the game to go? Nobody ever notices Oniki going back to the rubbish bin after the game, rummaging around and retrieving the original plan and taking it home to iron out the creases so that he can present it as a new plan at the start of the following game.

So where do we go from here? -

We go to Hokkaido so at least we’ll have a nice away trip, once again probably only slightly tarnished by the football match. Oniki clearly isn’t having much fun at the moment. His post match comments seemed to suggest that he thought we were making good chances but couldn’t take them, which is undeniable. He said that we need to work on our attack, which is absolutely so fucking obvious it isn’t even worth mentioning. He didn’t seem to say anything about the formation though. Frontale Twitter seems to be again focusing on nonsense like our goalkeeping situation. Both keepers are doing fine now as far as I can tell. It’s just the other players in front of them where we have the problems. So quite why people are debating whether Sung-Ryong or Kamifukumoto should start, I don’t know. You can’t say Kamifukumoto’s apparent better ball skills helped us in this game or that the tactics to draw out the opponent by flirting with disaster along the back line worked. So I wish people would stop asking these questions. Likewise, the people who respond to any criticism of Oniki by saying something like ‘but who would replace him?’ seem pretty deluded. I have a slightly off-colour comparison for this situation but I think I have so far refrained from stating it publicly. If you’re really interested, contact me privately. After my Twitter meltdown last season, I’ve stopped calling for Oniki to resign or be fired. I think he’s not up to the job, but clearly anything I say isn’t going to change the situation. I don’t think anything will change the situation to be honest. At least not till the end of the season. I’d love him to turn things around, but he’s clearly wedded to some things that really aren’t working. Perhaps if you try to hammer a nail into the wall with a banana you might eventually get the nail slightly in by luckily finding an unusually hard part of the banana, a soft part of the wall and a lucky angle, but when you hang up your sign saying ‘come and get you free bananas here’ on the nail, you’ll find that instead of having free bananas you’ll just have a pile of yellow mush and a top level slip hazard. 10 shots on target in the last 270 (plus additional time) minutes of football. No goals in the same time. No win in five games, and only one win all year which came about with a huge portion of luck attached to it. One point out of a possible six in the Levain and five points out of a possible 15 in the league.

Next up, as mentioned before, Consadole away, a team that Kobayashi always scores against…. But this is 2023, when no-one scores. Last season’s game there was an unmitigated disaster. They score goals… we don’t. It’s not looking particularly positive is it? Bet it will be pretty much the same starting line up as in this game. And probably the same opening 70 minutes till the wonder tactics are abandoned. But at least it’s a nice trip! After that, we’ve got a home Levain game against Urawa who seem to have come into a little bit of form after a dodgy start to the year, and then an away game in Osaka against Gamba the following Sunday. Way too many Sunday games this year for my liking. Maybe I should offer a prize for anyone who can spot all of the things that I mention every bloody week in this post. But at the same time, maybe we should all get a prize if we watch these games. I certainly don’t know how they managed to get three minutes highlights out of this match for the video below. Anyway, onwards and… probably not upwards. Onwards and sideways and back to the goalkeeper!

Team 

 
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma
DF 15. TANABE Shuto

DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for NOBORIZATO 87')

MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for WAKIZAKA 56')

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for KOBAYASHI 56')

FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for IENAGA 72')

FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei (on for MARCINHO 72')

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

Dunno really, the defence did alright, Kamifukumoto made a spectacular save. The midfield looked solid yet uninspiring as I expected. But we can’t score for shit, so it’s all a bit immaterial really. So, whoever really but not Yamane, who had another shocker.

 

Goals

 

None!

 

Highlights

Vs Shimizu S Pulse (away) 8/3/23 Levain Cup group stage game 1

Shimizu S Pulse 3 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

The fun continued midweek with another dodgy performance and another defeat, this time away to Shimizu in the Levain cup. As we have another game coming up in two days I’ve got to get this out the way quickly, so let’s not hang around and I’ll get to the point without any of the usual meandering for the sake of a joke or a dig at someone.

 

I thought Oniki did the right thing by rotating a bit. On paper this was our second easiest game this year (that we have scheduled so far), away to a J2 team. If we weren’t going to rotate for this, then well, half the squad might as well start looking for other employment. Saying that, there was of course hardly any possibility of rotation at the back as most of our defenders are injured. Yamane was rested though and along with him so were our new tactics. For some reason, the predominately left footed Matsunagane was played at right back. He did ok, I thought, especially considering it was his first start for us. It’s a bit depressing to see him saying after the game that he needs to practice his crossing. It probably would have been easier for him if he didn’t have to cut inside on to his other foot every time he wanted to do it. Myogan got his first start in the Marcinho role and struggled a bit, but wasn’t really helped but our general disorganisation. And Kamifukumoto played for us in goal for the first time. His first action was to pick the ball out of his own net when we conceded our usual 2023 ‘goal from the first attack we need to defend’. He then had to pick the ball out again a minute later as we really decided to go to town on the whole ‘bad start’ thing. The Shonan game was the only one where we haven’t conceded in the first six minutes. It’s a pretty shocking stat, partly to do with the mess that our defence has been left in due to our constant failure to sign any real cover there. Shonan should feel ashamed that they couldn’t manage to accept our usual first five minutes gift. Similarly, any Shimizu fans who are basking in their giant killing should probably realise that pretty much anyone can beat us this year. It was a bit of a shock that their reserves did it so easily though. It just seems so simple for anyone to get the better of us this year. We get pressed by every team so hard that we struggle to get the ball out of our own half and even when we do get the opportunity to do so, we go safety first and pass the ball backwards, racking up some of those lovely possession and competed pass numbers. 

