J.League 2023 Mid-Season Review!
A summary of every single team so far!
Hello again, it’s that time of the year for… the J.League Mid-Season Review! For those unfamiliar, I take a deep look at each and every team with both data and my eyes. This is the first time the reviews will be hosted on my newsletter rather than on my personal blog and I imagine it’ll stay this way for the foreseeable future.
This review consists of:
The league table
A section on every J1 team: Summary overview, tactics, data, etc.
A section on the different types of data viz: Explanations and link to the viz for every team
Some notes, warnings, disclaimers, etc.:
All the data stuff is done with R.
All the tactical stuff is created using Tacticalista.
To keep up to date with all of what’s happening in J1, I made a giant Twitter thread of lots of cool informed people to follow on Twitter for English language/international J.League content. You can find it here!
All of the shots and xG related stuff you see in the viz are non-penalty stats. Exceptions are stuff like the time interval and scoring situations plots. When I mentioned these stats in writing I always do mean non-penalty but I explicitly write it out at times just to be super clear.
My views come from watching only J1 league matches as most cup games clash with my work schedule and I can’t be bothered to subscribe to yet another streaming service. The things I talk about here are primarily based on the J1 league with occasional references to cup competitions.
I also have summarized notes for a lot of games I watch that you can read here. I also wrote a quick review of every team back in March that you can read here.
Data sources: Transfermarkt, Sporteria, Football-Lab, FBref
Once again, this has taken up a gargantuan amount of time for me to watch/read/code/compile/organize so please like and share it across all of your social media, your IRL (in-real-life) friends, your family, your dog, etc.
Anyway,
Let’s get started!
League Table
It’s been a topsy-turvy season with surprises coming at both sides of the table.
Note: Vissel Kobe vs. Kawasaki Frontale was postponed due to weather. Urawa vs. Shonan is scheduled for June 28th due to Urawa’s Champions League commitments earlier this year.
Kashiwa Reysol (18th): 2 W / 6 D / 9 L
Location // Stadium: Kashiwa // Sankyo Frontier Kashiwa Stadium, “Hitachidai”
Manager: Nelsinho (resigned on May 17th), Masami Ihara
Top goal scorer: Mao Hosoya (4 open-play goals plus 1 penalty)
Goalkeeper: Kenta Matsumoto
Kashiwa Reysol: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
The first manager casualty of the 2023 season has come from Kashiwa Reysol as manager Nelsinho has stepped down after a rather poor 2nd spell in charge, aside from some Michael Olunga fueled fantasy periods sprinkled throughout in previous years (with the help of Cristiano and Ataru Esaka, of course). Their malaise has been pretty evident since the 2nd half of last season where ended the season without a win since last August, an ignominious record that continued for 6 games into this season as well.
Masami Ihara’s tenure so far has been rather uninspiring to say the least, despite a draw against at-the-time league leaders Vissel Kobe in his first game in charge (albeit in rather fortuitous circumstances). A completely lackluster display against an out-of-sorts Kawasaki Frontale team, and somewhat unlucky but also plain awful defensive displays against Marinos and Sapporo have brought things back to reality for any hopeful Reysol fans. This team still has a mountain to climb as the relegation dogfight ramps up, especially with Yokohama FC’s recent resurgence leaving things pretty tight at the bottom.
This was a team that was trying to change its identity as Nelsinho clearly understood the limitations of his approach in 2022 but it just didn’t come together and the Brazilian abandoned a more possession-oriented style by around matchday 3, which to me was rather disappointing. There were elements of things coming together, but Nelsinho stopped trying very quickly in my opinion. This disappointment comes on top of the enormous amount of comings-and-goings in the winter transfer market, with the capture of players like Diego, Kota Yamada, and Tomoki Takamine that had pointed to this strategy change…
Mao Hosoya has again been one of their few saving graces but his performances for a struggling team will surely have Europe calling for him sooner rather than later, and that would leave Reysol in a very precarious position. Jay-Roy Grot has come in to occasionally partner Hosoya (though as I talked about in the previous round-up newsletter back in March, I imagine he is/was more insurance for when the young Japanese striker leaves), and while he had a horrible debut against Sanfrecce Hiroshima, he’s looked… OK so far despite not scoring until matchday 17. His first touch isn’t great though it has to be said. Otherwise their attack is extremely reliant on Matheus Savio receiving the ball in pockets of space or behind the defense and using his superb dribbling ability to progress in to the final 3rd/box to create chances.
The young Masato Sasaki started in goal for Reysol, keeping the place he earned last season after the departure of veteran goalkeeper Kim Seung-Gyu. However, mistakes piled up and he was pulled out of the line of fire with Reysol eventually entrusting Kenta Matsumoto between the sticks from the start of April. The Reysol youth product has been OK but not amazing by any means. To me, I think he just stands out because Reysol are so awful and he gets to make a lot of saves…
The real problem has been in defense where a somewhat sturdy enough back-line from last season devolved into an absolute mess with Yugo Tatsuta guilty of a number of costly errors. Early in the season Reysol at least looked a bit more organized but that has slowly eroded.
Of course, this isn’t just on the defenders individually as Reysol’s flip-flopping of strategy has made this team equal parts trying to form a tight 4-4-2 block, keeping a high line, and not bothering to press. A recipe for disaster. The below graph shows how Kashiwa have scored and conceded goals. While we can’t fully make conclusions based on this one graph, it certainly provides some evidence that it is quite easy to pass-and-move past Reysol’s flimsy defensive block to score against them.
To me it just seems like there is a bankruptcy of ideas at Kashiwa Reysol… But it’s still very early days for Masami Ihara and there are quite a few games left to play. With various breaks in league play in the next few months, Reysol fans will be hopeful that the coaching staff can come up with an improved and coherent strategy to push Reysol away from the relegation battleground.
Shonan Bellmare (17th): 2 W / 6 D / 8 L
Location // Stadium: Shonan // Lemon Gas Stadium Hiratsuka
Manager: Satoshi Yamaguchi
Top goal scorer: Shuto Machino (5 goals plus 3 penalties)
Goalkeeper: Song B.K.
Shonan Bellmare: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
Shonan Bellmare are in free-fall. This team hasn’t won since the beginning of April and suffered through 5 straight losses in that time as well. It needs to be said that it’s certainly not due to a lack of effort as Shonan do create plenty of chances, and of good quality on average as well, with their 12.6 shots per game (4th best in the league) and 1.32 non-penalty xG per game (also 4th best) up there with some really good teams. It could become worse though as star striker, Shuto Machino, could very well be making his way over to Europe this summer. He’s nearly 24, not exactly “young” anymore and I’m a bit surprised he hasn’t moved already. Machino provides so much through his ability to drop between the lines to receive the ball in the build-up and then make smart choices to combine with his fellow attacking players to quickly get Shonan up the pitch. In recent years he has also slowly started to score more goals (even if he did significantly over-perform his xG last season).
The candidates to replace his output that already exist in the squad are:
Yuki Ohashi: looked in sterling form at the beginning of the season, showing how he was the best man to partner Shuto Machino up top. Losing him to injury has been a big hole for Shonan as none of the other options have been able to fill the big man’s boots.
Keita Yamashita: on loan from FC Tokyo where he had a disappointing 2022 season. He’s still struggling, barely even making the bench at times. Now he’s quite behind in the pecking order at Shonan as well to the likes of Wakatsuki and the next player in the list…
Akito Suzuki: The teenager has made a fair few appearances as a late sub as well as regular starts in the Cups. For me, he looks the most likely to become the main man up top alongside one of the veteran players like Ohashi, Tarik, or Abe.
I talk mostly about existing options because I don’t think Shonan can afford someone really good on top of the fact that they already have quite a few options already. Back to the team in general… Shonan as in previous seasons press, force transitions, and get into the final 3rd or box with lots of numbers in attack…
Taiyo Hiraoka continues to be a very promising player with his good ball control that lets him unleash his dribbling ability in the final 3rd as well as an eye for goal. Kosuke Onose has been a good acquisition as he provides a lot of momentum in transitions with his smart running and direct play.
… but all that is meaningless as in the end, they just can’t seem to score enough from all these numerous opportunities that they create to win games. It’s not as if they don’t score at all, with 23 total goals so far Shonan are tied 5th best in the league but worryingly, looking at the graph below even chance creation (xG) has slowly eroded in recent weeks.
Where I do think they should actually invest their money during the summer is for a defender. When Daiki Sugioka is your best defender then that really doesn’t bode well for your defense… It’s very easy to get at Shonan if you evade their high press or if you just ignore it by kicking it long. Shonan concede the 4th most shots in the league and the 4th worst xGA per shot as well. You’ll see that most Shonan games are very end-to-end and can take quite a physical toll on Shonan’s players. However, manager Satoshi Yamaguchi’s attempts to switch over to play more carefully in possession has been a painful process wrought with mistakes leading to goals conceded as players don’t have that understanding with each other yet.
However, in recent weeks a potential solution has shown up. Satoshi Tanaka is back in Japan after a disappointing stint in Europe. Tanaka is still quite young so if he plays like he did before he left (of which I wrote about quite a bit if you look at my season reviews in years past on my blog) I can see him being given another chance in the future. His return does bring about some interesting decisions. In Tanaka’s absence, Shonan have made due with veteran Akimi Barada in the single pivot / #6 position and a few months ago also brought in Gamba’s Kohei Okuno on loan. So in my opinion, Tanaka could slot into one of the other #8 (box-to-box) midfield positions or perhaps he might take up one of the Center Back positions to add a bit more steel to a rather weak back-line. I can see him replacing Okamoto or Tachi at Right Center Back while Sugioka stays at Left Center Back. His presence could also help Shonan keep possession of the ball a lot better which has been a big issue for a team that usually likes to play faster and vertical after winning the ball from their press. At the very least Korean goalkeeper Song B.K. has been good, if not excellent, in most games but he can only do so much when faced with not just a barrage of shots but shots from good positions.
I still think they have far too much talent to go down, especially given the state of the other teams in the relegation battle. It’s going to be an extremely important few months as Satoshi Yamaguchi has a lot of key decisions to make like re-integrating Satoshi Tanaka and dealing with Machino’s departure, if he does actually leave. Shonan do have plenty of young players ready to step up with the likes of Akito Suzuki, Yamato Wakatsuki, and Naoya Takahashi making league appearances in recent months that can revitalize the team in the short-to-medium term.
