J.League 2023 Season Preview #1: Yokohama FC, Albirex Niigata, & Kyoto Sanga

Will Yokohama FC go straight back down? Can Albirex Niigata's 'Positional Play' principles unlock J1 defenses? Are changes at either end of the pitch enough for Kyoto Sanga to escape relegation?

Feb 01, 2023

Welcome to the first season preview newsletter for the 2023 J.League season! We’re starting from the J2 runner’s up (Yokohama FC) and then finishing off with last season’s J1 champions (Yokohama F. Marinos). I’ll be grouping teams up into 2 or 3 and sending newsletters out periodically as we get closer to the season opener on February 17th!

I’ll be covering a lot of topics for each team from transfers, tactics, my personal questions for the teams, and of course their league predictions (which may change as I finish writing more previews). Please don’t take my league predictions too seriously as although I do take a lot of time thinking about it, my performance last year should tell you how unreliable they (and just how weird the J.League) can be:

⚽️Ryo Nakagawara📊 @R_by_Ryo

My #JPred2022 🔴 J1 🇯🇵⚽️ 🏆 Kawasaki Frontale 🥈 Urawa Reds 🥉 Vissel Kobe 🎟 Kashima Antlers ⚖️ Sagan Tosu 😖 Jubilo Iwata 😫 Kashiwa Reysol

… good thing I’m not a betting man, eh?

Anyway,

Let’s get started!

Yokohama FC

Last Season (J2 2nd Place)

Yokohama FC had a tremendously good start to the 2022 season where they went undefeated until matchday 14 but a bit of a mid-season bobble let other clubs back into the title race. In the end, two 2-3 defeats against Oita Trinita and Zweigen Kanazawa meant they surrendered the title over to Albirex Niigata, but nevertheless finished the season very comfortably in 2nd place.

Transfers

Winter Transfers: Yokohama FC (published on January 7)

Courtesy of Transfermarkt (also my goodness, this screenshot takes up a lot of space…)

Just from a glance, I don't think there's been any new transfers in either direction since I wrote about Yokohama FC a few weeks ago...

Squad Composition

Official squad announcement (January 6th)

Just note that Yokohama FC have a huge squad and they included a lot of youth players in their official squad. Most of them won’t be acting as actual depth in the positions I’ve placed them in so do keep that in mind.

3-4-2-1

The usual formation. I imagine the back-line will remain similar to last season just with Iwatake or Gabriel probably shifting over to the Left (Nduka might play there too) while in goal it's obviously Svend Brodersen.

3-5-2 (inverted triangle)

Secondary formation. Hasegawa is deeper here to find pockets of space on the Left as an outlet for passes from the back-line. With how Hasegawa might be positioned though, it's really not much of a change from their primary shape above.

4-4-2

They don't usually shape up in this way to start off, it's usually just how Yokohama appear when they are on the defensive. Takumi Nakamura, for those who remember his time at FC Tokyo, is a natural Right Back so you can imagine how the other players shift around.

Playstyle

Fairly Cautious, Conservative, Long Balls to Strikers

Yokohama FC fall back into their lines in own half rather than press high (although they did this quite a lot early last season but damped it down in later games). Despite this, their defense really isn't all that great as Svend Brodersen is still called on a lot to make quality saves that you'd hope the team would prevent from happening in the first place. Still, Katsuya Iwatake and Gabriel (best defender in the air on the team) do a lot of defensive work but the loss of Kamekawa to Avispa is pretty big.

In possession they pass it around the back line, with Iwatake and Takumi Nakamura in particular the ones trying to progress the ball forward. Brodersen is not that great at passing, especially compared to the goalkeeper for the other promoted team, Albirex's Kojima.

Midfield veteran Takuya Wada will drop deeper, trying to form passing triangles with the wingback and wide attacker, similar to what he did for Marinos (and there were times where he actually was cover for Left Back if I recall). Last season he was played a lot as the Left Center Back until he moved back to his regular Center Midfield position in the latter stages of the season.

