Vs Shimizu S Pulse (away) 7/5/22 J League match 12

Shimizu S Pulse 0 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

It’s often said that it’s better to have a lucky manager rather than a good manager. We can probably say that over the last few years luck has quite often gone our way. Well, aside from the ACL that is, where luck remains ever elusive for us. They also say that you make your own luck, and with that in mind, you probably have to give Oniki some credit in that department. We’re lucky because we have good players that we’ve developed and have been playing with a successful system which has also been worked on and honed for a long time. This year we’ve had quite a bit of luck already getting wins that should have been draws and draws that should have been losses, and haven’t been hammered as often as we probably have deserved to be. After a pretty mediocre and at some times hideous ACL campaign we’re back to league action and back to getting lucky again. On this occasion though, rather than in this game itself,  the luck was more to do with Sanfrecce hammering Kashima who had taken the lead in the league and were starting to look pretty dangerous. It’s fair to say that Sanfrecce have been quite inconsistent so far this year, with them bedding in a new manager and some new thinking. They have done us a massive favour this weekend though. We still sit in second place in the league, two points behind Kashima but with a game in hand. So theoretically things are back under our own control again. Whether we are able to control those things is another matter. At times in this game it looked like we were back and banging, but you definitely wouldn’t say about the 90 minutes as a whole that we’re playing great and looking difficult to beat. We had a couple of big let-offs in this game and in the second half only managed four shots, all of them off target. On Saturday, the top tier of the away stand at Nihondaira was a pretty hot place to be, in direct sunlight, protected only by liberal applications of sun cream, a 2020 ’26 KAMIYA’ towel and a bottle of water. I managed to survive but my phone was getting so hot that I kept the photos and notes to a minimum. So, basically this is the usual ‘I can’t remember much, so don’t expect much from this post’ disclaimer, but with slightly different circumstances than normal. Let’s get this over and done with. I’ve got a busy week of work coming up.

 

As I said above, this was a decent performance for the first 45 minutes. We looked quite dangerous, made a few chances and ! shock ! horror ! actually took a couple of them. I don’t know if there was some kind of rocket put up the players arses after our ACL exit. If there was, I certainly hope Oniki fired one up his own rear too as he was also far from blameless. Our players came out of the traps looking quite driven, perhaps wanting to make up for what had recently occurred in Malaysia. Wakizaka was noticeably better than he has been recently. He seemed to be playing with the confidence that we used to expect from him but which since he took over Kengo’s 14 shirt number seemed to have deserted him. It was weird to see him score a goal and run back down the pitch away from his teammates’ celebrations in order to do his goal celebration in front of the fans. There was a significant ‘two fingered up yours’ component to it which I think will maybe be lost on most fans but was very much enjoyed by at least three people in the stadium. I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy this many more times this season. Our starting line-up was utterly predictable. Well I say predictable but I couldn’t be sure that Oniki wouldn’t stick with the dull as ditchwater when it comes to scoring goals, about as effective as ditch water would be for cleaning your bathroom, double defensive midfield formation. Thankfully he didn’t so we got what we probably expected, regardless of how badly this first choice eleven have been playing this year. But, as I said, they did alright and it was actually quite fun to watch us play for the first time in a while. Certainly some of this was to do with us being back in the stadium. And there has been some hinting from the J League about the potential return of singing coming some time soon. Because of this the Kazoku were trying out some of the old songs, but obviously instrumental versions. It made for quite a confused support. I had a lot of trouble working out what songs we were clapping and continued to do so until a helpful person behind me, started quietly humming the tunes so people could work out what they were and where we were in the song. I do miss singing and the atmosphere it creates but I’m not going to demand it is reinstated immediately. When it comes to most things, I think I’m usually closer to the more progressive end of the scale, but in matters of public health and getting on with others in day to day life, I’m happy to be conservative. With a small c. Definitely not a big c. Other things of note when it comes to us doing well would be a burgeoning relationship between Sasaki and Marcinho. They really seemed to be clicking in the first half of this game. And they also were combining well with Damiao, who right now seems to be putting in lots of hard work, but not really getting any luck in front of goal. I hope he knows his efforts are appreciated. This is all quite optimistic isn’t it, so maybe let’s change the tone a bit and talk about the second half.

 

Damn, it went a bit crap, didn’t it? I seem to recently have discovered a previously untapped seam of sympathy for Oniki. I’ve spent so long moaning about him not having a plan B and when he finally came up with one and used it, I moaned about him not using it at the right times, or it not really working. In this game we were doing alright until he made his first changes and (maybe) reinstated the double defensive midfield by bringing on Joao Schmidt. I say maybe as, once again, I couldn’t really work out if Joao and Tachibanada were both playing in that position. From an attacking effectiveness point of view, it definitely seemed like it. I’m never sure if we are playing them both at the base of the midfield to protect what we’ve got or whether Tachibanada is actually playing further forward. If he is, he’s not really that much further forward and I think perhaps that his usual game plan is stuck in his head. Basically, after these first two subs, our supporters might as well have gone home really, as there wasn’t much to write home about happening. So yeah, I feel some sympathy for Oniki as his proactiveness which I've been calling for actually seemed to destroy our play. Well, maybe that’s a touch harsh as we didn’t concede, but it definitely wasn’t much fun. So basically, he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. The usual shuffling of the front players followed around 10 minutes afterwards but nothing much changed. It just felt a bit like someone getting into the rowing boat, snapping the oars in half and launching the broken remains as far away as possible in different directions from the boat. The wind and the tide is in control. You might get closer to where you want to go, but at the same time would probably settle for not getting blown back to where you came from or sinking. Perhaps I should also have some sympathy for Yamane, who unlike some of the other squad members who have got a kick up the backside from our woeful Malaysian adventure, seems to still be knackered and out of form. I’m slightly worried that he can’t be arsed recently. He drifts in and out of games, somewhat in tandem with when we are attacking and defending. I don’t know if he needs a rest or he needs some competition for his place. I very much doubt he’ll get either.

