Yokohama FC vs Gamba Osaka
J1 2020 Round 33
Nippatsu Mitsuzawa Stadium
Wednesday 16 December 19:00
Just a reminder that I was on last week’s J-Talk Podcast, so if you haven’t already please check out my chat with Ben and Sam regarding the Shonan match, the race for 2nd and all other things Gamba.
Last Time Out
Injury-hit Gamba earned a hard-fought 2-1 victory away at Shonan on December 6th, their 11th road win of the year. Takashi Usami and Kim Young-gwon were the latest players to make the treatment room their home, meaning that kantoku Tsuneyasu Miyamoto was forced into changes once again. Fresh off a 7-day break, Gamba reverted to a 4-4-2 system and brought in, the fit-again Genta Miura, Gen Shoji, Yuki Yamamoto and Kazuma Watanabe for, Kim and Usami (injured) and Suganuma and Kawasaki (benched).
Gamba had something riding on this game whereas Shonan had nothing but pride to play for and the first 30 minutes of the contest really bore that out. Gamba reacted to my calls for a quicker start by racing into the lead in just the 6th minute. A slack ball out of defence by Kazunari Ohno (1 of 4 times Bellmare sloppily gifted their visitors possession in their defensive third inside the opening quarter) was intercepted on the right flank by Ryu Takao, he centred for Patric who laid it back to Yuya Fukuda and the youngster from Kokura smacked home his first of the campaign past a partially unsighted Masaaki Goto in the Shonan goal. Interestingly, Fukuda later revealed that Usami had been helping him improve his shooting in training, the results of that were here for all to see.
Bellmare lost experienced midfielder Akimi Barada to injury in the 29th minute with Mitsuki Saito’s arrival bringing about a mini-reshuffle in the home team’s engine room, the highly-rated Daiki Kaneko dropped deeper to his more favoured holding role. This seemed to wake Shonan from their slumber and within 5 minutes they were level. Impressive former Japan U-17 representative (where he was Shoji Toyama’s team-mate) Taiga Hata broke down the left and cut the ball back for Hiroto Nakagawa whose shot struck the arm of Gen Shoji leading to a rare event this season, a handball penalty that everyone agreed was actually the correct decision. The younger brother of 2019 J1 MVP Teruhito Nakagawa comfortably dispatched his spot-kick high into the goal, leaving Higashiguchi without a prayer. Gamba looked ragged as the half drew to a close and the game became a rather scrappy affair, Shoji seemed to be close to losing his cool as he tried to avenge the penalty decision while Patric shoved Shonan captain Takuya Okamoto in the chest as he was unhappy with the close attention he was receiving. Miyamoto would certainly have been happy to get his troops into the dressing room to re-group.
The Nerazzurri started the second half on the front foot before things developed into more of an arm-wrestle. The defining moment came in the 66th minute through a goal of real quality. Yajima and Watanabe combined to get Fujiharu in behind the Shonan defence and the full-back’s inch-perfect cross was headed home at the back post by Patric, the popular Brazilian bagging a goal and an assist in his 200th J1 appearance. Bellmare briefly rallied, but Sosuke Shibata and Satoshi Tanaka shot over while at the other end Goto made an excellent reflex stop to deny Patric his 2nd of the match. I was just about to write in my notes that Gamba were going to see the game out comfortably when up stepped Hata in the 90th minute to whip in a delicious cross that was met by Okamoto, however, Higashiguchi, was there with a crucial stop to earn Gamba the 3 points and probably secure his place in the J1 Best Eleven for 2020.
