19:30 Nagoya Grampus v. Cerezo Osaka at Toyota Stadium – The Battle of Inconsistency!

Nagoya Grampus – MF Isomura is a long term injury absentee. Kennedy is NOT match fit!

Cerezo Osaka – MF Ogihara is away with the U-23 team in France. GK Kim and influential MF Kim are both with the Korean national Team!

Eight wins for Nagoya, four for Cerezo, and five draws, over 17 meetings in the last decade. All of Cerezo’s wins came pre-2006 and Nagoya have won four of the last five meetings between the teams.

As with the Gamba – Sagan match, this game is scheduled here to allow Nagoya to prepare for their Tuesday night ACL match. Nagoya Grampus (P11 W5 D2 L4 GD -1) are down in an unfamiliar 10th position after 11 games, although, if they win their game in hand those three points would take them into 7th. Nevertheless, it has been a difficult start to the campaign for a team that everyone expected to be challenging for the title this season. Of course, with a couple more wins under their belt they will be moving up and the confidence will return, so they must win games like this one. Having lost three of their last four games Grampus will be looking to get all the points in front of their fans.

Cerezo Osaka (P12 W4 D2 L6 GD 0) lost to Kashiwa Reysol last time out after going ahead and looking good to win it. Previously they let a lead slip in the final kick of the game to share points with S-Pulse, and lost at home to Vissel Kobe. Inconsistent, indeed! They’ll be missing Ogihara this week and Kiyotake also confirmed he will move to the Bundesliga after the Olympics, so the team will be weaker both mentally and physically today and I think we can EXPECT a WIN for NAGOYA GRAMPUS!