Urawa Reds hosted Kawasaki Frontale for the 7th fixture of the J1 league and the game ended with a huge Kawasaki Frontale win. In fact, the league leaders consolidated their excellent start of the season by winning 0-5 thanks to the goals of Yu Kobayashi, Leandro Damião, Reo Hatate and Yasuto Wakizaka, and this could probably be good news for those who betted on this team to win or those who are fans of Live Casino games.
And at the same time, Urawa Reds worsened their situation with another bitter loss that saw them falling to the 13th spot. Urawa Reds will need to be much more solid at the back if they want to compete for a middle of the table spot or at least avoid fighting for relegation before it becomes too late for them. The team has got a remarkable history in Asian football and competitions and they do not deserve to be at the bottom of the standings, and therefore, they need to play with more determination and improve their performances as soon as possible to get away from their current bad form.
Kawasaki Frontale’s manager, Toru Oniki, preferred to start the game with a 4-3-3 formation relying on Jung Sung-Ryong as a goalkeeper, Miki Yamane as a right-back, Jesiel and Shogo Taniguchi as centre-backs and Reo Hatate as a left-back. For midfield, the team played with three central midfielders, namely, Ao Tanaka, João Schmidt and Yasuto Wakizaka. And in attack, Toru Oniki chose to start with Leandro Damião as a striker, Tatsuya Hasegawa as a left-winger and Yū Kobayashi as a right-winger.
For the hosts, Urawa Reds, Ricardo Rodríguez started this game according to the 4-2-3-1 formation by using Shusaku Nishikawa as a goalkeeper, Tomoya Ugajin as a right-back, Takuya Iwanami and Tomoaki Makino as centre-backs and Ryosuke Yamanaka as a left-back. In midfield, the team relied on two central midfielders who are Daiki Kaneko and Atsuki Ito, and in front of them played 3 players to support the attack; Takahiro Sekine was the right-winger, Yoshio Koizumi as an advanced playmaker, and Koya Yuruki as a left-winger while Kenyu Sugimoto was the team’s striker.
Urawa Reds were not able to create many goal-scoring chances during this game and they have just made 4 shots on goal despite the fact that they got 7 corners, 11 fouls, and more importantly, they had an advantage in terms of possession with 53% compared to Kawasaki Frontale’s 47%.
This stresses on the fact that Urawa Reds were not able to penetrate into Kawasaki Frontale’s final third and penalty box easily and they kept circulating the ball at the back for most of the time, which is also called passive possession. And at the same time, Kawasaki Frontale exploited this to their advantage by waiting for their opponents, trying to intercept the ball and then launching quick counter-attacks while relying on their fast midfielders and powerful attacking players such as Leandro Damião, Tatsuya Hasegawa and Yu Kobayashi.
And even though Urawa Reds had some dangerous chances, Kawasaki Frontale were the team that created more danger in their opponent’s final third, and this enabled them to score five beautiful goals from open play while also making sure that they don’t concede goals, thanks to their solid defence and to Jung Sung-Ryong’s excellent saves.
The first goal came thanks to Miki Yamane’s accurate cross and Yū Kobayashi excellent header who was intelligent enough to escape from marking and direct the ball in a difficult angle for the goalkeeper. And then Leandro Damião was able to add the second goal at the 49th minute after controlling Yū Kobayashi’s assist and scoring with a beautiful half-volley. Two minutes after, Reo Hatate wanted to be included in the scoresheet and scored with a powerful shot that surprised Shusaku Nishikawa following João Schmidt’s pass.
Urawa Reds’ disappointing fall continued since Yū Kobayashi was able to score the fourth goal at the 53th minute by exploiting Urawa’s defenders’ bad marking inside the box. And then Yasuto Wakisaka ended the party with the fifth goal at the 67th minute with a great left-footed long-range shot.
Urawa Reds’ reaction however did not come and there were no tangible intentions of getting back in the match especially following the fourth and the fifth goal. And at the end of the day, the team needs to analyse their performance extensively and try to fix their mistakes especially at a defensive level in order to not concede such a big number of goals in a single match while also work on improving their attacking performances in order to be able to win games in the near future.
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