Quick J.League thoughts: September 2023
Quick J.League thoughts: September 2023
Focusing on Kashiwa Reysol and Kashima Antlers
Hello, it’s finally cooling down a bit here in Japan and the kickoffs times have slowly returned to the afternoon (instead of night-time) time slots throughout the weekend. The past weekend was Matchday 28 and we’re heading into the final stretch of an exciting title race… but I won’t be talking about that this time. This newsletter will (mainly) be on two teams whose names people get mixed up quite often, Kashiwa and Kashima!
Let’s get started!
Kashiwa Reysol
I wrote a few weeks ago on Reysol's improvements (vs. Kobe and Sanfrecce).
Reysol’s good form has culminated in an impressive victory over Marinos whose attack was completely nullified. Marinos took just 8 shots (3 on target) all totaling up to a measly 0.44 xG, one of their worst attacking performances in this entire season! I thought this was the more comprehensive defeat for Marinos compared to their game against local rivals Yokohama FC. Marinos were the better team for a good chunk of that game (including you know, taking the lead) but then Yokohama FC were blessed by the “Finishing Fairy” (a.k.a. scoring from very difficult chances), then the own goal put the final nail in the coffin just as Marinos were trying to turn it around.
As a statistical aside, it’s fairly evident from watching the clips of Yokohama FC’s goals that they were incredible strikes… but you might wonder, by how much? FotMob has started to provide xG stats for the J.League in the past few months and the numbers here are quite illuminating (note: in general I’m a bit skeptical about FotMob’s xG models compared to other sources but they’re the only free source that have xG On Target data for the J.League so…). If you never heard of xG On Target, then quickly read this article from The Analyst for an explainer before going to the next sentence.
Kotaro Hayashi turned a
0.01 (!!!) xGchance into a0.41 xGoTshot with his sweetly struck volley.Sho Ito turned a
0.09 xGchance into a0.39 xGoTshot.
So basically both players were able to increase the chance of a goal from very difficult chances (outside the box and/or odd angle, through traffic, etc. — the usual things going into an xG model) via just striking the ball extremely well (the “on target” portion of xGoT). Basically Hayashi and Ito’s shot placement had them increasing their chances of a goal from a 1% chance to 41% chance of a goal and 9% to 39% chance of a goal, respectively!
Anyway back to Kashiwa Reysol…
As described in the Matchday 25 newsletter, Kashiwa Reysol continued their hard-working 4-4-2 mid-block against Marinos. Mao Hosoya and Kota Yamada worked together to pressure the Center Backs while keeping Marinos’ double-pivot covered, while Reysol’s midfield 4 slid from side-to-side and kept passing lanes in the half-space and central areas closed off. Marinos couldn’t do their usual “vertical pass → lay-off → forward/switch pass” combination play here much at all.
At times, I felt Marinos were forcing these vertical passes a bit too much. It just made it easier for Reysol to converge on them in the midfield to win the ball back and counter.
Of course, Reysol weren’t flawless either as the technical quality of the Marinos midfielders still shone at various points of the match.
This is a Reysol team that should never have been involved in a relegation battle in the first place given the quality of their players relative to the bottom half of the table. In their season preview, I predicted them finishing 10th with the possibility of more if Hosoya and Savio found that “hot streak” in front of goal like they did in the first half of the 2022 season.
Unfortunately for Kashiwa, the game against Avispa Fukuoka this past weekend was a loss. Ironically, for all the praise that I’ve given Tomoya Inukai he made two critical mistakes that led to two of Avispa’s goals but nevertheless he has overall been a big factor in Reysol being far more solid at the back. Regardless of the result, Reysol still produced some good moments especially on the Left with Diego and Savio combining really well (something we’ve seen regularly since the Left Back’s return from injury in recent months), as well as Kota Yamada providing more than just a hard-working defensive presence up top next to Mao Hosoya. Yuto Yamada, recalled from a very good loan spell at J2 side Tochigi SC, has also slotted in seamlessly on the Right.
Until this past weekend, Reysol had gone undefeated in all competitions since the loss to Gamba in mid-July. They are certainly not mathematically safe yet but performance-wise it seems like they’ll be fine. However, I think teams will be much more wary of them now and it still remains an issue that Reysol don’t totally kill games off like the Vissel Kobe, Yokohama FC (especially the 2nd Half where they really struggled), and the Avispa game this past weekend. It will be interesting if interim manager Masami Ihara continues on next season (provided they remain safe, of course) or if Reysol continue to look for someone new to build upon the somewhat stabilizing foundations of the past two months.
What I found interesting about Avispa Fukuoka in this game was that they showed up in a 3-4-2-1 formation rather than their usual 4-4-2. Avispa manager Shigetoshi Hasebe has gone with a back 3/5 at times in the past but mostly when facing a team that also plays with a back 3/5 so it was curious to see him doing that against Reysol’s 4-4-2. What became clear to me though, was that this was a way for Avispa to nullify one of Reysol’s strengths that I’ve talked about previously, the use of the half-space areas by the likes of Savio and both Yamadas (Kota and Yuto) dropping between-the-lines. Both Kazuya Konno and Takeshi Kanamori would naturally stand in these spaces to start off (as the two players behind the striker) and block vertical passes into the midfielders from Reysol’s Center Backs. The Back 3 setup afforded any one of Avispa’s Center Backs to aggressively step up to challenge Reysol players receiving in pockets of space, safe in the knowledge that there were still two other Center Backs guarding the rear.
Avispa Fukuoka are still in the running for both cup competitions, believe it or not! I think they are low-key having a pretty good season. The only bad thing though is that their squad depth has been taking hit with some pretty major injuries: Ryoga Sato, Lukian, and Seiya Inoue are all out for the season!