Yokohama FC (16th): 3 W / 4 D / 10 L
Location // Stadium: Yokohama // Nippatsu Mitsuzawa Stadium
Manager: Shuhei Yomoda
Top goal scorer: Koki Ogawa (3 goals plus 3 penalties)
Goalkeeper: Sbend Brodersen
A month or so ago, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Yokohama FC would be the sole relegated club in the 2023 season, however, they’ve managed to climb up into the dizzying heights of… 16th following 3 wins in the May. They’ve since gone win-less in the last 3 games but the awful records of other teams mean that they remain in 16th.
Their 3 wins have come against:
Albirex Niigata: who heavily rotated their squad, much to the ire of the entire bottom half of the table and a big own goal on Niigata’s part as well...
Kawasaki Frontale: OK, this one Yokohama deserved to win against a very lackluster Frontale team.
Kashiwa Reysol: Who absolutely battered them but couldn’t score a goal, then Yokohama FC won a penalty.
It’s been pretty poor showing throughout, casually getting walloped by a difference of at least 2 goals or more in 8 of their games already and not very threatening in response at the other end of the pitch either. They are the worst team in almost every single metric I can think of…
A lot of their goals conceded are of their own doing, especially in the early parts of the season when manager Shuhei Yomoda had tried to instill a bit of a possession style to the team… However, the quality of the players in the back-line turned that into a disaster and Yokohama FC have had to revert to what they were usually doing last season to soak up pressure and counterattack quickly and long. To be clear, they have always been doing this anyway it was just that Yokohama FC were also trying to play in possession a bit more on top of that. The idea was to lure opponents up the field so they would have more room once they did kick it long to Ogawa or the wingers. To be fair to them, they do seem to have the right ideas but they are very poor at executing them.
In terms of attack a lot has rested on the shoulders of last season’s promotion hero, Koki Ogawa, who has continued his goal scoring exploits with 6 goals in J1 so far (although with the big asterisk being that half of those are from the penalty spot). Otherwise Caprini has looked decent in spurts along with Tomoki Kondo.
The real big question from me is why Tatsuya Hasegawa hasn’t been playing much at all as he was fantastic last season for Yokohama in J2 along with being a decent contributor from the bench for Frontale for quite a few years in J1 in the past.
As mentioned, In recent weeks, Yokohama FC have reverted to their shape from last season, their 3-4-2-1 // 5-2-3 formation that is very reliant on soaking up pressure with lots of players behind the ball then bursting up the pitch on long counterattacks through their wing-backs, with the occasional man-to-man high-press against an opponent’s build-up. As they showed in their game against Urawa they can be quite organized defensively, especially when compared to the teams around them like Reysol, Kyoto, Shonan, and even Gamba. Even still that was against a notoriously toothless Urawa attack, so I think they’re going to need considerable investment across many positions during the summer window if they want to stay up. This isn’t great considering the amount of squad turnover they already had in the winter leading up to the 2023 season so we’ll see what happens on that front.
Gamba Osaka (15th): 4 W / 4 D / 9 L
Location // Stadium: Osaka // Panasonic Stadium
Manager: Dani Poyatos (Spain)
Top goal scorer: Juan Alano & Issam Jebali (4 goals each)
Goalkeeper: Kosei Tani
Gamba Osaka: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
It has been an extraordinarily difficult season in the blue-half of Osaka as Dani Poyatos’ new-look Gamba side started the season win-less in their first 6 games, won against an out-of-sorts Kawasaki Frontale, and then followed that up with another 7 game win-less streak. However, 3 wins in a row in the past month have pushed Gamba up to 15th and out of the relegation zone.
Gamba are another team with big lofty goals of changing their style of play but they have really struggled with this aspect in the past few seasons with Tomohiro Katanosaka having faced the axe last season with Poyatos’ Gamba currently not doing much better at the moment. Genta Miura and Kwon K.W. were supposed to be the defensive stalwarts who, in time, would improve their passing/build-up play, but under two successive managers they have not done so on top of the fact that their actual defending has been woeful. Otherwise it’s poor choices of passes from Masaaki Higashiguchi or the inability of various players to find the right angles or the right spaces to move into that have caused Gamba’s build-up play to stagnate and be ripe for the opponent’s press.
Their 4-3-3 in-possession which transforms into a 4-4-2 out-of-possession frequently unbalanced the squad and left lots of holes and gaps to be exploited by the opposition, especially when it came to defensive transitions. I think Neta Lavi has been fantastic, shutting down counterattacks and threading passes in a variety of spaces, but he can only do so much to cover the entirety of midfield by himself.
Takashi Usami has been a big culprit in this as his defensive contributions have been nearly non-existent with his attacking contributions not really making up for it despite being creative as neither he nor his teammates are actually scoring from these opportunities anyways. His place in the team has gradually been phased out in the past month with the likes of Hideki Ishige and Juan Alano providing more in both defense and attack. New signing Naohiro Sugiyama has completely disappeared from the squad while Ryotaro Meshino has taken a step back from the starting line-up to the bench in recent months.
However, in the past month or so things have certainly improved. There’s especially a better balance in midfield, which is something I criticized when I was on the J-Talk pod a few months ago. Instead of trying to be cute and moving players around too much between phases of play, Gamba have adapted to defend more in a 4-5-1 with Jebali sticking up top by himself and the 3rd midfielder simply sitting back rather than joining the front line to press. As a result Gamba now start attacks from deeper but in general are more compact and can easily retreat to form a block if they need to.
Still, despite Jebali’s overall play and the fact that both Dawhan and Alano can contribute goals from midfield, scoring goals remains a problem for Gamba. There aren’t too many alternatives in the squad either with Musashi Suzuki looking like a shadow of the player that earned a move to Europe while Hiroto Yamami is better off out wide rather than through the middle. The likes of Isa Sakamoto and Dai Tsukamoto, who are currently away on loan, are still in need of development and they won’t get that in the situation Gamba are in right now so I can very well see reinforcements up top in the summer.
The defense has improved slightly with Yota Sato and Shota Fukuoka in the back-line and both are far more suited to moving the ball and themselves around in the build-up as well (while still being good enough defensively, of course). I’ve been hoping to see a bit more from Yusei Egawa but he hasn’t really made an impression for Gamba yet. Riku Handa and Keisuke Kurokawa have been… OK I suppose, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some changes in personnel in the back-line either. The very key thing that they really, really, need to work on is their set-piece defending. It’s been atrocious!
Gamba are another team that I’ve become a broken record on. This team clearly has lots of individual talent but awful combination of poor management, players unfit for the style of play, injuries, COVID, etc. has had them languishing in the bottom half of the table for the past few seasons and I think they have been fortunate to not get relegated already. However, things seem on the up-tick somewhat recently so Dani Poyatos will hope that the next few breaks in league play will give him more time to work with his players for a mid-table push in the 2nd half of the season.
Kyoto Sanga (14th): 5 W / 1 D / 11 L
Location // Stadium: Kyoto // Sanga Stadium
Manager: Cho Kwi-jae (South Korea)
Top goal scorer: Patric (5 goals plus 2 penalties)
Goalkeeper: Tomoya Wakahara
Kyoto Sanga: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
After climbing to the heights of 5th in the early days of matchday 5, Kyoto now haven’t won a league game since mid-April and they are tumbling down the table as a result. Their high-press is still as sharp as ever and as a result their short counter-attacks can be quite deadly. Occasionally, Sota Kawasaki will pop up with a nice bit of combination play or even get into the box himself with a late run but otherwise, it’s just far too easy to just give Kyoto the ball as their attacks through more sustained possession spells simply end up with their Full Backs or Wingers whipping crosses in ad infinitum. In many cases, that little bit of quality isn’t there and they fail to even get a shot off despite a promising counterattacking situation.
On a more positive note, their style of play does lend itself to gaining lots of set-pieces and Kyoto clearly work a lot on them (see the last 10 or so minutes of the 1st Half against Sanfrecce Hiroshima for interesting examples). Unfortunately, they still can’t create a whole lot of shots from these situations nor in open-play. It’s also very ironic that their set-piece defending is the worst in the league…
The main change in Kyoto this season is the interesting tweak in their front-line as they now play with two strikers and a winger rather than two out-and-out wingers flanking a lone striker like they had with Peter Utaka or Ryogo Yamasaki last season. The veteran Patric continues to be the battering ram he’s been in the past, while the likes of Kazunari Ichimi, Kosuke Kinoshita act as a secondary target man or drop deep to receive in central areas. Yuya Toyokawa has been their best attacking player overall in my opinion, he’s always involved in anything Kyoto get up to in attack.
However, it just doesn’t happen often enough and Kyoto aren’t very impressive in attack despite their vertical threat and tenacity. The acquisition of players like Taiki Hirato and Teppei Yachida have been attempts to improve creativity from midfield but they haven’t played much until quite recently. All to often like against Frontale (first 20 or so minutes especially), Tosu, and Urawa they simply don’t score when they are suffocating the opponent with their press and that’s come to haunt them as they run out of gas and concede as their defense isn’t great either. The high press seems to be the only way this team knows to defend but when that doesn’t work and they’re stuck in their own defensive 3rd especially as they aren’t quite clever enough to keep the ball themselves and slow the game tempo down despite attempts to improve this aspect of the team this season.
I don’t find their defense to be very good either, despite having numbers back through everybody tracking back, they are a bit too easy to penetrate. Asada has been a bit all over the place, although it hasn’t helped that he’s forced to play as a Left Back at times. Rikito Inoue actually looks the better player but not by much. I think Osamu Henry Iyoha, who impressed at Roasso Kumamoto last season in J2, will have plenty of opportunities to break into this porous back-line as he’s had some decent cameos in the last 20 or so minutes in most games. The less said about Api, the better… In terms of goalkeepers, Tomoya Wakahara is just OK… I’m more surprised at how little Warner Hahn has played given all of his experience.
I do think it’s a shame that Yuto Misao has mostly been injured this season as I thought he’d be a steady veteran presence as well as provide some good passes out from the back. Kosuke Shirai is fun to watch becomes he just loves bombing up the pitch and the amount of sprints he makes per game is astounding, however he’s just not that great when it comes to defensive duels and can get dominated by physically stronger strikers/wingers. Shirai is still absolutely vital to Kyoto’s attacks so it’s hard to complain about him too much though.
