Imperfect Blue

There are teams which shaped Japanese football in its 30 years of professionalism. And it’s undeniable how some of them are just magical – the Verdy Kawasaki from the beginning of the J.League, Kashima Antlers in the mid-2000s, Sanfrecce Hiroshima a decade ago. But I don’t think I’m saying something wrong when I’d put Kawasaki Frontale on another league, one of their own.

The Kanagawa-based squad has been something unique to watch grow, evolve, and melt into a team that the J.League probably never saw. The trophies surely say something, but the feeling of domination they exercised over the league (especially throughout COVID), and the players they produced (Ao Tanaka, Kaoru Mitoma, Hidemasa Morita, Reo Hatate – just to make some names) should be enough.

But you can realise the impact they’ve left on the long-term once you see the fall. And this year the fall has been definitive – because 2023 brought an eighth place, which isn’t nearly at the level of what Frontale did in the previous years, but they won the Emperor’s Cup against Kashiwa Reysol, after a long series of PKs. We thought it would have been the beginning of something new, but it was an appetiser of the end.

2024 has been a disaster for Frontale – and the fact that this 4-1 away win against Machida Zelvia (a title contender) became just the mathematic certainty that relegation isn’t possible anymore…. Kinda says it all about this season. A year that feels like a goodbye to their winning version, the one we’ve gotten used to appreciate. And probably a signal to something MUST change next Winter.

How extraordinary became normal

We’ve so gotten used to Kawasaki Frontale being extraordinary that maybe we forgot how they were before started winning. Fun to watch, but incomplete. Close to winning, but incapable of closing it. We feared the excellent career of Kengo Nakamura would have closed without any title. We though that Yahiro Kazama brought them far enough, but it wasn’t meant to be with him.

Once Frontale hired Toru Oniki, everything changed. Excluding 2022, Frontale have closed all the seasons between 2017 and 2023 with at least one title per season. He turned another potential drama – the 2017 title run – into a redemption story, which fire-started Frontale’s dominance over Japanese football. As we mentioned before, so many players have become incredible under Oniki.

They defeated Chelsea. They won the league back-to-back, twice. They lost in 2019 and 2022 because Yokohama F. Marinos were good, even more offensively-talented than Frontale, and had two solid managers to close the deal. But there’s nothing that Kawasaki were not capable of achieving – even skyrocketing Akihiro Ienaga’s stardom into Japanese football and gifting us the best of the career of Leandro Damião.

Kawasaki Frontale launched a massive numbers of players also into the Japanese national team – Shintaro Kurumaya, Shogo Taniguchi, Miki Yamane, Ryota Oshima and many others (e.g. Ko Itakura, Koji Miyoshi – who haven’t played so much for Frontale themselves). Others will be mentioned in the prosecution of this piece, but today it’d be harder to imagine someone breakthrough in the national team from this actual roster.

Gods can bleed

2023 showed some signs of slowing down. It wasn’t just coming eighth, it was about as well the average age of the roster, which wasn’t injected too much with new young blood (which is something that paved the way in the first place for Frontale’s success in the golden years). It’s not an accident if all the Top 20 oldest line-ups in the history of the club came in the last three years.

Losing twice against Albirex Niigata and Gamba Osaka. Losing on Yokohama FC’s pitch. Going out in the J.League Cup in the Group Stage. Not having anyone capable to overcome the 10-goals mark in J.League – Yasuto Wakizaka reached nine goals, that’s the first time this happened since 2000! Furthermore, the last transfer campaigns didn’t give Frontale something to work with.

Yusuke Segawa didn’t work out. Zain Issaka was let go although he would have been a good rotation player. Taisei Miyashiro was sent out on loan endlessly and then he left for Vissel Kobe, where he’s proving his value. Chanathip Songkrasin has been one of the costliest operations ever, and he didn’t work out either. Pillars of this club – like Shogo Taniguchi, Miki Yamane, Kyohei Noborizato – left for other projects.

And the arrivals didn’t work either. Bafétimbi Gomis was probably the epitome of this trend. Arrived in the club to replace Leandro Damião (often injured in his last years), Gomis played not that much for the same issues. At age 38, he featured only in 24 matches, scoring just three goals – all in the same game, a 3-0 home win against crumbling Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo.

The future and THE regret

And now, with a Top 8 finish still possible, Frontale just want to close what will probably be their worst season since 2011. It’s not like they’re without talent – but something gotta be straighten out to come back at the top. Just look at the squad – they’re very old (ten players are over 30, and they’re not simple bench-warmers – Jung Sung-ryong is 40 in January, Ienaga is 38, former golden kids like Kuruyama or Oshima are 32 and 31).

Don’t get me wrong – material is there. Yasuto Wakizaka is the real heir of Kengo Nakamura. Kento Tachibanada is still in Kawasaki, despite European offers. Kota Takai and Sota Miura played with the national team. Shin Yamada bagged his first season with 10+ goals in the J.League, and Erison – who costed 3M – is still in the run for 10+ goals in J1. And the senators like Yu Kobayashi are still available. 

The only regret from this era of domination? Not having won the ACL. Actually, not having been once in contention to win it is a crime (maybe it’ll happen, who knows). But Frontale had everything to make it at least to one final – and they got knocked out three times of the Group Stage, making it as furthest as the quarter-finals in 2017 – when they famously melted in the second leg against Urawa Red Diamonds.

This leaves us with just one piece of the puzzle: Toru Oniki, one of the most successful J.League managers ever. He’s been there eight seasons, and he’s been rumoured to be in the run to coach Japan (either the national team or the Olympic team), without anything getting concrete. Nevertheless, Frontale should move on from him – just for the sake of refreshing a bit the roster, and granting themselves a chance at being successful again.