I’ll quickly round this up by mentioned the truly shocking royalty free version of Europe’s ‘Final Countdown’ that Shimizu played as the players entered the pitch. I say version, but the truth is probably more that it’s one of those songs that are designed to be just different enough to avoid a lawsuit. Change the keyboard sound a tiny bit, slow it down a touch, add some notes to some phrases and remove some from other phrases. It’s really worth checking DAZN to hear it. And also feel like I should say that the ref in this game was Koya and I don’t think I have anything to moan about with him! Shocking! For some reason he was always listed as K.Hut on Flashscore, which is a bit strange as I have never seen them translate anyone else’s name. As that’s something that no-one really does… ever. Clearly Flashscore got wind of their mistake and he’s now listed as K.Koei, so some progress I guess, but still not right. Maybe we should get our manager O.Toru to have a word. Or maybe our captain T.Shogo. Next up we have Avispa Fukuoka at home next weekend. This time they definitely won’t be the first team to beat us this year as they were in 2021. Plenty of teams have done that already. They always seem to frustrate us though, so I’m not expecting it to be much fun. But fingers crossed! Go Frontale!

 

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki (Yellow card 55')

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

MF 19. TONO Daiya

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (on for TONO 61')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for MARCINHO 71')

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki (on for IENAGA 89')

FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 61')

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for WAKIZAKA 71')

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

My Frontale Man Of The Match

Hmmm. Dunno really. The first half was good but the second wasn't really. I can't think of anyone who particularly stood out so let's leave it for this game.

 

Goals

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 14' 0-1

MARCINHO (Frontale) 32' 0-2

Highlights

 

Vs Guangzhou FC 30/4/22 ACL Group stage match 6

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 0 Guangzhou FC

As it’s Golden Week at the moment and I’m on a nice trip this will just be a placeholder post which I’ll update properly when I’m back home and have some time. Although to be honest, I can’t imagine I’ll really be that excited about updating anything as this was another dire game in a pretty much completely dire ACL campaign. We’re out and we almost weren’t until the last kick of the Ulsan Johor game which was an own goal. I’ll go into more detail when I write this post properly later. But all you need to know is that we didn’t deserve to go through anyway. However, it would have been nice to get a little bit of ACL luck for once. But I probably would feel pretty embarrassed if we had done. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that whilst our fate was out of our hands by this final game, we still only managed to beat Guangzhou’s youth team, whose starting line-up’s lowest shirt number was 41, 1-0. At times I thought that the other result would go our way and the we’d concede a 94th minute equaliser to shoot ourselves in the foot. Instead an Ulsan defender shot himself in the foot and simultaneously did the same to us. Ulsan may be our ACL nemesis, but you can’t help but feel that the real damage is being self-inflicted. Just a few stupid points to round this pre-post post. Our starting line up contained no defenders and had only four players playing in their preferred position. So loads of shuffling of players and positions but still no-one can get a look in in goal apart from Sung-Ryong for some reason. Not saying he should be dropped but you’ve got to wonder about the morale of the other three keepers. The second half of this game was the first time in the whole tournament that the ref didn’t blow up before the allotted injury time had expired. Which is kind of typical, as at the end of the second half we were desperately trying to shield the ball by the corner flag, hanging on against a team that conceded 24 goals in six games and didn’t score a single one. Joyous stuff! Could have done with an early whistle in the Johor Ulsan game to be honest… Oh, and maybe Chantahip’s injured. Good riddance ACL and I’m sure most people connected with the competition will probably be delighted to see the back of us too.

Next up, a defeat away at Shimizu in the league probably. At least it will probably be a nice day out. Well, apart from the actual game!

Benefit of hindsight/back at home at the computer more detailed moaning about our 2022 ACL campaign

I know it’s very easy to be wise after the fact and I have the luxury of being able to moan about things and not actually take any responsibility or make any decisions about things. But let’s be honest, this was another unmitigated disaster of an ACL campaign. As the years pass it is becoming increasingly difficult to defend ourselves from the accusation of us being ACL bottlers. There are again some mitigating circumstances this year, so we could say we have excuses for being shite, (as we always seem to have…), but I’m not going to go with that. People might moan about the team winning our group basically playing six home games, the fact that due to Shanghai’s withdrawal all the groups were basically reduced to the top three teams and probably a load more excuses if we think hard enough. But I don’t accept these excuses. We messed it up and it was pretty much all of our own making. How we could draw 0-0 with and then beat 5-0 the eventual group winners in the same stadium only days apart shows up the problem pretty clearly I think. Some might say that our second string isn’t up to the job but more often than not, it was the ‘first team’ that was making a mess of games and not the reserves. Personally, I think most of the blame has to lie with Oniki. In the past I have bemoaned him for not making changes and just going with the same players and the same system till players collapse through injury or tiredness. Oniki seems to be deeply conservative at heart. It looks like he’s terrified to lose games. I would say that the root of the recent problems lies in the Cerezo defeat and its aftermath but I think the truth is that the problems have been thriving long before that match. Of course the perennial issue of not having enough defenders and always trying to convert attacking players into defensive ones instead of actually using defenders there is one that has haunted us for years. It was particularly galling to see us start this season apparently not even having considered that Jesiel wouldn’t be available for a few months. But it’s not only at the back that we’ve been trying to smash square pegs into round holes. Oniki’s system has been so rigid that instead of playing players where they are best we have instead been playing what he considers our best eleven players wherever there is space in the ultra fixed formation. Add to this that we’ve been playing what Oniki considers to be our best eleven players regardless of their horrendous form or shocking tiredness. There really is no flexibility with Oniki. Or that should say there was no flexibility with Oniki as all that was due to change after the Cerezo whalloping. When it comes to that game, let’s not forget that at least three of the four goals were directly due to a Taniguchi mistake, (who let’s not forget has been playing constantly due to international call ups and the lack of defenders that seems to almost be our trademark now). Conceding four at home and losing our long unbeaten home record seemed to finally start to rouse Oniki from his tactical inertia, seemingly ignoring the culpability of one of his players and instead worrying about us being too attacking. Incidentally, we dominated possession in that game and almost matched Cerezo for shots but couldn’t score so I’m not sure how we were being too attacking. Not taking chances is another late 2021/all of 2022 staple for us. The following game away against Jubilo was the same story where we had to rely on a very late equaliser in a game we’d dominated but really bored in. It clearly was the last straw for Oniki who seemed to think the way to solve our problems of not being able to score would be fixed by making the midfield more defensive. The game against Kashiwa saw us reduced to just 8 shots in 90 mins and was unbelievably dull. But we didn’t concede and this perhaps caused Oniki to feel his tactical change had been vindicated. It wasn’t exactly ideal preparation for the ACL but at least we’d remembered how to win again, even if it was very hard on the eyes.