Yokohama FC vs Gamba Osaka Match Lowdown
The penultimate game of the 2020 J1 campaign is another crucial one for Gamba as they aim to solidify their grip on 2nd place against a Yokohama FC side who’ll still be smarting from their injury time loss in the reverse fixture between these two. Gamba currently sit on 62 points from 32 games while Nagoya are 2 points back with a better goal difference by 12, though crucially they’ve played an extra match and city rivals Cerezo are 3 behind the Nerazzurri with a better goal difference by 6 and remaining ties against Tosu (h) and Kashima (a). Hopefully Gamba’s 4-0 home defeat at the hands of Sendai doesn’t come back to haunt them in the goal difference stakes, victories here and at home to S-Pulse on Saturday will render that irrelevant. Indeed a win here guarantees 3rd spot at least and coupled with a Cerezo defeat it would leave Gamba with a dead rubber at the weekend with Emperor’s Cup qualification already in the bag.
It’s been 10 days since Gamba’s last match, their 11th 2-1 win of the season and, in fact, they have just three wins by more than a single goal to their credit in 2020 (Sendai 4-1, Kashima and Kobe both 2-0) and have incredibly only led by 2 goals or more for 168 out of a total of 2,880 minutes played. With 19 wins accrued this year, Gamba have already equalled their total from the 2014 title winning campaign and their current haul of 62 points is only 1 shy of that year’s tally, which kind of gives some context to just how good Kawasaki have been. I’ll repeat my favourite stat again (with a small update), Gamba are now 19-3-0 in league games they’ve led at any point in 2020, only Nagoya (a), Kashima (a) and Cerezo (a) have come from behind to take a point from their battle with the Nerazzurri. This looks all the better when compared to 2019 where 7 teams came back to draw and 5 sides overturned a deficit in matches with the men from Suita.
Although highlights reel defeats to Sendai and Kawasaki may be stuck in the minds of many supporters at the moment, it’s important to place those performances in the wider context of the year as a whole. In their most recent 17 games (essentially half a season), Gamba are 12-3-2, giving a total of 39 points which is a mere 8 short of last season’s 47 from 34 contests. That this has been achieved while blooding young, locally developed talent is definitely to Tsuneyasu Miyamoto and the club’s credit. Shuhei Kawasaki (14 games), Kohei Okuno and Shoji Toyama (both 5) and Dai Tsukamoto (4) have all featured more than anyone would have expected in pre-season, while ex-Kwansei Gakuin university duo, Ryu Takao and Yuki Yamamoto have really stepped up to the mark when required and Yuya Fukuda has built on the promise he showed in spurts last season.
This is Gamba’s final away game of the year which gives me one last chance to run the rule over their incredible road performances in 2020. 11 away victories is only 1 less than their win total in 2019 (12) and the 36 points earned outside Suita would see them sit 12th in the overall standings (6 points better off than Wednesday night’s opponents). The Nerazzurri boast a 9-3-4 record when comparing shots on target in away fixtures with their opponents and this correlates pretty well with their actual WDL record of 11-3-2. The fact that in total shots they are 4-0-12 and also 3-0-13 in possession kind of highlights how pointless those stats are. Looking at ball dominance, despite having the best away record in J1 (2 points more than Kawasaki, no less), Gamba average just 40.73% possession across their 16 games to date with a high of 59.1% at Nagoya in round 3 and a low of just 28.1 in the 2-1 win at Marinos on the opening day.
In this paragraph I plan to partake in a little revisionism so all non-Gamba fans may want to skip to the next one where I start discussing Yokohama FC. If you remove the 3-0 defeat at Kashiwa as well as the recent 4-0 home loss to Sendai and the 5-0 embarrassment at Kawasaki then Gamba’s record is just 28 goals against from 29 contests and a goal difference of +16, so I ask the question, which is the real Gamba, that one or the side who’ve lost 0-12 across 3 games? I’ll let you choose, but my guess is a bit of both. Against other teams currently in the top half of the table, Gamba average 1.56 points per game with a scoreline of 1.19-1.44 (1.2 against if you discount the Frontale mauling) whilst games with sides in places 10-18 have been more profitable, bringing 2.3 ppg and a score of 1.56-1.06 (0.87 if you remove the Sendai result). If anyone read that, I hope you enjoyed it, now let’s have a quick glance at our opposition.
