Two J2 matches where the role each team is forced into matters more than the table. At Kofu, Niigata have to carry the ball away from home, which is the setting where their defence has leaked all season, against a host who have not kept a clean sheet once. At Mitsuzawa, Yokohama FC will have the ball against an Akita block that rarely lets games get away from it. One match leans open at both ends, the other leans tight on the margin.
Kofu are bottom, sit deep in a back three with Naito alone up front, and score little. But they have conceded in all fourteen league games. Niigata are a counter-attacking side that wins at home with well under half the ball. Away from home it is a different team: one win in six, sixteen goals conceded. Here they will have to carry it.
Niigata's way in is the flank, with full-backs and wide players running at Kofu wing-backs who were drained by long spells of defending at Imabari, plus Shimabuku's set pieces. Losing Moraes, who went off injured in the last match, takes away their best ball-carrier, but Iuri scored off the bench in that game and the crossing routes stay open. Kofu's route is thinner: Naito, who has six of their eleven goals, and corners. They only need one, though, and Niigata's goal has been unsettled, with a 19-year-old conceding three in his first league start.
Both sides come in on two days' rest after hard games, so the second half should open up. That's why I expect Kofu and Niigata to score at both ends.
In Yokohama, the hosts are a possession side that scores plenty at home but struggles to get into the box against compact, duel-winning blocks: one goal from nineteen shots at Tokushima, and a home defeat to Oita in the same kind of game. They also keep conceding late. Akita let opponents have the ball but give up only about three shots on target a game, and every one of their away defeats this season has been by a single goal. Their set pieces scored twice at this ground against the same coach in April.
The likely picture is long Yokohama spells against a low Akita block, with Komazawa and Adailton coming on after the hour as the hosts' best way to pull clear. A narrow game is the most natural shape. That's why I'm siding with Blaublitz Akita to keep the margin close.
