Vs JEF United (home) 25/4/26 J League East match 12

 

Kawasaki Frontale 2 - 1 JEF Utd  

Two wins in a row! Two wins in a row! The fact that it’s the first time we’ve done this and we’re already two thirds of the way through this mini season speaks volumes about how inconsistent and generally not very good we’ve been this year. But that's all changed now, right? Well, we’ll see. This wasn’t exactly a riveting game. Actually scratch that. This was a horrendously dull game for the most part. At least from our point of view. But at least we won. This blog post is going to be short because this game was pretty bad.

First half - 

The stats don’t exactly back me up on this, but it felt to me that we pretty much dominated the first half. The early goal maybe created this feeling of domination. And we had a lot of possession. At the same time they probably had the more dangerous chances. In these situations I often say ‘I hope we don’t regret not taking some of these chances’. We almost did. However, the thing that I actually did regret was not being more positive about the first half as the second have was so bad. When we scored early it looked like we could go on and get a few, but I can’t really remember any other decent opportunities. 

Second half - 

We didn’t have a shot till the 87th minute! It seemed like we needed their equaliser for us to get going. It was pretty dull and uneventful stuff. It probably wasn’t till about the 75 minute mark that I realised that we’d done nothing in the second half. It wasn’t terrible, it just was… nothing... and clearly I was getting distracted by thinking about more exciting things like… doing the washing up or taking the rubbish out. But thankfully we got a winner. A cruel person might say that JEF took the tactical decision to leave Marcinho in loads of space right in front of the goal knowing that he’d probably miss the target or lose the ball. But he didn’t! Lovely! That's about all there is to say really. It wasn’t very exciting, which was perfectly fitting for a match of the insignificance it had. 


Any other business - 

Sasaki back on the beach and on the pitch is a very welcome thing. And it seems to have coincided with Matsunagane running out of steam slightly. So now he can maybe have a rest and, whisper it, we might have at least one alternative option in some positions at the back. Was also good to Hayashi getting some more minutes after his previous spirit crushing appearance against YFM. Was surprised to see him play at left back, (or maybe it was on the left side of a back three. It didn't really look like it), but he did pretty well I thought.

We seemed to have a bit more urgency about us in this match. Lots of one touch passes, moving the ball forward quicker and hoofing clearances when necessary in contrast to the constant fucking around on the ball that was very evident against YFM. But still we can’t quite turn attacks into actual shots which can be frustrating, but on this occasion was just witheringly dull.

Yeah honestly not much else to say. Don’t even have a WOW! this time. It was all a bit of a boring blur. And I came to the game straight from work so I was completely alcohol free so can’t say that my senses were in any way dulled by anything other than the (some might say) pretty but (I certainly would say) pointless stuff on the pitch. Next up Urawa who continued their awful run at the weekend. So basically an absolutely nailed on defeat for us. We always seem willing to do them a favour for some reason. When they were in a bit of a mess last year with their supporters turning against them, we turned up and shipped five goals. In this next match, it doesn’t matter in the slightest what the result will be, much like in that game last year. Everything’s pointing to us losing, isn’t it? Fucking hell. Perhaps I’ll have something to get a bit more involved with in that match though, and I suspect there definitely will be a WOW! 

 

Team 

GK 49. Svend BRODERSEN
DF 29. YAMAHARA Reon
DF 28. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 2. MATSUNAGANE Yuto
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento 
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 17. ITO Tatsuya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 24. MIYAGI Ten (Yellow card 90')
FW 91. Lazar ROMANIC

Subs

GK 1. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for MIURA 56')
FW 9. ERISON (on for ROMANIC 80')

MF 15. MYOGAN Toya
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for ITO 63')
MF 23. MARCINHO (Yellow card 90') (on for MIYAGI 63')

DF 32. HAYASHI Shunsuke (on for MATSUNAGANE 80')

MF 34. OSA Ryuki 

FW 38. KANDA Soma

Man of the match

Dull, dull, dull. So you’d probably imagine that I’m not going to give this to anyone. But no! There was a clear winner….

MIYAGI Ten - did alright on that he pitch but he gets it for getting a yellow card after being subbed for jumping into the crowd with Marcinho to celebrate the goal. Bravo!

 

Goals

YAMAMOTO (Frontale) 5' 1-0
ISHIO (JEF) 85' 1-1
MARCINHO (Frontale) 89' 2-1

Highlights

 

Vs Machida Zelvia (away) 6/4/25 J League match 9

 

Machida Zelvia 2 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

Another local-ish derby(ish) and another… ah, not a win on this occasion. But this was, I think, a reasonable result in the circumstances. More about those circumstances later. I’ve got a few things to say in the usual sections, but due to a pretty shitty view from the stands, I imagine that anyone who watched online will have a better idea of what went on in this game. The Gion Stadium might have a relatively new medium-sized ‘back stand’ but the fact is that the view from behind the goal isn’t the best. And it was made worse by the fact that we arrived a bit late, (by which I mean just the one hour before kick off), so ended up quite near the front. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all bad. The atmosphere was pretty good, with some top level ref and Machida baiting, (not from me on this occasion. At least not wholly). But from my eye level, I couldn’t even see the bottom of the goal. It almost felt as if they’d raised the pitch up a bit and we were watching in a little dip, meaning that the advertising hoardings obscured anything below the kneecaps of the players. This made it a tad tricky to work out if the ball had gone in or not and therefore any celebrations or frustrations started after interpreting the reactions of our players. All of which is to say that I couldn’t see much of what happened and now I’ve started to forget what happened, so expect this post to be the usual old shit. With that in mind, let’s get right into it.

