Vs Muangthong United (home) 30/5/17, ACL Round of 16

Kawasaki Frontale 4 -1 Muangthong United (7-2 on agg.) 

This was a bit of a funny game to be honest. We went into it with the knowledge that if we didn’t concede three goals we would be assured of going through. So I should have been full of confidence but couldn’t quite help feel that I should be aware that anything is possible with our inconsistent performances (which to be honest have been much less inconsistent recently, but you never know, eh?). Would we turn up and play like we did in the first leg or would we put in an away at FC Tokyo performance and bow out against all the odds? Judging by the coverage we were getting before the game, our progression to the next round was a done deal. No-one was talking about us before and no-one seemed to be afterwards, choosing to focus instead on ‘brave heroes’ Kashima Antlers who won but went out on away goals. After the game the fact that in both legs we had walloped a team that had beaten Kashima was glossed over. But I’m not going to whinge too much as I think I might prefer things this way.

Even though the scoreline suggested we had pretty much already done the job, we started with the majority of the usual line up. Sung-Ryong continued in goal but the defence was shuffled slightly due to Taniguchi not being 100% fit and Edu not being available for the ACL. Tasaka started at right back, Nara was joined by Kurumaya in the middle and Nobori took Kurumaya’s place at left back. The defensive midfielders were Neto and Kengo (who proved again that I know nothing by having a great game after I said last time that he always plays better further forward). The front four were Abe, Ienaga, Kobayashi and Hasegawa. Put them where you want as we seem to be sticking with the plan of them changing their positions throughout the match. The Frontale website has Kobayashi as being up front, Ienaga right, Hasegawa in the middle and Abe on the left. But I thought it looked like we started with Hasegawa up front, Abe on the left, Kobayashi on the right and Ienaga in the middle. In any case, this whole rotation thing seems to be working. The bench was Arai, Taniguchi, Morimoto, Moriya, Rhayner, Kano and Otsuka. Muangthong had brought a decent amount of fans with them. Full credit to them as the situation didn’t look that positive for them. I should also say that their fans seemed like thoroughly decent folks too. For the second ACL game in a row there has been some really nice interactions between opposing fans which I really like. After the game the Muangthong fans were apparently chanting ‘Frontale!’ too which is really nice of them. I hope we are going some way to mending any damage recent events might have caused our reputation. I should also say that Muangthong’s Japanese defender Aoyama got a round of applause from our fans which was pretty nice too. But it wasn’t all a big love-in, there was a football game too so I suppose I should mention that.

Unusually, we changed ends before kick off, so in the first half were kicking towards our home end. I’m not sure whose decision this was. I guess it could make sense from either captain as I suspect both would have welcomed an early goal; them to get back into the tie and us to kill off the tie. We started well with plenty of possession and a few decent chances. As I mentioned above, Kengo was doing a great job in the middle and the combination of him and Neto meant that we were pretty much dominating there. Any attacks that Muangthong had which came through this area were thwarted by them and we were looking pretty comfortable. Possibly up front things weren’t clicking completely with Hasegawa and Ienaga not being quite on the same wavelength. I guess they haven’t played together much yet. Not saying things weren’t working, as we were doing pretty well, but more that a couple of times their runs and passes were totally at odds with one another. A bigger problem was the ref (here I go again). He seemed to be giving us absolutely nothing with pretty much every decision going to them. A few times I was left totally bewildered by him. It felt like he had some kind of interest in evening up the game a bit. We had a definite penalty turned down when they player clearly handled a cross but the more confusing decisions were when he not only didn’t give us the foul but gave the foul against us. I know I’m partizan but it was really weird. I can’t remember exactly, but I seem to think that Abe got booked for getting fouled. If the game had been closer these decisions could really have cost us, but for once it’s nice to be able to moan, but for things not to matter so much. On 31 minutes the game looked to be sealed as we scored the opening goal. They’d now need to score four times. It was another nice goal for Kobayashi. A pass from Nobori was kind of dummied by Abe which seemed to put the defender off. Kobayashi received the ball, turned the other defender and slotted it home from the edge of the box. It seems that the sliding defender got something on it which diverted the ball from its path into the corner but it still had enough power to sneak under the keepers dive. On 32 minutes we scored again but I guess the situation didn’t change so much. Due to away goals they’d still need four, but the kick in the guts you’d get from conceding twice in two minutes must have deflated their confidence further. This time Kobayashi was the provider, collecting a forward pass from Tasaka and driving a cross across the box. Ienaga was inches away from scoring his first goal for us but luckily Hasegawa was lining up behind him to smash the ball home into the top of the net. On 40 minutes it was three and it was now almost certainly over for Muangthong barring a historic collapse. From the penalty appeal that we weren’t given that I mentioned above we won a corner. Kengo took it short to Tasaka who returned the ball. Kengo then looped over a lovely first-time left-footed cross which Neto headed into the corner. Haven’t seen him score like that before and it was also the first time I have been taking a picture and we've scored (see below). I can still make it as a sports photographer! And it seems that we actually pose a threat from corners now which is a bit of a turn up. So, 3-0 at half time, 6-1 on aggregate.

