Nagoya Grampus 3 - 4 Kawasaki Frontale
Well that was without question an entertaining game. Lots of goals and plenty to moan about. I guess in an easy and simple victory you don’t get the latter, but this was far from that. Once again, probably what was going on off the pitch is more significant than what happened on it. Anyone who thought we were in a dire state last week will have realised that throwing around words like dire when it comes to our 2025 fortunes is a fool’s errand. Compared to the Niigata match day squad we had… zero more options. Actually maybe minus two more options as Wakizaka and Jesiel disappeared from the match day squad for unknown reasons and Marcinho was absent due to accumulated yellow cards. But at least Sai was back after his ban, so once again, somehow we were able to field a stating lineup that looked… alright. Best not look too closely at the bench though as once again we had the two goalkeepers, the two untried centre backs, the apparently unavailable Ienaga, a player we recalled from his loan at Vegalta Sendai who had hardly got a look in this year (Myogan) and a player recently promoted to the first team on one of those ‘we won’t use you, so don’t worry about any other commitments or homework you might have’ contracts (Mochiyama). Somewhat surprisingly the latter was used as one of our changes, but the fact that in the game after the game where we were almost without options and therefore only made four subs, we only made three subs. With this is mind it’s no surprise that by the end of the game, there were quite a few players who looked absolutely knackered. But thankfully we have a full week until we have to play again. And in addition to the small break, we also have the morale boost of being able to win a game despite being on a horrible run, and of being able to score a lot of goals, even whilst being down to the absolute bare bones. Whether this turns out or be a real turning point of the season or rather more likely just a nice distraction from a terrible run of games, we’ll see. Of course I hope it’s the former. I believe Uremovic will be availabe for the next game and who knows, perhaps some of the players suffering from the never named ‘illness’ might also be available. Anyway, here is a very biased summing up of what was a really fun rollercoaster of a game. (Probably something the winners always say after a 4-3 and which the losers absolutely don’t say).
Us -
We did alright, didn’t we. Recently every time I put on my ‘Fun Football’ Frontale t-shirt I take a moment to enjoy the delicious irony of the message. But this was fun! Lots of attacking and some chaotic defending. If we weren’t so bad at shooting we could have got double figures I reckon, (more on that in the ‘them’ section). But thankfully Erison and Ito had their shooting boots on and both got a brace. I’m
not sure Grampus going down to 10 men particularly helped us, (also more on that later), but thankfully we prevailed and took home three points from Toyota, which in recent years has been something that never happens. It was so weird to leave this stadium in a good mood. So very weird, but so very welcome. Looking at recent matches, I think we can write off the Albirex game as a very tricky situation where we managed against the odds to get a draw in a stadium we are always hopeless in. The Fukuoka game was a ridiculous match ruined by an absolutely one-eyed wanker of a ref. The Gamba and Verdy games, well, they were all our own fault and blimey were we terrible. But this game was fun. Although I obviously didn’t enjoy the multiple times that they cut through us, at least I could hang on to the fact that we seemed to want to score again. Anyway, this is all quite focused on my opinion, so let’s get on to slightly more concrete things. Of course I’ve mentioned the absolute lack of options above and this was worsened further when Maruayama went off injured in this match after only 12 minutes. It was a really weird injury as it seemed innocuous at the time and he even got up and was freely pacing around afterwards as if he was trying to walk it off. But you could see things weren’t good when he almost immediately took off the captain’s armband. At the moment, I think the word from the club is that it’s not good… Replacing him was Kamihashi, a player with zero first team minutes and only two appearances on the bench as an unused sub. He’d have to play at least 80 minutes. And there were previously rumours of him being quite off the pace in training sessions. But he did… alright. Perhaps if it had been Sasaki going off injured Hasebe might have picked Tsuchiya, but, given the opposition, I totally understand replacing Maruyama with him instead as we needed a big lump to try to deal with the big lumps Nagoya had up front. Maybe Kamihashi’s major involvement in the game, (although apparently he did get an assist, but I don’t remember that), was in getting Kasper Junker sent off by daring to try to head a ball which angered Junker to the extent that he decided to kick Kamihashi in the head. I’m pleased he was able to continue afterwards so he was able to soak up the adoration at the end of the game. Although I might be a bit nervous to see him start the next game, I’m really pleased he’s been able to take his next step on the way to becoming, (hopefully), a useful member of our squad. Let’s keep being positive. Tachibanada playing on the left wing probably wouldn’t have been many people’s selection, but in a crisis, there’s probably not many better people to call on to give a new position a go. I thought he did really well and perhaps this is a position he can be considered for in the future. I’m not sure he’d be a preferred starter over Marcinho, but let’s be honest, in spite of a decent goal return, Marcinho hasn’t had the best of seasons so far. Tachibanada looked much more difficult to knock off the ball. It definitely hasn’t been Marcinho’s year, (although when you consider how many goals he’s scored, that seems a weird thing to say), and perhaps that has partly been due to the travails of the rest of the team. But bravo Tachibanada, you did a great job.