Us -

A few surprises in the starting line up, mainly Takai being absent and Jesiel starting in his place, with Kurumaya coming onto the bench. Further forward we had the usual kind of rotation that we’ve seen recently, with those few players who seem to be un-rotatable keeping their spots and the other usual switches taking place. I’m not sure what to hope for when it comes to Takai. I guess we should hope for him being rested, worry about him being injured and really worry about him being prepared for some kind of janky transfer. In spite of my past comments about him playing amazingly for a few games then dropping a series of absolute clangers, I have to say that he really seems to have come on this season and had a great partnership with Maruyama. Clearly the main talking point of this match has to be the two (probably serious) injuries to Tachibanada and Jesiel, both of which came in the first half. With us having to make two separate changes before half time, (and for a while it looked like we might also have to make a third when Marcinho went down before half time), we were really up against it when it came to being able to use subs to change the game, what with us only having the one change window left. I think I might have just made up the phrase ‘change window’, but hopefully you know what I mean. I understand why, aside from changes made at half time, subs have to be made in a maximum of three slots, but the rule really screwed us in this game. I’ll speak more on the Tachibanada incident later, but with the Jesiel one, whilst it looked kind of innocuous at the time, it quite quickly became apparent that it was serious from his reaction. I guess we can pray that it’s not as bad as Jesiel clearly thought it was, but I suspect it could be another long term injury. And given that he’s had so many, you might have to wonder if it could be even more serious than that. Even though we were put in a tricky situation by those enforced early changes I think we still did a decent job of trying to win in this game. The two goals we conceded looked a bit soft, which was all the more surprising given that recently we’ve looked pretty sturdy at the back. But their first did come directly after our second enforced change of the match and was from one of their grotty long throws. I guess you can’t blame them for pursuing the tactic as it works but… actually do blame them, they are a team of terrible wankers, aren’t they? (Aside from Shimoda of course). At the end of the game I felt like both teams were really going for the win, which was quite nice. At the same time, I feel like with a bit better finishing we could have already been home and dry as we missed some very good chances. But, given the circumstances and the fact that the ref (who somehow Machida thought was against them!! Insane!) was absolute dog shit, a 2-2 draw felt kind of like we’d done quite well. The fact that Machida’s game-plan was able to dictate some of our subs and that the ref seemed to be, if not excactly encouraging their play, but definitely enabling it, meant that a 2-2 draw away from home against a team above us in the table who had an extra man on their team was reason to send me home reasonably content. And the fact that the reasonable contentment could be combined with some top level disgust for certain members of the opposition and some irritation at a ref who always disappoints meant that Sunday evening was quite alright by me.

A characteristic Tani flap as seen from the trench
that the stand behind the goal was in

Them and the ref-

Sometimes I combine these two sections as there’s not much to say about them individually. On this occasion, I think they should go together as they were working hand in hand, one clearly enabling the other. I don’t know how much of this needs to be said in every Machida blog post, but given that this is the first game against them this season I’ll put it in. What a scummy team they are! I don’t think this phrase is often used without the negative, but ‘Machida Zelvia, what’s… to like?’. When usually used in the negative this is a rhetorical question, but for a neutral fan, I think would be hard to come up with something positive to say about them. I guess people who like watching (ex) national team players who have pursued their dream of playing at the ‘highest level’ overseas only to be lured back to the club of their dreams… oh sorry, I meant the club that plays horrible football but can give them more money than others, might be interested in going to watch Machida. What other positives are there? Charismatic and charming manager? Errrrmmm, no. Beautiful football? Errrrmmm, no. A nice and well connected stadium? Ermmm, no. A charming story of a small team of underdogs who through great team work managed to get to the top of J1? Errrrmmm, no. Machida quite rightly don’t seem to have many neutrals’ support and I fully support the neutrals for not supporting them. I don’t really know why they are so horrible as clearly they have good players. But they kicked us all over the pitch in this match and a very weak ref didn’t let the rules of the game interfere with their plans. The foul on Tachibanada was horrible, the Machida player basically just booting him as hard as possible on the front of the ankle. I’d be surprised if we see him playing again soon. The ref Kimura barely gave the foul and wasn’t interested at all in any kind of card. Also, a player who has never particularly annoyed me in the past has now joined my shit list. I don’t remember Soma being such a petulant little twat but he seems to have become a proper arsehole. Perhaps this is just top quality coaching from top quality shithead Kuroda, the Machida manager. As an aside, what a surprise it was to see some power harassment allegations come out about him! And equally surprising to see that the club had a good look at the evidence and decided that there was no case to answer. Perhaps Kuroda also used the ‘Be careful, I’m very close to the owner’ threat on the person who was investigating. But the thing is we knew Machida would be cheating shitbags, so there has to be a lot of blame given to the ref, who was happy to go along with everything. I wasn’t aware that the J League has introduced a personal ref consultation system now. I don’t know why we didn’t use it, as it seemed that everything the ref did had to go through a discussion with Kuroda before it was given. I don’t know if Kimura was intimidated by Kuroda or whether he’s just a shit ref. Actually, there’s a high probability that both are true. And who wouldn’t be intimidated by the sports jacket, white t-shirt, white trainers and skidmark beard that Kuroda rocks? When there’s someone that cool around, there’s no other option than to do exactly what the Machida Fonz wants, right? In my last blog post on a game we had with Kimura I said that he gives way too many cards out. Perhaps he read it and overcorrected in this match as he went from deluge to drought. I reckon they could have had at least two players sent off in the first half and still the arseholes harangued the ref presumably all the way to the officials toilet where he had to look the door and repeatedly press the running water sound button and wait till they went away, probably distracted by someone carrying something that looked like a envelope of cash. Anyway, I’m going to restrict my abuse to just the ref, Kuroda and some of the Machida players and instead switch to poking fun when it comes to the club itself. I was quite baffled by the bizarre loosely-medieval theme they seem to go with for home games. I guess they are trying to promote the image of FORTRESS NOZUTA, which has a certain amount of sense to it, as the first thing everyone knows about castles is that they are usually on a hill with the intention of making approaching it as difficult as possible. Nice that they back up the Fortress Nozuta idea when it comes to their shuttle bus policy. For those who didn’t find the Fortress Nozuta name evocative enough there were some aural and visual hints to push you in the right direction. First the unusual and intriguing music being played in the food area outside the stadium and immediately before the game in the stadium, which was akin to the lightest of EDM being produced with a drum machine and some flutes, pipes and lutes. Or at least the flute, pipe and lute settings on a mid-range Casio. I have to say, I quite enjoyed it, particularly as the bassline was getting a bit farty on the speakers in the food area. Once inside the stadium the medieval vibe was amplified by the bizarre sight of some prancing shirtless flag-wavers who appeared to be dressed in something halfway between a kilt and that sarong that David Beckham briefly flirted with wearing. The whole image was like a cross between the kind of look you’d expect from a guy who does the juggling at battle reenactments and a bordering-on-racist approximation of the genie from Aladdin. Once again, quite intriguing, and wonderfully naff. Big thumbs up for all of this. Big thumbs down though for the old Japanese imperial flags and the big Stone Island flag in their end. And big question marks for the numerous St George's cross flags and for the flag behind their goal that said 'Three Stripes, Two Soles, One Love'. Your guess is as good as mine. So to distill the various themes in this overly long paragraph into single buzz words, I’d say, team - arseholes,  tactics - shithousery, vibe - enjoyably bonkers, ref - useless, Kuroda absolute total cu

