Daryl's Notebook: Quick thoughts from Urawa Reds vs Yokohama F. Marinos
Usually a top-of-the-table clash in the J1 League in previous seasons, but Urawa and Marinos have started the 2025 season with very different fortunes.
Whenever Urawa Red Diamonds and ️Yokohama F･Marinos played each other in previous seasons, it was always an occasion to look forward to since it would be a clash between two top J1 League teams and a promise of good football. However, considering the start that they both have since the 2025 season began, their first face-off of the 2025 season felt more like an opportunity to turn their fortunes around and finally kickstarted their season and a potential title charge, although it was still slightly early to make a judgement.
Maciej Skorża’s Urawa had a decent start to the season with 4 wins, 4 draws, and 3 losses after 11 matches, which put them at 11th on the league table. They retained the key players from their 2024 squad while also bolstered the squad with a couple of new foreign signings in centre-back Danilo Boza and winger Matheus Savio. With no added pressure from the AFC Champions League and a FIFA Club World Cup campaign to look forward to in the summer, Skorża and Urawa would definitely want to build some momentum in the league and get the squad ready to face the biggest teams in the world.
Meanwhile, Marinos were forced into another rebuild for the 2025 season as they wrapped up an underwhelming 2024. With Harry Kewell sacked less than seven months into the job, the club was forced to see out the season with interim manager John Hutchinson. While credits to Hutchinson for guiding the club to an 8th-placed finish and the top spot of the AFC Champions League Elite league phase, the club surprisingly decided against retaining him and appointed former England national team assistant coach Steve Holland as their manager and Patrick Kisnorbo as Holland’s assistant. Yet, 10 matches into the new season and Marinos found themselves in an even worse place as they sat 18th while Holland was relieved from his duties, leaving Kisnorbo as the interim manager for now.
And…we are caught up with both teams’ situation ahead of this match! So, let’s not waste any time and head into this highly anticipated clash, shall we?
Lineups
Coming off a narrow 2-1 win against Kyoto Sanga, Skorża opted to retain the lineup that won them all three points at home to welcome another opponent to the Saitama Stadium 2002. Their foreign centre-back duo (#3) Danilo Boza and captain (#5) Marius Høibråten, along with central midfielder (#11) Samuel Gustafson, formed the central core for Urawa. Instead of relying on a foreign striker to provide the goals, the host had (#13) Ryoma Watanabe and (#24) Yusuke Matsuo played up top and acted as the main threats in front of goal.
Meanwhile, the change of manager brought a slight change in how Marinos lined up against Urawa compared to Holland’s last match against Shimizu S-Pulse. The reintroduction of striker (#10) Anderson Lopes and veteran winger (#23) Ryo Miyaichi were the two noticeable changes for Kisnorbo’s team, although Miyaichi barely played in the match before being subbed for (#11) Yan Matheus due to a head injury very early into the game. Australian centre-back (#44) Thomas Deng was also favoured more often in recent matches over Colombian centre-back (#13) Jeison Quiñónes, who missed out due to an injury.
Marinos’ struggles
Quick analysis of Marinos’ previous matchdays
I actually have done a bit of quick analysis on Marinos’ struggles during Holland’s time with the club. While they did start the season not too bad, things started to go south for them after their 1-0 lost against Fagiano Okayama. Holland adopted a less risky, slightly defensive-minded playing style which included a decrease in pressing intensity. This is something that some of Marinos’ players would not be used to considering they were playing in a high-intensity system under Ange Postecoglou and Kevin Muscat previously. The fact that Marinos registered most of their ball recoveries within their own defensive third inside of the first half against Fagiano highlighted a significant shift in their playing style.
But the main factor that set them back under Holland was their inability to score goals. For the first few matches, their oppositions were slightly unfamiliar with Holland’s style, which allowed Marinos to grind out two draws against Shonan Bellmare (1-1) and Yokohama FC (0-0), and a narrow lost to Sanfrecce Hiroshima (1-0). But once the opposition figured their weaknesses and their style, things started to go south for Marinos and Holland, especially starting from round 4.