Us -
We did alright, didn’t we. Recently every time I put on my ‘Fun Football’ Frontale t-shirt I take a moment to enjoy the delicious irony of the message. But this was fun! Lots of attacking and some chaotic defending. If we weren’t so bad at shooting we could have got double figures I reckon, (more on that in the ‘them’ section). But thankfully Erison and Ito had their shooting boots on and both got a brace. I’m
not sure Grampus going down to 10 men particularly helped us, (also more on that later), but thankfully we prevailed and took home three points from Toyota, which in recent years has been something that never happens. It was so weird to leave this stadium in a good mood. So very weird, but so very welcome. Looking at recent matches, I think we can write off the Albirex game as a very tricky situation where we managed against the odds to get a draw in a stadium we are always hopeless in. The Fukuoka game was a ridiculous match ruined by an absolutely one-eyed wanker of a ref. The Gamba and Verdy games, well, they were all our own fault and blimey were we terrible. But this game was fun. Although I obviously didn’t enjoy the multiple times that they cut through us, at least I could hang on to the fact that we seemed to want to score again. Anyway, this is all quite focused on my opinion, so let’s get on to slightly more concrete things. Of course I’ve mentioned the absolute lack of options above and this was worsened further when Maruayama went off injured in this match after only 12 minutes. It was a really weird injury as it seemed innocuous at the time and he even got up and was freely pacing around afterwards as if he was trying to walk it off. But you could see things weren’t good when he almost immediately took off the captain’s armband. At the moment, I think the word from the club is that it’s not good… Replacing him was Kamihashi, a player with zero first team minutes and only two appearances on the bench as an unused sub. He’d have to play at least 80 minutes. And there were previously rumours of him being quite off the pace in training sessions. But he did… alright. Perhaps if it had been Sasaki going off injured Hasebe might have picked Tsuchiya, but, given the opposition, I totally understand replacing Maruyama with him instead as we needed a big lump to try to deal with the big lumps Nagoya had up front. Maybe Kamihashi’s major involvement in the game, (although apparently he did get an assist, but I don’t remember that), was in getting Kasper Junker sent off by daring to try to head a ball which angered Junker to the extent that he decided to kick Kamihashi in the head. I’m pleased he was able to continue afterwards so he was able to soak up the adoration at the end of the game. Although I might be a bit nervous to see him start the next game, I’m really pleased he’s been able to take his next step on the way to becoming, (hopefully), a useful member of our squad. Let’s keep being positive. Tachibanada playing on the left wing probably wouldn’t have been many people’s selection, but in a crisis, there’s probably not many better people to call on to give a new position a go. I thought he did really well and perhaps this is a position he can be considered for in the future. I’m not sure he’d be a preferred starter over Marcinho, but let’s be honest, in spite of a decent goal return, Marcinho hasn’t had the best of seasons so far. Tachibanada looked much more difficult to knock off the ball. It definitely hasn’t been Marcinho’s year, (although when you consider how many goals he’s scored, that seems a weird thing to say), and perhaps that has partly been due to the travails of the rest of the team. But bravo Tachibanada, you did a great job.
