Vs Shimizu S Pulse (home) 18/10/25 J League match 34

 

Kawasaki Frontale 5 - 3 Shimizu S Pulse 

As our season slides towards a slightly disappointing and very much underwhelming end, the only thing we really have to play for, apart from an outside chance of getting an Asian competition place, is seeing how much we can better our final tallies from last year. In the post about the Kyoto game I wrote
‘With five games to go we’ve already exceeded our points total from last year and if we score more than six goals in our remaining five league games we’ll have scored more this year too. And we’d have to concede 13 goals in those last five games to have conceded more this year’. Of course another win means that we’re even further ahead of last year when it comes to points. Scoring five goals in this match means we’re just one behind last year with four games to go, so good progress on that front too. Conceding three wasn’t exactly what we needed if we’re hoping not to give away more goals than last year but hell, that's the way we roll this year. I think we’re well aware that defence has been our problem this year and that problem has been caused at least moderately by our rotten luck with injuries and suspensions. (Alternatively you could say it's because of our always inadequate attempts at having enough decent defenders and our newly awful disciplinary record). There’s no way we’re going to win the fair play award this year. In fact if there was a trophy for most reds, I reckon we’d definitely be in contention. When you discount our chances of winning the league, which I have done for most of the year, the thing I was most interested in was being the highest scoring team. For a while we’ve been fighting it out against (somewhat bizarrely) Kyoto for this title. As I write they are down to ten men, having missed a penalty and are losing 1-0 to Shonan, so I reckon we’ll finish the weekend well ahead of them on goals. Anyway, what a long and pointless intro to what I hope will be a relatively short post.

Us -

Yamaguchi back in goal, Jesiel back in defence. But of course no real changes when it comes to us stopping the other team from scoring. It’s becoming quite amusing in a way. Even at 4-0 up I think most of us weren’t feeling particularly safe and sure of getting the points. Thankfully on this occasion we didn’t collapse to a point dropping extent. There is something quite amusing when you think back to the start of the year when Hasebe was announced as our new manager and everyone said we’d become ultra defensive and boring. The absolute opposite has happened! I feel a bit for Hasebe as for most of the year choosing  our defence has been basically him always having to try to put at least one player out of position where they are least bad. I suspect when it comes to the end of the season the player who will have played the most games at centre back will be Sasaki, our left back who can also play on the right. In this match we saw on a few occasions what we’ve been missing by not having him playing at full back as he charged forward beautifully. I think it’s clear that although Miura hasn’t had a great season, (and on top of that is now injured), us having two good first choice left backs was why Sasaki was on the right. But I just wish he’d been on the left a bit more. Ok, let’s stop waffling and be a bit more succinct. Lovely goal from Kawahara, and it was really important as at that stage we were really wobbling. Well done Yamaguchi for the penalty save. It was also at a crucial stage. It’s great that we won, but given that although we went four goals ahead, at times we looked like we were going to choke again. So it ended up feeling a bit flat afterwards. Any excitement about great attacking is quite easily undercut by calamitous defending and conceding soft goals. I don’t know what the solution is. But all the same, you can’t say that our games aren’t usually full of action. Presumably the next one will now be a stinker.

Them - 

In the first half Shimizu were destroyed by us. Well, by us and also slightly by their own sloppiness. It looked a bit like they thought they were better than they actually were, with them slicing the ball off the pitch on numerous occasions. Whatever their manager said at half time did the trick though as they really came after us in the second half. There were three penalty decisions that went to VAR in this match and they got two of them. I think in all three there was certainly a bit of simulation going on on their part. For the first one you can see the guy move his leg into Tanabe's after he’s already started his dive. Definitely some dark arts brought with them from Shizuoka. And plenty of whinging too. But I say this every week really about every team. What original thing is there to say? Hmmm, their drums and rhythms are good. Not exactly original, but at least a comment that is unique to Shimizu. They brought a lot of fans too, so good for them for doing that. 

Ref - 

Kawamata is a ref that in the past I thought has been pretty decent. And I continued to think so for the first half of this match too. I think he banged his head on the door frame coming out for the second half though. Actually, considering his height that's probably not going to happen. The difference between his decisions in the first and second halves was astonishing. He definitely lost the plot after half time. Of course this could have something to do with my perception of him being influenced by the fact that we were really under the cosh in the second half. Perhaps. But I suspect the truth is something much more unusual in the 2020’s. Consider these effects: 

‘euphoria and exhilaration, then hallucinations develop […] and at a later stage slurred speech, ataxia and drowsiness occur.’

I’ve nailed it, right? Instead of going for the usual half time refreshments, I think Kawamata , shortly after blowing the whistle for the end of the first half, starting sniffing glue. I guess he gave some to Kimura on VAR too as there definitely were some hallucinations on both of their parts when it came to those penalties. After he turned one down for one of their dives at his VAR monitor there was never any doubt he was going to give the next one, which resulted from the corner he gave after changing his mind at the monitor for the previous check. Once again I think we might have been done a bit with this. Much like against Kashiwa where VAR was used to check for a red, which wasn’t given but a yellow was instead, in this match he checked the penalty, didn’t give it but changed his mind about a goal kick. Maybe I’m wrong with my understanding of the rules, but I think I read that you can’t use VAR to correct things that aren’t penalty or red card related. I’ll hate VAR as long as I live, but I’ve no doubt it is here to stay and will continue to give me things to moan about. Kawamata, kick the glue habit and sort things out. I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt for that terrible second half display, but in future, just say no, and then I can go back to giving you faint praise again.

