If you haven't read my friend Ben Maxwell's overview of the 2012 relegation battle, click this link http://jtalkpodcast.blogspot.jp/2012/09/racefor37.html and then come back.
I don't need to get into the history of relegation so I'd rather take a look at some stats and figures.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
With 9 games left to play, there is a clear advantage on paper for one team.
Omiya has already gotten the top three out of the way with two dismal home losses against Sanfrecce and Vegalta and a shock road tie to Urawa. The aggregate strength of schedule for Omiya is a 10.3 (that is, if you made their schedule into one team, they would be in 10th). Omiya's highest placed opponent is Jubilo in the last home game of the season (4th). Over half of their opponents are in the bottom half of the table, including games against 17th place Albirex and 18th place Sapporo.
Gamba is at the other extreme with an agg-strength of 6.2. Only two of Gamba's final 9 opponents are in the bottom half of J1 with Kawasaki being the low man on the totem pole (12th). 5 of the top 6 table sitters await Gamba, including the top 4 and 6th place Kashiwa (last year's winner).
Cerezo sits at 7.7. Like Gamba, the other Osaka squad has games against the top 3. Cerezo does have one game against Omiya awaiting them after a tough stretch of games (Tosu, FC Tokyo, Urawa, Vegalta), but their schedule is not very forgiving.
Albirex has 5 of their last 9 against top half clubs and faces an agg-strength schedule of 9.3. Albirex has the big advantage of facing Consadole at home on the last game of the season (0 points in road games this season). The big game for their survival chances is going to be on the 20th of October, when they venture out to Saitama for a matchup against Omiya.
The one thing that links all 4 teams is a matchup against Shimizu. Depending on what kind of mood S-Pulse is in on a given day could be the x-factor in survival.
HOME/ROAD SCHEDULE
The schedule by itself is a decent indicator of how tough the final stretch will be for each of the 4 relegation battlers, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
Home and road schedules and records probably paint a more accurate picture of what each team has to face in the next 3 months.
For example, Albirex has 5 of their last 9 at home. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately for them, they have the worst home record in the J League (managing just 1 win and 8 points in 12 games). Omiya is the third worst road team in the J League and has 5 of their last 9 on the road (they sit 11th at home with 4 remaining home contests). Gamba (in a slightly misleading stat) sit in 17 place for road record and find themselves playing 6 of their last 9 on the road. Cerezo also has the home field "disadvantage" with 5 of their last 9 at home (they are 16th in the league in home record with a paltry 13 points).
It may be better to look at adjusted agg-strength schedule. Some of the teams don't change all that much. For example...Vegalta Sendai are 3rd best at home and on the road, so there is no huge difference in the quality of play. However, a team like Jubilo shows a distinct imbalance in teerms of form on the road versus home form. They lead the league in home record but sit in 12th on the road. If you have to face Jubilo, you'd much rather do it in your own building.
Here are the home and away tables
Jubilo 27 points plus 14 goal differential
Sagan 27 plus 11
Vegalta 23 plus 15
Sanfrecce 23 plus 8
Urawa 23 plus 7
Nagoya 22 plus 4
Yokohama 21 plus 5
Kashima 20 plus 11
Shimizu 20 plus 3
Vissel 17 plus 1
Omiya 17 minus 5
Gamba 16 plus 1
FC Tokyo 16
Kashiwa 16 minus 1
Kawasaki 15 minus 4
Cerezo 13 minus 2
Consadole 10 minus 13
Albirex 8 minus 11
And the road table
Sanfrecce 24 plus 13
Kashiwa 23 plus 10
Vegalta 23 plus 5
Urawa 22 plus 4
FC Tokyo 21
Kawasaki 19 plus 1
Nagoya 19 minus 1
Shimizu 18 minus 3
Albirex 17 minus 1
Cerezo 16 minus 2
Vissel 16 minus 7
Jubilo 14 plus 1
Yokohama 14 minus 2
Kashima 13 minus 9
Sagan 11 minus 3
Omiya 10 minus 14
Gamba 9 minus 5
Consadole 0 minus 31
Having no knowledge of statistical theory or modeling, I'm not completely sure how to extrapolate this information to schedule strength.
Based on home rank versus road rank, Cerezo actually sees their schedule rank get a little bit harder with a bump from 7.4 to 7.7. Gamba has a bit easier schedule with an agg-strength drop from 6.2 to 7.5. Albirex has a slightly harder rank with a point 3 raise to 9. Omiya benefits the most from the weighted ranking, seeing their agg-strength drop from 10.3 to 12.2. Part of this has to do with Jubilo and Kashima being weak on the road and Kashiwa being average at home.
Maybe the best way to judge the schedules is to put the teams head to head predictions
If everything goes according to plan (it won't) the final records for the teams would look like this
14th Omiya 10 wins 8 ties 16 losses 38 points
15th Cerezo 10 wins 6 ties 18 losses 36 points
16th Albirex 7 wins 8 ties 19 losses 29 points
17th Gamba 7 wins 7 ties 20 losses 28 points
Basically, I took out upsets or other variables and said hey Omiya has 17 points at home and Jubilo has 14 points on the road.....the most likely outcome according to this is Omiya winning. Not real scientific. Consadole is awful this year, but they managed to knock off both Vegalta and Nagoya at home so it's not a great predictor.
COUNTING CARDS
The team who is in the most trouble in terms of league discipline is Albirex. No fewer than 7 Albirex players are a card away from having a forced vacation. The one in the most trouble happens to be Michel, who is on number 7 after last night's booking.
Omiya has 2 players on 3 cards and one more (Carlinhos) on 6. They aren't in too much trouble yet but all three are central mids. Omiya is one bad ref away from Hayato Hashimoto and Yosuke Kataoka doing a 2007 reunion tour.
Ogihara is the biggest worry for Cerezo. He is one card away from a two game break. Finally Gamba have 5 players on 3 cards so one or more might miss a game.
Having written all of this, everything will look different after next week.
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