We went into the first match guessing that it would be against our toughest opponents in the group and somehow came away with a 1-1 draw thanks to a last minute howler by the Ulsan keeper. Our defensive midfield had reduced Ulsan to only three shots in the game but tellingly one of them had gone in. And our defensive midfield had blunted our attack sufficiently that we required a late gift from Ulsan to get anything from the game. I can’t remember much about the game now, but I seem to remember that it was something of a let off as we hadn’t pulled up any trees in the game. The next game against Guangzhou allowed the second string to show the first teamers how to score goals and we went with just the one defensive midfielder. I know the opponent was of a significantly different level though. In the same match day, Johor beat Ulsan which was basically another ACL gift for us that we ultimately left unwrapped in the hotel room bin. The first game against Johor we were back to the double defensive midfield and had six shots in the whole game with none of them on target. Oniki’s first sub was a defensive one in spite of Johor looking like they probably weren’t going to score. He only used four subs even though we weren’t winning and saved the final two changes till the 85th minute despite us having only three shots a half. Oniki, this one is totally on you. And looking back this was the game that effectively put us out of the tournament. The return fixture against Johor (although it was again in the same stadium) was next and Oniki put the second string in and we smashed them. Apparently they made some changes too. Some people suggested this was to preserve their best players for their final game against Ulsan which they might have been guessing they’d need a win in. I suspect it was more something to do with their manager watching our previous match and noting quite how shit we were and imaging that he could rest players and still get an easy draw. Next up we were back to the first team for the Ulsan game and in spite of the fact that I would have thought we should have been a bit more careful in this game, Oniki went back to the attacking midfield and we conceded three goals in the first 47 minutes. We pulled one back when we were 2-0 down and scraped a second consolation goal in the 92nd minute but the game was long gone by then. Again, Oniki had been undone tactically by a team that was happy to sit back and counter attack whilst we wasted opportunity after opportunity by not being able to HIT THE FUCKING TARGET! And then we had the final game where we were through to the knockout stage as our game finished but went out with the final kick of the Ulsan Johor match. Nothing more than we deserved after only being able to score once against Guangzhou’s kids.

So yeah, I know it’s retrospectively easy to moan about Oniki’s tactics but it does seem that he always reacts one game too late and then when he does, he’ll stick with the new tactic for one game too long. There’s no way we deserved to go through if we didn’t beat Johor twice. It was a weird group though, as Johor did Ulsan twice, Ulsan almost beat us twice and we seemed to have the upper hand against Johor (apart from when it came to putting the ball in the net). I don’t think Oniki has the flexibility to navigate his way through a cup competition. In the league, perhaps our never changing style will give us broadly positive results in the end (at least up till now, 2019 season aside), but in what was basically a knockout game against Ulsan we again fluffed our lines. I say fluffed our lines but it seemed more to be a case of Oniki forgetting to write the script. I can’t see how he will ever change. It has been a problem for us for the last few years and honestly, I have no idea why more teams don’t just sit back against us. Or maybe they do, but over the course of a season we get a bit more lucky. Oniki’s changes in personnel never seem exciting. He just shuffles round the same combinations basically grasping to find one that’s not awful when it comes to attacking, but never considering changing the shape of our attack much. We have Shimizu away in the league tomorrow and go into that game five points behind Kashima who have been making hay whilst we’ve been harvesting mud in Malaysia. I can’t remember ever being as pessimistic about our chances in the league, but possibly if I revisit some 2019 blog posts I would find some equally bleak moments. Perhaps with our ACL hopes smashed we can now concentrate on the league. But to be honest when we only had the league to concentrate on at the start of the season we were pretty shite too. In spite of what some readers might think, I don’t like to be too negative about Oniki, but I can’t think anything other than the fact that he’s really made a mess of this season so far. Of course we don’t have the same players at our disposal, but even during stages of 2021 when we did have all or some of those players we were still trudging along. With injuries to Noborizato, Oshima and Chanathip being recently confirmed, I can’t see Oniki changing anything much in the upcoming games. After a big run of draws Shimizu got back to wining ways in their last match. We normally do ok against them but I just can’t be at all positive. Barring a massive change in Oniki’s approach I wonder if the best we can hope for is a 1-1 draw with a 94th minute equaliser for us, like we got when we last went to Shizuoka. It will be nice to be watching a game in person again… I think. But maybe I should take a book as there might not be much I want to actually witness happening on the pitch.