Next up, Cerezo away next Saturday. Considering that it seemed that in our area of the stadium, a lot of season ticket holders resold their tickets for this match, I wonder if the away attendance at Cerezo might be quite low. For some reason that game always seems significantly less well attended than Gamba away, which is strange as the Gamba away experience has always been a bit of a pain in the arse travel wise, and since they moved us into the attic, the game experience has become cack too. But I will be there, hoping for some more goals and hoping that we don’t do as badly as we have done pretty much every season recently there. And then after that, two weeks till the next game, because why not eh? Let’s build up the end of season excitement by making things as stop-start as possible. Lovely!  

 

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis 
DF 31. VAN VERMESKERKEN Sai

DF 4. JESIEL

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki 
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto 
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 9. ERISON (Yellow card 54') 

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for ITO 81')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for ERISON 58')

MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for TANABE 90+8')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 58')
DF 27. KAMIHASHI Ryota (on for JESIEL 81')
DF 30. NODA Hiroto
DF 39. TSUCHIYA Kaito
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro 

Goals

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 4' 1-0
SASAKI (Frontale) 7' 2-0
ITO (Frontale) 13' 3-0
ERISON (Frontale) 37' 4-0
KOZUKA (Shimizu) 45+6' 4-1
TAKAHASHI (Shimizu) 46' 4-2
KAWAHARA (Frontale) 69' 5-2
KITAGAWA (Shimizu) 90+2' PEN 5-3

Highlights 

Vs Albirex Niigata (home) 25/6/25 J League match 15

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 1 Albirex Niigata 

Perhaps I was being excessively dramatic after the last match. Certainly I was in an appalling mood after an appalling performance. But judging from the starting line up of this game it seems that Hasebe also thought that we were pretty bad against Vissel Kobe. In that match we basically started like we were on fire, scored and then turned off for most of the rest of the game. Yeah, we had some chances late on, but most of those chances didn’t actually make it to the actually-having-a-shot stage and it never really looked like we were going to get anything from the game. There were a few similarities in this match. Again we started pretty well and scored fairly early. And once again we spent most of the second half not threatening to do anything. But I guess the big difference in this match was that we were two goals up instead of one goal down. And we even managed to stretch the lead late on after Ozeki came on apparently determined to score. Conceding the late consolation goal was a bit of a bummer and it looked absolutely miles offside in the stadium. (On DAZN they only seemed to have one angle that included both the keeper and the recipient and it was a far from ideal angle. If VAR only had the same one, I can understand why they didn’t have the confidence to overturn the decision). The win takes us up to fifth and now we’ve played all of our games in hand. If we hadn’t fucked up so massively against Vissel, we would have been in second, three points behind Kashima. I think I said after our game against them that I thought Kashima weren’t very good, so hopefully that turns out to be true and they plummet to mid table where they deserve to be. A quick aside, delightfully, and allowing me to fully enjoy my post-game beers, YFM got spanked and remain rock bottom. Winning a game is great. Your enemies losing badly is great. Having both happen on the same evening is wonderful. 

Us -

Ito started this game and I thought he was great again, with so much energy and a desire to go forward instead of pass backwards. I don’t think Ienaga is past it, but I am certain he is past starting every game. Perhaps similarly with Maruyama. He’s played well this year, but at his age I would hope he gets a rest from time to time. While he was by no means the worst performer in the last game, he didn’t have a great match and probably needed a bit of a rest. So Jesiel was back and played almost all of the 90 minutes! When he did leave the field it looked initially a bit of a worry as it seemed like he might be injured again. But I think it was mainly cramp, possibly brought on by a shocker of a foul from an Albirex forward. We are clearly going to need Jesiel going forward as it seems that Takai will be leaving soon. I wonder if we might see Sasaki back at centre back alternating with Jesiel and Maruyama. I’d rather have him at full back, but perhaps feel that if we keep injury free we have more cover in those positions than we do in the middle. Another person I slagged off a little in the last post was Yamamoto who had a bit of a dodgy game. But he was back to his best in this match. I think the schedule has been catching up with a lot of people recently. Yamada dropped to the bench, and I don’t think anyone could really argue with that. Kanda made his first start which is something plenty of people have been calling for and he managed to get his first league goal. I feel a bit sorry for Yamada as it would probably have been a goal he would have also scored, but at the same time with the slump he’s been going through, maybe he wouldn’t have been in the right place. I feel like none of our (fit) strikers have shown themselves to be an undroppable definite first choice so that’s clearly an area where we have some questions to answer. I suspect either Kobayashi or more likely Yamada will start on Sunday against Verdy. But anyway, Kanda did what he was supposed to do and that’s something that can't be said about plenty of our players in recent matches, so well done to him. I also criticised Yamaguchi, probably quite unfairly in that last post. This is a tricky one for me, because I started the year a bit suspicious of him, have been won round on a few occasions by great performances, and then have reverted to my original point of view after some horrible performances. Presumably this is why when we concede a soft goal it’s my instinct to blame Yamaguchi, even though others are equally culpable. That’s not really fair of me so I apologise to him and his fans. I guess the problem is that as a goalkeeper, when you make a big mistake it more than likely ends up in a goal, so it’s very visible. In his match he made one very good save and other than that didn’t have a massive amount to do so I’ll just concentrate on praising the good save. It’s always a lot easier to be reasonable when we’ve won!

