With three games to go, the J League picture is becoming complete.
While alot of people are talking about a three team slog between defending champion Nagoya, perennial bridesmaid Gamba, and cheeky upstart Kashiwa, my attention has been firmly planted near the bottom.
Here's what we know-
1. Kashiwa, Gamba, Nagoya, Yokohama, Vegalta, Kashima, Sanfrecce, Shimizu, Jubilo, and Vissel can all take a deep breath. No matter how bad they play in the next three weeks, they will be guaranteed one more year of not going to Gifu.
2. Cerezo Osaka is virtually guaranteed the right to stay up by virtue of their 39 points and plus 32 goal differential over 16th place Kofu.
3. Kawasaki, Albirex, and Omiya have commanding 8 point leads going into the final 3 games. One of the three would have to lose at least two games and not win in any of them, while Kofu and Urawa run the table (Urawa could get 7 points and survive in this scenario). Omiya has the shakiest goal differential, leading Kofu by a big, but not impossible 11 goal advantage.
4. Avispa Fukuoka and Montedio Yamagata are already assured of not going to any of the aforementioned places mentioned in point one. They have sealed a one way ticket to J2.
5. Urawa and Kofu are kind of fucked at the moment.
Let me try and sort this out
A. Urawa has a big advantage in terms of goal differential and points. While Urawa is only 2 points ahead of Kofu at the moment, their goal differential virtually pushes them up an extra point. If Kofu hopes to advance past Urawa, they would need to make up 15 goals in 3 games. A tie between the two means Kofu goes down and Urawa survives.
B. Duty Calls- Mike Haavenar leaves the team for a couple of weeks to jaunt off to love Tajikstan and picturesque North Korea along with Genki Haraguchi. It puts a crimp in the training plans of messrs. Sakuma and Hori but it doesn't impact the games that much. What does impact the games is the U-23 games during week 32 and 33. Kofu loses sideback Yoshida, which hurts but is nothing compared to the triple bump of Haraguchi, Yamada, and Hamada for Urawa. I don't think Urawa will release Haraguchi but I'm not sure. Anyways, losing all three puts a real squeeze on the team.
C. Laying down the cards- Both teams have had their issues with bookings and the final three weeks sees no difference. The good news for Urawa is that they get Keita Suzuki back from his one game rest. The bad news is that starters Sergio Escuedero, Genki Haraguchi, and Matt Spiranovic all are sitting on three. Spiranovic is done for the season with his next yellow. Kofu is in similar straights. Paulinho will sit next week with 4 yellows and little used Tomoya Uchida sits on three......am I forgetting something?
Yes, leading scorer Mike Haavenar sits on seven cards and can make his plans for 2012 with his next card. He's finished with one more booking .
D. The schedule offers us nothing in terms of how the teams will fare. Urawa has the tougher slate on paper with games against ACL challenger Vegalta and Table topper Kashiwa Reysol sandwiching a tricky away jaunt to Avispa Fukuoka. Historically, Urawa has winning records against all three but dropped games earlier in the year to Vegalta and Kashiwa. Kofu has games against 9th place Jubilo and 14th place Omiya away, and a home matchup with 13th place Albirex Niigata. Kofu beat Niigata in Niigata but has losing reccords against all three squads historically.
E. Forward Thinking- Did you know that current Urawa forward selections Despotovic, Hara, Tanaka, and Escuedero combined have less goals than one Kofu forward? That's right, Yoshiro Abe has 4 goals, one more than the 4 gentlemen mentioned above. Kofu has thrived with a combination of Haavenar and Paulinho notching 27 goals this year. Urawa for their part has Genki Haraguchi's 9 goals and a bunch of other players pitching in 2 or 3 goals. Urawa gets most of their goals from a talented but disappointing collection of attacking mids, led by Kashiwagi and Marcio Richardes. The team still hasn't quite settled on a conductor and it's hurt the squad.
F. Looking back- Urawa has a definite edge with their back four and defense. The combination of Nagata and Spiranovic has been efficient all year. Nobuhiro Kato has been efficient in net for Urawa after disappointing performances from longtime netminder Yamagishi allowed the young keeper his chance to get the starting job. Kofu has been abysmal at the back, trailing only bottom side Avispa in goals allowed. There's been alot of problems in net with talented Kota Ogi dropping his job to journeyman Hiroki Aratani.
Both teams are being led by interim managers and both will probably be due for massive makeovers no matter how things shake out. As much as everyone wants to see them go down, I think Urawa holds on and survives. Kofu is a good place and has an excellent fanbase but I don't think they have enough in the back to survive.