Yokohama FC's attack/ball progression were slanted toward the Right side as they had a very attacking Right Wing Back in Zain Issaka who was basically acting as a winger. Behind him the Right Center Back, Takumi Nakamura or Iwatake would shuffle over into more of a conventional Right Back to cover for him. Issaka was a dribble threat while Nakamura was more of a passer so there was good chemistry there. However, as I talked about in the transfer newsletter, Issaka left the team in the off-season. Yokohama FC might keep this Right-sided slant by playing the new Brazilian winger, Caprini, there or it'll just simply be Kondo and Yamashita who covered for Issaka last season.

Now, the thing about Yokohama FC is that they rely on being very efficient in the relatively fewer number of attacks they spring and in the 2022 season they heavily relied on Koki Ogawa's immense finishing output throughout the season, scoring 26 goals off of "only" 16.6 xG. Of course, 16 xG is still quite good, it shows he is getting on the end of good chances. When you watch a video of all his goals last season:

… you really get a good sense for his good in/out-of-the-box movement to get on the end of crosses and passes, heading ability, and running onto balls over the defense. On the other hand, it's also very clear that his primary role is as a finisher, Ogawa doesn't create a lot for others by himself (besides the odd pass there and shot rebounds). Against harder opposition in J1 and a high likelihood that his finishing over-performance decreases, I believe it's going to be hard for him to replicate that 26 goal haul. If Koki Ogawa can squeeze out… let’s say, 10 goals that would be very good season for him (whether that contributes to Yokohama FC's survival is a different matter as we saw with 2022 J1 top goal scorer Thiago Santana going down with S-Pulse last season).

Other threats are Marcelo Ryan, who is extremely fast while Saulo Mineiro is still out with a long term injury. Yokohama FC were the most efficient team in J2 in 2022 at getting shots from “long counter” type of attacks according to Football-Lab. If they can't find a midfielder in possession, they can always play it long centrally to their striker(s)... which is something the team couldn't do back when they were in J1 in 2021 since they had the likes of Kleber, Felipe Vizeu, Kazuma Watanabe, and Ryo Germain in attack... Winning aerial battles has been key for Yokohama FC to keep the ball when going long but it also is a part of how they are able to get a lot of shots off from set-pieces as well and as a result over 20% of their goals in 2022 came from set piece situations.

The main chance creator in the team is Tatsuya Hasegawa, a player whom I was surprised to see choose to drop down to J2 a few years ago but he's really shown his stuff. I remember he was a good player for Kawasaki Frontale a few years ago but a certain university graduate named Kaoru Mitoma (You might have heard of him? Did you know he wrote his college thesis on dribbling?? Did you??? As you can tell I’m quite tired of hearing about that) took over his position and relegated him to the bench for 2 full seasons. Watch out for his pinpoint crossing and incisive passing in the final 3rd.

Defensively, Yokohama FC shift to a 4-4-2 // 5-3-2 // 5-2-3 dependent on the opposition. Gabriel is the key player in the back-line as he's the guy winning aerial duels and stopping counters. From what I remember of their last season in J1, I distinctly remember the Brazilian as one of their few good defenders so it's nice to see he has a better cast to help him out this time around. As mentioned above Svend Brodersen is in goal and his saves have rescued Yokohama FC countless times over the past 2 years.

Storylines & Prediction

Main Questions

Can Koki Ogawa keep up his finishing streak against J1 level opposition?
In tandem, can Yokohama FC as a team continue to funnel their passes to Ogawa against J1 level opposition?
Are the new signings in attack enough of an improvement to provide other non-Ogawa/Hasegawa avenues of threat?
Can this defense hold up against J1 teams? Or will Brodersen be called upon the make big saves to keep them in games again?
Who will fill the Right Wing Back/Wide Midfielder role left by Zain Issaka? Will it be Yamashita/Kondo rotating like last season or will one of the new attackers like Caprini be converted there?

Predicted League Finish:

~~Top 3: 1st~3rd~~
~~Upper mid-table: 4th~7th~~
~~Mid-table: 8th~11th~~
~~Lower mid-table: 12th~15th~~
Relegation Strugglers: (16th) t.b.a., (17th) t.b.a, (18th) Yokohama F.C.

Relegation Strugglers (16th~18th): For me, it's hard to tell what exactly is going to happen as although I wasn't totally impressed with them last season, they've brought in so many different players that it's almost a completely different team. I still see them going straight back down based on the overall quality of their squad (despite it being better/younger than their 2021 squad) but again, so much depends on how their winter reinforcements and/or Koki Ogawa fares (predictions, they’re hard!).