Miura back in the starting line up made a difference I think. And it was good to see Sai back from injury (probably... I don’t think anything was ever announced). Oshima was absent but I hope this is because Hasebe is just doing a better job of managing the fragile often injured players. If he can keep Oshima and Jesiel available for most of the rest of the season he will have achieved miracles. Maybe… maybe…. the injury situation is clearing up a little. Maybe. Of course we still have Erison injured who is the only striker who has really properly staked a claim for the position this year and that's clearly a blow. But maybe elsewhere, Hasebe finally has some options. Just in time for us getting the rug pulled out from under us by Takai leaving. Yamada is also rumoured to be going (to Celtic), but I’m not sure how likely that is or how much of an effect it would have on us. Hopefully we will sign some replacements and/or reinforcements in the transfer window. The season actually looks like it is delicately balanced right now. So it would be good if we tried to at least slightly push it in a favourable direction.

Them -

Not a great deal to say about Albirex really. They dominated possession in the match and had 50% more shots than us. I think these stats are partly coloured by our dodgy second half though. However, I didn’t ever really feel like we were in much danger. Before the game I would have been happy to wish them well for the rest of the season, but they didn’t give us the ball back after we put it out for an injury and that peed me off a bit. But at the same time, they brought loads of passionate fans, (more fans and more passion than Vissel and that game was on a Saturday not a Wednesday evening!),  and I enjoy the away fixture, so I would quite like them to stay up. They’re in the muck at the moment though, so they’ll need a bit of a change in fortune. 

Ref -

When I saw the ref was Kawamata I was cautiously optimistic. He definitely seems to be one of the better refs and I thought he did well in this match. What a rare thing to say! I thought he let a few things go for the good of the game and I’m all in favour of that. There was one situation where if he’d given a marginal foul against a Niigata defender he probably would have had to send him off for a second yellow card as it would have been one of those promising attack things. I’m fine with him not giving it. A referee employing some common sense is a very welcome thing. Good for him!

So that's about it rather than a quick mention for the one massive disappointment for me about this match which was the fact that the semi-secret toilet that is always much quieter than the others now has someone standing with a sign pointing to it. I’m gutted about the potentially disastrous effect this will have on my half times in the future. I’m sure you feel my pain and totally understand why I’ve mentioned it. Next up Tokyo Verdy away on Sunday early evening. Another team who aren’t in great form and are languishing at the wrong end of the table. Usually this would mean that we’d lose but that didn’t happen in this match so fingers crossed it won’t in the next one either. After that, Kashima at home the following weekend. That's going to be an interesting one…

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki (Yellow card 90+10')
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya
FW 38. KANDA Soma
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for KAWAHARA 79')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for KANDA 68')
MF 16. OZEKI Yuto (on for WAKIZAKA 88') 
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 68') 
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi (on for JESIEL 79')
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro

My Frontale Man Of The Match

I’ve been convinced to award this to this player because on Flashscore he was awarded the second lowest score on our team which I thought was absolutely idiotic. So it goes to…

ITO Tatsuya - genuinely forward looking, energetic and consistently one of our best players when he starts. If Ienaga comes back on Sunday as I suspect he will, hopefully Ito can start on the left and let Marcinho have a rest.

Goals

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 12' 1-0
KANDA (Frontale) 35' 2-0
OZEKI (Frontale) 90+1' 3-0
OKUMURA (Albirex) 90+5' 3-1

Highlights  

Vs Consadole Sapporo (home) 11/5/24 J League match 13

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 0 Consadole Sapporo  

Oooh. Another win! Three goals at home for the second game in a row! Everything is great, right? Well, everything is clearly better, but there are a few pinches of salt that need to be taken when you consider whether or not to describe this as our new great run of form. I know how some people enjoy my moaning and some people hate it. I think on this occasion I will probably disappoint both camps. It seems kind of crazy to moan after we’ve won 3-0, particularly given that it’s only our fourth win in the thirteen games we’ve played so far this year. With that in mind, I’ll keep the moany part short and let’s get that out of the way straight away.