Understandably, the second half wasn’t as exciting. Rhayner came on for Abe after the break, meaning that Abe wasn’t able to keep his goalscoring run going which was a shame for him, but it was a good opportunity to give him a bit of a rest. Muangthong came into the game a little bit as maybe we’d taken our foot off the gas, but I think pretty much everyone, players and fans knew that the game was over and that they were looking for a consolation goal at best. Chances were half-heartedly made at either end of the pitch without a great deal of conviction and it looked like things were petering out a bit. There was a surprise substitution on 62 minutes when Kengo was replaced by Kano Kenta. The crowd was very happy to see him coming on and he got a great reception. I think he can still offer something and hasn’t really had much of a chance this season yet and he did a decent job during the 30 minutes he was on the pitch. We’re playing one of his old clubs at the weekend, so maybe he’ll feature again and do one of the those ‘curse of the former player’ things. He’s an option I hadn’t really considered for the defensive midfield role, but maybe he’s worth a go there. Muangthong had a couple of good chances and I guess showed some of their attacking capabilities. They actually hit the post and had the follow up cleared off the line by Nara. Astonishingly the ref didn’t decide to overrule the linesman and give the goal. I’m not sure if this is the real Muangthong we were seeing. People raved about them in the group stages but we seemed to have dealt with them pretty comfortably for the most part. Maybe we were defending well and breaking up attacks early or perhaps they had expended all their efforts in the group stage. On 79 minutes we scored again. Kano put in a lovely cross which slightly got away from Kobayashi, but he was able to stop the ball leaving the pitch and backheeled for Rhayner to smash home. Based on the second half at least, it felt a bit harsh on Muangthong and their fans, but I’m always delighted to see us score. There was time for a couple more incidents. Morimoto came on for Nobori on 88 minutes. Not sure why. And then a minute later Muangthong got something they could take home with them. A deep cross was headed home past Sung-Ryong with maybe a suspicion of a foul on Kano from the scorer. He certainly seemed to jump quite easily and Kano seemed to be being held down. But anyway, I’m not going to moan about it. And that was it. We were comfortably through to the next round and are now officially one of the eight best teams in Asia (that’s how it works, isn’t it?).

Positives and negatives. Let’s start negative. Actually, maybe there aren’t any this time. The game was a weird one but I can’t remember anything other than the referee that worried or upset me. Positives, plenty of them! Through to the last eight of the competition convincingly against a team that have had some good results against apparently good sides. Another goal from Kobayashi which is hopefully another step towards great confidence and great form for him. Another game where we scored quite a few goals and didn’t concede many. No new injuries! The return of Kano Kenta was nice too. He seems to be well liked by fans and his fellow players and hope he can make a few more appearances. Could he be another back up option for the position next to Neto? Also, our schedule is going to ease off a bit soon so we can get a bit of a rest. I think playing twice a week with predominantly the same players has greatly helped our understanding and communication in the team, but can’t really have helped our energy levels and our propensity for injuries. And as I said above, the good relations between the opposing fans was great. There were two good videos and a nice picture  on twitter which show how things should ideally be. Whilst we rarely have problems with other fans, there is sometimes some ill feeling but we should remember that wherever the other fans are from, they are human beings like us. After all, it’s only a game and often we can’t really choose who we support, it kind of chooses us. Wow…. Peace maaaaannnnn.

Next up is the short away trip to Yokohama to play Marinos. Its a nice stadium and always a good atmosphere. It would be nice to keep our good run going against one of our local rivals, although I’m sure they probably would be delighted to bring us back down to earth. After that, it’s almost two weeks till our next game, at home in the league to a currently wobbling, but almost certainly going to come into some great form when they play us, Sanfrecce Hiroshima. The next ACL match will not be until August, so we have a significant break till we resume in that competition. I guess we will find out our next opponent fairly soon though, although I don’t know exactly when the draw is yet. In any case, we can put the ACL to one side for a bit now and concentrate on hopefully moving up the league table. Go Frontale!


Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (Yellow card 53')

DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei
MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki (Yellow card 29')
FW 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya 

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki (on for NOBORIZATO 88')

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro

MF 22. RHAYNER (on for ABE 46')

MF 25. KANO Kenta (on for NAKAMURA 62')
FW 27. OTSUKA Shohei

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Once again, it could have been a few players and I thought Neto and Kengo did a great job in the middle, but one goal and two assists means that one person stood out.

