First, an apology.
I was supposed to review SFIDA Setagaya’s match against Nittaidai SMG Yokohama last weekend. There isn’t one.
I ended up staying out later than anticipated on Saturday night, and by the time Sunday arrived, writing several hundred words about a 3-2 defeat had slipped down the list of appealing activities.
Sometimes journalism requires sacrifice.
Sometimes the sacrifice is journalism.
Anyway, SFIDA lost 3-2.
Perhaps, if there was ever going to be a match conveniently lost to the Doragon Sports historical record, this wasn’t the worst candidate. SFIDA conceded three times inside the opening 49 minutes against a team below them in the table, then did just enough afterwards to make the whole thing irritating rather than merely bad.
Just When Things Were Getting Interesting
A week earlier, SFIDA had gone away to Loveledge Nagoya, one of the best teams in Nadeshiko League Division 1, and beaten them 2-0.
Not scraped past them.
Not survived a siege and accidentally bundled something in from a corner.
Won 2-0.
Misuzu Uchida scored again, the defence held firm, and 19-year-old goalkeeper Mio Otsuka produced the sort of performance that makes you start wondering whether something interesting might be developing.
That victory briefly changed the season’s texture.
SFIDA weren’t going to challenge for the title, obviously, but perhaps there was still time to finish strongly. Perhaps the difficult summer had been endured. Perhaps the final weeks could contain a little momentum, a few goals and the vague suggestion that everything was pointing somewhere.
Then Nittaidai scored three.
Football is extremely good at noticing when you’ve become comfortable.
SFIDA have now lost four of their last five league matches: 2-0 against Yunogo Belle, 3-0 against Nippatsu Yokohama FC Seagulls, 2-1 against Iga Kunoichi, that glorious interruption against Nagoya, and then 3-2 against Nittaidai.
That is five goals scored and ten conceded.
The Nagoya result increasingly looks less like the beginning of something and more like somebody accidentally inserting the wrong episode into a television series.
Still, it happened.
That matters too.
Next Up: The Worst Team In The League
Good news.
SFIDA now play VONDS Ichihara FC Ladies, who are bottom of the league.
Excellent.
Nothing to worry about.
Except VONDS have won three consecutive matches.
Of course they have.
This team began its first Division 1 season by losing its first fourteen league matches. Fourteen. They reached Matchday 15 with zero points and a goal difference of minus 33, which is normally when everyone quietly starts checking the regulations to see exactly when relegation becomes mathematically unavoidable.
Then something peculiar happened.
They stopped losing.
VONDS went to title-chasing Loveledge Nagoya and drew 0-0. Then they beat Nittaidai 2-1. Then they travelled to Ehime and won 2-0.
Most recently, they hosted third-placed Orca Kamogawa in the Chiba Derby.
They won that 2-0 as well.
So the team that collected precisely zero points from its opening fourteen games has collected ten from the next four and kept three consecutive clean sheets.
This is deeply unhelpful.
For months, VONDS were lying peacefully at the bottom of the table, bothering nobody. They had fulfilled the traditional role of a newly promoted side having a miserable time with admirable commitment.
Now they’ve turned into Mechagodzilla.
Not the original Godzilla, obviously. That would imply this was somehow natural. VONDS have been assembled from the wreckage of fourteen consecutive defeats, suddenly powered up and sent stomping around Chiba, destroying teams who assumed the danger had passed.
Three wins in a row.
Three clean sheets in a row.
Why now?
The Table Has Become Slightly Uncomfortable
SFIDA travel to ZA Oripri Stadium on Saturday sitting tenth with 19 points from 18 matches.
VONDS are still bottom with ten.
Between them sit Nittaidai on 13, the same Nittaidai who have just beaten SFIDA and were themselves VONDS’ first victims during this extraordinary little resurrection.
Nine points still sounds like a decent cushion.
It probably is.
But this is the problem with football tables. A gap looks enormous until the team beneath you starts winning and you don’t.
SFIDA losing on Saturday would reduce that distance to six points.
Suddenly VONDS aren’t a curiosity anymore.
They’re there.
This tends to happen when teams spend too long looking upwards. A few weeks ago, SFIDA still had a chance to climb toward the healthier end of mid-table. Now there is considerably more reason to occasionally glance over a shoulder.