While Gamba come into this clash needing 3 points, Yokohama FC will be able to play with the pressure off having already secured the best league finish in their club’s history. The club born out of the ashes of Yokohama Flugels took a mere 16 points from 34 games in their one previous J1 outing in 2007. However this year they have almost doubled that total and a win on Wednesday coupled with a Cerezo victory over Tosu would move them up to 14th ahead of their final match of the year, a Yokohama derby at home to Marinos on Saturday. So, there is still a little something to motivate Takahiro Shimotaira’s troops.
I tipped Yokohama FC to finish 2nd bottom this year and they have definitely exceeded my expectations and given themselves a platform to build on ahead of 2021 when relegation will once again be on the table. With 35 goals in 32 contests to date, only 4 teams (Shonan, Oita, Tosu and Sendai) have scored less than Yokohama FC, while their 57 conceded betters only Shimizu, Sendai, Sapporo and Kobe (it should be noted that both Consadole and Vissel have let in just 1 more from an extra fixture). With not a whole lot to play for recently, results have slidden a little after a mid-season high and they haven’t taken 3 points from any of their previous 5 games. Indeed, rather disappointingly for the men from Kanagawa, they have just 2 wins and 10 points from their last 13 fixtures.
Yokohama FC’s overall decent showing has largely been bolstered by home performances with 5 of their 8 triumphs this season coming on their own patch. Shonan (4-2), Nagoya (3-2), Kobe (2-1), and FC Tokyo and Kashima (both 1-0) have all been seen off at the Mitsuzawa. Their home average score is 1.27-1.93 which compares with their overall record of 1.09-1.78. They have won 3 games by 2 goals or more (the same as Gamba), the aforementioned Shonan victory as well as road wins at Kashiwa (3-1) and Urawa (2-0). On the flip side, they’ve gone down by 3 goals or more on 5 occasions though the last time was a 3-0 loss at Sapporo on October 24th, which may not have been a particularly accurate reflection of the run of play. In this encounter, top scorers for the year, Yusuke Matsuo (7) and Kazunari Ichimi (4) are both unavailable so a big question for them will be, who is going to be able to get on the end of the ammunition supplied by Takuya Matsuura (4 assists) and Kohei Tezuka (also 4)?
Briefly looking ahead to next season, Yokohama FC have been strongly linked with Gamba’s Kazuma Watanabe (34), while JEF United’s Brazilian forward Kleber (30) and Tosu midfield anchor / centre-back Hideto Takahashi (33) are also rumoured targets. In the departure lounge, veteran Daisuke Matsui has already left for Vietnam and young prodigy Koki Saito will make for Belgium at the year’s end. Yuki Kobayashi (Kobe), Kazunari Ichimi (Gamba), Kohei Tezuka (Kashiwa), Maguinho (Kawasaki), and Yuji Rokutan (Shimizu) are all regulars currently on loan from fellow J1 clubs so it’ll be interesting to monitor their future movements. I’ll also be keeping a keen eye on what happens with veterans Shunsuke Nakamura, Leandro Domingues and King Kazu, not to mention centre-back pairing, Masahiko Inoha and Calvin Jong-a-Pin. Fans at the Mitsuzawa may also be crossing fingers and toes in the hope that left-wing star Yusuke Matsuo’s shoulder problem keeps him off rival teams’ radars for at least another 6 months.
Head to Head
Gamba’s 2-1 win over Yokohama FC in August was the first J1 clash between these two since FC’s sole previous season in the top flight back in 2007. Shorn of the services of Kazunari Ichimi, Yokohama were wasteful in front of goal and were made to pay when Patric won the game for Gamba in the 94th minute. Yokohama FC are one of only 4 current J1 sides I haven’t seen play live (Nagoya, Oita and Shonan are the others) as I missed the 2 draws during Gamba’s J2 sojourn in 2013. Maybe next year, eh?
