Kawasaki lead from the front
Kawasaki Frontale seal third J.League title in style
2020 was the year of Kawasaki Frontale in the J.League. Frontale clinched their third title in four years in record-breaking fashion with four matches left to play and in the best possible way, 5-0 at home to the only team still mathematically able to catch them, second-placed Gamba Osaka. They repeated the act in more modest fashion on New Year’s Day by defeating Gamba 1-0 in the Emperor’s Cup final to seal a memorable league and cup double.
Frontale coach Toru Oniki, now 46 and in his fourth year at the helm, said he had told his players to aim for the title from day one; that now more than ever, in the COVID-19 crisis, Frontale had to lead the way for Japanese football. Oniki applauded their “tremendous rivalry on the training ground, and team spirit on the pitch.”
Akihiro Ienaga, the J.League’s Player of the Year last time Frontale won the title in 2018, was the hero on the day against Gamba with a memorable hat-trick. Former Brazil striker Leandro Damiao opened the scoring and Manabu Saito added the fifth in the last minute of normal time with his first goal of the season.
In almost every way, it was a record-breaking season in Japan played, of course, in remarkable circumstances against the background of the coronavirus. Except for the opening weekend in February, the entire 34-game first division season, normally played across nine and a half months, had to be completed in five and a half.
The intensity was always going to benefit the team with the best squad and Frontale proved from the first that theirs was the squad to beat. Oniki used his full complement of substitutes in almost every match and it hardly mattered who appeared where in the rotation. When Frontale struggled to make headway in the first half, the fresh substitutes scored more often than not against their tiring opponents in the second.
Their football was more compact this year. The forwards defended better. The short passes connected brightly, especially in the box. The changes of tempo and penetrating long balls frequently caught their opponents off-guard and the finishing was pinpoint with any number of players able to score.
The statistics tell the story. At the moment when Frontale clinched the title, their points total was already 75, the highest since the first division switched to its present 18-team format in 2005. In the same period, their 24 wins were already the most. Their title, secured with four games left to play, was the fastest. Their goal tally, 79, was still five shy of the record, but they still had time to set a new record, which they duly did, ending with 88 in total.
Frontale also set and then beat their own club record for consecutive wins with runs of ten and then 12 straight league victories. Kashima Antlers still hold the league’s all-time record for that with 16 straight wins in 1998-99.
In their final game, Frontale recovered from a two-goal deficit to beat Kashiwa Reysol 3-2, ending the campaign 18 points clear of their nearest challengers.
Oniki started the season with a new 4-3-3 formation that added extra punch to the attack after last year’s slip in penetration. The rest was partly down to the coach and players having been together for so long, but Oniki’s cause was helped, too, by the continuing emergence of young players such as Ao Tanaka in rear midfield, speedy Reo Hatate on the right wing and, most prominently of all, homegrown Kaoru Mitoma, who scored 13 goals from wide on the left in his first season as a professional after graduating from Tsukuba University.
The veterans produced as well. Yu Kobayashi, the league’s top scorer in 2017, netted 14. Leandro Damiao remained the perfect target man, scoring 13, and Ienaga was composure personified with his holding-up skills, deft, one-touch play and 11 goals. Frontale had three of the J. League’s top eight top scorers. In all, nine Frontale players were named in
the J.League’s Best XI – Jung Sung-ryong, Miki Yamane, Shogo Taniguchi, Jesiel, Kyohei Noborizato, Ienaga, Tanaka, Hidemasa Morita and Mitoma – where they were joined by the league’s top scorer, Michael Olunga (Kashiwa Reysol), and runner up, Everaldo (Kashima Antlers).
Special mention must be made of Kengo Nakamura, capped 68 times for Japan, who cemented his legend status at the club he had been with since 2003, when Frontale were still in the second division, with a goal on his 40th birthday on October 31. He announced his retirement at the end of the season the following day.
Nakamura’s presence, always huge, only grew with time and these three titles in four years, after his personal triumph of being named 2016 J.League Player of the Year, will also be remembered as his own crowning achievement. There is even a strong case for ascribing last year’s dip in form to the search for the post-Nakamura team, which Oniki appears to have forged this season.
The home crowd enjoyed seeing Frontale clinch the title – something they were denied in 2017 and 2018 – and the atmosphere, with drums and clapping but no cheering, was not at all bad with 12,000 fans allowed into the stadium.
Last year’s champions, Yokohama F. Marinos, never really challenged, and big-spending Vissel Kobe also made no impression in the J.League, instead saving their best for last in the Asian Champions League. The main but very distant challengers were Nagoya Grampus, Kashima Antlers and the two Osaka teams, Gamba and Cerezo. Gamba Osaka and Nagoya Grampus will join Frontale in the 2021 ACL, while Cerezo advance to the qualifying play-off round.
The season closed with two cup finals rather than the usual one. Mitoma scored Frontale’s winner against Gamba in the Emperor’s Cup on New Year’s Day, and FC Tokyo won the League Cup final, postponed from November due to a COVID-19 cluster infection at Kashiwa Reysol, 2-1 against Reysol on January 4. There was no relegation this season due to the special measures but Tokushima Vortis and Avispa Fukuoka were promoted from Division Two, meaning the first division will be played with 20 teams in 2021 and four clubs will be relegated next season.
Frontale also set and then beat their own club record for consecutive wins with runs of ten and then 12 straight league victories