Yes, we won handsomely! But blimey, Consadole were bad. They are clearly bottom of the table for a reason. The first fifteen minutes of this game were truly awful from both teams, with unforced error after unforced error and nothing of even any kind of quality on display. Consadole missed SO MANY chances, which was a bit of luck for us as they were making a lot more chances than we were. But they just couldn’t shoot. I feel a bit sorry for their manager who is clearly in some trouble as on this occasion you couldn’t really fault the tactics when it came to attacking as they carved through us time after time but thankfully either swung and missed or blasted the ball over the bar. I can’t remember Kami having to make any kind of proper save. In addition to erring in front of goal, they also seemed to be messing up all over the pitch, falling over whilst trying to dribble, shanking passes directly off the pitch, perfectly controlling the air above or below the ball whilst allowing the ball itself to trundle past them. It seems that confidence is at an all time low for them, and perhaps this could be something you can point the finger at the manager for. I think they just need a lucky break. I don’t think anyone wants them to go down, but on this evidence, they’re going to need a big change in fortunes to avoid the drop. They did make one good chance with a striker chipping Kami only for Ominami to make an amazing goal line hooked clearance, passing the ball to Kami, who for a moment appeared to be about to blast the ball into his own net but thankfully didn’t.  We were very poor for the first fifteen minutes and also a bit poor for large parts of the second half. It was only when we made a few changes that we started to make some chances, Yamada hitting the post so perfectly that the ball pinged almost directly back towards him. It did feel though that if we’d conceded, we could have started wobbling and perhaps ended up drawing. (How does that feel Yuma?). But thankfully we didn’t, and hopefully the score line if not the whole performance will help us take another step towards getting a bit better and a bit more confident. But let’s not get too carried away as after we hammered Urawa, (who I thought looked pretty bad), we went on to draw against Avispa. I didn’t see that game so can’t really comment, but from what I’ve heard it wasn’t that great. So still baby steps, I guess. Don’t get too cocky. We beat the team who were bottom of the league and were in horrible form. But yes, the important thing is that we beat them.

Let’s get a bit more positive. I think the headline from this game, which somehow, as is my wont, I have saved till the third paragraph, has to be Gomis. He’s scored!!! Taking advantage of Erison picking up enough yellows to get a one match ban, Gomis came in and… scored!!! Perhaps buoyed by almost getting his first goal towards the end of the Avispa game, and perhaps slightly frustrated by spending the first 30 minutes of this game basically being used as a bumper in a pinball machine, having to win the headers from long goal kicks and then basically get fouled, he perhaps decided he was fed up of laying the ball off and instead turned and scored a lovely goal. The ground erupted in joy. I think everyone, including his teammates, was desperate to see him score and it was slightly sad that he didn’t do his lion celebration. Thankfully he got another goal a little while after and did the lion. The crowd went wilder. And then we got a penalty which I’m kind of shocked he was allowed to take. (Perhaps Oniki didn’t get the message on to the pitch quick enough). And bang, he’d got his hat trick. I’ve long said that I felt he just needed to score his first goal and then he’d be off and running. I didn’t expect him to score his second and third quite so soon afterwards though. Given Erison’s recent form, you might say that Gomis has the spot to lose now, but I suspect that as we have consecutive away games in Saga and Osaka on Wednesday and Sunday, perhaps without returning home in between, (that’s certainly what we’re doing anyway), maybe we’ll see Gomis start one game and Erison start the other. How nice it would be if Erison could grab a couple of goals in his next game to really get some healthy competition going.

Apart from our star striker and highest wage earner finally getting his first goal, this game was significant for the fact that, (I think I’m right in saying this…), this was the first league game we started with two full backs playing at full back! I’d like to say ‘Hey, Oniki! See what happens when you play people in the right position?’ but given what I wrote in the first part about the weakness of the opposition, I think the hypocrisy alarm might explode. All the same, it was nice to see a right and left back on the pitch in their respective spots. Segawa has done his best in that role, but clearly it’s better to play someone in their natural position, isn’t it? But that might all change for the next match at least, as Ominami had to leave the pitch as a concussion sub so I guess that means he won’t be available for the Sagan Tosu game at least. Not sure how many days he has to wait till he can play again. So expect changes on Wednesday, but maybe it will just be Takai in for Ominami and the full backs will remain in place. Although I also noticed that Ienaga went straight down the tunnel after being subbed and didn't come out for the post game celebrations so perhaps he's also injured. Well, injured or pissed off, both of which could be equally troubling. When Ominami got injured I think Oniki was probably going to take off Sai as he has done in the last few games, but had to change his plans on the hoof. Wednesday sees us take on the team who were second bottom before this game, but as they hammered Jubilo away from home by the same score we won this game, they have now climbed to third bottom. (Sitting second bottom now is naturally a team who’ve beaten us already this year). The league is a very funny beast in 2024. Our win saw us soar up the table to 11th, (now down to 12th after Verdy’s late equalizer), and even though we’ve had a truly awful start, we are only 10 points off the top. I don’t know if this shows how great the league is with lots of evenly matched teams or how bad the league is with lots of evenly matched teams. Certainly, I feel like I haven’t seen anyone who looks that good this year, so probably more the latter. It certainly is interesting though! But at the same time, this adds to the frustration of the horrible tactics we ploughed on with for game after game, defeat after defeat. Imagine where we could have been if we hadn’t been so shit. Which I understand is something that many teams could say, but it does seem especially appropriate for us. As I’ve said many times, I think our squad this year is better than it was last season, so hopefully soon we can start showing this on the pitch a bit more regularly

A few words about the ref. It was Kawamata and once again… I am shocked to say… I don’t have much to say. Guess this always helps when we win and maybe I’d have had moans galore if we lost, but I thought he did pretty well. The linesman on our side of the pitch was really puffing though. In fact, so much that I could see his shoulders rising and falling from my elevated viewpoint up in the stand. This was probably due to the large amount of long balls being whacked by both teams. The managers should really consider the health of the officials when deciding on their ‘hoof it to the fast guy’ tactics.