Albirex Niigata

Last Season (J2 Champions)

Building upon the foundations of Albert Puig (presently of FC Tokyo), Rikizo Matsuhashi led the team to the top of J2 and automatic promotion back to J1 for the first time since 2017. Following a slow start in 2022, they improved to fight in a tight title race with Yokohama FC before winning out in the end to finish as league champions.

Transfers

Winter transfers: Albirex Niigata (published on January 7th)

Since my winter transfers post, two new Brazilians have joined Niigata to fill out the attacking positions quite nicely. Danilo Gomes will likely start out on the Left Wing as Ryotaro Ito will continue filling in as the #10 while Yoshiaki Takagi is still out injured for another few months. Gustavo Nescau will provide competition to Kaito Taniguchi and veteran Suzuki up top. Unlike many other teams they didn’t add new youth/university/high school graduates into their 1st team.

Squad Composition

Official squad announcement (January 12th)

4-2-3-1

They didn't lose a whole lot of players and won't need to change much of their formula from the past few seasons. Do note that the players are very positionally fluid with Takahiro Ko as the fixed point in the middle so it may appear more like a 4-1-4-1 and other variations at times.

Playstyle

Dominate the ball, control the game, constantly look for pockets of space

The first thing you'll notice about Albirex is that they love the ball. Whether it's in their own half or in the opponent half they want to keep passing it around, even their goalkeeper, Ryosuke Kojima is very comfortable on the ball. However, this isn't just for the sake of passing it and it's why I specifically put 'dominate the ball' and 'control the game' as separate items above.

Of course, Albirex prefer to hem opponents in and establish possession in the opponent half because even if they lose the ball they can counter-press and transition immediately back into attack. They were the most efficient J2 team at gaining shots from short counters last season (Football-Lab). The way Albirex move the ball is to compress opponents into a particular space, which then leaves other areas open, where there is always a Niigata player stationed ready to take advantage.

A common pattern you see Albirex take is Inside-Outside-Inside: Albirex keep the ball centrally between the goalkeeper, Center Backs, and Takahiro Ko, which attracts the opponent to compress their shape into the middle of the pitch, then Niigata quickly hit it to the wingers who have kept the width. The wide players can then challenge opponent defenders in acres of space before cutting it back inside or crossing it once they have dribbled into the final 3rd. Shunsuke Mito is particularly dangerous on the dribble while Eitaro Matsuda is a very good crosser of the ball.

In attack the players all move around fluidly, strikers drop back (especially Kaito Taniguchi) and wingers come inside or one of the central midfielders pushes up from deep. A key player is Ryotaro Ito playing both as a winger and a #10. He likes to swap positions with Yoshiaki Takagi, coming deeper inside as a #8 and turning to dribble up the field once he receives the ball.

The Wingers stay high and wide to receive ball in space after the opponent is pulled inside as they seek to disrupt Albirex's midfielders/Center Backs passing the ball around in central areas. Yuto Horigome at Left Back is one of their most creative players with overlapping movements, coming inside to rotate with other players, and taking up positions between the lines.

The one constant throughout this is Takahiro Ko, who usually stays fairly deep and central. As well as his ability to get the ball to the midfield and attack he is also tasked with a lot of of defensive work, sweeping up in front of the high-line of Center Backs. Ko is extremely important to how Albirex Niigata function so I expect trouble if he's injured or suspended. Either Hoshi or Shimada will take on the role if he is absent but neither can really do what Ko does perfectly.

When none of that works, they can rely on set-pieces as well as they have a variety of good set-piece takers.

A lot of Niigata's defending was done by simply keeping the ball for themselves. They didn't spend a whole lot of time last season having to defend their own box but this is quite likely to change against J1 opposition next season so will be interesting how their defense copes under a lot more sustained threat. They were one of the best teams defensively in terms of both shots quantity and shot quality conceded (Football-Lab).