I should also give some credit to Yamaguchi as I’ve given him some stick in the past. Just to clarify, I have nothing against him, and I’d probably agree that he’s our best choice right now, but I just get put off and confused by the adoration that seems to constantly flow his way from both the club and fans. In this match, I can’t really remember the goals he conceded, but I do remember a great save which was then followed up by a great block from Yamamoto on the line. And I really want to praise Yamaguchi for his support and direction of Kamihashi. It definitely helped him settle in. Other than these little bits of praise that I’ve deigned to dispense, well maybe I should just praise everyone in the team as we were really up against it when it came to even being able to start this game. To get three points away in one of our bogey grounds with so few players available is great. Well done everyone! Jesiel and Wakizaka dropped out of the squad for this match. It’s difficult to say whether that was due to illness or injury. you can’t say for sure that the reason our midfield didn’t look awful this time was because Wakizaka wasn’t playing, but Ozeki certainly added something. Definitely his passes went awry at times but much like Seko before him, he was prepared to try something a bit different which is an absolute godsend right now. And I think Kawahara should be a first choice starter. He also makes some mistakes but I think we looked a lot more solid with him there. As far as I can remember, most of their chances came from long balls over the midfield. Unlike against Albirex where the midfield was almost anonymous and could be walked straight through, in this game I think we forced the opposition to try to bypass it as they were having no luck there. There are definitely some players who started this and the last game, perhaps not in great condition, so well done everyone for getting four points out of six in two bogey grounds with a real lack of resources. This is all way too positive right? At least I haven’t said this is the start of a title challenge. It definitely is the type of against the odds victory that could prompt a good run, but surely we’ve left it too late. Let’s enjoy the fact that we didn’t seem scared of shooting! Lovely! If only we’d got a few more shots on target. But after scoring four, it seems a bit rich to complain about that. In case you were wondering about Ienaga, he had a lot of strapping on his left (I think) knee, so I suspect that he is a bit injured and was maybe put into the squad to confuse the opposition or to provide guidance to the younger players. Only three subs in such hot conditions suggested that there weren’t many viable options for Hasebe. Mochiyama looked…. Let’s be honest we absolutely didn’t see enough of him, but he seemed willing to put himself about a bit which is nice. Not sure where he was playing, (maybe left wing), but at the moment I don’t think we can confidently say where any player might be playing next week. Our bad luck continued (when you consider the Maruyama injury and the difficulty we had naming a full bench), but hopefully we’ve turned a corner with this game. Hopefully…
Them -
Ah… Grampus. A team that used to not really mean that much to us but after their very suspicious COVID-era game cancellation which just happened to work out very nicely for them when it came to players coming back from injury, they have now become mortal enemies. There is more than a little irony about that fact that we turned up to this game with almost not enough players to fill the bench. I’m sure in the same situation they would have faked something to get a postponement. So I’m very happy to potentially fuck them up as they are now dangerously close to the drop zone. Of course I could put all the usual stuff in here about how terrible the stadium access is, (I can’t imagine being a home fan and having to do that every other game), and how woeful the amenities were inside the stadium, (would have been nice to be able to easily get some kind of water type soft drink without a massive line at the one stadium shop. I don’t think the other little stall with a couple of ice buckets had anything). But the thing that I want to moan most about in this section is the numerous arseholes they have in their squad. Inagaki is always a whingy little shit (who normally scores against us), but there are so many others who are following their brave captain’s example. Quite how Junker thought he shouldn’t be sent off