Ran out of characters in that last paragraph. Seem to remember that happened once before too. This was a surprisingly enjoyable game, but maybe just because of my antipathy towards Machida Zelvia who must be closing in on joining that top level of my most hated teams now. 2-2 was probably fair even if the way they went about securing the draw was far from fair. At least as far as I’m concerned. Next up, no time to breathe before another derby, and this time it’s against the forever top tier hated team YFM. It seems like it should be a good time to play them as they are wonderfully shite this year, but I’d say that almost certainly means that they are going to beat us. After that we’re away at Shimizu on Saturday. The schedule is relentless, so please spare a thought for us bloggers who have to come up with a whole new load of insults, (or at least a new way of expressing them), every three or four days. I think the only right thing to do is send me lots of money so I can spend it on booze as this is the way I come up with all of my best snark. Well, drinking or when I’m in the shower. Best not to mix up those two situations unless you’re using a straw and a well sealed cup. Cheers! 

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 4. JESIEL
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 41. IENAGA Akihiro
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 23. MARCINHO
FW 9. ERISON

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for TACHIBANADA 15')
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (on for JESIEL 33')

MF 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 70')
FW 18. SEGAWA Yusuke
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 70')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 70')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai

My Frontale Man Of The Match

The way Machida played made this a difficult game for any of our players to particularly stand out as it’s tough to show what you can do when the other team are just employing spoiling tactics and the ref is useless. However, for the gutsiness and the goal, I’ll give it to…

KAWAHARA So - I really like him.

Goals

ERISON (Frontale) 16' 0-1
OKAMURA (Machida) 34' 1-1
NISHIMURA (Machida) 53' 2-1
KAWAHARA (Frontale) 73' 2-2

Highlights

Vs Avispa Fukuoka (away) 26/2/25 J League match 3

Avispa Fukuoka 1 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale 

 

Another win! Maybe we don’t want to go into too much detail about the game though as it wasn’t the most exciting or uplifting match. One thing that was kind of interesting though was the proof of the power of my reverse jinxing. Before the game I posited that recently we seem to have reverted back into Oniki like line ups, tactics and performances. To prove me wrong we came out firing in this match and I felt a bit stupid. Right up until I wrote ‘we’ve had a good positive start’ and then we proceeded to do nothing at all positive for the next 30 mins. I am also taking credit for Erison’s goal. Literally 10 seconds before he scored I said perhaps factually inaccurately to my wife, ‘Erison hasn’t even had a touch yet’ and then he scored a cracker. I’d love to say I’m using these reverse jinxes as a way to make us do well, but the amount of times I moaned about certain players being pretty average in this match resulting in them continuing to do exactly that suggests otherwise. Clearly this was never going to be as easy a game as it perhaps looked like it might be on paper. Avispa were winless and had lost a few important players since we last played them. Also we now have their old manager who presumably knows all of their secrets. (Apparently this is why we changed ends when given the option, Hasebe saying that he knew that they are more likely to score in the second half when shooting towards their own supporters if the atmosphere is good). But at the same time there was probably a feeling in the club that they might want to get one over on their old manager so previous results and form, (if you can even talk about form so early on in the season), go out the window. And of course, we have a reputation for not doing particularly well in Kyushu. But we managed to get the job done. As I’m currently on a train, not due home for hours and I have to work tomorrow and then we have a game on Saturday, let’s not go into too much detail and get this done.

As I said above, far from a convincing win or performance, so excuse me for being slightly negative. Tachibanada had another game to forget, Wakizaka did some nice touches but made more horrible mistakes, both of the centre backs lived very dangerously at times and the Avispa goal looked extremely soft with our defenders turning off completely. Yamada passed occasionally but in general dribbled and dribbled till he lost the ball or blasted over. I feel like I’m being a bit harsh on him, but I don’t think he deserves to be an automatic selection on this form. This is perhaps my big point in this post. I’ll be very encouraged if Hasebe rotates this weekend as certain definite starters either need a rest, or need a bit of a kick up the backside to let them know they won’t necessarily always play. Oniki never did this, so I hope that Hasebe will. I think Erison should start at the weekend, particularly as he scored. No one is ever going to play themselves into form by just getting only eight minutes at the end of each match. Therefore it was nice to see Erison come on a bit earlier and score. I think if Yamada scored he'd keep his spot, (unless we’re playing much weaker opposition and might do wholesale rotation), so in theory Erison should start on Saturday. It’s still early in the season so talking about resting players might seem premature, but we have had a fairly intense schedule so far. I’d say Wakizaka needs a rest too. And given that Ienaga did pretty well in this game, why not give him a go in that position? I think it might suit him better. Although in this match he did seem to be under instructions to not wander as much and did stay on the right more than I would have expected. But in that spot on the right we have Ito, Verhon and maybe even Yamauchi, so why not give one of them a go? Whilst we’re being positive, I think one good change from Oniki Frontale to Hasebe Frontale is the fact that we’re crossing the ball a lot more. We had two headed goals in this match from great deliveries by Miura and Ito. This is one aspect of 2025 Frontale that we can definitely be pleased with. Also we seem to be a bit more direct, or at least we’ve cut out about 50% of the intensely pointless pissing / passing around. On occasion during a potentially promising attack we revert to Oniki style passing back to the centre back, but I think we might be moving slightly beyond passing for passing's sake. Praise the lord! I still think it’s too early to draw any strong conclusions, particularly as many opposition teams are slightly unknown quantities at this stage, but considering we’re a work in progress, seven points out of nine is a pretty positive return so far. So as much as I’m moaning, (you would have been particularly aware of this if you were anywhere near me in the stands), you’ve got to be at least a little pleased with how things are going so far. As no one likes too much positivity on here, I should say that whilst it is also too early to judge players too, I’m still not convinced by Yamaguchi as first choice goalkeeper. Of course I’m a big Sung-Ryong fan so this makes me biased, but I don’t feel completely sure about Yamaguchi in goal right now. I’m not saying he should be dropped, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything that gives me a great deal of confidence in him yet. Sure, he’s made a few good saves, but the goal in this game looked soft, (but admittedly it was mainly the defence’s fault), so I’m hoping we’re not repeating the same mistakes as last year and that Yamaguchi isn’t the new Kamifukumoto. But take this as more of a fingers crossed comment than a criticism as he’s not ‘done a Kami’ up till this point, so I should probably just shut up.