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG

DF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

DF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

DF 25. MATSUI Renji

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki

MF 18. CHANATHIP

MF 19. TONO Daiya 

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo (on for KOZUKA 87')

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for CHANATHIP 14')

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for TONO 65')

FW 23. MARCINHO (on for MIYAGI 65')

FW 26. EINAGA Takatora

FW 28. IGARASHI Taiyo

DF 30. TANABE Shuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for KOBAYASHI 87')

 

 

Goals

 

CHINEN (Frontale) 14' 1-0

 

Highlights

 

Vs Ulsan Hyundai 27/4/22 ACL Group stage match 5

Ulsan Hyundai 3 - 2 Kawasaki Frontale

Perhaps this is the first time I have started writing the game’s blog post whilst the match is still happening. I like to think this makes me more journalistic with a tight deadline, but at 3-1 down and looking like we’ll never score again, the truth is that even writing blog posts is more fun than watching this match. Looks like another ACL campaign has been finished by Ulsan but to be honest we can’t really blame anyone but ourselves. Well, actually some of ourselves… if that makes any sense. In the spirit of sour grapes I’m going to rush through this and put it out quickly. I have no desire to think about another failed ACL campaign for any longer than I have to. I guess after all the fifth round of games have been played we’ll have some idea if we still have even a glimmer of a chance of progressing but I’m guessing this post will be up and never looked at again by me by the time that happens. This is a game in which we’ve missed so many good chances and haven’t bothered to defend properly for any of their chances. All the positivity and confidence we gained from the second Johor game has long gone. Oniki could have started the game with the dull as ditchwater double defensive midfield and perhaps ground out a 0-0. Instead he decided to go for that approach only when we were 3-1 down already. We’ve just scored… But it’s almost certainly too little too late as the ref will probably blow up before the injury time elapses as they have in ever one of our games. He did. Game over, literally and almost certainly metaphorically for us in the competition. The final game against Guangzhou which was already kind of pointless has now become exceedingly pointless. Unless Guangzhou beat Johor and then Johor beat Ulsan. A record of two draws, one win and one loss against the teams who don’t finish last in the group will almost certainly not be enough to see us through as a second place team so our only chance would be those results mentioned above. (Actually, a Johor win and then a draw in the Johor Ulsan game might be enough too). We gave Ulsan goals in this game with some absent defending and tactics and failed to take hardly any of our chances. Even the absolute gimmes. And plenty of passing of the ball across the defensive line as we trailed by two goals set to go out. Back to the worst of our 2022 performances again with only a one game break where there was any hint of brightness. After we went against Ulsan last year Hasegawa and Joao Schmidt were frozen out of the team for the rest of the season. I wonder who Oniki will hold responsible this year? I suspect it won't be the same people as I think. Don’t blame the shit pitch, don’t blame Shanghai pulling out and screwing up the system. Blame… I’m not going to point fingers but I have people in mind. But at the same time, I have crappy days at work sometimes too. If I kept having them though, maybe I’d think about a career change.

Next up… oh fuck it, you know who it is and it’s an utterly pointless game anyway. Go Frontale do something else instead and stay as far away from Frontale and football as you can for a while. Honestly, it’s for the best for all of us.

 

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki (Yellow card 52')

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi (Yellow card 52')

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

MF 19. TONO Daiya

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (Yellow card 63') (on for WAKIZAKA 58')

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

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki

FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for MARCINHO 70')

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for TACHIBANADA 76')

MF 25. MATSUI Renji

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for SASAKI 58')

 

Goals

 

LEONARDO (Ulsan) 14' 1-0

UM WON-SANG (Ulsan) 20' 2-0

LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 40' 2-1

VAKO (Ulsan) 47' 3-1

LEANDRO DAMIAO (Frontale) 90+2' 3-2

Highlights

 

Vs Johor DT 24/4/22 ACL Group stage match 4

 

Johor DT 0 - 5 Kawasaki Frontale

Finally, finally, finally… perhaps we’ve got our season going properly. This sounds like a crazy thing to say with us currently sitting top of the J League, but I think anyone who’s been watching our games closely would agree that so far we have been very lucky to only lose twice and equally lucky that we’ve somehow managed to win six times in the league. Since Oniki rejigged our tactics after Cerezo hammered us it has looked like every game was probably going to finish 0-0. As I said in previous posts, I think the Cerezo game was a bit of a freak result where one player’s bad day really skewed the result. It seems that after our first game against Johor when we only had six shots in the whole game and which unsurprisingly finished 0-0, the double defensive midfield has now been abandoned. Now we’re back to having Tachibanada only in that position and we are able to attack a bit more. It certainly made a big difference when it came to both the result and actually enjoying this game. Somewhat amusingly though, we only had nine shots in the this game, so not that many more. But on this occasion we at least made their keeper do something. Of course, one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one decent result in a game that Oniki said we had to win (which in itself is interesting, as maybe he hadn’t actually considered us trying to win in the previous games…) is all very well and good but could all count for nothing if we mess up the next game against Ulsan. A loss in that game would probably see us back into third place in the group and requiring a draw between Johor and Ulsan in the final game with us racking up as many goals as possible to try and win the group on goal difference. I wonder if Oniki will play it safe and go back to the double defensive midfield and look for a draw. That would be a risk though as a Johor win against Ulsan in the final match would leave us second and with the games against the bottom teams in the group being discounted when it comes to deciding the best second place finishers, three draws and one win might not be enough. I dunno. This is all speculation depending on lots of other things happening anyway. So maybe I should just get on with writing about this game and worry about everything else when we come to it. After I apparently was entitled and arrogant about us in my last blog post (must have been all the times I said we were awful, right?), I’d better tread carefully in this post. I’m tempted to go with the old style random bullet points but that’s only because I want to use the heading ‘Return of the Wak’ but that all seems like a bit too much work for a post on a game I watched on TV, so I’ll just bang out the same old rubbish I normally do without any structure at all.

