Gamba Osaka vs Yokohama F. Marinos

Gamba Osaka and Yokohama F. Marinos are set to square off at Panasonic Stadium Suita in a high-stakes J1 League showdown.

Gamba Osaka’s lofty ambitions took a hit last time out as table-topping Machida thrashed them 3-1 at this stadium, knocking them down from a superb nine-game unbeaten league run (W7, D2). Despite their recent struggles, the hosts have been fun to watch, with four of their last five J1 League matches featuring over 2.5 goals and both teams scoring. But the Black-and-Blues should be relatively unfazed by this mini-crisis, knowing they had won four consecutive home league outings before being hammered by Machida. With three of those four victories yielding a single-goal margin, this blockbuster clash against Yokohama could go down to the wire. Adding to this sentiment, eight of the last nine top-flight H2Hs between these two teams at this venue have separated them by a full-time margin of under 1.5 goals.

In the meantime, Yokohama’s disastrous season hit a new low in midweek J1 League action as sub-par Sagan Tosu ran out 1-0 victors at Nissan Stadium, condemning Harry Kewell’s team to a third consecutive league defeat. The former Australian star starts to feel the heat as his men languish in the lower reaches, a whopping 12 points adrift of the top three. On top of Yokohama’s emerging crisis, they must deal with a well-documented travel sickness that has seen them win just once on their last seven J1 League road trips (D2, L4). Kewell’s porous backline alarmingly conceded 2+ goals in five of those seven matches. On the upside, they’ve won their last two top-flight visits to Gamba by an aggregate score of 4-1.