Another concern is that both their starting CBs are close to or over mid-30s in Michael Fitzgerald and Kazuhiko Chiba, with Hayakawa and Tagami as '…slightly younger' back ups. However, Thomas Deng started most of the last 10 games of the season once he got back from injury (and the games he subsequently missed were because he was with the Australia national team squad preparing for the World Cup) so it's quite likely we'll see Deng partnered up with Chiba as there were times last season where Fitzgerald looked rather shaky. With both Fujiwara (converted from a Central Midfielder) and Horigome being quite attacking, there is quite a lot of space for the Center Backs to cover.

Storylines & Prediction

Main Questions

With Ryotaro Ito filling in for Takagi on a slightly more regular basis, how will he fare against J1 level opposition?
Can the new Brazilian signings (Gomes and Nescau) give Albirex a bit more quality/variation to their already good attack?
How will Niigata's build-up cope with the intensity/intelligence of J1 pressing schemes? Will their positional play principles break down tougher J1 low blocks?
Can Niigata’s relatively untested defense from last season cope with J1 attackers and just generally being forced to defend in their own half for longer duration in games?
How will they cope when Takahiro Ko is suspended or injured?

Predicted League Finish

~~Top 3: 1st~3rd~~
~~Upper mid-table: 4th~7th~~
~~Mid-table: 8th~11th~~
Lower mid-table: (12th) t.b.a., (13th) Albirex Niigata, (14th) t.b.a., (15th) t.b.a.
~~Relegation Strugglers: (16th) t.b.a., (17th) t.b.a, (18th) Yokohama F.C.~~

Lower mid-table (12th-15th): I imagine Albirex Niigata will be in a relegation fight at various points during the season but for me it's more about there being quite a few teams that are worse in my eyes than predicting that Niigata will necessarily be great. If things click and their positional play works against J1 teams than I see them closer to mid-table (8th-11th). Rikizo Matsuhashi has steadily climbed up the coach/managerial ladder in the past 20 years, having moved up the coaching ranks at Marinos and then reaching 1st team coach under both Ange Postecoglou at Marinos and under Albert Puig but this will be his biggest challenge yet at the top stage in Japan.

Kyoto Sanga

Last Season (2022: 16th Place)

J.League 2022 Season Review: Kyoto Sanga

Kyoto Sanga came back up to J1 after finishing 2nd in the 2021 J2 season. They started the season in terrific form as Peter Utaka caused havoc and scored 8 goals by early May. However, Utaka and Kyoto ran out of steam and they just barely made it over the finishing line. Dragging out opponents to 1 Win, 3 draws and 1 loss in the last 5 matches of the season allowed them to contest a heavily J1 tilted promotion/relegation contest against Roasso Kumamoto in which they were also just about able to hang on for a 1-1 draw to stay in J1.

Transfers

Winter transfers: Kyoto Sanga (Published on Dec. 26, 2022)

According to Kyoto's official squad announcement (January 8th) it looks like Quenten Martinus and Mendes have been let go. Ismaila on the other hand didn’t appear in that announcement but his contract extension was announced on February 1st, on the day this newsletter is being set out. Warner Hahn has come in to provide a veteran presence in goal after last season's hero, Naoto Kamifukumoto, left for Frontale.

Squad Composition

Official squad announcement (January 8th)

4-3-3

The usual set-up.

In goal, new signing Warner Hahn will fight it out against Wakahara and Woud.

While Kyo Sato has shown glimpses of promise, Yuto Misao is a more experienced player and I imagine he'll be the one to fill in the Ogiwara-shaped hole at Left Back. Originally, I thought Misao was brought in so Kyoto could play a back 3~5 but it seems like he'll be pushed out wide if pre-season reports are correct. At the heart of the defense, Shogo Asada and Rikito Inoue will continue to start while Henry Iyoha, who impressed at Kumamoto in J2 last season, is an able back-up who might even snatch a starting place.

The midfield is the only area that will be relatively consistent with Sota Kawasaki, Shouhei Takeda, and Shimpei Fukuoka likely to continue as the midfield three. However, eyes will be on Teppei Yachida who returns after a good season for Tochigi SC down in J2, we could see him put up a good fight for one of the midfield spots during the season. Taiki Hirato and Alan Carius, who wasn't able to fully acclimatize after arriving last summer from Brazil, will also hope to break into the midfield engine room. If not, the versatile Temma Matsuda might be asked to fill in deeper like he did at various points last season.