So, yeah, we played pretty well in this game. It was the first time I’ve seen us moving the ball consistently in a dangerous way this year and it was very welcome. We started with what some might consider the second choice players, but given how grindingly dull our first choice eleven have been playing recently I’d instead like to interpret the changes as Oniki finally doing something a bit different. The unused paragraph heading above refers to, if you hadn’t realised, the revitalisation of Wakizaka, who perhaps has finally got over the pressure of the number 14 shirt. His free kick goal was wonderful but maybe his pass for the goal afterwards was even better. We know he’s a great player, so I’m pleased he’s finally able to show us that this year. Also we had the return of the old Yamane too, who seemed a lot more bothered than he has been recently and put in a couple of lovely assists. And Chanathip did great too. Recently he’s looked a bit sad, as if maybe things weren’t going how he might have expected them to be, or that he was finding it a bit difficult to settle in. I think if he does feel like that he should stop being so hard on himself as I thought he was starting to play really well just before he got his one match ban. Oniki’s tactical change scuppered his progress after that somewhat, but now hopefully that has been abandoned and I hope Chana can start smiling a bit more. His assist for Marcinho’s goal was wonderful and his own goal was nice too. I hope he doesn’t get down on himself when something doesn’t go right and instead give himself a pat on the back for the good things he’s been doing. If he continues to improve he’ll be an amazing signing I think. I should probably also praise Kobayashi here too. He’s spent a lot of time on the bench and even when he’s been on the pitch he’s been out on the right. In this game he showed what we know he can do in the middle and his side footed volleyed finish was lovely. I guess we’re unfortunate in that our formation always seems to only have one central striker and we now have Kobayashi. Chinen and Damiao all vying for the same spot. But if all of them start scoring, that’s probably a great dilemma to have. But let’s not be too positive eh? Apparently Johor put out a second string team according to some on Twitter. This suggests that they weren’t too impressed with or worried about how we played last time and if that’s the case I can definitely second that emotion. It seems a bit of a weird thing to do though, considering that their next game is against Guangzhou. I guess with them already having beaten Ulsan once and drawn with us once they have a decent chance of being able to go through as a best second place finisher. There are a hell of a lot of variables involved still though so it seems like a dangerous game to play. Of course everything will be a lot clearer after the next round of games so I’ll stop speculating here and instead get on with making some stupid comments. Oniki’s dance after one of Kobayashi’s goals was pretty fun to watch. I’ve tried to capture it in a screen grab, but it in no way does it justice. Likewise I think it was the first time I’ve seen Marcinho boogie after scoring but maybe when I’m at the match I don’t really notice what he does after scoring. He was dancing in the rain in a video the club posted online recently so perhaps it’s become part of our training routine now. If that’s the case and it’s improved morale and performances, long may that continue! Oh, and finally, the ref once again blew up early for both halves.

Next up Ulsan on Wednesday. I hope we can do a bit better than we did in the first game against our recent perennial ACL rivals. This result should give us some confidence and that game is probably a ‘must not lose’ game for Ulsan so perhaps that will change their approach. To be honest though, who knows what Frontale side will turn up? The dull performances have far outweighed the good ones this year, (actually this was probably the first meaningful good one). I wonder if Johor paying in red and blue and us in white made us think it was a Tamagawa Classico match in Chofu and consequently we cut loose a bit. Hopefully we can keep a similar approach against Ulsan. Go Frontale!

 

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo 

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 18. CHANATHIP

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki (on for TACHIBANADA 77')

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki (on for WAKIZAKA 77')

MF 19. TONO Daiya 

FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for IENAGA 59')

FW 23. MARCINHO (on for MIYAGI 59')

MF 25. MATSUI Renji

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for KURUMAYA 87')

 

Goals

 

WAKIZAKA (Frontale) 14' 0-1

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 31' 0-2

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 43' 0-3

MARCINHO (Frontale) 81' 0-4

CHANATHIP (Frontale) 88' 0-5

 

Highlights

 

Vs Johor DT 21/4/22 ACL Group stage match 3

Kawasaki Frontale 0 - 0 Johor DT 

 

We’re now halfway through our 2022 ACL group of death and have five points to show from our three games. Don’t be confused and think that ‘group of death’ means it’s a group with four good teams who will all destroy each other. In this case it’s a group of death because anyone who watches all of the games will long for the sweet embrace of death, which would be far more satisfying and enjoyable than watching us trudge through ‘performance’ after ‘performance’. Sure we scored eight times with our reserves out against Guangzhou Juniors, but the fact is our first team look unlikely to ever score again unless the ball is presented to us just in front of the goal with the keeper elsewhere. This was a painful 90 minutes to watch and I’m not particularly keen to prolong the discomfort by stretching out this blog post so let’s get things over and done with quickly using the three old-favourite bullet points
 