after booting Kamihashi in the side of the head is baffling. After the red, they just sat back with everyone behind the ball and obviously scored on the counter attack, because well… just because. Even before the red their game plan was just to try to kick the shit out of us, which seems to be something everyone tries to do recently, so clearly it is an easy and obvious way to get at us. Maybe they have some good footballers, but they certainly have a lot of good moaners, divers and well, just arseholes. I was astounded how bad the well-hyped Pisano was. He only made one save in the whole game. I admit this also doesn’t reflect well on our shooting, but whatever. He was the absolute epitome of a dodgy keeper and I’m shocked that he is getting some kind of national team recognition. I laughed when someone said Yamaguchi should be considered for future Japan games, but Pisano made Yamaguchi look like a national team shoo-in. I guess it’s not good form to pick on a 19 year old though, so apologies for that. Don’t take it personally, we all just hate Grampus now. There’s not much else to say about them really, (awful stadium access mentioned, clogger tactics mentioned), but it would be remiss of me to not at least slightly attempt to provoke their fans. Very classy of them to boo their ex-player Maruyama as he was on the floor clearly seriously injured and unable to carry on. Perhaps the kind of behaviour you might expect from a team that had absolutely shitloads of those racist flags behind their goal. We did hear someone complaining about the red card on the way back to the station, but delightfully they were complaining about what a stupid thing it was that Junker did. As some people never tire of saying, obviously not all of a team’s supporters are knuckle-dragging nationalists, but it did seem that Grampus had a lot of them with their shitty little flags behind the goal. So basically, hate the players (in a humorous way), hate the nationalist fans, (in an absolutely rational way), but most of all hate the people upstairs for that COVID postponement. WE WILL NEVER FORGET IT, YOU CHEATING BASTARDS!
Ref and VAR -
Perhaps this is the most fun and most frustrating section to write. We were blessed with a new ref in charge of his first J1 game. At just 27 years of age you’ve got to think he must be a pretty good ref to be promoted this far so early, right? No he was as bad as the rest of them. Actually, he was worse than most of the rest of them. He started the game with a give nothing at all attitude which obviously was going to favour the clogger team. He really drew my ire though by booking Erison for a dive instead of giving us a penalty. Perhaps VAR should have asked him to check this decision, but VAR was being done by the more senior but equally useless Araki. Obviously I think it was a penalty, but at the same time could see it not being given, given that the ref was absolutely hopeless. But to book Erison for simulation was absolute nonsense as the defender was trying to rip the shirt off of him. Perhaps this is where VAR should have intervened, but of course they can’t do anything about yellow cards. They can about penalties though. You might have thought though that in a situation where a player is clearly being fouled and the ref ignores that and instead takes the unusual decision in the J League to book him for faking, the VAR guy should at least ask the ref to check it. But yeah, Araki is crap too. In the ref’s defence, I think he got two cards in the game correct. The one for Ito when he took off his shirt after scoring. And the one for Mikuni for petulantly slamming the ball into the ground after his teammate gave away a foul for an elbow. Good to see Mikuni wants to see the rules applied even if it is against his teammate. That was what was going on, wasn’t it? He was angry with the ref for not even booking his teammate for what was clearly a yellow card and maybe even a red card offence. Pretty much the rest of what he did was dubious, but as I mentioned before, he wasn’t really helped by VAR. But I dunno, I just get the feeing that he was way out of his depth but at the same time wanted to make a name for himself. And as often happens when refs like that come along, they certainly are remembered. Anyway, all you need to know from this section is that I can get angry about refs even when we win, and that the future for J League refs on this evidence is far from bright. In fact maybe it’s extremely unilluminated. If that is a word.