Up front is where it's really congested with Kosuke Kinoshita, Patric, and Kazunari Ichimi all joining Sanga in the off-season. The 3 strikers are somewhat similar but have their own unique qualities that they bring to the table as Sanga hope to distribute Peter Utaka's all-round offensive output to be more evenly spread out across the team. I simply have Kinoshita as the starter because he scored the most goals out of the three last season (albeit in J2, etc.), not really any other reason in particular.

Yudai Kimura is technically (Y) but he was already in the first team last season.

3-5-2

Back 3~5 was used quite a few times last season. Coverage out wide is all down to the hard work of the wing-backs.

Playstyle

Quick transitions & boisterously physical

A defining characteristic about Kyoto Sanga are their very quick transitions, especially when going from attack-to-defense as their counter-press is very sharp. They are also an extremely physical team that is compact and plays with a high line. Despite them being a good counter-pressing side, their more structured high press against the opposition's build-up phase leaves a bit to be desired. In the beginning of last season this was mainly due to Peter Utaka conserving his energy which meant that other players had to make up the running for him. This only served to leave gaps behind as Kyoto players were starting their press too far from their intended targets and opponents could pass through them easily.

From deeper in midfield, Sota Kawasaki puts in a lot of work defensively and also being the starting point of attacks once he's won the ball. You can view other scenes in last season’s review.

A sight you'll often see is Right Back/Right Wing Back Kosuke Shirai making lung-bursting runs down the right and crossing.

Kyoto's attacks are all about making quick decisions in transition to blow past opponent defenses before they can get set but a problem is that they don't have other avenues of chance creation which can lead them to be awfully simplistic in their attacking patterns (a lot of high crosses) if teams simply let them have the ball. This Kyoto team aren't very good in possession and they can be quite wasteful on the ball. Constantly losing the ball meant they were having to do a lot of work to get it back to the point that they were not able to settle and rest, which led to players getting exhausted quickly. No matter how physically fit a team is, there are limits and Kyoto seemed to have gone way past their limit by summer’s end. Teams in J1 are also far more press-resistant compared to the J2 teams Kyoto played against in 2021 which did mean that Kyoto were simply expending more energy in getting the ball back than what was once the norm for them. They are by nature a very active and busy team, so Kyoto's strengths became their main weakness.

A team that Kyoto Sanga should look to emulate if they want to improve their current way of playing is Shonan Bellmare (ironically, since they were Kyoto manager Cho Kwi-jae's previous team) as they are a compact, physical, pressing unit that look much more coherent and are relatively more successful (and of course, Shonan's players are much more used to the J1 standard by now).

Kyoto could also change their shape more permanently to a kind of 4-4-2ish shape, with Ryogo Yamasaki up top and Yuta Toyokawa coming inside next to him when defending that they used late last season.

Storylines & Prediction

Main Questions

A new group of strikers have come in to replace Peter Utaka. Can at least one of these guys get the goals that Kyoto sorely need? Not just goals but general creativity and holding the ball up too? On paper, they should all be an upgrade on Ryogo Yamasaki…
Who will replace Kamifukumoto? Tomoya Wakahara was decent in Kyoto's promotion season… or maybe it’ll be Warner Hahn?
Can they work out a way to press more effectively and not completely exhaust themselves before the end of the game while doing so? Can Kyoto find a way to keep the ball longer whether it's in their own half or the opponent's to give themselves some breathing space?

Predicted League Finish

~~Top 3: 1st~3rd~~
~~Upper mid-table: 4th~7th~~
~~Mid-table: 8th~11th~~
~~Lower mid-table: (12th) t.b.a., (13th) Albirex Niigata, (14th) t.b.a., (15th) t.b.a.~~
Relegation Strugglers: (16th) t.b.a., (17th) Kyoto Sanga, (18th) Yokohama F.C.

Relegation Strugglers (16th~18th): Kyoto were one-shot-off-the-bar away from relegation a few months ago. In the off-season there have been big changes at either end of the field with the departures of Peter Utaka and Naoto Kamifukumoto. Can the new faces at either end of the pitch contribute enough? I am imagining that it's going to be another difficult year for them.