Kyoto survived by the skin of their teeth (or more, the right-side post of their goal) in last season’s promotion-relegation play-off against Roasso Kumamoto so I had them pegged to be struggling in a relegation battle again this year. They are close to bottom in most attacking or defensive metrics but the key point is that they aren’t the actual worst team either. Although there are aspects about them that are interesting Kyoto really do lack quality in the squad but with only one relegation spot I think they’ll be OK. I do worry about next year though…
Albirex Niigata (13th): 4 W / 5 D / 7 L
Location // Stadium: Niigata // Denka Big Swan Stadium
Manager: Rikizo Matsuhashi
Top goal scorer: Ryotaro Ito (7 goals)
Goalkeeper: Ryosuke Kojima
Albirex Niigata: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
It become quite clear that once Ryotaro Ito and Shunsuke Mito’s ludicrous finishing streak ended (their audacious efforts just unbelievably flying into the net every other game), Niigata would slip down the table. Indeed they have, as the newly promoted team have lost 5 of their last 10 games and have been held goalless in 5 of those games as well.
They have a hard time making their good build-up play count as they get stuck trying to break into the box to take good quality shots. Teams that are well disciplined in defending in-and-around their own box can completely shut down Niigata’s clever passing combinations and also force Ryotaro Ito to receive the ball outside of the opponent’s defensive block and nullifying his passing options. As a result they’ve been forced to take a lot of shots from poor positions which has resulted in Albirex Niigata having the league worst 0.083 xG per shot so far this season. Even still, they have moments of quality where things click but then they aren’t able to take advantage of those opportunities to turn them into shots or goals.
Of course, the quality of J1 opposition defenses also plays a part in their struggles as opponents at this level are far likely to simply defend to the last man a lot better to prevent Niigata’s attackers from getting chances. As a result, they can’t take the lead to then switch to a more defensive and slow tempo possession with fewer risks to see out the result, like they were able to do against J2 opposition last year.
From the build-up, teams have also figured out ways to deal with Ryotaro Ito floating between the lines like how Sagan Tosu and Gamba dealt with him in their matches (man-mark the central midfielders and have the first line of defense force Niigata’s Center Backs plus Kojima to play it long). At times Ryosuke Kojima seems shackled by his instructions to not play long passes which can place undue pressure on the back-line in certain games. In any case, Kojima is a good example of a goalkeeper who’s good with their feet and with their hands as well.
In defense, I noted in the Albirex’s season preview of how against J1 opposition, Niigata’s defensive frailities could be exposed more both due to the fact that they have to spend a lot more time defending but also dealing with much more lethal attacking quality, and that’s mainly what’s happened so far this season. MJ Fitzgerald has made quite a few costly individual errors while the team as a whole don’t seem to be able to hold on in their 4-4-2 block quite well under lots of pressure. To be fair to them, Niigata have had a fair few injury problems, especially to their defenders that had hampered their usual build-up play but most are back now.
I still think they’ll be fine overall… Well now that Ryotaro Ito has left I’m a bit more worried compared to when I first started to write this section in the review about a month ago but still I think they’ll finish in lower mid-table. On the flip side, Yoshiaki Takagi has been back for the past few games after a long injury spell so he’ll slot back into a central position rather than being forced out wide like he has so far this season. On top of this they still have a host of different exciting attacking options in Shunsuke Mito, Yota Komi, and Shusuke Ota. In the past month, Danilo Gomes has slowly established himself as a good option on the Right Wing through his good dribbling ability to create dangerous opportunities.
Unfortunately, you can’t win points for style because you win points by actually scoring goals which (errr… mostly) leads to winning games and that’s been the problem for Albirex Niigata so far. The main thing holding them back is that little bit of quality and nous at both ends of the pitch but they’ll beat the teams (or simply do better than) below them and may occasionally gazump the “big” teams with some bit of magic from their attackers, so my pre-season prediction of around 13th still sounds about right. Looking at their recent xG related performances, one might say they are trending upwards already…
… I say this but their defeat to Kyoto to round off the 1st Half of the season has now dragged them back into the relegation dogfight when they were just about keeping their heads above water until then, so who knows! Niigata’s squad is well-balanced with a mix of young-and-old, even with Ryotaro Ito’s departure there are still quite a few young talents ready to burst onto the J1 stage.
FC Tokyo (12th): 5 W / 4 D / 8 L
Location // Stadium: Tokyo // Ajinomoto Stadium
Manager: Albert Puig (Spain)
Top goal scorer: Diego Oliveira (5 goals plus 2 penalties)
Goalkeeper: Jakub Slowik
FC Tokyo: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
It’s been another very inconsistent season for FC Tokyo as they languish in mid-table and not completely safe from the relegation dogfight either. There have been good displays despite losing (vs. Marinos), winning despite bad displays, not even bothering to play Albert’s purported style to mediocre results (vs. Nagoya), and everything in between.
Now on to my verdict:
Could Albert Puig have done better with the current squad? Yes.
Has there not been enough squad turnover/reinforcement to help Albert? Also Yes.
Throughout this season they are sequences of play or even entire halves of games where things do look good but ultimately a silly mistake or inability to hit the net has cost the team so many points. This has all culminated in Albert Puig and FC Tokyo parting ways in early June.
From the back-line, just because a player is good at passing doesn’t mean the player is good in the build-up. It’s not just the mechanical skills of kicking the ball but the spacing, positioning relative to teammates, and understanding between teammates on how/where to move and the timing. For one and a half years, there’s been work on the training ground under Albert but I don’t think it’s been much of a success given what we’ve all seen on the pitch.
Both Yasuki Kimoto and Masato Morishige are quite good defenders on top of being good passers, especially long passing but they don’t have a great first touch, they seemingly can’t open themselves up nor position themselves optimally to receive or make a pass to progress the team forwards. It just isn’t good enough despite the occasional flashes of good play.
Do I even need to mention Jakub Slowik? At times, he can’t even do the one thing we expect him to be good at, which is making saves, as he’s made a few goalkeeping errors this season that have cost the team vital points that would have let Albert Puig hold on to his job a little longer, which is just the cherry on top to his poor ball-playing skills. All of these seemingly little things do add up, especially when it comes to building up from the back and these decisions have cost Tokyo a lot of wasted time and effort in my opinion.
It’s incredible to me that FC Tokyo were so close to getting Joao Schmidt, who would solve so many problems by himself, but two years later we’re still left with Keigo Higashi playing at the base of midfield, although Takuya Aoki has finally returned from his long-term injury and has already taken back the single-pivot position (his performance vs. Marinos on his return was especially good)... until he got injured again. Koki Tsukagawa has been the wrong midfielder to sign from Frontale and he only comes on as a “defensive” sub out wide in recent months anyways.
It hasn’t been helped by the fact that Kuryu Matsuki has had to leave the team to go on two separate international tournaments which has hampered the midfield chemistry between him, Shuto Abe, and Kei Koizumi. I think Shuto Abe has definitely improved in being more of a creative force, applying his relentless stamina into making runs into the channels or into the box instead of just purely hounding after players in defense like in previous years. However, he’s only useful if Tokyo can get up the pitch in the first place and as a team they haven’t really been able to do that consistently enough.
Teruhito Nakagawa remains one of the few players on this team that have played in a successful attacking unit (at Marinos) but the rest of the team just never seem to be on his wavelength and it’s a huge problem of trying to break teams down. This is exacerbated by Hotaka Nakamura being out for the season due to injury. His surging overlapping runs and strength in pushing up to press high gave FC Tokyo the glimpses of what Albert Puig wanted to do in attack in the early season. But with him out of the picture, we’re once again left with Yuto Nagatomo, who simply doesn’t have the skill or legs to provide that outlet out wide. It’s a big shame as I think Hotaka Nakamura has improved a lot under Albert Puig but injuries keep haunting his career…
At the very least Diego has finally been scoring goals, even if the big caveat here is that a chunk have been penalties in the past month. I’ll continue to praise Diego as I’ve done in the past season reviews but I sound like a broken record in regards to him and unfortunately FC Tokyo are going to need to move on from relying on him sooner rather than later.
Adailton doesn’t fit this style of play and mostly comes on as a sub when Tokyo change things up to really soak up pressure and counter (which isn’t a bad thing to have as an option, of course). Pedro Perotti doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence in me. Along with the fact that Leandro has mutually agreed to terminate his contract, the group of Brazilian attackers are reaching the end of their rope at FC Tokyo. Overall, this FC Tokyo team neither takes enough shots nor of any decent quality on average. They are 2nd worst in the league for shots taken and 5th worst in xG. Even if they are (a still middling) 8th best in xG per shot, that’s more because of the fact that they take so little shots in the first place. For a team purported to play “attacking football” it’s simply not acceptable.
The team can’t settle in possession because FC Tokyo are constantly starting games on the back-foot as they keep making silly defensive mistakes, even outside of trying to play in possession. I can’t remember the last time this team has won a game after going 0-1 down, FC Tokyo have such a large hill to climb of their own making before they can even think about being more risk-taking. There is no steady base, no solid foundation to have that peace of mind to be able to do any of the possession work that Albert Puig wanted to instill. It’s weird because last season, I thought FC Tokyo’s defense was quite good and that Kimoto and Morishige’s partnership was quite underrated. While there were plenty of times that Tokyo faltered in possession, the team could still rely on the back-line plus Jakub Slowik to keep goals down to a minimum (most of the time). This season, FC Tokyo still can’t improve in possession and they’ve lost that defensive solidity as a base to work off of.
With Albert Puig leaving the club, FC Tokyo have a lot of work to do during the summer. FC Tokyo have gone on to hire Peter Cklamovski as the new manager. He has spent considerable amount of time in Japan already as a coach under Ange Postecoglou (you may have heard of him?) as well as branching out by himself with mixed results at tenures with Shimizu S-Pulse and Montedio Yamagata. I can see players like Seiji Kimura (who played a little bit under Cklamovski on loan at Montedio Yamagata) getting more of a chance among a few other bench warmers as I imagine Cklamovski is going to overhaul quite a few things, especially as it doesn’t appear like there will be a whole lot of funds available in the summer.
