THE RISE AND STALL OF KAWASAKI FRONTALE

CHRIS NEE REPORTS ON A JAPANESE CLUB EAGER TO GET BACK ON THE GLORY TRAIL...

- 

THE J1 League title race wasn't much of a spectacle in 2024. Wealthy upstarts Machida Zelvia fell away in their first season in Japan's top division.

Sanfrecce Hiroshima reeled them in before tripping themselves up with four losses in the last five games. In the end, reigning champions Vissel Kobe were top of the pile again.

Kawasaki Frontale were on the outside looking in with envy, a position to which they've quickly become accustomed. It's a far cry from the few years when they burned briefly but with the intense brilliance of dominant champions.

Between 2017 and 2021, Frontale won the first four national titles in their history. Former player and rookie manager Toru Oniki was the mastermind but left the club last year after finishing eighth in successive seasons.

Oniki was a midfielder who struggled to make an impact on the pitch for Kashima Antlers before finding his feet at Frontale 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.

He cut his coaching teeth primarily under Yakiro Kazama, the manager he replaced in 2017. He took over a club that had been promoted from J2 a decade earlier and finished second three times in five years before drifting into inconsistency. Kazama took them to third in 2016 and then resigned, paving the way for Oniki's revolution.

“I want to inherit the attractive football that Yahiro Kazama has built at Frontale and develop it even further,” said Oniki on his appointment.