Kawasaki Frontale may have found themselves struggling domestically yet again in the 2024 season, but at the continental front, Toru Oniki’s men are finding themselves in a comfortable position to qualify for the 2024/25 AFC Champions League Elite knockout stages.
Traveling to Thai giants Buriram United on Tuesday, Kawasaki endured a stubborn 79 minutes before they finally found a way past Neil Etheridge through Sota Miura, before both Daiya Tono and Soma Kanda struck in injury time to give Kawasaki a 3-0 win.
The victory was Kawasaki’s second from their past two ACLE matches, with the Japanese side having endured a mixed start to their continental campaign with one win and two losses in their opening three matches.
With nine points from five games, Kawasaki are currently third in the ACLE East Zone’s league stage standings, behind 2nd placed surprise packages Gwangju FC of South Korea as well as league leaders and compatriots Vissel Kobe, a prime position to qualify into the knockout stages with just three more matches to go in the league stage.
Having finished 8th in the 2023 J.League 1 campaign, Kawasaki once again missed out on the top four for only the second time in Oniki’s reign, this time languishing in 13th place which was their lowest finish underneath the gaffer. Subsequently, Oniki decided to step down from his position at the end of the season once his contract runs out, having won four J1 titles, one J.League Cup trophy, two Emperor’s Cups, and three Japanese Super Cup silverwares during his seven years at Kawasaki.
The AFC Champions League, now known as the ACLE, is the only major silverware that Oniki’s Kawasaki side hadn’t won yet. The men from Kanagawa Prefecture may have started off slowly – beating Ulsan HD 1-0 away from home before suffering two consecutive losses to Gwangju and Shanghai Shenhua – before an impressive 3-1 win over Shanghai Port and the aforementioned 3-0 battering of Buriram put Kawasaki’s Asian campaign back on track.
With games against Shandong Taishan, Pohang Steelers, and Central Coast Mariners to come – with the latter two being in the bottom half of the league stage – Kawasaki could feel confident that they will seal their ticket to the knockouts sooner than later. And perhaps with a confident and tenacious performance like they put out against Buriram, Kawasaki could gift Oniki with a continental title before his exit.