In conclusion, shit ref, fun game. I’m pleased we got the win (obviously) because it feels like we’ve had a lot of bad luck recently and to get a win in tough circumstances like this might be a big confidence boost for us. Of course, again we won’t have a full squad to choose from for the next game. I suspect we might even have some more ‘ill’ players and some more injuries. But if we play like this we can at least feel satisfied. Uremovic will be back from his suspension which will help us. If we could get some of the ill players back it would be nice. But on the evidence of this game, I’m not sure Marcinho or Wakizaka should walk back into the team if they are available. That next game is against the eternally scummy Machida at home next weekend. I’d like to see Soma get what he deserves after having completed his full transformation into a total shithead (see the away game at Machida and… well probably any game the little shit is involved in). I’d also like to see Kuroda cry. Is that too much to ask? I hope not. Maybe would be nice if his shitty bright white trainers got scuffed up a bit too. I mean after all of this, presumably we’re going to lose, but it would be lovey to put together a couple of wins in a row, wouldn’t it? Fingers crossed.
Them -
Ah… Grampus. A team that used to not really mean that much to us but after their very suspicious COVID-era game cancellation which just happened to work out very nicely for them when it came to players coming back from injury, they have now become mortal enemies. There is more than a little irony about that fact that we turned up to this game with almost not enough players to fill the bench. I’m sure in the same situation they would have faked something to get a postponement. So I’m very happy to potentially fuck them up as they are now dangerously close to the drop zone. Of course I could put all the usual stuff in here about how terrible the stadium access is, (I can’t imagine being a home fan and having to do that every other game), and how woeful the amenities were inside the stadium, (would have been nice to be able to easily get some kind of water type soft drink without a massive line at the one stadium shop. I don’t think the other little stall with a couple of ice buckets had anything). But the thing that I want to moan most about in this section is the numerous arseholes they have in their squad. Inagaki is always a whingy little shit (who normally scores against us), but there are so many others who are following their brave captain’s example. Quite how Junker thought he shouldn’t be sent off after booting Kamihashi in the side of the head is baffling. After the red, they just sat back with everyone behind the ball and obviously scored on the counter attack, because well… just because. Even before the red their game plan was just to try to kick the shit out of us, which seems to be something everyone tries to do recently, so clearly it is an easy and obvious way to get at us. Maybe they have some good footballers, but they certainly have a lot of good moaners, divers and well, just arseholes. I was astounded how bad the well-hyped Pisano was. He only made one save in the whole game. I admit this also doesn’t reflect well on our shooting, but whatever. He was the absolute epitome of a dodgy keeper and I’m shocked that he is getting some kind of national team recognition. I laughed when someone said Yamaguchi should be considered for future Japan games, but Pisano made Yamaguchi look like a national team shoo-in. I guess it’s not good form to pick on a 19 year old though, so apologies for that. Don’t take it personally, we all just hate Grampus now. There’s not much else to say about them really, (awful stadium access mentioned, clogger tactics mentioned), but it would be remiss of me to not at least slightly attempt to provoke their fans. Very classy of them to boo their ex-player Maruyama as he was on the floor clearly seriously injured and unable to carry on. Perhaps the kind of behaviour you might expect from a team that had absolutely shitloads of those racist flags behind their goal. We did hear someone complaining about the red card on the way back to the station, but delightfully they were complaining about what a stupid thing it was that Junker did. As some people never tire of saying, obviously not all of a team’s supporters are knuckle-dragging nationalists, but it did seem that Grampus had a lot of them with their shitty little flags behind the goal. So basically, hate the players (in a humorous way), hate the nationalist fans, (in an absolutely rational way), but most of all hate the people upstairs for that COVID postponement. WE WILL NEVER FORGET IT, YOU CHEATING BASTARDS!