I personally would have preferred either Ricardo Rodriguez or Tomohiro Katanosaka but what’s done is done. I am more concerned with FC Tokyo’s front-office (upper management) and whether they can actually provide the support to overhaul this squad and also the culture of the entire organization that’s been clearly needed. The new owners MIXI have talked a lot about “capital club” this and that but I’m still not seeing a whole lot being done to help the team on the pitch.
Avispa Fukuoka (11th): 5 W / 5 D / 7 L
Location // Stadium: Fukuoka // Best Denki Stadium
Manager: Shigetoshi Hasebe
Top goal scorer: Yuya Yamagishi (6 goals plus 1 penalty)
Goalkeeper: Takumi Nagaishi
Avispa Fukuoka: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
Avispa started off the season quite brightly, even rising as high as 3rd in matchday 7 but have tailed off in the past month. They now lie in a comfortable mid-table position but they could be dragged into the relegation battle if they don’t improve as they haven’t won a league game since early May.
In defense, the team has switched between a back 3 and a back 4 far more interchangeably compared to previous seasons. The likes of Douglas Grolli and Tatsuki Nara remain rocks at the back with Daiki Miya and Mikuni as back-up.
Everybody in the team works hard and fights for every ball, leading to quick counters or at least turning the ball back over to Avispa for possession. Avispa also press a lot higher and on more occasions than in the past, which has been a change I’ve seen since last season.
Most of the changes to this team this season have come at Full Back with Masashi Kamekawa’s signing not working out as he’s only made 1 appearance due to injury, forcing the team to sign Itsuki Oda. On the Right flank, Masato Yuzawa’s medium-term injury temporarily pulled Yota Maejima into the starting line-up. Manager Shigetoshi Hasebe has a penchant for swapping his goalkeeper around, with both Masaaki Murakami and Takumi Nagaishi sharing duties between the posts since the middle of last season. I can’t really tell who’s been better, they’ve both been fine mostly so I suppose it’s more of what the manager is seeing in training in a particular week than anything else.
Kazuya Konno has been a decent replacement for Jordy Croux. Still, the unfortunate thing is that he clearly lacks the decisiveness and accuracy in the final shot or cross to really make his dangerous dribbling runs send anything more than a mere fleeting chill in opposition defenses. His chemistry with Masato Yuzawa looked quite promising early in the season.
Lukian has been playing out wide more often this past month as his ability to bully opponent Full Backs and his defensive work being lauded by manager Shigetoshi Hasebe despite his lack of goals. Tatsuya Tanaka has been non-existent since his arrival 2 years ago, mostly spends time filling in at the depleted Full Back position these days. Indeed, he hasn’t really shown much of anything since his Oita Trinita days that earned him a move to Urawa Reds a few years ago.
Both Ryoga Sato and Reiju Tsuruno have looked fairly bright but neither have brought the thing needed the most from Avispa’s attackers, the clear pain point of this team, as ever, goals. The fact that 25% of their entire goal haul of 16 (which is 3rd worst in the league) this season have come from penalties, encapsulates this problem pretty well. So the Kyushu side have had to rely on their talisman, Yuya Yamagishi, up front yet again as he leads the team with 7 goals, many of them extremely important in changing the game-state of Avispa’s matches (scoring the game winner, taking the lead, pulling a goal back from 0-2 down, etc.).
In midfield, the young Masato Shigemi has come in to partner the ever-present Captain, Hiroyuki Mae due to the injuries of varying duration to Shun Nakamura, Sotan Tanabe, Hiratsuka, and Yosuke Ideguchi. He’s shown himself to be fairly comfortable being thrown in at the J1 level with his ball-winning abilities and he’s even earned himself a call-up to the U-22 Japan squad in June. However, with most of the veteran players coming back in recent weeks that’ll give Avispa a boost and not have to run Mae into the ground over the grueling summer schedule to come. It’s a bit of a shame for Shigemi but with most of the midfield on the older side, he should have a place in the team in the near future. Hiroyuki Mae, as ever, is the key to this side in both attack and defense.
If they can squeeze out a few more goals from Lukian as well as the promising displays of Tsuruno and Sato then they may finish higher than mid-table for the first time to possible outdo their highest ever league finish of 8th place achieved in the 2020 season. Both stats-wise and by my eye, this team looks OK, despite poor results in the past month and will most likely remain comfortably in mid-table and away from any relegation worries in 2023.
Sagan Tosu (10th): 6 W / 5 D / 6 L
Location // Stadium: Tosu // Ekimae Real Estate Stadium
Manager: Kenta Kawai
Top goal scorer: Yoichi Naganuma (5 goals)
Goalkeeper: Park I.G.
Sagan Tosu: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
After talking about not being all that enthused by Tosu this season in April’s tactical review newsletter, well… they’ve since gone on a 2 W 2 D 0 L record. I do think it should be noted that their Urawa game came under special circumstances right after their Champions League win while they just about barely clung on against Kashima Antlers but nevertheless, points are points and they are safely in mid-table-ish which is where they’re expected to be.
However, stats-wise they look extremely, worryingly poor. Looking at their expected goal difference per game, you ideally want to be on the bottom right of the diagonal line and winning those games but Tosu have done neither. On one hand you could say that they’ve done well to hold on for a result when things have been tough, it should worry Tosu supporters that the team is frequently put under a huge barrage of shots and the defense not being able to do a whole lot about it.
With Shinya Nakano’s injury, Diego’s departure, Harada not quite good enough, and Naganuma being essential further up-field, it’s come to Taichi Kikuchi to become a Left Back and it hasn’t been working out too well, especially defensively even if his presence can be an asset in the build-up phase. He just simply isn’t an actual defender and it really shows whenever you watch him play. On top of that Tosu are spending a lot more time defending than before as their press doesn’t work or it’s simply not enough to take the lead at the beginning of games. At Center Back Masaya Tashiro is a clear downgrade from previous Tosu defenders (he’s been a OK rotation member of the squad, at best, in past seasons) while Kosuke Yamazaki is having a hard time adapting to a new team, the step up to the J1 level, while also having a not-so-great partner next to him. Other experienced players in the back-line like Shimakawa and Hwang S.H. have either come back from injury or are simply aging out of the team. As a result, Tosu are conceding the 2nd most shots per game in the league so far, even if (very) charitably you can make a small concession that on average the quality of their shots conceded isn’t horrible at 8th worst/10th best in the league.
Even when they are able to successfully press-and-counter, Tosu aren’t always able to finish their chances with victories over Urawa and Kyoto coming through being extremely clinical from a few chances rather than consistently scoring or even creating chances from these turn-overs. In some respect, their rather intense press can also expose their back-line quite horribly but that’s more a risk-reward calculation that manager Kenta Kawai is more than willing to take considering Tosu’s problems in possession this season.
This version of Sagan Tosu don’t seem to have the quality in passing from the back compared to previous years with neither Tashiro nor Yamasaki nearly as adept with the ball as their predecessors. Their saving grace is that So Kawahara is a very good player and is a constant outlet to escape opponent pressing schemes. Fuchi Honda was also having quite a good season before his unfortunate medium-term injury. Even Park I.G. is having problems as accurate as his passing still is, Tosu as a team are just a bit too obvious as to exactly where he’s going to play it which nullifies the Korean shot-stopper’s passing range.
With the loss of Cayman Togashi as a target man due to injury and Atsushi Kawata seemingly not trusted enough to start games, Tosu have had to rejig their attack a bit to where Yuji Ono and a #10 (any one of Kentaro Moriya, Fuchi Honda, or Kohei Tezuka) would both play as false #9s, depending on the opposition. Their dropping movements would either lure opposition defenses along with them from which Yuto Iwasaki and Yoichi Naganuma would be able to make quick diagonal runs behind the defense or they would simply be able to receive the ball from the back-line to break past the opponent’s press.
Still, much like when they press Tosu simply aren’t successful with this enough nor do they take advantage when they do and it’s very clear from their extremely low 10.2 shots per game output, the worst in the league, that Tosu has problems.
Tosu’s problems don’t really change from year-to-year, with the main issue being the inability to purchase that extra bit of quality that would really improve Tosu at either end of the pitch due to their financial constraints. Of those signings that are successful or players that do improve are then quickly picked up by other J1 teams higher up the “food chain” so it’s quite tough and there’s a lot of turn-over every transfer window. When things do click they are a very fun team to watch even if that’s not been as often as in the last few seasons. As I am writing this section manager Kenta Kawai might even be coming up with a very new tactical tweak to befuddle the opposition and stabilize their mid-table position in the table. My pre-season prediction of 10th might be more on the optimistic side of things now that I’ve seen their significant regression this season. However, Tosu should still be relatively safe from any relegation worries in the medium-term especially as they already have a decent chunk of points on the board (nearly double the bottom two teams).
Kawasaki Frontale (9th): 7 W / 3 D / 6 L
Location // Stadium: Kawasaki // Todoroki Athletics Stadium
Manager: Tohru Oniki
Top goal scorer: Taisei Miyashiro (4 goals)
Goalkeeper: Naoto Kamifukumoto
Kawasaki Frontale: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
It’s been an extremely rough season for Tohru Oniki’s Frontale team as one of the top teams in recent memory have faded into mid-table mediocrity so far, slipping even as low as 15th in matchday 9. This team has had a host of injury problems plaguing a rather unbalanced squad but these issues have been clear for a while now (many people including myself have written about this in the past) and neither Oniki nor Frontale’s front office have done much to address it these past few years.
Jung Sung-Ryong’s form has fallen off a cliff on top of the fact that he’s never been quite reliable with his feet, the Korean shot-stopper has finally lost his place in the team. His passing errors have only exacerbated Frontale’s build-up problems along with the loss of the passing ability of both Jesiel and Shogo Taniguchi in front of the goalkeeper. New signing from Kyoto, Naoto Kamifukumoto has stepped up and has done a reasonable job both in saves and with his feet. His sweeping up behind a high-but-not-that-quick back-line has helped Frontale push up the pitch more easily, even if Kamifukumoto does make the occasional heart-stopping mistake.
On the other hand, Kyohei Noborizato seems to have finally put his injury issues behind him as he’s already played more minutes so far than the entirety of last season while Miki Yamane still continues to play every single league minute for better or for worse. Yamane has had an interesting role this season by occasionally playing as an inverted Full Back, joining the midfield in the build-up phase. It’s worked a treat at times but not so consistently that it’s a game-changer. The real improvement to Frontale’s build-up play has been the emergence of Kota Takai and the steady improvement of new signing, Takumi Ominami at Center Back.
