Team Data: Kawasaki Frontale
Team Name:
Team Logo & Mascot:  
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Home Uniform Away Uniform
 
Home StadiumKawasaki Todoroki Stadium
Seats 22,000
Team Data:
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Management Corporation: | Fujitsu Kawasaki Sport Management Ltd. | |
Established: | 21 November, 1996
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President: | Shinpei Takeda
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Investors: | Fujitsu Ltd. | |
Address: | 1-403 Kosugi-Cho, Nakahara-ku,
Kawasaki City, Kanagawa 211-0063 | |
Hometown Area: | Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture | |
Home Stadium: | Kawasaki Todoroki Stadium (capacity: 25,000) | |
Joined J. League: | 1999 |
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 | Fronta-kun
The resemblance may not be very clear, but Fronta-kun is supposed to be a dolphin. In explaining the choice, club reminds fans that it is a seaside city -- a point that will raise many an eyebrow since most people are more familiar with the city's long stretch of riverfront exposure on the Tama river, near the team's home stadium. The choice sems to have won favour from the local fans, however. Those who question Kawasaki's seaside roots can just refer to Fronta as a "river dophin"
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Kawasaki Frontale bears a rather dubious distinction; the team was the first J2 club ever promoted to J1, but also was the first former J2 club ever to be relegated back to the J2. In many ways, the team can plead hard luck for its poor success the first time it made it into the top-flight. Several key players were injured or otherwise incapacitated during that season, yet Frontale still managed to advance all the way to the final of the Nabisco Cup before falling to Kashima Antlers. In truth, Frontale was far better than its 2000 record in league matches would suggest, but as it turned out, you could say that Frontale got promoted before they were really ready for it.
Kawasaki Frontale has a long history, tracing its roots back to the Fujitsu company team, founded in 1955. The team enjoyed reasonable success in the JSL, and just barely missed being included in the J.League at its inception. Frontale remained around the middle of the table in the JFL throughout the 1990s. In 1997, a year before the J.League second division was formed, the team was made independent of Fujitsu, and took the name Kawasaki Frontale, qualifying it for inclusion in the J2. The ersatz-Italian name is supposed to mean "in the front" or "top class". Their mascot is similarly ersatz. Nobody seems to be exactly sure whether it is supposed to be a dolphin, a shark or a whale. Some have suggested a killer whale, but the colour is no match, and Nagoya Grampus already has a killer whale mascot. A few English speaking fans have tried to dub them the "Blue Whales" (in imitation, or perhaps opposition, of Nagoya's "Red Whales"), but the mascot looks more like a dolphin. Call them ""the deadly dolphins", if you will . . . though for many years they were somewhat less than deadly.
Frontale finished second in the old JSL in its final season,1998, and first in the new J2 in 1999, thereby winning promotion for the 2000 season. However, as noted above, a disappointing performance in the top division saw the team relegated back to J2 at the end of 2000. There were many reasons why the team failed to stick in the top-flight division the first time. One was the team's excessive dependence on very young players, another the many injuries it suffered. But if you look at the team's subsequent development, it is not hard to argue that the team was not yet ready for prime time. For one thing, Kawasaki citizens had not yet adopted Frontale as their own. Until 2001, Kawasaki had another local club -- Verdy Kawasaki (the forerunner of today's Tokyo Verdy) -- which competed for fan loyalty and even shared the same stadium. Verdy did not do a particularly good job of marketing themselves to locals, and never had very solid "grassroots" support. Nevertheless, until Verdy relocated to Tokyo, Frontale had difficulty building its fan base due to a conflict of loyalties.
In addition, Frontale's mediocre finances forced them to rely on a small number of key players, sometimes with adverse results. For example, in 2001 Frontale signed a young Brazilian named Emerson, who led the J2 in scoring in both 2000 and 2001. With Emerson leading their strike force, Frontale got off to a very strong start, and seemed to be on their way to regaining a J1 spot. But midway through the season Emerson was lured away by the deep pockets of the Urawa Reds, and the sudden loss of their scoring leader set the team back for several months. When they finally recovered their pace, promotion was a vain hope.
Once it became clear that Frontale was not going back to the J1 immediately, many of the best players skipped town to find a spot on a J1 club. Furthermore, despite a steadily rising level of competition in the J2, many of the Frontale youngsters seemed to stagnate or fail to live up to their early promise. However, the team set out to revive its fortunes by building a solid foundation -- something that took more time than just signing a high-scoring Brazilian striker, but which would pay off in the longer run. The team started working hard to win the loyalty of local fans. Sandwiched between two giant cities -- Tokyo and Yokohama -- Kawasaki did not have much of a local identity at first. This was one reason why Verdy opted to move to Tokyo. But careful efforts by the club to promote "Kawasaki Pride" began to take hold by 2003, and aas the loyal fan base grew, so did Frontale's competitiveness. They were in the race for promotion until the final week of the season, when despite a victory over Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the penultimate match, they finished in third place on goal difference. But the team shook off the disappointment quickly, and set out in 2004 on a crusade to ensure that they would not be disappointed again. Both the team and its fans really came together in 2004, and stormed through the J2 crushing all competition. It was no contest. Frontale clinched first place in late September, with almost two months to spare.
Though Frontale faced much tougher competition in the J1, in 2005, this time they had a much deeper roster, a solid and loyal fan base, good finances, and a more appropriate balance of youngsters and veterans. Their first trip to the J1 may have been short-lived, but it looks like the return to the J2 was useful, in the long run. It allowed the team to build a more solid base, which should be useful in helping the team maintain a spot in the top-flight for many years.
Following an 8th place finish in 2005, Frontale fans knew that they had finally arrived as a J1 team. The next step for team was to move on to the next stage of development, and set its sights on challenging for some silverware. Although they fell short in 2006, their stirring run to the top of the table at the midpoint of the season proved that this team has a solid base with both effective strikers and by far the tallest back line in the League. A late slump knocked them out of the running with a few weeks left, but Frontale finished strong and edged out Gamba to take second place. This performance was enough to earn them a spot in the Asian Champions League (since the first-place Urawa Reds already had secured a berth by winnin the previous year's Emperor's Cup). In an effort to encourage even stronger fan support in 2007, the team went all out in the ACL, and managed to qualify for the knockout round one match prior to the Reds, thus becoming the first Japanese team to do so. This performance earned the team quite a bit of respect, and prompted most pundits to describe them in the same breath with other title contenders like Gamba Osaka, Kashima and Urawa, despite the fact that the team has yet to win any silverware.
Frontale's fifth-place finish in 2007 was slightly disappointing, but as past performances have shown, it is hard for any team to contest both the ACL and the domestic league title without running out of steam at the end of the year. In 2008, not only will Frontale's young stars be a year older, but they will not have the added distraction of Asian competition to contend with. We suspect that they will once again be among the top candidates for the league title, and even if they fall short in the league, this may be the year when they finally claim their long-awaited first title.
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