Next up, Sagan Tosu away. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s always my favourite away day and given that this year it’s a Wednesday evening game on a normal working day, only ten days after our last Kyushu away game, I think the away attendance might be something close to how they were in the ‘good old days’, which is exactly what you’d expect a tired old git like me to be excited about. After that we’ll be slowly winding our way to Osaka so expect the blog post on the Tosu game to just be some words with the details added later. And then expect the Gamba away post to be similar too, as when we get back I’ve got a pig of a week at work and then we’re moving apartments. If I survive shifting all my records and absolutely worthless possessions, I’ll update both the posts. If you never see them updated, please send donations to my Ko-Fi account to cover my funeral expenses. I’m not the healthiest of people so the process will almost certainly damage me in some way. I hope the team can continue to improve in the future with or without my support from the terraces.

Team

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

DF 4. JESIEL
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 61')
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. TONO Daiya (Yellow card 63')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 2. TAKAI Kota (on for OMINAMI 75')
MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for TONO 88')
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for IENAGA 75')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for GOMIS 61')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 75')

DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for JESIEL 88')

Goals

GOMIS (Frontale) 30' 1-0
GOMIS (Frontale) 43' 2-0
GOMIS (Frontale) 45+3' PEN 3-0

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Even someone like me who likes to go a bit left field sometimes couldn’t on this occasion give it to anyone other than….

Bafetimbi GOMIS - three goals, the famous lion celebration and high emotions all round. Delighted! 

 

Highlights 

Vs Cerezo Osaka (away) 2/9/23 J League match 26

Cerezo Osaka 3 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale

Where to start with this game? This is probably going to be a post that surprises some people with its light positivity and occasional complimentary words for Oniki. At the same time though, this was another truly horrible result in a year that just keeps on disappointing. There are so many things to talk about, but at the same time I don’t really want this to be ridiculously long and instead only very long. The stuff about the game is fairly straightforward, although perhaps I have a different opinion to most about it. The other stuff around the game and about the club in general is a bit more complicated. And given that I have no insider knowledge or gossip, I’ll try to deal with that in as much of a detached way as possible. We have no games for a couple of weeks now, (next up, FC Tokyo at home in the league), which is probably a good thing. But at the same time, when you have a result like this, it’s sometimes a good thing to get it out of your system as soon as possible, rather than think about it for 14 days, but that’s what we’ll have to do, I guess. For once I’m not going to dwell on the opposition or the ref. I didn’t really have any complaints about the ref to be honest, apart from a VAR moan which I’ll put in the part about the game. As for the opposition, the beer truck wasn’t as good this year as aside from a couple of slightly mediocre Kawasaki beers, it only had Deraileur stuff, and I’m not a massive fan of them. Seems a bit ungrateful as it is that brewery’s beer truck, but hey, I’m a beer snob, I guess. The only other opposition point is that Croux is still a total wanker and an unbelievable diver. To slightly throw some shade on the ref perhaps I should moan that although he didn’t fall for all of Croux’s dives, he did fail to punish Croux for his dives when he spotted them. Although I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone get booked for diving. Start dishing out those yellows J League refs! I guess most of them have enough trouble with the basic rules of the sport so they should probably work on understanding them first. Anyway, here’s a bit about the game, a bit about things surrounding the game, and a bit about the state of the club in general.

The game -

I was strangely pleased with the line up in this game. It seemed that Oniki had finally realised that we are not in the title race anymore, something which most of us have known since the first few weeks of the season. Perhaps with this in mind, or perhaps because we played 120 minutes on Wednesday and then had to come to Osaka for Saturday, Oniki shuffled the pack. Finally we saw Ienaga and Yamane get a rest, (although quite why the former, a laid back and slightly lethargic influence at the best of times, was brought on in the second half to chase the game, I don’t know). We saw a shake up up front, the defence was shuffled, the midfield was… pretty much the same as usual. We maybe even saw a change in formation!!!! There was talk online from an expert before the game of us playing 3-5-2, the main reason being that Ominami couldn’t be expected to do the high intensity right back thing after playing the whole game on Wednesday. Well, that person was half right. It looked like the normal formation to begin with but soon seemed to change into the 3-5-2, but instead of giving Ominami a partial rest and playing him as part of the back three he was instead played as the right wing back and therefore had to do even more work than usual. I thought he did pretty well though. Segawa on the other side looked good going forward and did his best to help out Tanabe, (long time no see!), on the left hand side of the back three, but Segawa is absolutely not a defender and got caught out quite a few times. Guess he joins the long list of non-defenders who Oniki has played on the left hand side in a defensive position. Tanabe had a good game I thought. I’d been cursing Oniki for recalling him and then after he got injured, totally forgetting him, but he was back again and showed that he can become an important player for us. I guess some people suspected he might be playing as a wing back as he can play anywhere across the back line. But he looked good at centre back. Likewise, Takai was back after a bit of a rest perhaps due to some shocking errors, and also looked reasonably solid. Yamamura, the other centre back had a bit of a nightmare game, but I don’t particularly blame him either. He’s not a defender. The Cerezo fans must be bewildered why we signed their midfielder, who can do a job up front and had on occasion filled in at the back in an emergency and then refused to play him anywhere other than at centre back. It definitely true that he had an unlucky game. The first penalty looked borderline and far from clear cut. The VAR check took just under five minutes (speedy!). Remember that these things are supposed to be for clear and obvious errors. It’s a common moan of mine and many others that if a check takes that long, it’s probably not a clear and obvious error. Also, if the only angles the ref saw were the ones that were displayed on the screen in the ground, it’s a total joke. There were only two marginally different side-on angles neither of which had any hope of showing where the ball made contact with the player. VAR with these angles is like trying to read the small print on your refereeing job contract whilst looking through the wrong end of a telescope. If that’s how the J League refs are told to read the rule book it would certainly explain some of their decisions. The ref was perhaps taking guidance from Kagawa who seemed to be offering advice non-stop as we waited for the VAR guys to watch the same two wholly inappropriate angles before basically tossing a coin to make the decision. And I’m pretty sure that whilst the check was being painstakingly done, the Cerezo fans were chanting ‘VAR, Ole! Ole! Ole!’, which was a bit weird. Actually that was a lot weird, but kind of makes sense as whenever there’s a VAR incident we’re involved in at that ground, it goes against us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it 100% wasn’t a penalty, but it was nowhere near such a sure thing as the Cerezo fans and players thought it was, and with the evidence available, there was no way the ref’s original (perhaps correct, perhaps incorrect) decision should have been overturned. But these things happen. And pretty sure this thing happened in the same stadium to us last year, or maybe the year before. We never seem to do that well away at Cerezo, so all the failures blur into one somewhat. 

