Yokohama F. Marinos will look to continue their winning start to the season when they face Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the J League. The defending champions won their first two matches and are sitting second in the league table. Sanfrecce Hiroshima have yet to win their first match and will be looking to create an upset in this match. We now look at stats from the last two matches and how these teams can play in the coming match.
How has the 2023 campaign started?
The home team have made a decent start to the season. They have scored two goals in both matches and average 1.63 xG per match. Yokohama’s defence leaked a goal in the first match and kept a clean sheet in the second match. The above xG map shows the 21 shot attempts in the last two matches. Yokohama F. Marinos have scored four goals with nine shots on target. Of the four goals, two have been scored from inside the six-yard box.
Sanfrecce Hiroshima began their campaign with a goalless draw and then suffered a defeat in their second match. The team has scored only one goal from 37 shot attempts (37.8% accuracy rate). They have a high average xG rate of 1.95 per match. Hiroshima saw most of their shots blocked by the opposition defence. They are an attacking side and will look to score more goals in this match.
Strategy in attack
The home team will look to create more threats from the left side in this match. The two visuals above also indicate the same. Yokohama F. Marinos averaged 470 passes per match and had an 82.7% accuracy rate. They delivered 29 crosses and had a decent success rate from the left side. By looking at the progressive pass chart we can observe that most of these passes have been made on the left side.
Yokohama F.Marinos created 55 positional attacks and attempted 13 shots from these attacks in the last two matches. They also created two counterattacks and attempted a shot.
Sanfrecce Hiroshima created 93 positional attacks and attempted 19 shots from these attacks. They created three counterattacks but failed to create any attack. Hiroshima players focused more on delivering crosses into the opposition penalty box. They averaged 22 crosses per match and had a 31.8% accuracy rate. The team had a high success rate on the right side. By looking at the progressive passes viz we can observe that the visitors can create attacks from both sides in this match. Overall the team passes the ball 468.5 passes per match and had an accuracy rate of 80.1%. It will be interesting to see which team retains possession in this match.
Betting analysis
As per the 1×2 betting odds, Yokohama F. Marinos are the favourites to win the match. They have betting odds of around 1.89 to win the match. Sanfrecce Hiroshima have winning odds of around 3.9. There are chances that Hiroshima might create an upset if they continue to attack in the same way. As for the over/under lines, the over lines are expected to thrive due to the attacking nature of both teams.
Yokohama F. Marinos are expected to win the match. They are the defending champions and will aim for back-to-back titles. Hiroshima, on the other hand, are looking for their first win and won’t allow their opposition to register an easy win.
Visuals via TFA data viz engine