Us -

 
Since Oniki changed our system, if you indeed believe he has done so, rather than just change the starting members and the approach slightly, we’ve looked quite solid at the back, not looking like we’re going to conceded against Kashiwa, Ulsan (their goal was a handball) and Johor. Equally we’ve looked like we’re supremely unlikely to score too. The tactical change is a big step from Oniki who at times has tried to nudge us towards a bit more of a defensive mindset and now seems to have gone the whole hog and has banned goals and excitement at either end of the pitch. Sure the change came as a response to us conceding four against Cerezo, but when you consider that three out of the four goals in that game came directly as a result of a Taniguchi cock up, you can’t help but think that maybe he’s thrown the baby out with the bath water. Or maybe drunk the bath water, promoted the baby to chief bathing executive and then had a satisfying nap in the bath tub. I’ve long moaned about Oniki being a lucky manager rather than a good one and it seems that in order to preserve his record he’s trying to squeeze the last drop of luck out of us up front whilst grimly hanging on at the back. Hopefully this match should show him that his long awaited plan B has been found out already. Or maybe not found out, maybe has just been proved ineffective almost immediately. Our double defensive midfield enabled us to win the possession game and stop Johor from scoring. It also resulted in just six shots for us in 90 minutes, none of which were on target. That’s even less than we had against Kashiwa, but at least on that occasion half of the eight were on target and we even SCORED A GOAL NOT FROM AN OPPOSITION MISTAKE! Joao Schmidt’s long passes switching the play which were an interesting new development in the Kashiwa game have now been replaced with Taniguchi aimless hoofs (hooves?… no hoofs I think) out of defence. I’m not blaming any of the players as tactically we seemed to be playing wearing handcuffs and mud filled Wellington boots. We have skillful and exciting players but you wouldn’t believe it from watching us recently. All the confidence has gone and there’s no spark and no excitement. We were sloppy all over the pitch and got what we deserved. Oniki’s response to us trudging about the pitch with the ball bouncing off us creating nothing was to make a double change on 62 minutes by bringing on Yamamura for Kurumaya and shaking up the defence, (who hadn’t really been troubled or even really tested), and bring on the perennially out of form Wakizaka. You could say though that he was trying to inject some cut and thrust into our attack by bringing on our 2022 joint top scorer in all competitions Kurumaya, who let’s not forget is a defender and has been injured for most of the season. It didn’t change anything, and the next subs didn’t come till 85 minutes and then only two more were done. The four changes made in this match perfectly matched four of the five done in the Ulsan match (which we didn't exactly shine in...), one even on exactly the same minute. If that doesn't speak volumes about a manager who doesn't have any new ideas, I don't know what does. Clearly Oniki doesn’t have much confidence in the subs and also seems to not have the skills to get his first choice players playing even half decently. Of course, I want him to turn this around but really doubt whether he'll be able to do it. We were handed a massive boost by Johor beating Ulsan and we’ve basically handed it back saying ‘no thank you’ by drawing this game, shooting once every 15 minutes on average without getting a single shot on target.

Them -

 
A few words on Johor. Disappointingly for us they weren’t at the level we might have expected them to be pre-tournament and they really came out of the traps in this game with a lot of energy and fight. They’ve won the Malaysian league eight seasons in a row and have some big money investment so perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise that they beat Ulsan and drew with us. To be honest though, if they’d won this game it would have been a bit of a robbery as much like us, they didn’t really create anything. If ever a game deserved to be a 0-0 it was this one. It seems slightly unfair that they get to play all of their games in the group stage in their home stadium with their fans in attendance. The atmosphere did sound quite good though and they had an impressive amount of drummers behind their goal. However, the sides of the stadium weren’t that full so perhaps they still haven’t reached the support level that their nice stadium warrants. Still a work in progress maybe when it comes to getting the general public excited and interested. But the pitch was a lot better in this stadium than then other one, so that’s a plus. Although I guess that doesn’t really matter when we could barely pass the ball anyway. One thing they seemed excellent at was rolling around on the floor feigning injury. And the ref was very accommodating when it came to allowing them to break up the play. I’m not whinging though, they did a good job of approaching a game in which they were the underdog and came away with a good result. If Oniki doesn’t sort something out they could easily do the same again in the next match. Or perhaps even go one better. I don’t want to sound like I’m being patronising though. Perhaps they felt they should have won and will be the favourites in the next leg. The way we are playing right now, I could totally understand that!
 

Ref -

 
I started the game thinking that the ref must have been bunged a big wad of cash as quite how the Johor player didn’t even get a yellow for a shocking raised two footed challenge on Taniguchi in the sixth minute is mystery. The linesmen made a few dubious offside decisions too but I guess this happens and I’m not going to say I want VAR (even if it would have really helped us in the game against Ulsan). Throughout the match Johor did seem to be getting a lot more decisions going their way though. But this probably does tend to be the case when the support in the stadium is so one-sided. Jeez though, that sixth minute challenge was horrible and although he did book a couple of Johor players in the first half, there definitely seemed to be something of a hands off approach when it came to giving out cards. He was definitely not hands off when it came to blowing his whistle though! At times it felt like the stands must have been full of Kevin Muscats impersonators who’d come straight from a 90’s rave, whistles firmly lodged in the their mouths. The constant blowing of the ref’s whistle for fouls which often looked like nothing more than tackles disrupted the game and allowed neither team to build up any kind of momentum. Oh, and once again, the ref blew up early for both the first and second half. Is this a western Asia football thing? So yeah, I’m blaming Oniki and the ref for us being so shit in this match. Presumably we won’t have the same ref in the next game. Phew! Presumably though we will probably have the same tactics… damn…