 

Jumping to the second penalty, I don’t think VAR got involved, perhaps realising that they’d already wasted enough time with the first one. The way the Cerezo player celebrated suggests that perhaps he thought he had ‘won’ the penalty, rather than it being a sure thing. Again, it looked possible, but nowhere near nailed on, so perhaps VAR did the right thing on this occasion as the ref had given it and no clear error had been made. I guess it’s just our luck at the moment that when there are two borderline penalty decisions in a game, both go against us. Prior to both of these we’d already conceded when Yamamura glanced a defensive header onto the head of Takai which sent the ball past Kamifukumoto. Later in the game when we were attacking, one of our headers deflected off the head of a defender and it floated perfectly into the arms of the keeper. Unlucky again, as was the case with most things in this game for us. It’s not good to concede three times, but aside from three bits of bad luck / borderline decisions that all went Cerezo’s way, they didn’t threaten us that much, particularly in the first half. The big problem is that we didn’t threaten much either. It was interesting to see Oniki try a front two for the first time in ages. It was perhaps a bit of a shame that he did it with two players who’ve hardly ever played together. There really was a lack of understanding between Damiao and Yamada, but it felt that with a bit of instruction from the manager it could have worked. I don’t know if Oniki gave them any instructions before the game. You’d hope so, but at the same time, you can’t really guarantee he would have done. I was kind of encouraged though by the possibilities in the first half and was delighted when Oniki went against my expectations and kept the front two the same for the start of the second half. We still didn’t really make any good chances though, but there was a feeling that perhaps with a bit of time it might work. Up until Oniki made his first QUADRUPLE substitution, I thought we were still a work in progress and were doing ok. Not great, but ok and certainly there were more things to be hopeful about than in recent times. We had conceded a goal in quite unfortunate circumstances but things weren’t a disaster. In the interminable seven or eight minutes that it took Oniki to get the subs on, we conceded again. I don’t know how exactly many times we’ve conceded whilst waiting to make subs, but it’s happened memorably often. Out of the subs we had available, my thinking was that if you need a goal, the two most likely sources on the bench would be Seko or Tono. They were the two players who weren’t changed. Marcinho has been a shadow of himself this year, perhaps troubled by his injury still. But he did alright when he came on, but alright in that some chances were almost created but not to the point of actually having a shot or passing to someone to have a shot. Ienaga came on and didn’t do much at all. Give the guy a proper break. Oh, and with these subs we switched back to the good old 4-3-3, which has never not failed to get us a goal this year. So after the subs, all there was to look forward to was the final whistle and the pub after the game, and even that experience was delayed by 10 minutes of injury time (and that second penalty). So we left immediately on the final whistle, (which probably is a bit harsh as the players had done their best but had been let down by what seemed like a bit of a failure with the preparation and some bad luck), and missed out on the next big talking point.
 