However, on the defensive side of things Frontale don’t seem as solid as before. Their press has been very weak and easily bypassed and because they can’t seem to keep the ball, they spend a lot more time defending than they are used to. Indeed, a solid chunk of their goals conceded have come from situations where opponents have been able to pass or dribble through their lines with ease.
Of course, I do think a lot of these aspects have improved in the past month, it still is a concern.
Joao Schmidt is my pick for best Frontale player this season despite only becoming a regular again from late April. His passing range to help the team in the build-up along with his ball recovery/winning abilities have somewhat revitalized Frontale in possession playing from his customary deep-lying midfield role.
Alongside the Brazilian, Tatsuki Seko has finally been getting a chance in midfield rather than as an emergency Full Back this season with his calmness on the ball and smart positioning helping the team string passes around to progress up the field. On the other hand, Kento Tachibanada’s form has nose-dived, all the more disappointing as he was named the club’s captain for the season. Other midfield absences have also hurt such as Chanathip (who is rumored to be leaving over the summer has now left the club to go back to his native Thailand) and while Ryota Oshima has played in recent games you can never really count on his fitness.
Further forward Taisei Miyashiro, with his smart movement and good touch has brought a bit of spark to Frontale’s attack in the absence of the usual attackers as he finally seeks to establish a place for himself after many years away on loan. However, for large parts of the season he was forced to play a role he was ill-suited for in being an escape rope for Frontale’s build-up problems via duelling long balls with his back-to-goal.
It’s been tough for Yasuto Wakizaka and the ever-present Akihiro Ienaga. Ienaga can still be brilliant but in much shorter bursts and with Frontale’s malaise in keeping possession, his presence doesn’t really make sense if Frontale are simply being pushed back into their own half for most of the game. Although as mentioned earlier Frontale are improving and as such the positives of having Ienaga in the team are much more visible compared to the first few months of the season.
The big shadow that has clouded Frontale’s attack this season has been the continued absence of Leandro Damiao and Marcinho through injuries. The former not having started a league game yet and the latter hasn’t notched an assist nor a goal in his 7 league starts. Damiao did however make his long-awaited come back in the last game of the first half of the season and he made a lovely assist for Wakisaka to score the winner against Sanfrecce. This is the type of play that Frontale have missed this season and it may be an omen of a much better 2nd half with the Brazilian talisman’s return to the side.
In general, Frontale have also been unable to get the same consistent line-up on a game-to-game basis, further exacerbating their malaise. A lot of it is due to injuries but also silly suspensions from red cards as well as players like Kota Takai leaving for international fixtures when he’s been needed the most. Frontale’s numbers aren’t awful but they are middling across a variety of metrics which is a far cry from the dominant displays that have produced some eye-popping stats in the past few years.
This team needs and is already in the process of a re-build, both in personnel and in strategy. The big question is, will manager Tohru Oniki be the one on the bench in the coming years to see it through?
Consadole Sapporo (8th): 7 W / 5 D / 5 L
Location // Stadium: Sapporo // Sapporo Dome
Manager: Mischa Petrovic (Serbia/Austria)
Top goal scorer: Yuya Asano (8 goals)
Goalkeeper: Gu S.Y. & Takanori Sugeno
Consadole Sapporo: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
“Chaos Sapporo” under manager Mischa Petrovic has entered its 6th season and it’s business as usual with the team’s preference for very expansive, high transition football which has won lots of admirers but can leave them woefully open in defense. All too often a giant black hole appears between their midfield and defenders when the players in the former all push up to join the high press alongside their attackers…
With the way they attack, it’s not simple to just say “Oh, if they just worked on their defending more, they could be title-challengers!” as the way they defend lends itself to their attack (high intensity transitional game, a.k.a. chaos) so if they were to “improve” their defending besides simply being better in those individual duels in their man-marking scheme, then they would, by necessity, need to change the way they attack as well. Some of the ways this can done is by improving their current crop of defenders to win more of their duels or simply acquire better defenders (who also need to be good on the ball) but seeing as how the latter option is expensive, the only route I can imagine is those individual defenders getting better somehow.
With the fact that so many different players contribute in the final 3rd, Sapporo haven’t missed their top goal scorer from last season, Ryota Aoki, much at all (no seriously, he was their top goal scorer with 8 goals, I’m not lying!). Yuya Asano has been playing so well this season with his driving runs and goals that even the jokes about calling him up over his brother, Takuma, are veering into somewhat serious territory. On the other hand, Kim Gun-Hee has been a big disappointment but he’s still been better than the awful Milan Tucic who still manages to regularly make the bench somehow.
Another player that would be frustrated at not getting a national team call-up would be Takuro Kaneko, who in the past few seasons has always been one of the biggest dribbling threats in the league but he is now finally combining that with actual end-product as he’s notched 4 non-penalty goals and 5 assists so far (at the halfway point Kaneko has already matched his best single season record of 7 goals from the 2021 season). Of course, the problem with Sapporo is that if you’re able to stop him either by 1 vs. 1 duels or simply not letting him have the ball in open space in the first place then you’ve done quite a bit to nullify Sapporo’s attack as they have come to increasingly rely on attacking down the right with Tsuyoshi Ogashiwa in support. Ogashiwa has been in fine form after an injury-stricken 2022 season but unfortunately he’s gotten himself injured yet again…
Daihachi Okamura continues playing relatively well, holding off the opposition’s striker with his big frame. Okamura still isn’t at the level of someone like Hayato Araki but he’s a big reason why it’s usually hard to bully Sapporo’s back-line through long aerial balls. Shunta Tanaka continues to be a decent player on both sides of the ball, while Daiki Suga continues to bomb up-and-down the field and blast wild shots at every single glimpse of the goal he gets. Akito Fukumori slowly lost his place in the starting line-up at the tail end of last season but due to injuries and the sale of Tomoki Takamine, Fukumori has shown up in midfield more often this season. For all the plaudits Gu S.Y. received when he was previously at Sapporo, his form since his return has been… erratic and he has been sharing goalkeeper duties with veteran Takanori Sugeno.
It’s really not hard to imagine Sapporo finishing anywhere else than mid-table yet again as although their attack has become super-charged (halfway through the season they are only 8 goals behind the total scored from the entirety of last seaon), in their usual fashion their horrifically open defense counteracts that as they are also well on pace to concede even more than last season too. Whatever you think of Sapporo, they usually are a part of high-scoring games (like the 3-4 loss to Frontale, 5-4 win against Reysol) so from an entertainment point-of-view they are a must-watch for new J.League fans.
Kashima Antlers (7th): 8 W / 4 D / 5 L
Location // Stadium: Kashima // Kashima Soccer Stadium
Manager: Daiki Iwamasa
Top goal scorer: Yuma Suzuki (8 goals)
Goalkeeper: Tomoki Hayakawa
Kashima Antlers: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
It’s been a roller-coaster of a ride for manager Daiki Iwamasa where he looked very poised to become the first managerial casualty but has very much turned things around as the Ibaraki side burst up the table with 5 wins in a row rocketing the Ibaraki side into the top 4 after an awful 2 W 1 D 5 L start to the season. The Antler’s charge have stuttered a bit in recent weeks with 3 successive draws, before getting back to winning ways against Shonan right before the mid-season break, which has shifted them into mid-table.
Earlier on Kashima played with a 4-3-3 with Kei Chinen playing as a pseudo-winger on the Left as an extra target for long balls. From there it was up to the likes of Anzai and Tomoya Fujii to gallop up the sidelines to swing in a cross. However, slowly teams wised up to this tactic along with the fact that it left Yuma Suzuki with way too much responsibility to win the second or even first ball, make a dangerous pass, and take a shot… all at the same time!
Since then Iwamasa, to his credit, has changed things up a bit starting with the game against Albirex Niigata in late April. Yuki Kakita has finally been given a shot in the starting XI after many years away on loan. His strong presence up top has freed Yuma Suzuki quite a bit. The wide players have also changed too with Shintaro Nago and Hayato Nakama playing quite narrow, shuttling inside to help the double-pivot defend by keeping things compact between the lines.
This is why Tomoya Fujii, Yuta Matsumura, and Ryotaro Araki have been out of the line-up as they lack the necessary physical/positional qualities that are needed in this new-ish Kashima side, especially Fujii who mostly likes to start wide and keep wide.
When both Kaishu Sano and Yuta Higuchi are playing, Kashima can also form more of a 3 man midfield with Diego Pituca at the center that we saw in the beginning of the season when the need arises, which gives Antlers a bit more flexibility and can sometimes look like a diamond midfield as well if you include Nakama. Playing all three at once seems difficult but it’s recently been Yuta Higuchi shifted out wide to the left with Sano and Pituca shielding the defense with their fantastic ball-winning ability in the middle of the park.
Nonetheless, Kashima don’t do a whole lot in attack… they play a very “low-variance” game where they don’t take a whole lot of shots but also concede very little as well. In attack they are still very reliant on crosses and set-pieces with Yuta Higuchi tied with 4 assists alongside Yuma Suzuki, with Koki Anzai not far behind with 3. Kashima games don’t have a whole lot of excitement in them, unless it’s Yuma Suzuki shenanigans.
Looking at Kashima’s excellent defense, Ikuma Sekigawa has earned his place ahead of Gen Shoji next to Naomichi Ueda at Center Back. I was a bit worried about him going into this season but he’s grown in leaps and bounds now but there’s lots of areas for him to improve yet. Naomichi Ueda’s dueling ability in the air and on the ground make Kashima so hard to break down inside their own box even if teams are able to camp out in their defensive 3rd of the pitch, while his terrific long passing ability are the start of a lot of Kashima attacks as well.
A defender that has lost out recently is Keigo Tsunemoto, whose on-ball ability is seen as lacking despite his good defensive abilities and he’s been replaced by Rikuto Hirose at Right Back. Tomoki Hayakawa has kept his place between the sticks since coming in at the tail-end of last season ahead of the veteran Kwon S.T. and Yuya Oki. A nice steady set of hands and decent with his feet, he’s very clearly the established #1 in goal now. This Kashima defense, if you take out penalties from goals conceded, have conceded the least amount of goals in the entire league!