Kashima Antlers
I wrote a Twitter thread on some recent observations about Kashima a few weeks ago so I thought to expand on them here. Kashima still mainly attack via long balls into their strikers. Yuki Kakita has been a good target or making smart runs to drag defenders away... and do I need to mention how good Yuma Suzuki has been?
An interesting development in recent months has been their improvements in the build-up. Diego Pituca, Yuta Higuchi, or Kaishu Sano would all take turns dropping between the Center Backs to orchestrate play from the back. The remaining midfielders would all fluidly move around, especially with the wide midfielders like Hayato Nakama pinching inside. The Center Midfielder, Wide Midfielder and the closest Striker or Full Back will form a “unit” on a particular side, freely exchanging positions relative to each other. The Full Backs in this phase would remain high & wide to keep the width.
I think Yuta Higuchi has been very good this season, even if a lot of his goal contributions have come from set-pieces rather than in open-play. Nevertheless, as seen in the above images, he's shown he can contribute deeper from the build-up as well. I do wonder if he’s doing enough to warrant a place in the national team, as some people think so? I think Japan’s engine room is quite full at the moment so unfortunately I can’t see it happening any time soon…
Kashima’s defending is very reliant on the huge work-rate of their Wide Midfielders. They have to first join the press alongside the strikers, keeping an eye on the opponent Center/Side Back (depending on the make-up of the back-line). If the press is broken or opponents go long, then they have to run all the way back to form a compact 4-4-2 mid/low-block. If you check out the match logs you’ll see that manager Daiki Iwamasa usually swaps out his wide midfielders around the 55~70th minutes in most games! Of course, Antlers aren’t impenetrable. Given how narrow Kashima are, the obvious avenue of progression for teams are quick long diagonals to switch the field of play. Opponents also have chance when quickly breaking past Kashima’s lines when they are disorganized or tiring late in the game.
Even so, opponents still have a hard time creating meaningful chances when they arrive in the final 3rd as Kashima still have Naomichi Ueda and Ikuma Sekigawa to deal with any danger in-and-around the penalty area. The Center Back pairing have completely shut out Gen Shoji from the line-up this season.
Goalkeeper Tomoki Hayakawa has been making waves this season, with people citing his many "clean sheets". I think he's OK (certainly not great, though) but Kashima have been very good defensively due to excellent team defending rather than just goalkeeping quality, in my opinion (this is also why using clean sheets to judge goalkeepers is bad). I think one aspect that he’s gotten good at since he won the starting spot late last season is his distribution, he can play those medium-range passes over the heads of the opponent’s first line of press quite well to progress Antlers forward from the back.
Prior to the loss against Yokohama F. Marinos in the past weekend, Kashima had only lost one league game since the beginning of July and were making a concerted push to join the title race as Kobe, Marinos, and Nagoya continued to falter. This game showed their strengths as well as the limitations of the approach quite well in my opinion.
Note: Since this game was shown on YouTube (for most people outside Japan), I’m just going to give you the timestamps here so you can go watch the scenes I describe yourself (creating the diagrams takes up a lot of my time!).
The match started with Kashima looking the better team, their press and mid-block gave Marinos trouble in their build-up such as in 3:45 and 10:45. At Half Time, 55% of Kashima’s “ball recoveries” (see the infographic that pops up during the Half Time discussion) came in the middle 3rd of the field and it was pretty indicative of their mid-block being successfully able to intercept vertical passes from Marinos’ defenders and tackling midfield ball receivers in-and-around the halfway line. There were various moments in possession that Kashima looked good as well like in 1:20 and 28:00 with the Kashima double-pivot dropping into the back-line to support the build-up as discussed in other games.
While Antler’s build-up has improved since the beginning of the season, it’s still not so great that it works all the time, especially against a top team like Marinos. Even when they were able to progress into the final 3rd, their lack of creativity besides some quick combination play through Yuma Suzuki or crosses from out wide became rather predictable.
Marinos slowly improved after weathering the Kashima onslaught at the start of the game. Marinos were able to start finding pockets of space between Kashima’s lines and were able to play their usual quick combinations in tight spaces to evade Kashima’s pressing like in 22:10, 31:40, 73:00. Like other teams, Marinos also were able to exploit Antlers narrow shape and quickly move up the wide areas (before Antlers’ wide midfielders could track back) like in 31:40, 48:20, 59:50, 84:00.
I’m wary of putting Antlers in the title race, especially after this past weekend when both Marinos and Kobe actually won again to widen the points gap between 1st and Kashima to nine whole points. It should be noted that their attack isn’t very good and they rely a lot on set-piece goals (13 from these situations, the highest in the league and 33% of their entire goal haul!). Kashima also get a lot of value added on to their not-so-great chances from the extremely good finishing provided by Yuki Kakita and Yuma Suzuki instead of creating lots of high quality open-play chances. I think a big goal for Kashima for the rest of the season would be pipping rivals Urawa Reds (among others) to 3rd place to get back into the Asian Champions League. As much as I’m loathe to say, Daiki Iwamasa is most likely going to keep his job for next season.
That’s all for this week. There’s a huge game coming up on Friday with 1st Place Vissel Kobe facing off against 2nd Place Yokohama F. Marinos that might just decide the 2023 J1 league title! The previous meeting between the sides at Kobe’ Noevir Stadium was an absolute classic so here’s hoping it’ll be another great game!
I actually made my debut on the J.Talk Podcast (Episode 463 - J1 Matchday 9 with Ryo Nakagawara!) talking about that weekend’s games back in April:
Anyway, thanks for reading!