Quick J.League thoughts: What is going wrong with Kawasaki Frontale?
Quick J.League thoughts: What is going wrong with Kawasaki Frontale?
Hello, it’s been a pleasant international break as Japan thwacked decent opponents in Canada and Tunisia but I’ve mostly been spending my time catching up on all things J.League. Today I’ll be talking about Kawasaki Frontale and their troubles this season.
This newsletter is based on their recent league games, namely:
Away vs. Cerezo Osaka (Sept. 2)
Home vs. FC Tokyo (Sept. 15)
Away vs. Shonan Bellmare (Sept. 24)
Home vs. Albirex Niigata (Sept. 29)
Let’s get started!
Let me first go over Frontale’s defending. Those who’ve watched Frontale for the past few years know their usual set-up against an opponent’s build-up:
The wingers would block off the direct pass from the opponent Center Backs to the Full Backs, then approach the Center Back from the outside.
This is done to force the Center Back to play a dangerous vertical pass into their Central Midfielders (where Frontale’s midfield is waiting to pounce) or simply play it long against Frontale’s high back-line.
However, there’s been a recent change in Frontale’s press as the wingers now tuck inside and watch the opponent central midfielders instead. The Striker (Damiao or Gomis) would approach the ball-carrying Center Back and force them out wide, and as below, it becomes very clear as to where the opponent will pass the ball… to the wings, where the aims is for Frontale’s midfield and defense to slide over to win the ball and counter.
However, this hasn’t really worked well. At times Ienaga and Marcinho aren’t marking their opponents properly and it becomes all too easy to slice right through Frontale’s lines…
Given how narrow Frontale’s wingers are, there is then plenty of space out wide where teams like Niigata can use their goalkeepers in the build-up and have the Center Backs peel wide to carry the ball forward into lots of space (like below). This has the knock-on effect of the Frontale midfielders being outnumbered and having difficulties on choosing who to close down.
Interestingly, Frontale switched back to the usual shape vs. Ulsan Hyundai in their Champions League game in early October, where things worked reasonably well. It seems manager Tohru Oniki considers these tactical tweaks as one of many options rather than a permanent solution, one that can be adapted to certain opponents.
In another change, Frontale have switched to a 3-5-2 on occasions. It was not only against Shonan to match up against the Hiratsuka side’s usual 3-5-2 formation but curiously also against Cerezo’s 4-4-2. However, the switch to a front two up top didn’t improve Frontale’s pressing and it continued to leave the midfielders with too much work, and they can’t cover ground to make up for it.
You look at a lot of the scenes I re-created here and go: Who is marking who? Who steps up to cover when a teammate pushes up ahead to press an opponent further up the pitch? What are the conditions for players to pass their marking of an opponent off to their teammate?
As seen in the scenes from the Niigata game below, it’s quite clear that the forwards aren’t that great defensively (Gomis simply may not be fully up to speed… still?) and don’t do enough to put pressure on opponent defenders to win the ball outright or at least restrict their options.
All throughout the season Frontale have suffered from lots of individual errors and a lack of back-line consistency due to injuries and rotation. It’s very odd to see Kyohei Noborizato being one of Frontale’s more consistently appearing defenders given his injury record over the past few years (he’s the defender with the most minutes played behind “iron man” Miki Yamane). This team is obviously missing the quality of Jesiel (still out injured, yet again) and Shogo Taniguchi. I don’t think Takuma Ominami is that great, Kota Takai has impressed but is still a teenager and has had some bad games as well, while veterans Yamamura and Kurumaya have continued to struggle on the pitch or with injuries.
Even so, I find Frontale to be reasonably competent (bar random individual errors…) when simply retreating and holding more of a mid-low block in their own half, especially against mediocre-or-worse J1 opponents… but that comes at the cost of having difficulty springing their own attacks due to the opponent’s counter-press and having to start their own attacks from far deeper in their own half of the field. This all leads me to the next section…
Build-up (or lack thereof)!
There is occasional good interplay as Frontale work to free up Schmidt/Tachibanada by providing them lay-offs so they receive the ball facing forward in space, but also poor opponent pressing has helped them progress up the pitch. I do feel that against good opponents it’s not always going to be this easy and like in the below scene, the midfielders need to be better at receiving the ball in terms of turning or opening up their body shape to face forward (good examples to follow are any of the Marinos Center Midfielders in the build-up phase — many scenes which I’ve recorded in past newsletters).
When shifting to a Back 3, Oniki consciously chooses to have players who are good on the ball as the Wide Center Backs and this does come with the obvious benefit of Frontale playing a lot better from the back. Even with the presence of the ball-shy Jung SR in goal, the Back 3 simply allows for an extra man in the build-up without having to involve the Korean shot-stopper that much.
As has been the case this season, Miki Yamane would occasionally come inside as an extra midfielder, which is something I’ve talked about in previous newsletters.
But ultimately… A lot of Frontale’s possession ends with whacking it across to Marcinho and hoping he does something with it. Otherwise, like they showed against Shonan in both of their goal scenes, they can simply whack it long to Damiao/Yamada and hope they can win duels up top and hold on until help arrives from midfield. Unfortunately, with Damiao’s injury issues and Gomis still not quite looking up to speed it’s been difficult for Frontale to consistently rely on the two foreign strikers as an outlet. This has been a problem from the beginning of the season where Taisei Miyashiro struggled with being given this particular task (physical hold-up play with his back-to-goal) that he wasn’t suited for.
Attack / Final 3rd chance creation
In this department, Frontale can still rely on the likes of Yasuto Wakisaka and Akihiro Ienaga to provide some magic through their sheer individual quality but they’ve been neutered through Frontale’s difficulty in getting the ball up the pitch where they can do damage in the first place. Otherwise, Marcinho still provides obvious value through his dribbling and off-the-ball running down the wing while Daiya Tono provides similar value but driving forward from deeper areas in midfield.
