J.League 2023 Matchday 2, Tactical Review: Shonan Bellmare vs. Yokohama FC
Yet another Friday night Kanagawa derby!
“Friday Night J.League” of Matchday 2 saw another Kanagawa prefecture derby game between Shonan Bellmare and Yokohama FC on a very rainy, wet, and slippery night at the Lemon Gas Stadium in Hiratsuka (not to be confused with “The Kanagawa Derby” in the form of last week’s Kawasaki Frontale vs. Yokohama F. Marinos match).
Let’s get started!
Starting Line-ups
Shonan Bellmare named an unchanged line-up from their matchday 1 victory against Sagan Tosu with Kazunari Ono replacing Jinnosuke Suzuki on the bench.
Yokohama FC also named an unchanged line-up from matchday 1, on the bench Sho Ito replaced Marcelo Ryan.
1st Half
Kick-off…! Oh… and Yokohama FC scored! Gabriel received the ball from kick-off and he punted it deep into the Right Wing where Tomoki Kondo won an aerial duel against Taiga Hata from where Shion Inoue picked it up and found Koki Ogawa. The striker then exchanged passes with Kondo in the box before slotting past Song B.K. in Shonan’s goal. An electric start from Yokohama FC!
This was a reasonable plan against Shonan Bellmare, who are known for being very enthusiastic about pressing high up the pitch. So throughout the game Yokohama FC would play a few passes around the backline, lure Shonan to press high up and stretch their shape vertically (bigger gaps between each of the defense-midfield-forward lines), then whack it up to Tomoki Kondo or Koki Ogawa. The fact that Yokohama FC stretched Shonan’s lines meant that there were lots of space available for Yokohama FC players reacting quickest to pounce on 2nd/loose balls. Shion Inoue and even the double-pivot of Hirotaka Mita and Yuri Lara were able to collect knock-downs from their forward line or clearances from the Shonan back-line.
Yokohama FC would do this quite a few times, even further away from goal like in the 27th minute
(shown below) where Kengo Nagai lofted a ball up to Kondo, who again beat Taiga Hata in the air to knock it down for Shion Inoue to switch from Right-to-Left. I’ve talked about this particular Shonan weakness in the past (2021, 2022), but a great way to attack them is to lure the midfield three to one end of the pitch, then quickly switch play to the far, weaker side like below.
When they were able to maintain possession in the final 3rd, it was mostly about finding ways to cross the ball into the box for Koki Ogawa. However, it wasn’t as though Yokohama FC were playing it long all the time. It’s been made quite clear from pre-season that they are trying to play out of the back a lot more than they did in J2.
In the build-up, Goalkeeper Kengo Nagai would usually sit centrally while the Center Backs both peeled fairly wide while the Full Backs and Wide Midfielders were positioned further up the wide areas. They mostly avoided having any one of the central midfielders drop to split the Center Backs, preferring to keep them higher up the field to receive square passes from the Full Backs or collect 2nd/loose balls from long passes. However, Shuto Machino and Yuki Ohashi worked hard to erase YFC’s double pivot (Mita and Yuri Lara) as passing options with their cover shadows.
Shonan, as they showed against Tosu last week, were extremely aggressive in following Yokohama FC’s players making dropping movements toward the ball. Shonan’s Hirokazu Ishihara among others, managed to prevent their closest opponent from turning or outright intercepted the pass to immediately start a counter attack of their own (10:18
- shown above, 34:45, 45:40, 47:10
, etc.).
Shonan’s pressing was built on a lot of running from the two box-to-box midfielders (Kosuke Onose and Taiyo Hiraoka) as they were the ones pushing up vertically to challenge the Yokohama FC Full Backs (or even the Center Backs if the strikers couldn’t make it in time). Yokohama FC kept at it though, stretching the field of play to make Shonan’s players run larger distances to close down Yokohama in the build-up phase (this will pay dividends later). Even on the few occasions like 25:10
when Hirotaka Mita was able to receive behind Kosuke Onose, the single-pivot Ryota Nagaki had shuffled over to cover and tackled the ball away.
It was troubling to see a lot of turnovers come not just from Shonan applying pressure but Yokohama players making simple passing mistakes. One even led to Shonan’s second goal in the 22nd minute
as Takuya Wada couldn’t get his feet sorted out and shanked a long pass across the box into his own net. Still I can see what Yokohama FC were trying to do, especially the scene in the 37th minute
(shown below). Like I talked about at the beginning of this post, by passing it around the back, Yokohama FC could invite Shonan’s press forward. Boniface Nduka was clever and able to evade Hiraoka and was in a very good position. He had Shion Inoue available in the Center with Sakamoto waving his arms to show he was free on the opposite wing. Even if that square/diagonal pass couldn’t be found, as other players pushed up to force Shonan’s defenders backwards, they always had that long option to Kondo or Ogawa available. However, this time Nduka hit an extremely poor pass that Kosuke Onose was able to collect and Machino nearly scored from the resulting turn-over. So good ideas, just the execution was lacking.