Which brings us neatly to the strange psychological element of Saturday’s game.
VONDS have almost nothing to lose.
SFIDA absolutely should beat them.
Those are rarely comforting sentences when placed next to each other.
We Have Been Here Before
At least some useful evidence is available.
These teams met at Ajinomoto Field Nishigaoka in May and SFIDA won 2-0.
Mizuki Horie scored in the 26th minute before Uchida added the second in the 65th.
It was all quite normal.
Unfortunately, that version of VONDS appears to have disappeared.
The current version has become considerably harder to break down, operating with a compact defensive structure that can resemble a 5-4-1 before expanding through the wing-backs when possession changes hands. Ichika Yamada has kept consecutive clean sheets in goal, while captain Karii Murakami and Nao Kobori have helped turn a defence that spent months leaking goals into something suddenly rather stubborn.
Haruka Masuhara has become particularly dangerous from wing-back, scoring against both Ehime and Orca, while Kotono Sakuraba has been central to much of their recent attacking improvement.
SFIDA therefore aren’t travelling to face the team they beat in May.
Not really.
They are playing a team experiencing that peculiar sporting phenomenon where confidence starts doing things that tactics alone cannot entirely explain.
For fourteen games, VONDS couldn’t buy a win.
Now presumably somebody has to remind them that losing is still permitted.
And I Have Been to Chiba Before
Back when I lived in Japan, I would sometimes venture to Chiba.
Why?
Tokyo Disneyland is in Chiba. It’s not far.
Narita Airport is in Chiba. It says Tokyo in the name, but it’s not far – technically, it’s Chiba.
Summer Sonic is in Chiba. I even corrected a few bands when they said, “Evening Tokyo!”; these were mostly English or American bands. Some people around me laughed; some were horrified that I corrected the singer. The security guy who was definitely a rowdy Chiba Lotte Marines fan (in his spare time) laughed hysterically.
What’s the point? Chiba isn’t far. Setagaya needs to treat this like a home game. Immerse yourselves in Katsuura Tantanmen (don’t actually do that; it’s horrible), but don’t be afraid of Chiba.
One other bit: I once went to a Jonathan’s Family restaurant in Chiba. It was very efficient. About 30 seconds after ordering, it arrived.
Uchida, Horie And The Rather Obvious Solution
The encouraging bit is that SFIDA still possess two of the division’s most productive forwards.
Uchida has 13 league goals and is tied for the top spot on the Division 1 scoring chart. Horie has eight.
Twenty-one goals between them.
Horie scored against Nittaidai despite the defeat and also scored against VONDS earlier this season. Uchida scored in the victory at Nagoya and, because apparently ordinary goals have become boring, recently produced a bicycle kick against Iga.
There are worse problems to have than entering a difficult away match with two forwards who have scored 21 league goals.
The greater concern is what happens behind them.
SFIDA have conceded 32 goals in 18 matches. Their aggressive approach can look excellent when the press works, as Nagoya discovered, but it looks far less clever when opponents escape the first pressure and find space behind the defensive line.
VONDS do not need to dominate possession to exploit that.
In fact, they probably won’t want to.
Sit compactly. Let SFIDA have the ball. Wait. Attack the space when it appears.
Simple.
Football often is, right until somebody actually has to do it.
So, What Exactly Is This Game?
Had this fixture taken place a month ago, the preview would have been straightforward.
Bottom versus mid-table.
SFIDA should win.
Move along.
Instead, VONDS arrive in the best recent form of the two teams and have a genuine chance of dragging themselves into the survival fight after spending most of the season looking irretrievably doomed.
SFIDA arrive after beating second-placed Nagoya, then losing at home to eleventh-placed Nittaidai.
Try constructing a sensible prediction from that.
In theory, SFIDA remain the stronger team. Uchida and Horie offer proven goals, Otsuka has shown how good she can be in goal, and we have already seen this side dismantle VONDS once this season.
But football matches aren’t played against someone’s previous version.
Saturday’s VONDS have spent the last month discovering something dangerous.
Belief.
Three consecutive victories can make professional footballers temporarily forget that they once lost fourteen matches in succession.
SFIDA could do with reminding them.
Because I had just started believing this season might have a pleasant ending.
And frankly, I’d like that back.
Fourteen losses fade
Three wins wake the machine
Please switch it back off