In their most recent league game, Frontale really struggled against Albirex Niigata, especially in the 2nd Half it just didn’t look like they were going to score at all… On the other hand, they can still be good in transition moments like in the 24th minute of the Niigata game (shown above). However, since the press doesn’t work well (as previously mentioned), Frontale are mostly confined to taking advantage of poor opponent unforced errors rather than actively disrupting their opponent’s build-up and counter-attacking with speed into space.
When Akihiro Ienaga is playing Frontale get the ability to have those neat passing triangles in the final 3rd and his presence as a floating #10 that drifts to either side as an extra man adds a very unique accent to Frontale’s final 3rd play. However, there’s no real way to get a like-for-like replacement for him. When he eventually leaves/retires, Frontale will just have to play with more conventional wingers in Marcinho and Segawa instead. We haven’t really seen what this would entail for Frontale considering that this season, Ienaga has actually played the second most minutes (2194) behind Miki Yamane!
Overall by the data, they are still one of the better attacking sides over the entire season so far even if that sort of output and quality did not show up in the recent games that I’m basing this newsletter on. You can compare Frontale on a variety of metrics from FootballLab against other teams or against previous versions of Frontale. What is noticeable throughout this season has been their inability to convert chances, a lack of a clinical finisher is evident in the not-too-regular times Frontale have created a good chance. Of last season’s top goal scorers, Marcinho only scored his first goal of the season against FC Tokyo last month, Ienaga only has a solitary non-penalty goal compared to seven non-penalty goals from last season. Up top, Damiao has only scored a penalty (the one against Shonan very recently) while Kei Chinen left for Kashima and Taisei Miyashiro has found himself out of the line-up since July despite his 5 non-penalty goals earlier in the season. Yasuto Wakisaka has tried to pick up the slack but when you realize he is Frontale’s top goal scorer this season (7 goals), you know something is wrong! Shin Yamada has done an OK job but he’s really not the quality you want starting week-in week-out for a J1 team trying to stay near the top of the table.
Along with a fairly mediocre defense (that has steadily gotten worse season-by-season since the title-winning 2021 season in terms of xGA per match), it sums up their mid-table position in the J1 table quite succinctly. They are far from the worst team, Frontale are/were never going to get relegated, but they are certainly a far cry from the dominant team we’ve become accustomed to in the past half-decade. Also in terms of style… sitting back (or being forced backwards due to inadequate pressing from the front), absorbing pressure, and counterattacking… changing up their usual shape to match their opponents, it all seems very un-Frontale. In their dominant days, they would always play the same 4-3-3 (with minor adjustments, of course) and impose their style on their opponent.
I watched neither the Ulsan Hyundai nor the Avispa Fukuoka (Emperor’s Cup Semi-Final) matches too closely (just keeping half an eye on them while I did other things) but perhaps they are somewhat improving? I do think the scoreline was a bit kind to Frontale in the Emperor’s Cup game but nevertheless… Kawasaki Frontale do have a rather easy schedule for the rest of the season, even if countered by the presence of mid-week Asian Champions League games. They face Avispa Fukuoka (a better team but one that Frontale have been able to consistently defeat), then Kashiwa Reysol, Kyoto Sanga, Kashima Antlers, and finally Sagan Tosu. For all the doom and gloom throughout this newsletter, they are in the final of the Emperor’s Cup along with the Champions League group stages still to play so there’s potential for improvements and glory yet… I guess we’ll find out in December when I write my season-end review!
In terms of where the squad goes from here, a very brief rundown:
Goalkeeper: Just get someone in (preferably younger), neither Jung SR nor Kamifukumoto have looked good at all this season. However, with more concerning problems elsewhere this is probably a low priority.
Defense: The issue here is mostly injuries and a lack of consistency. Frontale should start integrating Shuto Tanabe and Kota Takai more and more, while also start phasing out Yamamura and Kurumaya. Finally, pray to every deity in human history that Jesiel returns to his pre-injury form.
Midfield: This is actually fine… Player-for-player this is still a very good J1 level midfield (this is without even considering Ryota Oshima). Tono can play here as well. Maybe integrate Renji Matsui given how well he’s done for Machida on loan this season?
Attack: Lots of media report that Damiao is not going to renew his contract for next season so up top, it’s Shin Yamada, Miyashiro, Gomis (Yu Kobayashi will just stick around as cover until he retires I imagine). This isn’t great but it’s hard to start from scratch here and throw everybody out (which is what I imagine lots of fans want to do but it’s not realistic). Out wide Frontale have Marcinho, Segawa, Tono, Miyashiro, and of course Ienaga. Some square pegs in round holes so I could see someone coming in here, another proper winger-type, to shake things up. The big “how long will Akihiro Ienaga last?” question looms heavily here though, which impacts how transfer money is allocated…
Manager: Tohru Oniki has been trying a lot of things (as noted in this newsletter) but it really hasn’t worked. It’s difficult with all the injuries and squad turn-over but I also think a lot of blame can be put on him (and Frontale’s front office) as well. Still the question remains, who could Frontale get to replace him? Are there good alternatives to be had in J1, J2, … or abroad…?
This topical format, rather than a match review, was a bit different from my usual stuff so I hope you liked it. I could’ve also done a player-by-player rundown but I don’t think that’ll be particularly interesting to read (or write, from my perspective) so I prefer not to do that. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! I usually prefer to watch a particular team in “chunks” of 2~4 games anyways to get a good gist of recent trends so this was a useful exercise to consolidate my thoughts. I was hoping to write about Nagoya Grampus’ troubles in this edition but I’ll probably have to leave that for December as well…
Thanks for reading!