Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.73, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match10 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Kashima Antlers. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Ikuma Sekigawa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 27 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Homare Tokuda is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
23 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Naomichi Ueda was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Leo Ceara. 3‑1 against Gamba Osaka, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I watch every Kashima Antlers game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Melbourne Victory runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Kim Tae Hyeon falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Defensive actions: 21. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Kimito Nono falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Tomoki Hayakawa reports back to Kashima Antlers with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Aleksandar Cavric was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Kawasaki Frontale are out and Kashima Antlers go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match26 Aug 2026
Naomichi Ueda wins it after the whistle should have gone
104 minutes played. Naomichi Ueda found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Kawasaki Frontale went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
The phone has started ringing about Tomoki Hayakawa again, and this time the name on the line is RB Leipzig. Kashima Antlers are listening politely and promising nothing.
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Naomichi Ueda was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.20. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yuta Higuchi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Yuji Kajikawa: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Albirex Niigata are out and Kashima Antlers go through, 0‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
28 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
25 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksandar Cavric is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Takehiro Tomiyasu is living that version at Kashima Antlers, and it tends to show in the first month.
Naomichi Ueda was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Takehiro Tomiyasu is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Kashima Antlers know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
A squad is not eleven players and a wish. Gift Ngcobo arrives from Black Aces to make the number up properly, and the value of that will be argued about in March rather than today.
Naomichi Ueda was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yuta Higuchi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gaku Shibasaki has his answer from Kashima Antlers; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.15 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Kashima Antlers heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksandar Cavric is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ryoya Ogawa has his answer from Kashima Antlers; what he does with it is the next window’s story.