Hmmm, feels like we’re approaching the end of this post and no mention of the ref or opposition. Let’s just say that Nago is a diving wanker but just about managed to stop himself leaving the field of play as he twizzled his way back and forth like some kind of slightly chubby Catherine Wheel that hadn’t been anchored quite right after a challenge that he thought deserved an immediate prison sentence for our player. And Ben Khalifa similarly was strongly appealing for a red card for a challenge that didn’t even warrant a free kick. Nago is ex-Kashima so I guess that’s where his wankerness comes from. As for Ben Khalifa, well people normally associate the Swiss with measured neutrality, but maybe this needs to be reassessed. I think it’s probably not a coincidence that he was taken off at half time shortly afterwards as he seemed to be doing his nut. The ref was Kimura and gave out cards pretty easily as I think he usually does. Was a bit worried when Marcinho did a classic Marcinho tackle in the second half. Thankfully it didn’t have the usual red card result though. I don’t have much of a beef with Kimura otherwise. Don’t often say that I guess, so I’ll put it down to him being merely not very good, as opposed to the usual refs who operate more on the disastrous level.

So that’s it. I know this is detail light but what were you expecting? I feel bad moaning at all given that we’re winning games. But I get the feeling that we’ve been a bit lucky in a few of our matches. Hopefully we’ll see some rotation in the next match and a decent performance. Competition for places is always a good thing and it’s something that hasn’t been paid much attention to in the past. Fingers crossed for another win against Kyoto on Saturday.

 

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota (Yellow card 24')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (Yellow card 33')
MF 6. YAMAMOTO Yuki
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO (Yellow card 78')

Subs

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 69')
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
FW 9. ERISON (on for YAMADA 69')
FW 17. ITO Tatsuya (on for IENAGA 69')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for TACHIBANADA 58')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 81')
MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 28. PATRICK VERHON

My Frontale Man Of The Match

There aren’t that many people to chose from for this but given that I thought his inclusion might have been a mistake and then he proved me wrong, let’s give it to…

IENAGA Akihiro - broadly stuck to the right hand side, showed plenty of energy, scored a nice goal and got peed off in the way that I like to see him do.

Goals

BEN KHALIFA (Avispa) 15' 1-0
IENAGA (Frontale) 42' 1-1
ERISON (Frontale) 85' 1-2

Highlights

 

Vs Cerezo Osaka (home) 14/7/24 J League match 23

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 Cerezo Osaka

After an Oniki masterclass managed to snap us out of our run of four consecutive draws by throwing in a defeat (to a lower league team which put us out of the cup at the first stage where we didn’t play a team that wasn’t made up of amateurs), we’re back again to those beautiful throw-away-the-lead draws. What’s the point of going to these games anymore? What’s the point of me writing these posts? Every week it’s the same. The only difference is a slight tweak to the players involved but absolutely no change to the tactics that have failed us for about three years now. The only thing I can presume is that Oniki is actively trying to get sacked, but he’s so useless that he can’t even sabotage us properly. Death by a thousand cuts is a familiar concept, but I wonder if this year we can change that to relegation by a thousand draws? Oniki needs to have a look at himself and decide what he wants his Frontale legacy to be. I think if he doesn’t want to totally trash his reputation he should probably quit immediately, as clearly, barring a massive change in character with him finally realizing that the same shit tactics might not come good after the hundredth unsuccessful attempt, he is not up to the job of keeping us in J1. Astonishingly after this match day, we’ve climbed one spot in the table. But don’t get too excited about that. Instead of being five point off 19th, we’re now three points from second bottom. Yes, we now have six teams behind us instead of five, but the fact is five of those six are one win away from overtaking us. A defeat next weekend away at Kashima could see us in the relegation zone if results don’t go our way. And if that happens, well, let’s expect the usual stuff from Oniki in his post match comments. ‘We wanted to win with so many fans supporting us’. ‘We tried to score a winner but couldn’t manage it’. ‘We will fight hard in the next game’. I don’t really know what the point of publishing these comments is. They are even more predictable than our awful play. For some reason, after this game he didn’t say he was to blame, like he usually does, presumably realising that no-one believes him when he says it, as they have heard him say it numerous times and then respond by changing fuck all. I guess the one consolation in this fifth consecutive league draw is that for once the opposition didn’t score shortly after an Oniki masterclass defensive change as they have done in quite a few of these last few games. In this game the eaualiser came a massive 12 minutes after Oniki’s visionary substitutions. I suppose in his defence you could say that the defensive change was forced on him this time due to the injury to Van Wermeskerken. But who am I kidding? It’s a certainty that we would have conceded anyway. The real miracle is that we haven’t managed to turn any of these draws into defeats.

The perfect photo for this game! Not very high quality,
people seem to have fallen over for no reason and
the officials apparently just staring into the middle distance

What can I say really? There were the same issues with this starting line up as there have been with most starting line ups for the last couple of years. There was the same lack of ideas. The same kind of soft goal conceded. In this game that goal almost appeared to be in slow motion. When I watched it back on DAZN I thought the play speed must have been adjusted, so slow were both the attack and the celebration from the goalscorer. So inevitable is it that we’ll concede an equaliser every time we go ahead that I think if the opposition decided to spend the whole of the second half sitting down in the centre circle, we’d still find a way to concede. Not just any manager can make this possible. It takes a special one to consistently be able to snatch failure from the jaws of victory.  But still he ploughs on. If he quit now, at least he won’t have our relegation on his CV. Of course it’s already at least two years too late for him to quit, but as our results get steadily worse, Oniki clings desperately onto his job, knowing that each week his stock as a capable manager drops further. If he quit now and let someone else take over, hopefully ditching Oniki’s shit tactics, we probably would have ample time to get at least a couple of wins and draw clear of the drop zone. But instead, Oniki seems determined to draw his way to J2, which is presumably is as high a level a job as he’ll be able to get next. Who am I kidding? There will definitely be some ‘big’ J1 club who are notorious for bad managerial appointments and love to throw cash around who’ll take him. That club, like many J League ‘experts’ on Twitter, having noticed that he won a few titles whilst ignoring the fact that it’s been rapidly diminishing returns for the past few years as Oniki gets rid of any traces of skill and capability that might still be leftover from previous managers. I think the only reasonable thing to do at this stage is to start singing the following lyrics to the tune of ‘Blame it on the Boogie’:

Don’t blame on our players,
Don’t blame it on the other team,
Don’t blame it on the referee,
Blame it on Oniki!

