The Rise and Rhythm of Kawasaki Frontale
Toru Oniki and the Kawasaki Way
Eric Cantona is a singer now.
I spotted that “Eric Cantona” had a gig lined up in Manchester and, sure enough, there he is: Eric bloody Cantona.
He was an utterly unique footballer, brilliant and vile and volatile all at once. He can act a bit too. And now Eric Cantona is a singer. Sensational.
And “I can do everything but be humble” is a quote for the ages. Bravo.
The Rise and Rhythm of Kawasaki Frontale
The 2023 J1 League season hasn't gone to plan for Kawasaki Frontale. The four-time Japanese champions finished second last season but a lack of firepower and an uncharacteristic spell of poor form has damaged the prospect of a renewed challenge to champions Yokohama F. Marinos.
Frontale started the season without Leandro Damião, the former Brazilian international striker who has 66 goals to his name since joining the club in 2019. 35-year-old Yu Kobayashi also started the season injured but has since added a couple to his 115 J1 goals in 299 appearances before 2023.
Marcinho, Frontale’s top scorer in 2022, followed compatriot Damião into the treatment room soon after the start of the season without a goal to his name. Kei Chinen and his eleven goals last season have moved on to Kashima Antlers.
Shorn of their sharp edge, the team won just once in their first five league matches and twice in their first nine. They were well off the pace by the end of April, after which they put together a run of three wins without being remotely convincing in any of them.
Dreadful losses to FC Tokyo and Yokohama FC followed and those are the kind of results that can’t be excused on the basis of injured attackers. That’s a dip for a team with a stellar recent record and there’s no denying it.
The first J.League championship was won by Verdy Kawasaki – now Tokyo Verdy – in 1993. Despite having been Japan’s second best team on a number of occasions both in and before the nation’s new league, Frontale didn’t win the title until 2017. They quickly made up for lost time, retaining the championship in 2018 and winning another back-to-back pair in 2020 and 2021.
The mastermind of Kawasaki Frontale’s surge was Toru Oniki. The 49-year-old was a midfielder who struggled to make an impact on the pitch for Kashima before finding his feet at Frontale, primarily in Japan’s second tier. He was forced to retire early in 2006 and became an academy coach at the club before promotion to the first team set-up in 2009.
Oniki worked as the assistant manager to Tsutomu Takahata, Naoki Soma, Tatsuya Mochizuki and Yahiro Kazama before taking the reins himself in 2017. Initially appointed on a two-year deal to replace Kazama, he stated his ambition: “I want to inherit the attractive football that Yahiro Kazama has built at Frontale and develop it even further.”
With the humility and understatement so typical of successful football clubs all over the world, Frontale have adopted the self-referential Kawasaki Way. Oniki’s commitment to its attacking promise is rooted in the fact that it’s fun to play and fun to watch, a priority according to the man himself.
It’s fun to watch, alright, and Oniki has added to it the hardened defensive attitude that turned thrilling pretenders into champions.
Oniki’s players have reaped the rewards. After Frontale’s Kengo Nakamura was named J.League Player of the Year in 2016, Kobayashi received the same accolade in Oniki’s first season and Akihiro Ienaga in his second. Damião won it in 2021.
In addition to his 68 caps for the Samurai Blue, Nakamura played 678 times for Frontale after joining his only senior club in 2003. He retired in 2020 as a triple league champion; all three titles came under Oniki in the last four years of his career.
Two of Nakamura’s former team-mates have enjoyed success in Britain since leaving Japan in 2021. Reo Hatate – twice a champion with Frontale – has become a fixture in Celtic’s midfield under Oniki’s old F. Marinos rival, Ange Postecoglou. Together they’ve notched two Premiership titles and an historic 2022/23 treble.
Kaoru Mitoma was developed by Oniki and Frontale. He played for the club at senior level between 2018 and 2021, winning the double in 2020 before joining Brighton & Hove Albion. He was loaned to the Seagulls’ Belgian sister club, Union Saint-Gilloise, and returned to England to become one of the Premier League’s most exciting players.