KOBAYASHI Yu  - Another nice goal, two nice assists and a feeling that his confidence is coming back. Long may that continue!

Goals  

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 31' 1-0
HASEGAWA (Frontale) 32' 2-0
NETO (Frontale) 40' 3-0 
RHAYNER (Frontale) 79' 4-0
DANGDA (Muangthong) 89' 4-1


Highlights

Vs Muangthong United (away) 23/5/17, ACL Round of 16

Muangthong United 1 - 3 Kawasaki Frontale

Another game missed by me. Can I call myself a real fan anymore? To be fair this was quite a long way away and we didn’t get much notice. Also I think I might be testing the patience of my workplace what with always asking for Tuesday off. Full credit to the few fans who did make the trip. After watching the game on TV in a bar in Shinmaruko (no photos of a TV this time though), I wish I had loads of money and no responsibilities as it would have been a great match to attend. Although I’m not sure how I would have dealt with the heat. It certainly seemed to be affecting the players and I am already struggling with Spring in Japan. Muangthong came into the game with a great home record in the competition. They had won all of their home group stage games and had challenged Kashima for the group victory right up until they lost at Kashima in the last group game. So they would definitely be tough opposition for us, especially away from home.

Recently our starting line up has started to become almost predictable. You know the whole thing about not changing a winning side? Well Oniki decided to make a few big changes. I am not sure what the thinking was behind these changes. Was he resting players for the league? Seems weird if he was, as this looked like being a tough and important game and we don’t have any league games for a little while. Sure, Oshima picked up a knock against Kashima so it was no surprise to see him out of the starting line-up and on the bench. I guess the same could maybe be said about Kobayashi. He had a lot of ice on his legs after the Kashima game, so maybe he wasn’t 100% fit. So far, so understandable, but the confusing one for me was Takeoka dropping to the bench. It has seemed recently that he has been preferred to Tasaka at right back, but after a couple of starts (both games won with clean sheets), he was back on the bench. Hasegawa starting on the bench was not so much of a shock as he has been moving in and out of the starting line up for most of the season and that has been working pretty well. And of course Edu can’t play in the ACL as he wasn’t a registered member of our ACL squad. The full starting line up was Sung-Ryong in goal, Tasaka, Taniguchi, Nara and Kurumaya in defence, Neto and Kengo in front of them. Up front we had Rhayner on the right, Ienaga in the middle and Abe on the left with Morimoto in front of them. The bench was made up of Arai, Oshima, Kobayashi, Hasegawa, Takeoka, Moriya and Kano. There had been some talk about how bad the pitch was before the game and whilst it looked ok in the middle, there were definitely some dodgy looking areas at either end. A few times early on we completely lost control of the ball, or scuffed it, or missed it, which makes me think that there were a fair few lumps on it. However we were definitely having the bulk of the early possession. We were also playing pretty sloppily, giving the ball away a bit and generally not passing very well. The ref was doing his bit to contribute to the sloppiness with the typical ACL refereeing performance of moderate incompetence that we’ve come to expect in this competition. One slightly worrying thing was his willingness to be swayed by the crowd or the players, giving decisions apparently when they were sufficiently appealed for. Muangthong seemed to be playing like the away team, sitting back and waiting for counter attacking opportunities. Our sloppy play gifted them a few of these early on, but we began to settle and make some decent chance ourselves. Sadly we couldn’t quiet get to the shooting stage. We would make a lovely move and then give the ball away when we got close to the goal. I’m not sure how much of this was poor play from us and how much was good defending from them, but I lean towards the former. Around thirty minutes we were treated to the rare sight of a water break with both teams going to the side of the pitch for rehydration and ice packs to the neck. It seemed that this was also a legitimate time for managerial input with tactics boards being brandished and tactics tweaked. Approaching the end of the first half we were doing ok. They didn’t seem to be as good as we might have been expecting but we weren’t exactly setting the world on fire. They’d had a few decent chances and forced a few good saves from Super Sung-Ryong, but neither side had particularly imposed themselves on the game. Then they scored… With plenty of defenders back and only a few forwards, we were undone by a pass, dummy, turn and long range shot. It was a nice move, but we were shockingly static. The defenders just seemed to be watching the game rather than participating. We had conceded in the 48th minute, right before half time; our first goal conceded in five games. Time for some reassessment in the changing room at half time.