A few words about the ref. Kimura is a useless ref. I always say this so even this part is a repetitive waste of time. In posts about him in our games this year I’ve described him as’ an absolute disgrace’, ‘so useless he needed the the help of the [opposition] players’ and ‘really struggling to understand even the basic aspects of [his] job’. He continued in the same way in this match. But don’t get me wrong, as I sang above, I don’t blame him. But the VAR for our disallowed goal was quite annoying. I guess this is the fault of the VAR guy though, who was the equally jumped up and useless Yamamoto. If they only had the angles they showed us on DAZN and I presume this is the case as otherwise why would they not show us the evidence, they are presumably using their x-ray eyes to see through Ienaga to prove that the ball was off the pitch. Maybe it was, but I’m pretty sure that there was not the Mitoma World Cup goal level of attention to detail for the decision and instead Yamamoto dithered, remembered he hates us and then decided to rule it out. It seems a bit of a stretch to say that it was a clear and obvious error, especially considering that perhaps the ‘proof’ was by no means conclusive. Add to this that Cerezo won the ball back twice in the extended build up and gave it back to us both times, which I thought meant that the passage of play was over. I’ve looked at the rules and of course, as seems to be the case with many of the new regulations, (particularly ones related to VAR), that have been brought in to make the game more accurate and clear cut, there is a ridiculous amount of subjective opinion needed to make what I thought were now supposed to be unequivocal and evidence based decisions. People say the mistakes are supposed to even themselves out over the season, but that was also said before we had VAR and in those days we didn’t have the game killing boredom of waiting for a decision to be, (often incorrectly), made and the let down of having the celebrations of yet another ‘goal’ we’ve scored demolished. The feeling after VAR rules out a goal you’ve gone nuts about is probably something like the feelings of the kid who calls their teacher mum by accident in class. You’ll get over it, but it’s going to feel a bit embarrassing or disappointing for at least 24 hours. Oh and whoever that 4th official was, he’s a snitch. I don’t know why our translator got sent off. If he’d called the ref a useless wanker I think it would have been well worth it. I wish someone would say something similar to Oniki to be honest to snap him out of his bizarre self belief in his tactics. It might have actually done us good on this occasion though, as presumably afterwards Ze Ricardo would have not understood what Oniki was trying to tell him to do, so at that stage we had at least one player who wasn’t being constantly misdirected to the point of incompetence. If only it had been Oniki who’d been sent off! Maybe we could have got the win. One of the three magnet boards that now seem to be on our bench could have taken over. I’m pretty sure they would have done a better job at inspiring and motivating the players. I certainly would have more faith in them.

Truly exhilarating form!

So another game where I left quite quickly after the final whistle. I don’t know why, but at away games I feel like I should at least hang around and give the players a clap even if the game has been terrible. But at home games, I just want to get out of there as soon as possible. After a quick trip to the toilet I discovered that there wasn’t any booing on this occasion, but there was a bit of murmuring. The party line still seems to be to keep happy clappy about everything though. Next up, Kashiwa away with exactly the same tactics I’m sure. Presumably the best we can hope for is a draw. But given that they are close to us in the table, I expect we’ll lose. I also expect some people to lose their rag. But of course, Oniki won’t ever lose his job.


Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (Yellow card 33')
FW 9. ERISON
FW 23. MARCINHO

 

Subs

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 65')

MF 6. ZE RICARDO (on for OSHIMA 46')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for ERISON 58')
FW 17. TONO Daiya

FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for YAMADA 82')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for MARCINHO 65')

Goals

MARCINHO (Frontale) 36' 1-0
VITOR BUENO (Cerezo) 77' 1-1

My Frontale Man Of The Match

This section will be going on hiatus until we are not as useless as we are right now. Maybe some time next year.

Highlights

Vs Kashiwa Reysol (home) 25/5/24 J League match 16

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 Kashiwa Reysol

Ok, I know I always say I’ll keep it brief and then bore on for ages but this time I was going to be a little briefer than usual. We’re in the middle of moving at the moment and it’s a monumental task. I hadn’t imagined that I’d really have had time before our next game to sit down for any extended period and write something to my usual, erm… ‘standard’. But thanks perhaps to worrying about the move, I’ve woken up at 5am, too early to start making any kind of noise by shifting anything. So here we are, a semi usual blog post, just with a bit more bleakness due to the fact that I already know this is going to be a long and tiring day. This was unsurprisingly, another crap game. Unsurprising because once again a close look at our recent travails has seen our manager decide that we’re probably doing the right thing but being monumentally unlucky, and to keep on with exactly the same stuff. Oniki’s post match comments are becoming as predictable as these blog posts are. And none of these things are in any way surprising, as the same approach and the same performance will inevitably draw the same comments from whoever is being submitted to them. Quite why it hasn’t nudged our manager into trying something new is a bit of a mystery though. Or rather would be a mystery if we didn’t have one plan Oniki in charge. I should stress again that I’m not demanding he be fired and immediately banned from Kawasaki city. I just wish he’d for once notice quite how bad we’ve become, and instead of trotting out the same platitudes after every match, just try something different on the field thereby giving himself something different to talk about.