Ref and VAR -
Perhaps this is the most fun and most frustrating section to write. We were blessed with a new ref in charge of his first J1 game. At just 27 years of age you’ve got to think he must be a pretty good ref to be promoted this far so early, right? No he was as bad as the rest of them. Actually, he was worse than most of the rest of them. He started the game with a give nothing at all attitude which obviously was going to favour the clogger team. He really drew my ire though by booking Erison for a dive instead of giving us a penalty. Perhaps VAR should have asked him to check this decision, but VAR was being done by the more senior but equally useless Araki. Obviously I think it was a penalty, but at the same time could see it not being given, given that the ref was absolutely hopeless. But to book Erison for simulation was absolute nonsense as the defender was trying to rip the shirt off of him. Perhaps this is where VAR should have intervened, but of course they can’t do anything about yellow cards. They can about penalties though. You might have thought though that in a situation where a player is clearly being fouled and the ref ignores that and instead takes the unusual decision in the J League to book him for faking, the VAR guy should at least ask the ref to check it. But yeah, Araki is crap too. In the ref’s defence, I think he got two cards in the game correct. The one for Ito when he took off his shirt after scoring. And the one for Mikuni for petulantly slamming the ball into the ground after his teammate gave away a foul for an elbow. Good to see Mikuni wants to see the rules applied even if it is against his teammate. That was what was going on, wasn’t it? He was angry with the ref for not even booking his teammate for what was clearly a yellow card and maybe even a red card offence. Pretty much the rest of what he did was dubious, but as I mentioned before, he wasn’t really helped by VAR. But I dunno, I just get the feeing that he was way out of his depth but at the same time wanted to make a name for himself. And as often happens when refs like that come along, they certainly are remembered. Anyway, all you need to know from this section is that I can get angry about refs even when we win, and that the future for J League refs on this evidence is far from bright. In fact maybe it’s extremely unilluminated. If that is a word.
In conclusion, shit ref, fun game. I’m pleased we got the win (obviously) because it feels like we’ve had a lot of bad luck recently and to get a win in tough circumstances like this might be a big confidence boost for us. Of course, again we won’t have a full squad to choose from for the next game. I suspect we might even have some more ‘ill’ players and some more injuries. But if we play like this we can at least feel satisfied. Uremovic will be back from his suspension which will help us. If we could get some of the ill players back it would be nice. But on the evidence of this game, I’m not sure Marcinho or Wakizaka should walk back into the team if they are available. That next game is against the eternally scummy Machida at home next weekend. I’d like to see Soma get what he deserves after having completed his full transformation into a total shithead (see the away game at Machida and… well probably any game the little shit is involved in). I’d also like to see Kuroda cry. Is that too much to ask? I hope not. Maybe would be nice if his shitty bright white trainers got scuffed up a bit too. I mean after all of this, presumably we’re going to lose, but it would be lovey to put together a couple of wins in a row, wouldn’t it? Fingers crossed.
Team
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN VERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (Yellow card 89')
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (Yellow card 90+6')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
FW 9. ERISON (Yellow card 45+4')
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN VERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (Yellow card 89')
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (Yellow card 90+6')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
FW 9. ERISON (Yellow card 45+4')
Subs
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
DF 27. KAMIHASHI Ryota (on for MARUYAMA 12')
DF 27. KAMIHASHI Ryota (on for MARUYAMA 12')
FW 29. MYOGAN Toya
DF 30. NODA Hiroto
DF 30. NODA Hiroto
FW 36. MOCHIYAMA Kyosuke (on for TACHIBANADA 90+5')
FW 38. KANDA Soma (on for OZEKI 77')
DF 39. TSUCHIYA Kaito
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
My Frontale Man Of The Match
When two players score two goals, it’s quite hard to look past them. Unusually for recent times, we had way more players playing well than not so well in this match so there are other options. As I don’t really like to go too obvious when it comes to these awards, I’ll try to make things at least a little interesting and give it jointly to…
ERISON (obviously), ITO Tatsuya (obviously) and TACHIBANADA Kento (ooooh) - The first two did the things that won us the game. But Tachibanada stepping up to play left wing, another new position for him, and doing it in style, was a massive surprise. He hasn’t had a great season, like many others, so it was really good to see him playing a really important part again.
ITO (Frontale) 7' 0-1
ERISON (Frontale) 17' 0-2
MORI (Nagoya) 32' 1-2
HARA (Nagoya) 45+3' 2-2
ERISON (Frontale) 80' 3-2
IZUMI (Nagoya) 81' 3-3
ITO (Frontale) 90+5' 3-4
Highlights