What a waste of time this game was for Frontale fans. When I made a note saying the first shot on target of the game for either team came in the 38th minute, little did I know that after the final whistle we would still be waiting for our first shot on target. Maybe their keeper is a world beater. Maybe he’s useless. The fact is, he didn’t have to make a save in the whole game. I would say we toiled in this game but that probably makes it sound like we were working harder than we were. In the last quarter of the match it looked like neither our players or Oniki were thinking we could win the game and we were settling for the draw. Perhaps they forgot that we’re currently behind Johor in the group. This was a massive missed opportunity but at the same time a continuation of our horrible form this year. The Guangzhou game was clearly an outlier (because of the level of the opposition) and our normal approach this year will be to bore and underwhelm. Oniki’s determination to not lose has taken away any chance we might have of ever winning and I can see us ending up with a record of played six, won two and drawn four in this tournament. And given that due to the withdrawal of Shanghai Port, when determining the best second place finishers the results against the groups’ bottom teams will be disregarded, that would leave us with four draws. Definitely not enough. So what’s Oniki going to do about it? Probably exactly the same as in the first games against Ulsan and Johor. Clearly the new tactics aren’t working. His new tactics are a totally blunt instrument. But even that sounds like it might have some kind of heft behind it. Our tactical blunt instrument is more like a mallet made out of soft foam. We can hit that nail a million times but it’s unlikely we’ll make any progress hammering it into the wood. But I don’t have any confidence that he’ll change anything as I don’t think his innate conservatism will allow him to come up with anything new or exciting in time for the next game on Sunday night. So, Sunday night. Another game against Johor, another late kick off and presumably another crushingly dull 0-0 draw. What a perfect way to start the week! Ugggghhhh. At least the guy in the crowd at half time in the picture above will probably have a good time. I guess… Go Frontale! 

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 19. TONO Daiya

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (Yellow card 83') (on for YAMAMURA 62')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 85')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for TONO 62')

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 85')

MF 25. MATSUI Renji

FW 26. EINAGA Takatora

 

Goals

 

Not a sausage. A shot on target would have been nice...

 

Highlights

 

Vs Guangzhou FC 18/4/22 ACL Group stage match 2

Guangzhou FC 0 - 8 Kawasaki Frontale

After a bit of a dodgy performance and a late scraped win against our ACL nemesis Ulsan on Friday, a game I watched and a blog post I wrote after consuming a decent amount of mid afternoon drinks, the only way was up for both Frontale and the quality of my blog posts. I watched this game in a state of complete sobriety, but somehow it was equally difficult to focus on. On Friday there was the alcohol haze and the general malaise that our toothless performances so far this year have created. On this occasion there was very much a feeling that it was a bit of an unfair contest and it felt like a training game, albeit one with two very different level teams. Once again the Chinese teams in the ACL have brought their kids to compete in this tournament. I don’t remember people getting so annoyed about that last year, but this year the general feeling on Twitter seems to be that the competition is a farce. The amusing thing is that I saw the ‘tournament is a joke’ argument used to both support and rail against the proposed Asian Super League. So basically the one true force for good to unite opposing factions right now is the shared belief that the ACL is a farce. I think it’s a bit unfair to be honest. I’m not particularly a lover of the ACL, but I don’t think it’s very fair to judge a tournament that has a massive COVID cloud hanging over it. That’s the reason the Chinese teams are sending their kids and the reason the stadiums are empty. And that’s creating the big mis-matches with apparently no atmosphere. To be fair to the AFC though, I can’t really see how the competition could be played any other way this year when you consider the countries involved. If one of the bubbles had been in Japan the only difference would probably be that there would be a few more people in the stands and bit of clapping as there aren’t any tourists being let into Japan and is still no signing allowed. Although it is apparently possible to attend these games in Malaysia, I’m not surprised that not many Frontale fans have much appetite for travel right now. Even in Johor’s first game in the competition this year, played in their home stadium, the stands weren’t that full, so it’s no surprise that the locals don’t want to go and watch a game that kicked off five hours before their game did. But anyway, enough pontification on the competition itself and let’s get on with some in depth analysis of this match.

Ha! Got you there! You thought you were going to get in depth analysis! If you’ve read this blog before you should have known better. Instead of that, here come my usual random thoughts. The line up was a weird one. We probably expected a lot of changes, and the fact that Oniki did exactly that shows quite how weak he thought Guangzhou would be. When we’ve played university sides and J3 teams in the Emperor’s Cup in the past Oniki has often gone with his first choices so it was a real shock to see him ring the changes big time in this match. Definitely big time, as YAMANE GOT A REST! Slightly bizarrely though, Sung-Ryong was still selected. In Guangzhou’s previous match against Johor, the Chinese team had two shots in the whole game. But Oniki still wasn’t confident enough to change his keeper. Some people were talking about Hayasaka starting which I thought would have been a bit unfair on both Tanno and Ando, neither of whom have had any pitch time this year and hardly had any last year either. I feel like Hayasaka probably has to wait for them to at least have one game before he’s involved. Perhaps Oniki’s innate conservatism and caution came into play as he knew he was going to name an unusual centre back pairing so thought he’d better have Sung-Ryong in there to make sure things were safe. As it was Guangzhou had only the one shot in this game and it was off target, so Oniki could have played the injured Nobori in goal and we probably would have still been OK. The inexperienced centre back pairing ahead of them was going to be Wakizaka and Kozuka if the pre-game team line up graphic was to be believed. Definitely a case of the guys who had to make it, just shrugging their shoulders and thinking that whatever they picked would probably be wrong and just going for it. Of course that was wrong and it was instead Kurumaya and Tsukagawa. Tsukagwa actually played in defence, midfield and attack in this game, so it was quite an evening for him. He looked absolutely knackered by the end of the match. Guess he hasn’t played 90 minutes for us… erm…. ever I think. I’m not going to go into any detail about other people’s positions too much as there was quite a lot of moving around. I will say though that Seko played 90 minutes at right back, Matsui had a half, somewhat surprisingly at left back, Tanabe and Igarashi played 45 minutes at left back and up front on the right respectively and Takai got a bit more than 30 minutes at centre back. So that was all quite nice to see! The best thing about these group games against weaker teams is if we can see different players play. Chanathip got his first goal for us it was a nice one. Chinen, Kobayashi and Kurumaya (!) got braces. It was all one way traffic so it’s slightly absurd to think about what we might be able to learn from this game. Especially as the pitch was pretty awful and I have a horrible feeling that all the group stage games will be played on the same surface. (After checking this I've found it's not true. They are split half and half between two stadiums, with every game Johor is involved in being played in their home stadium and the other one in the round being played on the dodgy pitch. Nice bonus for Johor for them hosting I guess!) If it’s bad now, I’m a bit worried how bad it might become by the final match day. Oh, and the ref blew up early before the end of the allotted injury time at the end of the first half again. Is that an ACL thing, I wonder?