In this game, aside from changing the keeper which was such an obvious thing to do that even Oniki couldn't avoid it, we went for the same starting line up and approach as against Gamba, a game we lost 3-1. The bench was almost exactly the same too, the only change being enforced because the return of Sung-Ryong meant that we didn't have enough foreigner spots in the matchday squad for Ze Ricardo. Segawa, despite leaving the field as a concussion sub against Gamba was able to start this next match, much like Ominami did a few games before. Can’t really complain that Sai didn’t start as he had a pretty bad game against Sagan Tosu, but I thought he did a decent job against Gamba when he was called on. But no, the solution for Oniki is to once again play someone out of position in a full back spot, apparently favouring some players over others regardless of their performances. The tactics were exactly the same as they always are and for the third game in a row we went ahead but capitulated. Unlike in the Tosu and Gamba games though, we managed to squeak a point. And unlike against Gamba and in a few other games recently, we avoided conceding almost immediately after scoring. But let’s not be under any illusions. The period just before and after we scored was our only decent spell in the match. It didn’t last that long and as always we were unable to take advantage of being on top in the match. We made an extremely dodgy start to the game though, and that was much more in keeping with the general pattern of the game than us taking the lead was. Aside from that semi decent period either side of the goal the stats speak volumes, particularly the second half stats, (just the one shot from us and it was off target. Truly terrible stuff). Sung-Ryong was back in goal and was the clear man of the match, saving us on numerous occasions as we did pretty much nothing in the second half aside from pass sideways and then finally lose the ball to gift them chances. I think there is absolutely no doubt who should be starting in goal at the moment. To be honest, these posts are hardly worth writing recently as every game is the same. We have a little bit of a good period, don’t take our chances and then fall to pieces, making like-for-like subs with not even a second’s thought that we might be able to do something to change the tactics. Which naturally results in us getting nothing, as it did in numerous previous games and for most of the season. Nothing will change unless Oniki changes something tactically. I don’t think he will. 

Erison got his recent usual 15 minutes. Too little time for him to really do anything or allow him to play himself into some form, but just enough to dent his confidence further and switch him endlessly from the middle to the wing and back into the middle again and again. Another bit of managerial magic. Jesiel started the game looking very out of shape again and I was worried that Oniki might be pushing him towards another injury like he did earlier in the season. Thankfully though he managed to last the full 90 minutes. Tachibanada and Wakizaka had pretty bad games again, I thought. Bet they still get picked for the next match though, eh? Wakizaka this year seems to get the occasional goal which serves to cover up his usually utterly average performances. It’s probably a bit unfair to blame him for their goal, but the replays do make it look a bit like he tees the ball up for their striker during a penalty box scramble. (As an aside, I bet if we'd been in the same situation in the Kashiwa box, instead of trying to shoot we'd probably kick the ball back to Sung-Ryong to try to draw out the opposition). I would be quite happy to see neither of them start the next match, but I think that is about as likely as us making a charge for the league title this year. Or Oniki changing his tactics. Should probably also point out that once again we conceded whilst we were preparing to make subs. In fact, so familiar were many things in this match that I could have just cut and pasted large sections of previous blog posts. We’re awful. I wonder if the recruitment of our new analyst from India will change matters. I suspect after closely analysing this match he will submit a report that is just one side of landscape oriented A4 with ‘VERY SHITE’ printed in the biggest font possible and a sad face emoji. Even if he has something useful and important to say, the likeliness of Oniki listening is pretty low I think. Remember he went to watch Arsenal train a few years ago and came away with the impression that his way was better and there was nothing he could learn from the experience. I think the game was summed up by the way that after endless attempts at ‘drawing out the opposition’ with some short passing at the back, we found ourselves on the ball and breaking with at least five Kashiwa players out of contention, left behind by our player running with the ball. Naturally in this situation, we decided to cut back, allow them to regroup, before making a few more passes to get the possession stats up, and then attempt what seems to be our holy grail this year, the pass that is hit directly at an opposition player but passes unhindered through their physical form. Don’t lose heart lads, sooner or later Oniki’s 2024 tactical innovation will start to come off and then we’ll be flying! As a final comment on the uselessness of our play this year a quick stat. We’ve averaged around 60% possession in six out of our last eight games. Guess which ones we didn’t have as much possession in? Yep, the two games that we won. But keep on going with the pointless passes, eh? Who needs goals or even shots when we can have beautiful, beautiful sideways passing.

So, time to throw a bit of crap around at the opposition and officials. Kashiwa were much better than us at football, and were infinitely better than us when it came to rolling around on the floor, whinging, and brandishing imaginary cards at the ref. It was their lucky day though, as Kimura and his linesmen were so useless that they actually needed the help of the good natured Kashiwa players, who saw some guys who were really struggling to understand even the basic aspects of their job and gave them some pointers. This even extended to their manager who, I noticed when watching a replay of their goal, was giving it quite some gusto with the invisible card for the foul by Tono. Not blaming the ref for our shitness though. When your one aim is to pass the ball sideways in your own half, there’s not really many ways that the ref can have an influence. I found the Kashiwa right back intensely irritating as in spite of his tender age and lack of J League experience, he seemed to be leading the way when it came to being a bit of a moany and divey shit. Their fans gave Ominami and Segawa a big old boo when they were mentioned in the team announcement. I thought it would have been great for them to rub their previous team’s fans’ noses in it by us putting in a great performance and thrashing them. Sadly reality and Oniki intervened and instead we were extremely lucky to get away with a draw. The late VAR drama where Jesiel’s goal, (just saying, from a Seko free kick, instead of one of Wakizaka's usual useless set pieces), was ruled out for a very marginal offside would have been quite enjoyable if it had gone the other way, but I think that if we’d won this game, it would have been an injustice on an even bigger scale than the Emperor’s Cup final last year against… oh Kashiwa. So basically, a bit of a shit first half, with a shithead at right back for them, a shit ref, shit linesmen and a larger than the sun steaming shit of a second half. I don’t know why we bother.

Banner wisdom -

So much content here. Although I think I have poked fun at all of these in the past but never mind, eh?



We’re Kashiwa Stupid -

I think we all want to know where exactly does Kashiwa level stupid fit in relation to Funabashi level stupid and Ichikawa level stupid when it comes to the Chiba prefectural stupidity ranking?

Endless Trip to Asia -

Is it a trust fund backpacker gap year type situation or have they just experienced some truly awful airport delays?

Play Dirty, Go Hard -

Just bizarre. If only Kimura had noticed this he might have been convinced to give them a few cards too as it seemed he couldn’t make any decisions by himself and needed constant advice.