While a lot of credit can be given to Daiki Iwamasa for really tightening things up at the back, there are still a lot of improvements needed for Kashima fans to truly be happy with him staying on at the helm. There are always big expectations at Kashima and finishing below 5th would be their worst league result in over a decade!
Cerezo Osaka (6th): 9 W / 2 D / 6 L
Location // Stadium: Osaka // Yanmar Stadium
Manager: Akio Kogiku
Top goal scorer: Leo Ceara (5 goals plus 1 penalty)
Goalkeeper: Kim J.H.
Cerezo Osaka: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
It’s amazing that Shinji Kagawa is back in the J.League, what’s not amazing is Cerezo Osaka. While they’ve been in winning ways for the past month now, most of those games have all been against teams they should “expect” to beat (besides the lucky win against Kobe) and it hasn’t been completely dominant performances either. They are a weird team to try and judge as we can see from their expected goal difference chart, Cerezo have mostly played teams evenly but their wins have come from all sorts of good and bad performances (either below or over the diagonal line, respectively), at least when looking through the lens of xG.
While the Brazilian striker, Leo Ceara, took a bit of time to get used to his new surroundings, even outside of the goals he’s scored I think he’s been quite good. His strength with his back-to-goal and general hold-up play gives Cerezo’s midfielders the ability to face forward on the ball and progress the team up the pitch. The only real concern I have of him is that while he’s certainly being supplied the chances to take more shots in recent months, is the Brazilian striker making the right decisions to take them from good positions? Compared to other strikers in the league, his xG per shot is quite low.
Seiya Maikuma has probably been one of their most dangerous players as he constantly makes runs to receive whether as a Full Back or as a winger but most importantly, gets lots of shots for this very shot-shy Cerezo team. On the other hand, Jordy Croux hasn’t really played as much due to injury or Kogiku simply preferring Hirotaka Tameda and Maikuma on the wings. I’ve mentioned this about Hirotaka Tameda before but for all his weaknesses when he has the ball himself, he’s quite good defensively and his off-the-ball work through finding spaces and making runs is an asset to this team. A strength of Cerezo is the ability of these wide players (and Ryosuke Yamanaka) to play early curling crosses as the opponent is running back to their own box, before they have time to set up their defensive lines. Unfortunately, when they can’t create these type of situations the threat of Cerezo’s main attacking weapon decreases considerably against a well-prepared defensive block.
Tokuma Suzuki, Shinji Kagawa, Hiroaki Okuno, and Riki Harakawa should be a far more exciting midfield and I quite like each of them individually, but they aren’t amazing as a unit… Okuno’s smart runs do place him in dangerous positions while Kagawa seems to have become far more comfortable with playing from deeper positions. However, none of this really translates to any sort of consistent attacking flair that you’d expect, despite the occasional flashes of individual brilliance, especially from Kagawa, that I have highlighted in various diagrams in this section.
From a defensive stand point, Kagawa is as suspect as you might expect while Okuno is usually the one joining the front-line to press which can leave either Harakawa or Tokuma Suzuki with a lot of ground to cover if the press doesn’t fit against the opponent. Cerezo during Kogiku’s tenure has been based on a solid mid-block with a pressing scheme that fluidly changes depending on the opponent. When it works and Cerezo counter, they can be dangerous but obviously it can leave their defenders exposed if it doesn’t work.
Their defense ranges from mediocre to just about fine… I wouldn’t choose Koji Toriumi as the week-in-week-out partner to the very solid Matej Jonjic but it’s working OK for now and manager Akio Kogiku doesn’t feel the need to change things, which has left Ryuya Nishio on the bench. Ryosuke Yamanaka is there for his astoundingly good ball-striking ability but his defensive awareness continues to be poor in my opinion. Kim J.H. continues to be a good shot stopper who also has a good range of passing, even if the build-up play from Cerezo as a whole isn’t fantastic especially if Leo Ceara isn’t getting involved to settle the ball.
Cerezo are a boring but somewhat effective team that prefers to be rather conservative despite the attacking talent in the team. I do think they could do with being a bit more risk-taking as they simply don’t take a whole lot of shots. Cerezo have now dropped to 5th worst in the league with a paltry 10.47 shots per game, only slightly ahead of Yokohama FC! Even when they do take shots, on average they are of quite middling quality (0.087 xG per shot, 2nd worst in the league). Again, it’s still only Leo Ceara and Maikuma taking the majority of shots in this team.
I don’t think they are actually that great defensively to make up for their lack of attack either. Cerezo have managed to climb above mid-table by being very clinical on the meager chances they create and then just about holding on in games through the efforts of Jonjic and Kim J.H. While the purple/pink-half of Osaka are in the top 6 for now and in the race for a Champions League spot on the back of some good results, I really wouldn’t be surprised if they finished in mid-table either.
Sanfrecce Hiroshima (5th): 9 W / 2 D / 6 L
Location // Stadium: Hiroshima // Edion Stadium
Manager: Michael Skibbe (Germany)
Top goal scorer: Douglas Vieira (4 goals plus 2 penalties)
Goalkeeper: Keisuke Osako
Sanfrecce Hiroshima: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
After a slow start to the season it’s been all-or-nothing for Michael Skibbe’s Sanfrecce Hiroshima team as they have not drawn a single game since matchday 3! The German’s time at the helm has been typified by an intense press and a free-flowing set of attacking players. I’ve mentioned in past season reviews about Nassim Ben Khalifa and the striker’s role at Sanfrecce, which is one that is predicated on being very mobile and shifting out into the wide areas to make over/underlapping runs in support of the wing-backs. Neither Douglas Vieira nor Pieros Sotiriou have that nimble movement to help out in the rotating front 3 and that’s why they don’t start unless it’s against specific teams where their physical robustness in the box are needed from the 1st Half.
Makoto Mitsuta’s long-term injury has proven to be a big problem. His intensity in the press, even if misused as a wing-back for a large part of this season pre-injury, and the knack for scoring from difficult chances to break the deadlock in tight games alongside Morishima has been crucial in the past two seasons. Both Tsukasa Morishima and Takumu Kawamura have taken up a lot of the slack (with Ezequiel usually coming on in the 2nd Half against tiring legs in support) but Mitsuta has still been sorely missed. Takumu Kawamura makes a lot of runs from deep into the half-spaces to support the wing-backs in attack. His performances so far this season have finally earned him a well-deserved call-up to the national team… which was unfortunately cut short due to illness.
Both in attack and in defense, Sanfrecce’s wingbacks are the key component for how well they play. Being an outlet for the Center Backs in the build-up and also being the main providers for attackers to enter the final 3rd or box.
One big narrative about Sanfrecce this season is their expected goals (xG). It’s clear that Sanfrecce do accumulate a lot of this stat every game but it also needs to take into account that Sanfrecce simply take a lot of shots. A whopping volume of over 16 shots per game in fact, nearly 3 shots per game more than the next best team! The thing about xG totals is that it’s just a sum over a duration of 90 minutes. So if you take a lot of shots, of even mediocre to bad quality, then that can still add up to a “big” number, it’s just how addition works! So simply saying “our xG was very large number so yay” isn’t really seeing the whole picture. Of course, there have been more than enough times that Sanfrecce are indeed creating high quality shots as well and they haven’t converted those either. One aspect that should be noted though is that Sanfrecce seem to be fine with taking so many shots from everywhere because that creates opportunities for winning set-pieces, opportunities to counter-press, or create chaotic situations from deflections and blocks by the opponents to possibly create better quality chances.
This problem is highlighted when they go into “power-play” mode where they bring Douglas Vieira and/or Pieros Sotiriou on and cross the ball into the box a billion times, which isn’t a great way to consistently carve out quality chance. I wish the data I use had a bit more granularity in what kind of crosses teams are playing because high crosses for headers while being challenged by opponent defenders are much more difficult compared to something like cut-backs to open players in the box. Sanfrecce are a team that can do both, with so much of their attacks aiming to get into those deep “pockets” of space on the wide areas of the opponent’s box.
Their attacking output certainly shows that in the stats, I think people are just way too blinded by “xG big = good” when the reality is “xG big = good, but with caveats”!
Whatever your opinion about Sanfrecce’s attack, what we can all agree on is that the defense has been fantastic. Whether through their intense pressing or the veritable wall that is their back 3.
Even past all that, you then have to contend with Keisuke Osako, who has been in very good form and is now consistently picked for the national team. Sanfrecce as a team are really good at not just keeping down the volume of shots but also the quality of each shot as well!
Of course, this doesn’t mean they are invincible. There are different ways to breaking down Sanfrecce, one is to pull their double-pivot away from the center to find players in the gaps between the lines.
Another is to manipulate their back-line, pulling Sanfrecce’s wing-backs forward to create space behind them or pinning them back next to their back 3 with a high press. Once you’re past the wing-backs, then you can create gaps between the back 3 who have to move around quite a bit to cover the width of the pitch (compared to a back 4).
Of course, Skibbe is well aware of this and can change up how Sanfrecce defend to mitigate these issues. With five substitutes being the norm these days, the manager has used them quite wisely to refresh his team during the 2nd Half or simply just at half time, along with any tactical adjustments.
I’ve been worried about Sanfrecce’s squad depth in the past two seasons and even without their participation in this year’s Champions League (as Urawa get to re-enter as champions), their squad looks quite thin already with just Mitsuta and Shiotani’s injuries. With the latter’s injury, Jelani Sumiyoshi has finally been stepping up in the past few weeks to decent effect. In general, this is a part of the squad that I’ve been expecting an overhaul for quite some time and I was genuinely surprised that Sanfrecce opted to let Iyoha go on loan rather than get him into the 1st team mix but I suppose an entire year on loan at the J1 level makes sense after finally breaking out at the J2 level last season with Roasso Kumamoto.
In the next few seasons, we will really start to see a transition away from Shiotani and Sasaki so it’ll be interesting to see who wins out here. Osamu Henry Iyoha is slowly gaining minutes at the J1 level on loan at Kyoto Sanga while Sumiyoshi is gradually being used more now as mentioned previously, and there is also Taichi Yamasaki ready to rotate for Hayato Araki, play in midfield, or play as the Right-sided Center Back as well. As for the here and now, Sanfrecce have fallen behind the title race pack with inconsistent results in the past month but the tools are still there to make another mighty push in all competitions in the 2nd half of the season.