Next up we have Johor at 11pm Japan time on Thursday night. They beat Guangzhou 5-0 and will be kicking off against Ulsan soon. I guess we probably think that Ulsan will win that game. (THEY DIDN'T!) If they do and everything goes as expected in the other games, our fifth group stage game against them will likely decide how we do in this competition. Hopefully we’ll play a bit better in that game than we did in the previous game. If that’s another draw, we probably have the dream game to finish up the group with if we’re trying to get a better goal difference than Ulsan as the last match is the other fixture against Guangzhou. Of course there are a lot of ifs before we get to the stage though. If we do manage to get through the group safely though whilst scoring lots of goals, I hope we can bring back some of that form and confidence into our league campaign, which has been pretty underwhelming so far. The results in the first game in hand that the other teams had to make up went pretty well for us and we’re still miraculously sitting at the top of the table right now. If Kashima fail to beat Cerezo that will be the case when we return to Japan! I’d say that Cerezo owe us something for the generous gift of three points and four goals that we gave them recently so hopefully they give us a nice present back. Fingers crossed! And Go Frontale! 

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro

DF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki

DF 25. MATSUI Renji (Yellow card 10')

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki

MF 18. CHANATHIP

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

FW 20. CHINEN Kei

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo 

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for MIYAGI 84')

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi

FW 19. TONO Daiya (on for KOBAYASHI 69')

FW 23. MARCINHO

FW 28. IGARASHI Taiyo (on for CHINEN 46')

DF 29. TAKAI Kouta (on for WAKIZAKA 58')

DF 30. TANABE Shuto (on for MATSUI 46')

 

Goals

 

CHINEN (Frontale) 7' 0-1

CHINEN (Frontale) 12' 0-2

KURUMAYA (Frontale) 16' 0-3

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 21' 0-4

KOBAYASHI (Frontale) 39' 0-5

MIYAGI (Frontale) 50' 0-6

CHANATHIP (Frontale) 69' 0-7

KURUMAYA (Frontale) 71' 0-8

 

Highlights

 

Vs Ulsan Hyundai 15/4/22 ACL Group stage match 1

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 1 Ulsan Hyundai

Of course I couldn’t go to this game and had to watch it on DAZN. Therefore this post will be free from detail or insight and extremely thrown together. More than usual to be honest, as this was a very hard watch. Perhaps I shouldn’t have consumed so much alcohol mid-afternoon to celebrate completing the process of renewing my visa. Perhaps if I hadn’t done so I may have been able to concentrate a bit more on the game. But to be honest, I think it would have been hard for anyone to get any real enjoyment out of this game which really should have finished 0-0. Ulsan did a bit better in the first half. We did a bit better in the second. We were hamstrung but a total lack of ideas as we have been for most of 2022. As I don’t know much about Ulsan I won’t try and guess what was holding them back. All in all this was a dull, dull game. At least from my point of view. My notes are so slight that if I did bullet points in this post, the bullet points would mostly probably just be a sentence each, so instead I will quick fire them out in this paragraph and be done with it. Oniki stuck with the team that beat Kashiwa in what at the time felt like an exciting performance but on reflection might have just looked like it because the preceding two games had been so bad. Who would have thought that moving from 4-3-3 to 4-2-1-3 in the previous game and then to 4-2-3-1 in this one would have blunted further our already pretty blunt attack? Apparently we switched back to 4-3-3 in the second half but to be honest this is all just theoretically moving numbers around as there was no real change in shape or tactics again. And even though we had more shots and most of them were on target, we only really tested their keeper on a couple of occasions. Their goal looked like it was perhaps offside and definitely was a handball but there’s no VAR in this tournament and I will never say that I wish there was. Our goal was apparently due to an elbow on their keeper if he is to be believed, but seeing as no-one was near him, it seems that he was just trying to spare his blushes after dropping an absolute clanger after making a few good saves. To get my other boring points out of the way, Damiao missed a really good chance, we wore our away kit even though it was supposedly our ‘home’ game, and the ref blew up early for half time. Did I miss anything? Well, maybe you could say I missed the last two hours of my life which I’ll never get back and am unlikely to ever look back on with any kind of enthusiasm. But yeah, I thought it would probably be a draw before the game and that was both what happened and what both teams probably deserved, and it was kind of fun to get that draw with a last minute equaliser. Even if it came from an opposition player basically saying to us, ‘here’s the ball, have a shot at this open goal’. We’re still shite this year, and still we’re endeavouring to elevate our shiteness further whenever it comes to taking part in the continental competition. Next up, on paper an easier game against Guangzhou’s kids but one which I’m sure we’ll still labour through. What joy! Go Frontale!

 

Team 

 
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG
DF 13. YAMANE Miki

DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya

DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo

DF 15. SASAKI Asahi

MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT

MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 19. TONO Daiya

FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro

FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO

FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 27. TANNO Kenta

MF 3. TSUKAGAWA Koki

DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro (on for YAMAMURA 69')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 80')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto (on for TONO 62')

MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki

MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki

FW 20. CHINEN Kei (on for TACHIBANADA 69')

FW 24. MIYAGI Ten (on for MARCINHO 69')

DF 29. TAKAI Kouta

 

Goals

 

LEONARDO (Ulsan) 21' 0-1

KURUMAYA (Frontale) 90+4' 1-1

Highlights