Kashiwa City to Big Dreamin -

The feeling that Kashiwa fans get when the Joban line turns in the Chiyoda line at Ayase.


So, another pile of steaming crap in a season that is delivering more shit than a super sewer. The only consolation, (well, apart from the fact that us not playing well was so predictable that I’m sure most of us had mentally prepared to lose the game), was to wake up and see the score of the ACL final the next morning, Some people might consider this a pretty shitty attitude, but I’d say that if I spend every weekend wishing our local rivals get hammered by whoever they’re playing, why wouldn’t I want them to get hammered in one of the most important games they’ve ever played? Next up, the same tactics and broadly the same players against Nagoya at home next Sunday. By that stage we will have finished our move, so I will either be on a high about our new place, (presumably a high that will soon be punctured by a terrible performance by our team), or so traumatised by the move and cleaning that the defeat will just wash over me. Either way it probably sounds preferable to going into the game with any hopes and having them smashed to bits. After that, a weekend off before a midweek game in the Emperor’s Cup where Oniki will probably play the same players and use the same tactics, and Sony Sendai will put an end to one other slight glimpse of some kind of potential rest of the season entertainment. What a joy this all is!

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 4. JESIEL
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (Yellow card 57')
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 88')
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 17. TONO Daiya (Yellow card 58')

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

Subs

GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
FW 9. ERISON (on for WAKIZAKA 78')
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for TONO 61')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for GOMIS 61')
MF 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for MARCINHO 70')
DF 31. Sai VAN WERMESKERKEN (on for SEGAWA 70')

Goals

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 30' 1-0
KINOSHITA (Reysol) 59' 1-1


My Frontale Man Of The Match

I said it above but the only option is…

JUNG Sung-Ryong - without him on the pitch we would have lost, and probably have lost heavily.

Highlights

Vs Yokohama F Marinos (away) 3/4/24 J League match 6

Yokohama F Marinos 0 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale

A 0-0 is never usually something to get excited about, but to be honest, after this 0-0 I actually felt quite pleased. I don’t know what that says really. Definitely it says something about the lowering of my expectations for this year. The 3-0 win against Chofu was clearly a game where the score didn’t really reflect the performance and with that in mind, I’d say a 0-0 away at our most disliked rivals probably has to go down as another step in the right direction. I mean, they also look pretty average this year, but when you consider some of the teams we’ve lost to already this year, this 0-0 was a decent enough result. Perhaps it’s best to not look at the details too much though, as for long periods of this game we really rode our luck. I think they hit the woodwork a few times and we had to rely on a great performance from Sung-Ryong to keep us in the game. And that’s just what he did. However, there were definitely times when we might have been equally likely to snatch a win. Well, if we’d managed to hit the target anyway, and that’s a big if recently. All in all, this was a pretty low quality game but was at the same time, quite an exciting one. No-one wants to hear this kind of balanced and reasonable take though. So let’s get on with some ridiculously exaggerated stuff about us and some ridiculously petty stuff about them under the old headings but with a new bonus section.

Not a bog standard pitch, but a pitch perfect bog

Us -

An unchanged side from against FC Tokyo was the least surprising thing about this game. Oniki presumably thought he’d finally found the magical combination to win and was therefore never going to change it. I can’t say I would have changed much either. It’s probably worth mentioning though that until he changed the starting line up in the last game we were leading only through what, considering the assistance from FC Chofu, should probably count as a half own goal, the Tokyo defence doing their best to put each other out of position and allow the ball to be put into an empty net. I still think Segawa at right back isn’t the solution to our problems. Once again in this game, he did alright, but there were clearly times when you could see he wasn’t a defender and we got lucky on a few occasions. I don’t think we should really be asking strikers to do the tough tackling in defence if we can avoid it. That’s probably partly why Marcinho got his second red card in twelve minutes of game time since he was last sent off. There’ll be more about this in the opposition and ref sections but for now, I’ll just say that I feel sorry for him as clearly he’s not a dirty player and he can’t be feeling very good right now. With Miura getting crocked by a YFM foul, which I think the ref didn’t give and probably didn’t even see, and potentially out for a while (after he left the pitch on a stretcher), we might see some shuffling around at the back. Presumably Sasaki could play in his favoured left back spot and either Ominami or Sai might play at right back. Who am I kidding? Oniki will somehow clone Segawa and play him in both positions. Skipping quickly around the rest of the pitch, Sung-Ryong continuing in goal shows that the goalkeeper position is maybe just going to be one that we swap after every defeat. The centre back pairing of Jesiel and Takai definitely seems to be the best one we’ve tried so far, but that is also probably something that will only last until they really have a nightmare and then we’ll shuffle the defenders again. Both Takai and Jesiel have had games in recent memory where instead of looking solid, they’ve messed up repeatedly, so let’s just hope they don’t both do it at the same time. I think it’s undeniable that they are our first choice pairing right now though.

The midfield didn’t work quite as well as against Tokyo but was still ok, I think. I’ve seen it mentioned in a few places that our formation has been changed to 4-2-3-1 or 4-2-1-3 but I didn’t notice any difference really and we’re probably talking more about approach and tactics being the difference. Guess it’s something that we can look at on the website and think that Oniki is making some amendments to the plan which wasn’t working. I don’t see Seko as being a defensive midfielder and I don’t think he was playing any differently from when in his usual position next to Wakizaka. To be honest though, the stand is so far from the pitch at the Nissan Stadium that it’s hard to appreciate anything that isn’t happening immediately in front of the nearest goal. With Miura being subbed due to his injury in the first half, we kind of lost our flexibility through subs. (Hahaha, as if we would have made interesting or different changes anyway!). Maybe we should have tried to last till half time with ten men and then we could have made the change during the break and then would have had three substitution windows left. As it was, we finished the game without making a fifth change. Not sure either Kobayashi or Yamamoto could have done much anyway as the end of the match was just wild, random and a total rollercoaster of mess. We came so close to winning it, but also came so close to losing. However, you have to think that our supporters would have left the ground a lot happier than the YFM fans. And that’s exactly the way I like that balance to be! But let’s not get too excited, eh? The possession stats were surprisingly even, and the shot count was closer than expected (18 to them and 15 to us according to Flashscore). The big problem for us, and I guess for them to a certain extent is that out of those 33 shots, only five were on target, and only one of those on target shots was by us. So it’s something of a surprise to find that I came away from the game moderately satisfied when you consider that we only hit the target once. Flashscore also says that nether team had a shot on target in the second half. What a display of the highest quality! It also says that we outshot them in the second half, which is pretty poor for them, isn’t it? Especially as it was 12 vs 10 for a significant portion of that time.