 

Amongst many nonsensical takes on Twitter, people are commenting that there’s too much of a drop-off in quality between our first eleven and our reserves. I’d remind those people that our first eleven have also been shit this year. It’s no surprise that our defences look dodgy when you consider that they’re changing every week due to injuries and suspensions. It’s no surprise that our midfield looked out of sorts in this game as the three of them have played a total of 11 minutes of football so far this year between them (and that was all Seko, in one game). We have three options for the defensive midfield spot in our squad, Tachibanada, Joao and apparently Matsui, although whether he will ever play there is another matter. So we started with Kozuka there and then later played Seko there. Yamada continued the trend of our starting striker never scoring. Recently it’s been a proud Kawasaki tradition so it’s good to see the new guys getting used to it so quickly. Some might say this result will come as a real wake up call, but then I think we said that about the YFM game and we sucked for most of the Kashima game until it all went a bit wild at the end. We’re way too predictable, and our predictable tactics don’t work anymore. I don’t know how to solve this problem and I just feel sorry for Oniki at the moment. Our defensive problems are putting us in the hole in every match. We’ve only been in a position where we’ve not been behind in a game for about 80 minutes in our opening four games. 80 minutes of the lovely not losing feeling out of a possible 360 minutes. The one time we’ve been ahead was at the end of the Kashima game and that was probably for not more than a minute. I’m not going to try to pretend that watching the games has been much fun this year. A lot of recent Frontale fan recruits are probably experiencing something that they never have before. Whether anything will change soon, I’m not sure. It feels a bit like a perfect storm of disasters at the back, but it’s not as if we weren’t aware it could happen and we really should have been a bit more prepared for it. Takai away with the Japan U20 team adds an extra little touch of bitterness to it though. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong, has gone wrong so far this year. But to inject a little bit of reality and slight positivity, we’re not in a disastrous position so far in the league and this was only the first of six Levain games. To undercut that reality and slight positivity, I can’t really see where a change is going to come from. The players seem low, lacking in confidence, non-preferred players seem to be terrified of making a mistake as it could signal the end of their Frontale career. It’s just a bit of a mess really.

Next up Niigata away on Saturday. Which is nice, because it’s another fun away trip and one which we haven’t been able to do for a few years. I saw some people’s preferred line ups for the next game and was a bit shocked with the absolute insanity that some people were suggesting. I think I saw Tono in the defensive midfield spot in one. Another suggested that Kamifukomoto should start. This is a bit trickier for me as I don’t want to be negative towards him, but if there was a case for dropping Sung-Ryong it was probably clearer after the YFM game, particularly given that now we’ve just conceded three to a J2 team’s reserves. Bit of luck they didn’t play their normal starters! Kamifukumoto did do quite a bit of sweeper keeper stuff towards the end of the game, but the context was that we were desperately trying to get back into a game where we were trailing and were committing players forward. Wouldn’t it be nice if we weren’t losing, or even were winning? Just for a little bit. Let us have some fun. As we’re approaching the end here, I must quickly get in the fact that the ref was pretty rubbish, but just looked out of his depth really. He did give us a penalty though which looked a little on the generous side, although maybe he gave it for the pull on Matsunagane, rather than the kick to the head. He still was not that good though, but probably shouldn’t be officiating professional football games so I’ll put it down to lack of experience. Oh, and Chanathip’s finish was a nice one. That goal was probably the one bright spark of the game and perhaps our one good move. Miyashiro getting off the mark was nice too, even if it was from the penalty spot. Hopefully it will spur him on to great things. Nothing really fell for us in this game, (aside from the penalty perhaps). Lots of misplaced passes, every bounce fell to them. But perhaps confidence and form make these things go in your favour. We have neither at the moment, and really need to pick up some of both soon… 

Team 

 

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

DF 27. MATSUNAGANE Yuto

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi

MF 49. KOZUKA Kazuki

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (Yellow card 65')

MF 18. CHANATHIP

FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

FW 20. YAMADA Shin

FW 24. MYOGAN Toya

Subs

 

GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for SEKO 75')

DF 13. YAMANE Miki (on for CHANATHIP 80')

MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for SEGAWA 75')

FW 23. MARCINHO (on for MYOGAN 46')

FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei (on for YAMADA 75')

 

Goals

 

OH (Shimizu) 6' 1-0

SHIRASAKI (Shimizu) 7' 2-0
CHANATHIP (Frontale) 67' 2-1

NAKAYAMA (Shimizu) 70' 3-1

MIYASHIRO (Frontale) 82' PEN 3-2

 

Highlights