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!

Gamba Osaka – DF Akira Kaji out for at least one month. MF Sasaki must be considered doubtful. DF Eduardo out with a broken leg, FW Kawanishi still out recovering from broken leg.

Sagan Tosu – MF Mizunuma is in France with the U23 team. MF Takahashi still out for another month.

This will be the first meeting between these two teams!

This match scheduled for Friday night to allow Gamba ample time to prepare for an expected ACL match the next Tuesday, but they did not qualify for the knockout stages, so now a Friday night inconvenience perhaps! Gamba Osaka (P11 W2 D3 L6 GD -9) have two draws in their last two matches but could really use some wins, being five points adrift of relegation safety already. Now that they are out of the ACL they can concentrate on rebuilding the team and consolidating their J1 position for next season.

Sagan Tosu (P4 D5 L3 GD +3) have not won in their last five games, losing last time out, and the four games before that all ended in draws. They are still unbeaten at home but are due for a loss away from home. Mizunuma will be a big loss for the away team, while Gamba Osaka are missing the experience of Kaji but it surely must be time to ease in a new right back, anyway, is Daiki Niwa that man? This must surely be the chance for Gamba’s new beginning and, if they don’t win this one, they will know that safety will get further away with over one third of the season gone. EXPECT a WIN for GAMBA OSAKA.