In a mid week match in week 9, on Wednesday Feb 23rd, Urawa Reds hosts Vissel Kobe in a meeting of these two closely matched J-League teams. The game day is forecasted to be a cloudy and cool day, with daytime temperatures of only 6 degrees, which will make playing unpleasant. Urawa Reds sits at 15th place in the tables. In their last match they recorded a 0-1 loss against Kyoto Sanga. Peter Utaka struck first for Kyoto Sanga in the 49th minute, and that was all the excitement the two teams could muster In the end, Urawa Reds was frustrated by Kyoto Sanga’s defence and couldn’t put any tallies on the board. Kyoto Sanga ended the match with the shutout victory. They’re hoping to improve on their recent performance, having lost 1 of their last 10, while in their last match, Vissel Kobe recorded a 0-2 loss against Nagoya Grampus. Sho Inagaki struck first for Nagoya Grampus in the 23rd minute, then Noriyoshi Sakai added another on an own goal in the 51st minute In the end, Vissel Kobe was frustrated by Nagoya Grampus’s defence and couldn’t put any tallies on the board. Nagoya Grampus ended the match with the shutout victory. They’re hoping to improve on their recent performance, having earned only 9 points in their last 10 matches.
These two teams have not yet played each other this season. Last season these teams were evenly matched with 1 win apiece.
Vissel Kobe’s most prolific scorer has been Yuya Osako. He has netted 3 goals over the last five matches. Urawa Reds is having problems scoring lately. Their top scorers, Tatsuya Tanaka and Atsuki Ito each only have 1 goal in their last 5.