The other stuff -

Ooooooohhhhhhhhh. There was pitch invasion by a pair of ‘Frontale fans’ whilst the hero interview was being done! Some people online compared it to when about 50 Urawa fans broke through the barriers, invaded the opposition fans area, tried to fight them and destroyed their flags. At this match, two people climbed over the barrier, ran around briefly and then climbed back over the barrier into the crowd where they were dealt with by Frontale staff, who had managed to get to them before any of the security had actually noticed anything had happened. I’m not condoning it as it’s a pretty stupid thing to do in any situation. I think it’s a bit of a non-story though. There has been speculation that they weren’t even Frontale fans as they weren’t wearing anything that suggested they might be. It was actually noticeable that alongside the empty seats, there were quite a few new fans / interested tourists in our end. It’s a bit of shame that we couldn’t do anything to retain their interest. If that was my first game as a potential Frontale supporter, I think I’d start looking for not just a new team to follow but a new sport to get interested in. I did quite enjoy the atmosphere though. Cerezo do their best to make the away supporters experience as ineffectual and unsatisfying as possible, by not giving us a roof for the sound to bounce off or to protect us in the event of rain, making the stand not very steep to make the view of the other end of the pitch pretty bad and making the distance from the pitch extra big so they could get some extra advertising hoardings in. I’m only whinging for fun though. It’s better than their old stadium. Along with the pitch invasion, and also missed by those of us who left promptly, was some booing. A very rare thing at Frontale matches, but some might say long overdue. I don’t know where I stand on this. I think we should be able to express our dissatisfaction at our results and the way we’re playing. At the same time, I don’t think booing is particularly going to help. Equally, cheering and singing wildly after another defeat isn’t exactly very useful I think. It makes us just look like we’re nuts. Perhaps leaving on the final whistle is the thing. It certainly works for me. If the whole crowd did it, it might send a message. Support them during the game, but when it’s over, save yourself some time and a lot of effort by just leaving. I think I’ve made it quite clear that I don’t blame the players particularly. Some people are having bad seasons, but the same guy keeps picking them and the same guy is deciding on the tactics. I don’t even want to moan about Oniki in this game. The saddest thing about this result is that any hopes for us experimenting a bit more in what are now utterly pointless league matches are probably now dead. We saw in this match that as soon as things started going wrong, Oniki reverted back to the same players and the same system that hasn’t worked all year. After getting a walloping I can’t see that he’ll try anything new in the next match and it will be 4-3-3, Ienaga, Yamane, and the usual sideways passing. Two up front is probably dead. Three at the back is probably dead. The same midfield will obviously live on. The truth is we can’t get away from the fact that we haven’t won in the last six games and we’ve lost four of them. We’re conceding goals at a shocking rate and there doesn’t seem to be any ideas from Oniki how to stop that happening. We’ve conceded ten goals in the last four games! Since we beat YFM in the last minute halfway though July, the only team we’ve beaten is Kochi United and that wasn’t exactly a comfortable win. We signed one player in the summer transfer window and he is still nowhere to be seen apart from in promotional materials and social media posts. I don’t know what we’re saving him for. We let two central midfielders go and now find ourselves with almost not enough people to play in that position. It’s all a bit hopeless really. It’s too easy for some fans to pile on to certain players online for individual mistakes but we probably should remember that the one constant in all of our horrible games this year is the manager. And he must have something to do with the fact that we don’t have enough defenders. He used to be lucky, but the whole thing about luck eventually evening itself out casts a horrible shadow over the next couple of years as right now we’re experiencing some misfortune, but judging by how much good luck we got in the last couple of years, we’ve got quite a bit of bad luck still to come.
 

So to summarise, as far as I am concerned, we weren’t as bad as the score line suggests and there was even something to be a little positive about when it comes to perhaps trying new things. But any chance of that happening in the future has now probably been destroyed. I think Oniki did the right thing on plenty of occasions in this match, (apart from the subs), and I’m sure that he’s not enjoying how bad we are. I just hope he continues trying to change things, even a little. The problem we’ve had is that we’ve rigidly stuck to a once winning formula for so long, that when we get an injury or we lose a player to the bright lights of the Albanian third tier we can’t replace them as the players who might take over have only featured in the final five minutes of a few games. I once again will say that it seems unlikely that all of of squad have simultaneously become awful players, so we need to have a look elsewhere when it comes to trying to discover what’s going wrong. For once, and in a hugely ironic way considering the bluntness of our attacks and the result of the game, I wasn’t that upset by watching us try to do things in the first half. Nothing worked, but at least we were trying. It was only when the same old crap was wheeled out with the first substitutions that everything became a lot more irritating. But I’m calm now, so it didn’t even leave a scratch on me. It’s pretty futile to moan on the internet about this stuff. (Hmmmm, brief moment of self-observation there where I thought perhaps I was trolling myself). It’s probably also not going to help to moan about it at games and boo. But I understand people’s frustrations, particularly as plenty of our fans have only known good times. I don’t particularly want Oniki to leave. I do want Oniki to change, but as I don’t think he’ll easily do the latter, I guess the former has to happen. But in this match he tried something and if he has the courage of his convictions to carry on with this in the future, I’ll be happy. I think it’s unlikely he will though. If we’re back to the normal stuff next game I won’t be very happy. And presumably now Oniki will really be under pressure to lift the mood so perhaps he’ll play the Gomis card. If Gomis isn’t ready to be involved by the next match we play in two weeks, I think we really have to wonder quite how old he will be when he is deemed worthy of some involvement. All of our eggs are now in the Emperor’s Cup basket so we can definitely afford to try something different again in our remaining league games. It would probably be a better idea to pick a formation that we actually have the players to play though, instead of putting square pegs in round holes. But what do I know, eh? I know that we have only three away games left this year, one is at the worst ground for away fans in the J League and one is at the national stadium, which to be honest, could be a competitor for the former title. It’s a bit of luck that we finish up the year with one of the best away trips. So there you go, there is something to look forward to after all!  We’ll be able to celebrate our 10th place league finish with shochus galore on the terrace behind the goal at Tosu! 