Urawa Reds (4th): 8 W / 5 D / 3 L
Location // Stadium: Urawa // Saitama Stadium
Manager: Maciej Skorza (Poland)
Top goal scorer: Shinzo Koroki (2 goals plus 1 penalty), Alex Scholz (1 goal plus 2 penalties)
Goalkeeper: Shusaku Nishikawa
Urawa Reds: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
Urawa Reds are not only Asian Champions League champions but they are also doing a decent job of climbing up the table after their continental exploits. Their rather belaboured “hangover” performance against Tosu immediately after the final aside, they’ve gone undefeated in league play after the final. However, what’s clear is the lack of potency up top as quite a few games this season have ended in disappointing 0-0 draws.
Like I mentioned in the quarterly review, compared to previous seasons Urawa have been more willing to play the ball long and mix it up from time-to-time directly into Shinzo Koroki, Jose Kante, or the wide players. Shinzo Koroki in particular has found a new lease of life back at Urawa after being deemed surplus to requirements under the previous manager. His dropping movements has been a life-line to Urawa’s build-up and at times he can single-handedly push the side forward past the half-way line.
Atsuki Ito and Ken Iwao remain the stalwarts in midfield. Iwao drops deep to help the Center Backs while Ito pushes up a bit to find gaps in midfield or to receive as the safe option inside from the Full Backs out wide. Atsuki Ito continuously showed his ferocity in midfield in league play as well as in the Asian Champions League. The game against Sanfrecce in late May also showed Ito’s attacking instincts as well with clever runs into the half-spaces and setting teammates up for a shot.
Still, I don’t particularly find Urawa to have great ideas in possession and a lot of their good chances come from being quick in transition. In possession there aren’t enough supporting runs alongside the ball-holder or there aren’t enough people in the box that are threatening because they peeled wide to receive the ball, or they are too far behind the play to help in time…
They can get players forward on the wings to threaten with the likes of Takuya Ogiwara, Takahiro Akimoto, and Hiroki Sakai being selected at Full Back due to their high mobility up-and-down the wings (and a reason why Ayumu Ohata hasn’t played as much this season). However, they’ve “spent” so many other players to get to that point that there aren’t enough numbers in the box or there aren’t any other support available so the ball-holder has to dribble against one or two defenders to get a cross off which is usually rebuffed easily. David Moberg would be best suited for breaking through in these situations with his dribbling ability but he has mostly been injured or just plain missing from squads this season.
There isn’t that 3rd man run in support to run into the open spaces created by the nearby defender getting sucked toward the Urawa player on the ball. All of this also ties in with the issues Urawa have up top as although Koroki and Yasui have made the front two positions their own in recent months, it still isn’t providing Urawa with a whole lot of firepower. Kaito Yasui has found new life under Skorza in recent months, playing as a #10 with his clever movement allowing him to create space for others to thrive rather than from any fantasista-like play, which has been both a positive and negative for Urawa. Yoshio Koizumi, who would ideally provide this kind of movement and creativity in the final 3rd hasn’t looked great this season and neither has Bryan Linssen up top nor the invisible Alex Schalk. As a result, a solid 35% chunk of Urawa’s goals have come from “dead-ball” situations (set-pieces or penalties). Some attacking reinforcements might be needed in the summer to shake things up especially as the likes of Junpei Hayakawa on the bench is still very raw while Kai Matsuzaki has completely fallen down the pecking order that he’s not even making the bench anymore.
![goal situations]()
On the flip side, Urawa’s defense is extremely solid on top of the fact that even if you do get past them, opponents have to contend with Shusaku Nishikawa who has been in sterling form these past few months. Overall, I think Urawa are one of the best defensively organized teams in the league. It’s hard to separate the contributions of Alex Scholz and Marius Hoibraten because of how well the defense moves as a unit and the amount of support every player from the front-to-back provides eachother.
After having already won a major trophy in the Asian Champions League, it’s weird to think that Maciej Skorza has only been in the job for about 6 months. There’s now a lot of excitement in the air as Urawa Reds slowly climb up the table, especially after an initial worrying start to the season.
Vissel Kobe (3rd): 10 W / 3 D / 3 L
Location // Stadium: Kobe // Noevir Stadium
Manager: Takayuki Yoshida
Top goal scorer: Yuya Osako (9 goals plus 2 penalties)
Goalkeeper: Daiya Maekawa
Vissel Kobe: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
Surprise, surprise, it’s Vissel Kobe leading the table after… Oops, I suppose I cursed Vissel Kobe by starting my write-up a few weeks ago as they have now dropped down to 3rd following some bad results in the past month, albeit with a game in hand due to the postponed game against Kawasaki Frontale.
For most of the season though, the “Rakuten Rovers” have definitely been good both defensively and offensively.
Despite the injury troubles they’ve had, the team as a whole defend extremely well as a unit. Their mid-block looks hard to bypass especially with Hotaru Yamaguchi and Mitsuki Saito being ball-winning machines, hoovering up loose and 2nd balls all around the pitch and tackling opponents with ferocity.
Haruya Ide has been another surprise as he fits in quite well with how Kobe want to play with his willingness to press, facilitating the “star” players in the team through his good positioning and support. He is symbolic of how different Kobe are this season in general, with players being preferred more for their team fit rather than their fame.
Without a certain Andres Iniesta in the team, Kobe can press quite high a lot more when needed as well.
With Tetsushi Yamakawa the latest defense casualty, this will probably mean Yuki Honda or Leo Osaki will be filling in at Center Back next to Matheus Thuler for quite a while with the young Yusei Ozaki possibly getting more league minutes. There might actually be some game time given to veteran Shohei Takahashi, who himself was drafted in due to Ryuho Kikuchi’s injury back in March. With a title on the line, I imagine that Kobe will be on the look out for another first team J1 level Center Back to slot in next to the Brazilian, with all due respect to the replacements mentioned in the previous sentence (well, I do like Leo Osaki but more in midfield like last season). Someone like Tomoya Inukai would make a lot of sense but the only problem is my doubts that Urawa would be willing to sell or loan to a direct title rival. A few weeks ago I also speculated on Maya Yoshida, who has been released from Schalke following their relegation. Both Ryo Hatsuse and Gotoku Sakai have been very good so far with the former improving a fair bit defensively. Unfortunately, the form of these two along with his own injury troubles has meant that Nanasei Iino has barely featured either as a Full Back or on the wing this season.
The thing is that Kobe are (still) very reliant on Yoshinori Muto and Yuya Osako staying fit, as the two former Japan internationals have been at the heart of the attack so far this season. Over a third of Kobe’s total goals have come from crosses as they have taken advantage of the superior aerial abilities and in-the-box movement available in their squad. Yuya Osako, as most people know by now, is still one of the best players when it comes to settling long balls in the air or passes on the ground with his back-to-goal and he is the platform on which most Vissel Kobe attacks are built upon.
A lot of last season’s relegation-threatened malaise showed how Lincoln (who’s come back from a uninspiring loan spell back in his home country) and Stefan Mugosa have just not matched their price-tags in the duo’s absences. With Andres Iniesta’s wages off the books now, perhaps there’s space for a few more reinforcements besides the obvious holes in defense. Despite recent stumbles and giving away late goals to snatch a draw or loss from the jaws of victory, I think this team is still quite good, despite a lot depending on the availability of Muto and Osako. In a season where not a whole lot of teams are so clearly dominant, this is a fantastic chance for Vissel Kobe to push for their first ever league title.
Nagoya Grampus (2nd): 10 W / 5 D / 2 L
Location // Stadium: Nagoya // Toyota Stadium
Manager: Kenta Hasegawa
Top goal scorer: Kasper Junker (9 goals)
Goalkeeper: Mitch Langerak
Nagoya Grampus: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
Kenta Hasegawa’s “second-season-in-charge magic” is working yet again as he usually takes his time in his first season to identify strengths and weaknesses of a squad before putting the pieces in place for a real concerted push up the table. This team is genuinely good, a lot of the concerns I had with the team in my Nagoya Grampus season preview do exist but the fact that things have clicked so well has meant that the good has overridden any of the meh or bad by a decent margin.
The Mateus, Junker, Nagai attacking trident has been quite fearsome for even the best J1 defenses, especially when the three are set along their way on fast transition moments in counterattacks or long balls. I’ve mentioned this previously but there really isn’t another striker in the league I want bearing down on goal 1v1 against the goalkeeper than Kasper Junker. Mateus finally has teammates who he can play off of and the burden is no longer on him to do everything in attack by himself anymore. Kensuke Nagai not only brings his bottomless energy but his underrated chance-creation skills are bearing fruit at Nagoya as well, he is tied with Morishita for a team-leading 4 assists.
A problem I’ve talked about with Nagoya in the past few seasons is how little they create and how extremely reliant they needed their attackers to be clinical in front of goal. While I still can’t shake the feeling that on the individual level they still are, from looking deeper at the data it’s quite clear that overall the team are simply doing a lot more in terms of chance creation compared to previous seasons. Nagoya are only 8th in the league in shots per game but 2nd in xG per shot and in total have accumulated chances worth 21.88 non-penalty xG which is 4th best in the league!
Takuji Yonemoto has been very good, he is usually the switch in transition by being the ball-winner in midfield and playing that first vertical pass up to set the front 3 going forward. Yuki Nogami has slotted in quite comfortably, especially when he’s not being forced to play Wing Back now that it’s usually Ryuji Izumi and Takuya Uchida playing on the opposite side of Ryoya Morishita. Morishita has been a huge asset to Nagoya and his lung-bursting runs to support the attacking trio have been vital in contributing to a greater chance of Nagoya’s rapid attacks succeeding.
Another aspect of Nagoya that helps out their goal-scoring issues is the fact that they are extremely well-drilled on set-pieces as with 7 goals, they are the league-leaders from these type of situations.
This team still lacks a lot of depth, I talked about their midfield issues last season in length and they’ve largely resolved that (well, Kazuki Nagasawa, Riku Yamada, and Takuya Shigehiro have all been injured quite a lot themselves so far this season…) but the gap between the 1st team and the bench across most positions is large. With Yuichi Maruyama’s medium-term injury, the usual back 3 will have to keep playing through the gruelling summer months without much back-up (might not nearly be a problem for Center Backs, but still!).