Ref -

In order to link seamlessly I’ve changed the usual order of my subheadings slightly. I thought the ref Kimura was once again an absolute disgrace. It does seem to be the case that was soon as a ref thinks they are the top dog in the league they become even shitter than they usually are and I think this is the case with Kimura this year. The imbalance when it came to giving out cards in this game was insane. Takai got one for disrupting the air flow around the always liable to topple Anderson Lopes. In the replay you can clearly see the moment that the waft of air punches into the strikers leg and causes him to fly through the air. Kimura was so determined to give Tachibanada a card that he missed the horrible foul on Miura. Sasaki got booked for not even making contact. It was truly one-eyed. Nothing for an elbow in the back of Wakizaka, nothing for Tono getting booted in midair as he’s kicking the ball, (which was similar to the Sasaki yellow where he made no contact and did get a card). I guess the difference is that when we get fouled we go down and maybe lie there for a bit and then get up. We really need to work on that writhing and wiggling thing if we want Kimura to notice and get his cards out. I’m, not going to moan about the red card, but I think Marcinho was a bit unlucky as the terrible pitch didn’t help with his planted foot sliding as he made the tackle. Let’s ignore the fact that the ref didn’t even seen to give the foul till the linesman intervened, as he was so focussed on the action that he missed it. Even though he apparently hadn’t seen it, the yellow came out quickly, as an almost Pavlovian response . YFM player on the floor rolling and wriggling, get the card out. As soon as it was referred to VAR I knew it was going to be a red and we can’t have any complaints. Well aside, from the fact that the ref who had got most things wrong previously actually got this decision right… eventually.

The side of the pitch that they forgot
to plough before kick off

Them -

It would be easy to fill this section with a lot of personal attacks on YFM players and snide comments about almost every aspect of the club. And you know, it’s nice to do the easy thing sometimes, isn’t it? It’s kind of astonishing that out of their current and last two managers, it seems that Kevin Muscat was the most reasonable of the three. Kewell who I thought from his playing career was a decent enough person, seems to be a whining little (vertically at least) shit. After the game he said that most of our chances were offside which seems a bit of a weird thing to focus on. He also had the cheek to complain about the pitch. Perhaps he didn’t realise it was a home game. The pitch was an absolute disgrace to be honest. Huge swathes of it with no grass at all. Not particularly heavy rain resulting in massive puddles and boggy patches. Presumably Kewell blames us for the weather too. His team is full of players who roll around on the floor at the slightest of contact and often do the same at no contact at all. But clearly that approach works when you have an experienced ref like Kimura in charge. Somewhat surprisingly considering the rain, thankfully their supporters didn’t get their shitty little tricolor umbrellas out and do their coordinated twirling. Their club slogan this year seems to be ‘Brave and challenging’. The first half of that seems to be a barefaced lie given how easily they go down. I like to think the second part is directed towards either the challenge of them trying to stay on their feet after sensing the approach of an opponent, the difficulties of attempting play football on a bog that has been painted green in places, or the experience for their fans of watching a team obviously full of cheats and arseholes fail to score against ten men who haven’t been able to defend for most of this year. Or maybe all three. Traditionally it is said that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. But whilst I acknowledge that some of our slogans have been awful too, I think stone throwing is the only natural behaviour when it’s your neighbours. One final thing, when they showed their team announcement video, the weird pattern around the neck of their shirts made it look like they were all wearing tight chunky gold chains. Or perhaps it’s just my eyesight. Or maybe they are all the rage in Yokohama and that was the intention. Naturally, it goes without saying that all of our kits present and past have been absolutely flawless.

Banner wisdom -

A new section where I focus on the insight of other teams banners and flags and appreciate their wisdom.

‘Sail for the TOP’

 

I initially interpreted this as an attempt to sail uphill which I think doesn’t normally work. But maybe the TOP part is an acronym. Any suggestions as to what it stands for, please let me know.

 
 

So, an unusual evening where I somehow managed to leave the stadium feeling pretty good about what on reflection was an absolutely terrible, albeit somewhat exciting game. I guess even when you draw, it’s a moral victory if your opponents are more upset about the result than you are. The first half was pretty awful for us, but we really gave it a go in the end, so well done to the players. Next up we have Machida Zelvia at home on Sunday. I’ve been long saying during their good run that they would be found out sooner or later so was delighted to see them lose to Sanfrecce. I’d be even more delighted if they collapse when they come up against us. Not totally convinced that will happen though. Even though it will be our third game in nine days, I would imagine that Oniki won’t change anything much, although the Miura injury might mean that he has to at least make a change there. Fingers crossed we can put another dent in Machida’s fairy-tale rise to the top part of J1, all achieved with merely an absolutely fucking massive financial investment. It’s the stuff dreams are made of! I guess with this in mind, whatever the result, the next blog post could be an interesting one.

Team
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 30. SEGAWA Yusuke

DF 4. JESIEL
DF 2. TAKAI Kota (Yellow card 22')

DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (Yellow card 45+5')
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (Yellow card 56')
FW 9. ERISON
FW 17. TONO Daiya

Subs
Team
GK 99. KAMIFUKUMOTO Naoto
DF 3. OMINAMI Takuma (on for SEKO 83')

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 61') (on for MIURA 45+5')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 62')
FW 23. MARCINHO (Red card 73') (on for TONO 62')
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki

Goals

Not a sausage

 

My Frontale Man Of The Match

 

There will always be a few candidates in a match where we were down to ten men and hung on. If we’d managed to win it perhaps it wold have been someone further forward, but as we didn’t score, it has to go to…

TAKAI Kota and JUNG Sung-Ryong - Sorry Jesiel for not involving you in this, but Takai seemed to do a really good job of keeping last season’s top scorer and legendary moat jumper Anderson Lopes quiet. Hopefully both players can continue their seasons in that way. And Sung-Ryong, after having almost nothing to do last week was really worked hard in this game and made some amazing saves.

 

Highlights