The second half began with a substitution. Kobayashi came on for Morimoto who hadn’t really been able to get into the game. I think it’s probably nearing make or break time for Morimoto as he really hasn’t done much this season during his opportunities. Perhaps he’ll have a chance in the Emperor’s Cup, but he really has to start performing soon I think. I guess this substitution was promising as it suggests that Kobayashi wasn’t injured, but a little confusing why he would have been rested. I hope we didn’t underestimate the strength of the opposition. That was the accusation leveled at us away against Eastern, but to be honest in that game, the only think we underestimated was the referee’s desire to play by his own rules. We were once again beginning to get going but still when defending we were completely static, frozen in our places, apparently unable to move. It was a bit worrying to be honest, but I suppose everyone’s allowed an off day every now and again and we had Sung-Ryong to save us. On 59 minutes Oshima came on for Rhayner, who maybe wasn’t having his usual ACL man of the match performance that we’ve got used to recently. We turned things up a gear and the goals started flowing. The first came from a Ienaga cross-field ball which was headed into the area where Kengo controlled it with his chest, turned and buried the ball. The second was a beauty. Kengo and Oshima played a nice one-two, the ball was passed to the wing for Ienaga to float in a nice cross and Kobayashi finished masterfully with a spinning volley. Delighted to see him scoring again. I hope he can continue next week as that goal must have given him quite a bit of confidence! Two goals in three minutes and the game had been turned on its head. We were still a little wobbly at the back though and needed our saviour to rescue us again when Muangthong had a quick counter attack and were able to basically run through our backline unchallenged. Not long after coming on and after getting involved to help us score two goals, Oshima had to leave the pitch due to injury. He was replaced by Moriya and looked a bit uncomfortable as he left the pitch. I guess he’d done his job, but hope the injury is nothing too serious. The icing on the cake came in the 89th minute when another fast passing move resulted in Kobayashi crossing for Abe to roll the ball home, keeping his consecutive game scoring record going. Possibly the result flattered us a little as Sung-Ryong had a bit of work to do to stop them scoring more than once, but to be honest, I didn’t think they looked anywhere near as dangerous as we had been led to believe. They seem to have some good players going forward but didn’t really seem able to deal with our attacks. Three away goals has put us in a very strong position going into the next leg. Certainly stronger than Urawa and Kashima who both lost and both failed to score an away goal. I will never underestimate our ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory though so am not taking anything for granted yet. But they will have to come and attack us and that will mean that they will be leaving space at the back for us to exploit. We’ll see next week I guess!

Positives and negatives. Negatives first. Oshima’s injured again. We saw how important a player he is for us when he came on in this game. Kengo definitely plays better further forward so it feels like we are wasting him playing him next to Neto. If Oshima doesn’t recover maybe we should put Moriya in next to Neto instead and push Kengo forward. Moriya isn’t exactly suited to that position either, but I don’t think we have anyone who is at the moment. Oshima is injured, Itakura is away with the U20s. Maybe there’s someone else in the squad who can do a job there but hasn’t had a chance yet. Let’s see what Oniki comes up with. Probably the only other negative is the static defence, but let’s hope that was just a blip maybe caused by the conditions and that we’re back to our normal next match. Positives, quite a few! Great goal from Kobayashi. Three good goals, all with lovely movement. Dynamic attacking play. A huge lead going in to the second leg and a victory against a team who had previously won all their home games in the ACL. We just need to keep things under control in the second leg. Of course, another great performance from Sung-Ryong should also be mentioned as he’s playing amazingly at the moment. Certainly at his best since he joined us. And finally, I guess a big positive is the fact that we won convincingly with an average performance. Think we still have a bit more in the tank, but as long as we are winning, there’s no need to complain or feel in any way disappointed.

Next up is the return leg, Muangthong at Todoroki, next Tuesday. There’s no league game for us this weekend as it was due to be the game against Urawa and as we are both still involved in the ACL it has been postponed. I wonder if we’ll get a few more people for this game than usual. The ACL games don’t seem as appealing as the league ones to people for some reason. Possibly, the fact that they are all early weekday evening games can’t help. In any case, it should be a good game and I hope we can hold things together and progress to the next round. Go Frontale!

Team

GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 6. TASAKA Yusuke

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 3. NARA Tatsuki

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 21. EDUARDO NETO

MF 14. NAKAMURA Kengo

MF 22. RHAYNER

MF 8. ABE Hiroyuki

FW 9. MORIMOTO Takayuki

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

Subs 
GK 30. ARAI Shota

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for RHAYNER 59')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for MORIMOTO 46')

MF 16. HASEGAWA Tatsuya
DF 17. TAKEOKA Yuto

MF 19. MORIYA Kentaro (Yellow card 90+3') (on for OSHIMA 74')

MF 25. KANO Kenta


My Frontale Man Of The Match

It could have been a few players and Super Sung-Ryong saved us a few times again, but as he keeps getting my man of the match award, I thought I'd give to someone different this time.

KOBAYASHI Yu  - Awesome finish for the goal and seemed to really make a difference when he came on.

Goals  

DANGDA (Muangthong) 48' 1-1
NAKAMURA (Frontale) 66' 1-1
KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 69' 1-2
ABE (Frontale) 88' 1-3

Highlights