On May 18th, Yokohama F. Marinos and Urawa Reds will play a match in Saitama in a meeting of these two J-League teams. Weather on match day is looking like a cloudy and cool day, with daytime temperatures of only 15 degrees, a perfect day for football. 16th placed Urawa Reds is fresh off their 0-0 scoreless draw against Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Neither Urawa Reds nor Sanfrecce Hiroshima could manage to put one past the goalie. They had 14 and 17 shots on net respectively, but no one could score, and the match ended in a scoreless draw,. Urawa Reds is looking for direction having 2 win and 3 losses in their last 10 matches, while in their last match, Yokohama F. Marinos recorded a 4-1 win against Shonan Bellmare. Kota Mizunuma struck first for Yokohama F. Marinos in the 14th minute on a feed from Anderson Lopes, then Ryuta Koike added another in the 20th minute. With 20 points in their last 10 matches Yokohama F. Marinos should be reasonably happy with their performance.
This match will be the first time these two teams face eachother this season. Last season these teams were evenly matched with 1 win each.
Yokohama F. Marinos is fortunate enough to have Anderson Lopes in top form. In the last 5 matches the attacker has scored 4 goals. Urawa Reds is having problems scoring lately. Their top scorers, David Moberg Karlsson and Ataru Esaka each only have 1 goal in their last 5.