In attack Leonardo hasn’t impressed and neither has Noriyoshi Sakai. While Ryotaro Ishida and Ryoga Kida are promising, it still remains to be seen if they can make a consistent impact at this level just yet. In recent weeks Hidemasa Koda has gone on loan to Tokyo Verdy, could this be an opening for the return of Naoki Maeda whose European journey at Utrecht has been plagued by injuries?
While the defense is still rock solid, I think even manager Kenta Hasegawa knows that they spent a bit too much time defending than they would ideally like. Nagoya often start games by allowing the opposition the ball and it’s done in a controlled manner. However, as the game goes on the defending starts to look a lot more desperate and the clearances and long balls become more panicked, not creating the ideal counterattacking opportunities for the front 3 who are then also draining their energy levels defending rather than attacking. They’ll want to push their lines up a bit more and try to create transition opportunities from around the half-way line or further up so players don’t have to travel back-and-forth over long distances so often. Nagoya’s back 3 can step up and be very aggressive to help but they need to be careful as there’s lots of space left for the remaining teammates to cover if they don’t win the ball cleanly.
If Grampus could work on their possession a bit more to create some breathing room for themselves and to lure opponents up the field to create room for their quick direct attacks, I think Nagoya can be even better than they currently are.
Yokohama F. Marinos (1st): 11 W / 3 D / 3 L
Location // Stadium: Yokohama // Nissan Stadium
Manager: Kevin Muscat (Australia)
Top goal scorer: Anderson Lopes (12 goals plus 1 penalty)
Goalkeeper: Jun Ichimori
Yokohama F. Marinos: J.League So Far (March International Break Edition)
It’s weird to say that I think Marinos have significantly regressed compared to the last few seasons but here they are, sitting on top of the league table (albeit Kobe have a game in hand with a better goal difference). They still score a lot of goals (only one behind league leading Sapporo) and their goals conceded is… decent but the underlying performances by my eye and by the data leave me a bit skeptical.
Yan Mateus, after a tough initial months in the J.League in the latter half of last season, now has 3 goals and 3 assists in his 5 appearances in May solidifying his spot on the Right Wing. A lot of the attention has been on Right Wing but the veteran Elber on the opposite Left Wing continues to be a menace for defenders and with 5 goals and 6 assists already at the half-way point of the season, the Brazilian could be on his way to break his season best record. Ryo Miyaichi is also back and scored a (deflected) match-winner in injury time against Kashiwa Reysol on his return to propel Marinos into 1st place going into the June international break.
Anderson Lopes is the key man this season and it will be a huge worry if he gets injured. Even if Marinos could get away with playing Takuma Nishimura up top with Marcos Jr. behind him it just won’t have the same impact as Lopes’ brilliant hold-up play to relieve Marinos’ build-up problems as well as his decisiveness in front of goal at crucial turning points of games has powered his team into the lead for the title. The player thought to be the back-up this season, Asahi Uenaka has only made appearances in cup competitions so far. This has also seen the return of Kenyu Sugimoto to warm the bench.
It’s a real big shame Ryotaro Tsunoda got injured as he was building on from a promising 2022 season to become a starter in the team and even earning himself a national team call-up before having to withdraw. His versatility being able to deputise at both Full Back positions is also a loss. All the injuries to the Full Backs has meant that Katsuya Nagato is playing nearly every single minute on the Left while a bunch of different people have been rotating at Right Back like Riku Yamane, Takumi Kamijima, Yuki Saneto, and even Manato Yoshida. Ryuta Koike will still be out for another few months but Ken Matsubara has been back intermittently in the past month or so.
With the way Marinos play, their Full Backs like to invert into midfielders and it works quite well when they are able to keep possession cleanly and push into the opponent half. However, this season things have been a bit shaky which has resulted in the team getting caught mid-transition and the areas on the outside of the Center Backs have been penetrated by opponents more often.
Another big defensive problem has been their build-up with Shinnosuke Hatanaka and Eduardo at times looking business-as-usual but also at times extremely shaky. I think the ideas on where they want to pass are there but the execution has been lacking which makes it look like they’re doing a lot worse than they are. Still, Hatanaka in particular has had some very good games and he looks much more like his best self rather than the injury-filled 2022 season where he was woefully out of form.
Jun Ichimori has divided fan opinion. I do sympathize with Obi Powell, who started the season, did nothing too bad (but not necessarily excellent either), and then was chucked out of the starting line-up for Ichimori. Ichimori can certainly be erratic at times but he’s also very daring and clearly aligned with what Kevin Muscat wants from his goalkeepers.
One of the things that continue to interest me about Marinos is that they keep challenging themselves despite mistakes and try to figure out ways of building up and evading an opponent’s press throughout the match. Both Kota Watanabe and Takuya Kida are constantly moving and exploring different ways to combine to escape the opponent’s press. The Marinos players are problem solvers and despite many teams being able to successfully apply pressure on them at the start of games, a lot of times they are able to find their own solutions before any half-time instructions. Some good examples to name a few, are the games against Sanfrecce Hiroshima, FC Tokyo, and Cerezo Osaka.
The thing about Marinos is that they have lots of experienced, battle-hardened players from the previous five or so seasons that can become decisive match-winners even when things aren’t going their way. That’s been the real difference in a lot of tight games when Marinos haven’t been able to dominate as in previous seasons like against Vissel Kobe (which when looking back in a few months, might look it was the decisive game in the title race) and more recently FC Tokyo, Kashiwa Reysol, and Gamba Osaka. I genuinely think Marinos are not the best current team in J1 despite their league-topping position in the table. Nonetheless, they have the points on board already and these points won’t be going away so an actual improvement in their performances (not just the results) in the 2nd half of the season will have Marinos in a strong position to retain the title in 2023.
Data Visualizations
Squad Age Profiles
I changed the calculation of a squad's median age up a bit by simply taking into account only players that have played 50% of more of total possible league minutes. This is so when looking at the 'average' age of a team, we're doing a better job of considering players who are regulars in the team. I am not sure how other people might do it but from playing around with the raw data it looks OK, most teams have around 9~12 players that meet this threshold so I do think I'm capturing the right selection of players in any given team.
Anyway, here's the list of the U-23 players in the league with the most minutes played so far this season (filtered for those that have played more than 50% of total possible league minutes). You might want to keep an eye on these guys in the short-to-medium term. One of the simplest ways to judge a player’s quality is minutes played. It doesn’t matter how much talent you have or how much potential if, in the end, you don’t actually see minutes on the pitch to show it off!
Time Interval
Ideally I would use a 15 minute interval so I could get rid of that one weird section straddling both halves (40-50th minute) but this was the easiest data set I could get. What's noticeable from this data set is that the good teams generally know how to close out a game and don’t concede many goals in the last 10~20 minutes.
Scoring Situations
Ideally, I would have data that concerns all shots or xG accumulated from different match situations as that would mean a much larger sample of data to power any insights (as goals are only the end result and may not give us information about a team's actual performance).
Team Shot Quantity & Team Shot Quality
In the previous few sections we got to know a lot about the goals that J.League teams scored. However, in a sport like soccer/football goals are hard to come by, they might not really accurately represent a team’s actual ability or performance (even if ultimately, it's the end result that matters). To take things one step further I was able to gather data from Sporteria on shot quantity to dive a bit more into team performances. I’ve reversed the order of some of the stats in these next few plots so that in all cases the top right is best and bottom left is the worst teams when looking at their respective stats.
So, what exactly is expected goals (xG)? Expected goals is a statistic where a model assigns a probability (between 0 and 1) that a shot taken will result in a goal based on a variety of variables and is used for evaluating the quality of chances and predicting players’ and teams’ future performances. A xG model only looks at the variables up to the point that the player touches the ball for a shot. Post-shot xG models covers the information about where in the frame of the goal the shot went (“post” as in all the information after the player touches the ball for the shot) but I won’t cover that here.
For some quick primers on xG check the links below:
The following two sections use xG data from Football-Lab. I’m not privy to all of what goes into their model but the explanation page on their website (in Japanese) tells us about some of the information they used:
Distance from goal?
Angle from goal line?
Aerial duel?
Body part used?
Number of touches? (one touch, more than two touches, set plays, etc.)
Play situation? (Corner kick, direct/indirect free kick, open play, etc.)
So, the usual variables that you might recognize from other xG models are being considered. Combining shot quantity and shot quality numbers gives you a much better idea about a team’s performance on either side of the ball.
xG Difference
xG Difference is pretty much the same thing as Goal Difference except that we use xG and xGA rather than goals and goals against. This lets us see very quickly which teams generally outperformed their opponents in terms of quality of chances created to quality of chances conceded based on a xG model. This time around I also included the team's results inside the bubble points. So it's easier to see whether a team that had a positive xGD in a specific match couldn't manage to win the game or vice-versa. You ideally want to be below the diagonal line and winning (W) these games as well.
Five Match Rolling Averages
Goals vs. Goals Against
xG vs. xGA
xG vs. Goals
xGA vs. Goals Against
Summary
It’s certainly been another fun and unexpected J.League season so far! If Urawa win their game in hand against Shonan in late June then the title race really heats up, especially if Kobe stumble in their rescheduled game against Kawasaki Frontale. It’s genuinely nice having a title race that involves more than two teams for the first time in a while! We all thought Yokohama FC were just going to get relegated but they’ve defied the doubters by keeping themselves well and truly alive. Big disappointments have come from teams with lots of expectations heading into this season such as Kashima Antlers, Gamba Osaka, Kawasaki Frontale, and FC Tokyo but there is still plenty of time left to turn the tide.
I still see Yokohama FC getting relegated and then it’ll be Reysol, Kyoto, and Shonan to round up the foot of the table. I think both Gamba and Niigata will be fine with a decent enough buffer to finish away from the bottom 3~4 teams. The title race is too close to call with the battle-hardened Marinos, the “oh yeah, it’s all coming together” internet meme Vissel Kobe, and the super attacking trio powered Nagoya Grampus all in touching distance of eachother. It’s too close to call right now, especially with Urawa Reds and Sanfrecce Hiroshima hot on their heels but I’m just going to go with… Kobe? (remember, I suck at predictions so don’t place bets based on anything I say)
Through the lens of both stats and by my own two eyes, I summarized the progress of every J.League team in action so far this season. Shogun Soccer will now return back to its monthly tactical review format until the end of the season.
Thanks for reading!
Just want to say that you do fantastic work, this was a great read as always!