Team News
Gamba Osaka
Definitely out of this clash are Yuji Ono (knee – season) and Ademilson (club suspension) while Yuya Fukuda picked up a 4th yellow card of the year against Shonan and is therefore suspended. Takashi Usami and Kim Young-gwon both sat out the Bellmare game, but their injuries are not thought to be serious. Gamba are being coy about the fitness of Kosuke Onose and Yosuke Ideguchi, however, the general feeling seems to be that they’ll miss both remaining J1 matches. Captain Genta Miura appears to be back fit and firing after his 90 minutes in Kanagawa last week, and his return couldn’t have come at a better time as Kim and Ryu Takao are both walking a suspension tightrope with any caution against Yokohama FC ruling them out of the S-Pulse game. In better news, veteran Kazuma Watanabe will make 350th J1 appearance on Wednesday against the side he is likely to join next season.
Transfer Gossip / News Round-Up
It was announced last week that diminutive Kwansei Gakuin University forward Hiroto Yamami (currently in 3rd grade) will join Gamba from the 2022 season. Nerazzurri supporters may remember his winner in the shock 2-1 Emperor’s Cup defeat back in 2018 and he becomes the 3rd member of that side to move to Suita after Ryu Takao and Yuki Yamamoto. Elsewhere, it’s being reported that Yasuhito Endo will extend his Gamba contract next year, but remain on loan at J2 side Jubilo Iwata.
More left-field rumours include, a potential bid for Urawa’s on-loan Brazilian midfielder Ewerton, though that seems more like fan talk, while Kim Young-gwon has been linked with a move back to his homeland with Incheon United who are also said to be interested in ex-Gamba treble winner Oh Jae-suk.
Non-transfer related news is that the club are set to appoint a specialised forwards coach from next season in a bid to boost shooting performance (it’s worth noting that Gamba have a 19-1-12 record in terms of better shooting % this year). And finally…the 2021 uniforms will be officially unveiled in a ceremony prior to the final home game of 2020 against Shimizu on Saturday.
Yokohama FC
Forward Kazunari Ichimi (4 goals in 30 J1 games) can’t play as per the terms of his loan agreement with Gamba while Yusuke Matsuo has a dislocated shoulder and hasn’t featured since the draw at Sendai on October 14th. Holding midfielder Kensuke Sato, an influential figure in the reverse fixture, is currently out with a knee injury and was last seen in a matchday squad on October 18th. In the injured?/dropped? column are, utility man Eijiro Takeda who was subbed at half-time in the home loss to S-Pulse on November 25th and hasn’t been seen since, while veteran centre-back Calvin Jong-a-Pin suffered the same fate as Takeda except in the away loss at Shimizu on August 22nd, rookie central defender Kyowan Hoshi last saw action in the 3-0 drubbing at Tosu on September 5th, legend Shunsuke Nakamura has been limited to just 10 J1 appearances in 2020 and was last spotted as an unused sub against Oita on November 3rd and on-loan winger Ryuji Sugimoto, a rare starter, has been out of the squad for over a month.
Predicted Line Ups
With options thin on the ground at the moment, there aren’t too many alternatives to the players in the lineup below. Should Kim be fit enough, he could take the place of either Shoji or Miura at centre-back while the midfield has 3 potential choices in my opinion. The most likely is set out below with Takashi Usami returning from injury on the right wing with Yajima and Yamamoto in the middle and Kurata down the left. It’s also possible we could see Kurata on the right, Kawasaki down the left and the Yajima-Yamamoto partnership in the centre or Yajima on the right, Kurata on the left and Okuno and Yamamoto in the middle, we’ll need to wait and see.
With one more home game yet to come, a Yokohama derby, no-less, against Marinos on Saturday I reckon YFC will save their veterans like Shunsuke Nakamura, Leandro Domingues and King Kazu for that one. Alternatives to the lineup below would be either Hakamata or Inoha coming in at centre-back, young Nakayama playing down the right with Matsuura on the left or most likely Minagawa in for Senuma as the replacement for Ichimi.
Match Prediction
Gamba to do what they do best and grind out an ugly 2-1 away from home.
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