Shuto Machino, Yuki Ohashi, and Kosuke Onose in particular were quite excellent combining down the Right side for Shonan Bellmare. It should still be disappointing that Machino and others couldn’t put the game away in the 1st Half as the striker missed a few good opportunities after his excellently taken goal to equalize in the 16th minute
.
Overall, it was a very intense half with both sides pouncing quickly on mistakes due to the slippery conditions of the pitch. However, Shonan are clearly the far more experienced team in these quick transitional moments and it showed as they dominated the 1st Half and really threatened Yokohama FC on the counter.
2nd Half
Caprini came on for Shion Inoue in the #10 position
The new Brazilian signing for Yokohama FC had a very immediate impact on this game. Caprini was very active in finding spaces between the lines and would also pull out to the wings when necessary. He would provide lay-offs so that his teammates could receive the ball facing forward as well as make more ambitious passes/runs forward or take the ball on the dribble himself (47:35, 51:00, 52:33, 58:30, 62:45,
etc.). The Brazilian would end up assisting Koki Ogawa’s equalizing goal with a well taken corner kick in the 82nd minute
.
Caprini and others were able to find more space and crucially, time on the ball, as Shonan’s pressing became far slower in the 2nd Half. While Machino and Ohashi continued to diligently chase the Center Backs and Goalkeeper while covering the passing lanes into the Center Midfielders, they didn’t backtrack to pressure the players behind them as quickly as they did before. On top of that, Shonan’s biggest problems appeared out wide. Shonan’s box-to-box midfielders and wing backs couldn’t jump out vertically quick enough anymore due to exhaustion after so much expansive vertical or horizontal movements throughout the 1st Half. As the 2nd Half continued, they also became much slower to react to 2nd/loose balls which gave Yokohama FC chances to continue attacking and bring more players from behind the play to join in and lay siege to Shonan’s box.
Given even just slightly more time on the ball, the Yokohama FC Full Backs, Takuya Wada and Takumi Nakamura were better able to pick passes out further forward for Caprini dropping into pockets of space or find Hirotaka Mita or Yuri Lara centrally from where they could switch the field of play and enter the final 3rd. Takumi Nakamura in particular was quite good and in the 2nd Half also had more time and space to play some long balls into the channels for Kondo, Caprini, and Ogawa to run on to along with a few dangerous crosses.
As the game went on it became quite clear how Tomoki Kondo was dominating Taiga Hata on aerial balls and this was a great way for Yokohama FC to gain territory in Shonan’s half of the pitch from clearances or lofted balls into the Right channel (52:33
, 69:23
). He was also good at combining with Nakamura and Caprini on the Right side. It’s a shame he went off injured in the 80th minute
. I haven’t seen enough of him to form any definitive opinion, but he might be one to keep an eye on as we get more J1 games to assess him in, even if he’s clearly not going to be a world-beater.
In the end, despite Shonan looking to appear out of gas and with their substitutions not really providing a spark to rekindle their high pressing, the home team were able to hang on for a draw. A point a piece with the score at 2-2 seemed like a fair result with both teams gaining information on what they need to improve going forward.
Summary
Yokohama FC’s attacks in the final 3rd weren’t particularly imaginative with lots of attacks simply ending up as high crosses to Koki Ogawa, who to be fair did win quite a few header chances, including the equalizing goal. On the day, Shonan’s goalkeeper Song B.K. was also quite smart in his decision making for coming out to crosses as well as choosing between punching the ball and catching it so even with Shonan’s defenders beat it wasn’t always an easy path for Yokohama to score goals.
I think Yokohama FC did well to continue varying their build-up between short passes and long passes to reach the final 3rd. Like I mentioned in the 1st Half section, Yokohama FC are keen to build-up from the back a lot more which is good but they will really need to up their quality a lot more if they are to have a chance to stay up in J1 this year as better teams will have put the game to bed by half time from the mistakes they made. In the opponents to come, there are players that can definitely fight tooth-and-nail with the strength Yokohama FC have in the air so they’ll need to figure out other avenues of chance creation, even if it’s simply creating variations on their crosses or creating better situations for far more dangerous cut-backs. Optimistically, there were occasional lay-offs from Ogawa to bring other players in as well as the wingers and Caprini cutting inside to take shots as well.
Shonan also did have more than a few chances in the 2nd Half, especially on long counterattacks from winning the ball in their own defensive 3rd and quickly bursting up the field in typical Shonan style. Like in the past seasons though, Shonan were quite profligate in front of goal and they didn’t have the benefit of a few VAR decisions this time around like in matchday 1. It is a bit of a worry that Shonan couldn’t revitalize their press despite the 5 substitutions allowed in games and they’ll have to think of ways to regroup when they can’t quite press anymore. Still, a lot of their players are in fine form and Shonan will have to hope they can keep a hold of Shuto Machino for at least another full season if they are going to have a shot of pushing up into mid-table or better in 2023.
Next week, Shonan Bellmare travel a short distance to play against another Kanagawa rival in Kawasaki Frontale while Yokohama FC host Kashima Antlers.
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