Brighton sold key players and lost their manager in 2022/23 but continued to rise to their best ever season, proof positive that they are a well-run club with a system and a plan.
Graham Potter left; Roberto De Zerbi came in and made Brighton even better. Where the departed Marc Cucurella and Leandro Trossard went before, Moisés Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister will surely follow.
Mitoma, one suspects, won’t be more than a year behind because Brighton know how to sell as well as how to play. You’d back them to have his replacement waiting to emerge blinking into the light fully formed and ready to rock.
Mitoma’s former club’s position isn’t dissimilar. The Kawasaki Way is applied throughout the youth ranks and Oniki was instrumental in its development. The first team were closer to F. Marinos last season than might have been expected after losing Mitoma and Hatate. The club’s consistent style is often credited with the slick transition of youth players into men’s football.
The pattern of the last few years predicted a Frontale title win in 2023: two years on, one year off, with F. Marinos picking up the bits. In all likelihood, the pattern will soon be destroyed.
The dire start to the season is Oniki’s first real spell of adversity as a manager. The win over Kashiwa Reysol at the end of May was vital because, unlike the previous run of three, it was emphatic. It was, at last, Kawasaki Frontale.
And wow, it was pretty. Talk about patterns. With Kobayashi back in the line-up and on the scoresheet after 20 minutes, Frontale seemed to find a new lease of life. Their movement in Kashiwa’s half was dizzying.
Kobayashi’s wingmen Ienaga and top scorer Taisei Miyashiro terrorised the defence as Frontale’s constant movement and imaginative creative passing whipped and whirled around the beleaguered Reysol back four.
When they’re in full flow Frontale find one-touch passes and flicks at breakneck speed as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. Their play around the opposition box is full of fluency and characterised by clever passes that release players into huge spaces even in dangerous spots.
Yasuto Wakizaka was outstanding in midfield alongside Ryota Oshima, who came close to scoring himself. Wakizaka generated four chances on top of his assist for captain Kyohei Noborizato, whose own performance was excellent on the left flank. They might be short of form but this is not an attack to be trifled with.
Their manager is an inspiring character in his own right. Oniki is regarded by former team-mates and ex-players as a leader in both word and deed. He pulled an already united Frontale closer still, understanding that there is no team without a club and instilling in his players a winning mentality and the determination to take that last evasive step to glory.
“The history of Frontale has finally begun to unfold,” said Nakamura after the first title win in 2017. Oniki is the architect of that history and has added three more championships in just a few short years.
He now faces his biggest challenge yet. Oniki must find consistency. He needs to make the rhythm against Reysol the norm for the rest of the 2023 season and finish as strongly as possible. Next year the title challenge has to be solid from the start. After all, they’ll be overdue by then.
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“Someone would be throwing stuff round the dressing room, someone would be in a headlock, someone would be on the phone to the bookies, but then there was an absolute, instant switch from mayhem to discipline.
“They were supremely fit, well drilled and knew their jobs. I don't think they get the credit they deserve.”
I’ve never been quite sure how I feel about the Crazy Gang, Wimbledon’s legendarily chaotic squads of the eighties and early nineties. Caroline Brouwer was their physio and told her story to Mike Henson for BBC Sport.
It’s a cracking interview but it’s certainly made my mind up – and not in their favour. Grim.
Salty beef extracts
Jack Grealish ruling in FA Cup final further proves absurdity of handball (The Guardian)
‘Women are expected to put up and shut up’: the toxicity of attending men’s football (The Guardian)
Tears and sunshine: Luton Town complete football’s greatest comeback (Kevin Crowe)
Aston Villa are saying goodbye to a genuine legend in Ashley Young (House of V)
Mourinho and others must stop dehumanising referees before someone gets hurt (Football Italia)
“Ref, WHY WON'T YOU TALK TO ME?” (Referee Tales)
Leicester City’s relegation is a calamity but it must engender change and quick (Football365)
Matt Le Tissier is an idiot.
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