 

Team

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

DF 29. TAKAI Kota (Yellow card 90+4')

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

DF 15. TANABE Shuto

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 3. OMINAMI Takuma

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

MF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

FW 20. YAMADA Shin

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

 

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 2. NOBORIZATO Kyohei (on for TANABE 74')

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 74')

FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for TACHIBANADA 84')

FW 23. MARCINHO (on for SEGAWA 74')

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for YAMADA 74')

 

Goals

 

TAKAI (Frontale) OWN GOAL 52' 1-0

LEO CEARA (Cerezo) PEN 72' 2-0

WATANABE (Cerezo) PEN 90+2' 3-0

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

I mean, I know I've been a bit more positive than you might have expected, but a man of the match is taking it a bit far, isn't it?

Highlights

 

Vs Sagan Tosu (home) 7/5/23 J League match 12

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 0 Sagan Tosu

Another game for us when it was absolutely pissing it down. Unlike in Fukuoka where I was fully expose to the elements, on this occasion I was thankfully undercover in my usual seat. That’s probably where the similarities to the Fukuoka game end. Oniki shuffled the pack (slightly) on this occasion finally breaking the three match no changes run. I think it was long overdue, and perhaps he should have changed a bit more if we’re being honest as we looked quite tired again. But I totally get it. He’d been scrabbling around for so long, the long standing way we got wins had totally stopped working and the shuffling of line ups wasn’t changing anything. He got a draw against Urawa, kept the same line up and then got a win. And then another one. So I didn’t think he’d change anything unless it was absolutely necessary. I guess he thought Nobori was tired and you can’t blame him for favouring Marcinho over Tono now he is fit again. Everyone else though is going to keep playing until they physically break down. We now have a bit of a break till our next match with no midweek fixture. So probably the same line-up in the next game.

We weren’t great in this game, but this fixture normally finishes 0-0, so for us to nick a goal and turn the 0-0 into a 1-0 win is very welcome. It was our first home win in the league since…. October 29th! Bloody hell! I know the last season finished early but this really does hammer home quite how bad we’ve been this year. But now that’s three wins in a row, right? Well, yes it is, but of those three wins, aside from away at Fukuoka they’ve been fairly tight. At Kyoto it took us till the 94th minute. In this game we had loads of shots but missed plenty of good chances. Yeah we hit the woodwork on three occasions (I think), but their keeper only had to make four saves in the whole game. Marcinho looked very dangerous in his approach play, but seems to have lost his shooting skills a bit. Hopefully they’ll be back soon. Apart from when we hit the woodwork, I can’t remember anyone else having a decent chance, which almost certainly says more about my memory than anything else. The club stats said Seko had the most shots (4) and he went off at half time. I guess those shots were at the other end of the pitch, but I don’t remember them at all. Not saying this wasn’t a fun match to watch. My notes say ‘kind of entertaining but nothing really happening’ and I think that nicely sums things up. Our new tactics seem to be to go quite direct, playing some lovely long balls out to the wings, starting some very exciting attacks. Oh and then as soon as we get to the opposition’s penalty box, immediately slowing things down, which seems like a bit of a waste of time and negates any benefit of the initial directness. And then after we scored, we really shut things down. I was astonished when I saw the stats that showed we had almost 3/4 of our shots in the first half and that we only had five shots in the second half. Given that we’d hit the woodwork twice before we scored in the 52nd minute, this does reinforce the feeling that we spent most of the second half hanging on to what we had, the final 40 minutes of the game resulting in no more than two shots for us, none of which were on target (if my stats are right). We definitely were wasting time in the second half with lots of this being done (legitimately) by Kamifukumoto and with us trying to keep the ball by the corner flag for most of the final ten minutes. Not exactly confidence inspiring. But yeah, this is a fixture we struggle in and we managed to win. And the players must be more tired than I am, and I’m pretty tired. So on the whole, a thumbs up, I suppose.

 

Nothing much to say about the ref again (I think there was nothing much to say about him the last time either), which I guess means he’s a good ref. Not a lot to say about Sagan Tosu either. I quite like them as a club so will avoid making any arsey comments about them. I know that’s what some people come here for, so I’m sorry if you’re disappointed, but I suspect there will be plenty in the next post.

 

Next up, the Tamagawa Classico and praise the lord, even though it’s the away fixture, we don’t have to go to Chofu for it! But curse the lord, it’s at the National Stadium instead, a stadium wholly unsuited for football and quite unsuited for having a good time. This time we’ll be in the away end, unlike my previous two experiences there, but I suspect the view is equally bad there too. FC Chofu have had an up and down season with their last game being a significant down. Hopefully they will fail to bounce back and we can compound their misery. I’m not wholly confident that will happen though. Fingers crossed it will!

Team 

 
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto

DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (Yellow card 74')

DF 29. TAKAI Kota 

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 33. MIYASHIRO Taisei

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for WAKIZAKA 78')

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota (on for SEKO 46')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu(on for IENAGA 78')

FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 68')

FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for MIYASHIRO 86')

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

There has been one big constant in our recent turnaround and that has been great performances from the player who I’m giving this to, who has basically made himself undroppable and is now keeping our captain out of the team. It’s got to go to…

JOAO SCHMIDT - again, just great. Always involved and on this occasion almost scored too. 

Goals

 

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 52' 1-0

 

Highlights