While their xG for experienced a slight decrease over the matchdays, it remained at a steady rate, but it was still lower than what you would have expected from Marinos. The main concern, however, was the sharp increase in their xG against, which was the one thing that Holland’s defensive-minded style was set up to prevent. Except for matchday 3, Marinos had a negative xG difference (their opposition’s xG was higher than theirs) for the remaining matchdays up to matchday 8. As such, a change was inevitable.
A new-ish Marinos against Urawa
Going off of Kisnorbo’s stints at Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory, it would be hard to imagine the Australian manager adopting a similar style of play to Holland’s. That could actually be good news for Marinos since they would be going back to a style that is closer to Ange’s or Muscat’s, though it would be hard to expect immediate results straight away due to the limited time that Kisnorbo had since taking charge.
But immediately, it was possible to notice that Marinos had adopted a more positive style of play against Urawa and it seemed like they approached the away trip with a plan. Starting from the build-up phase, the team moved away from a direct approach to prioritising short passes and looked to control the game. Going up against Urawa’s flat 4-4-2 mid-block, the away side attempted to create a diamond midfield shape by having (#28) Riku Yamane and (#14) Asahi Uenaka constantly attacking the half-spaces, while (#45) Jean Claude and (#10) Anderson Lopes occupying the central area.
In theory, this…sounded like a very solid plan and it should have worked out well for Marinos. But there was a decently-sized problem with this approach. While Lopes had the technical and physical ability to drop deep, receive the ball, and hold it for an oncoming teammate, he was not known for doing that throughout most of his time with Marinos. Lopes was most dangerous when he either found himself making runs in behind to pick up through balls, or being a presence inside of the final third who would show up at the right place to score.
With Lopes now operated deeper than he normally would, Marinos had to rely on the wingers to lead the line, and at one point during the match, that was their main way of getting the ball into the final third. Using runs in behind from (#11) Yan Matheus or (#9) Daiya Tono, either by sitting on the outside of Urawa’s full-back or running into the channel between the centre-back and the full-back, they would attempt to make long passes towards the winger or play through Urawa’s defensive lines to get the ball into the final third.
But Kisnorbo soon recognised that this approach would not work well for his team as they were unable to create too many dangerous chances towards Urawa’s goal, partly due to Urawa’s defensive discipline that prevented Marinos from creating anything meaningful, but we will get to that in a moment. They were limited to chances from outside of the box, or missed opportunities due to their players’ inability to get to the end of crosses. Up until right before half time, both teams were pretty much neck and neck, but Marinos just could not find the final passes inside the final third to send their attackers into good goal-scoring positions.
And a change came pretty soon, with Tono now shifted into Lopes’ position at the front tip of the diamond, which allowed Lopes to now be in between Urawa’s centre-backs and left-back (#2) Katsuya Nagato to push forward more often. Again, this approach sounded promising and it could have worked out for Marinos, but then…other problems came calling.
As the video showed, Marinos’ reliance on short passes might have hurt them more than benefitted them. On many occasions, their build-up shape was able to attract Urawa’s mid-block to one side of the pitch and opened up a lot of free space where Nagato constantly found himself in. But instead of making a risky long pass to immediately utilise that space, Marinos’ backline slowly moved the ball across to Nagato, which then allowed Urawa to move across at the same time and overloaded that space, ultimately killed off that advantage that Marinos should have made the most of.
The away side also struggled to play through the lines due to the players’ lack of understanding and a lot of misplaced passes. In theory, Marinos’ diamond midfield shape should have given them the ability to disrupt Urawa’s mid-block and move players out of their positions to create space. Uenaka’s constant presence in the right half-space did actually create space on multiple occasions as he dropped deep to receive the ball from the centre-backs. But their patient build-up did not make the most of those spaces while the defenders found themselves lacked of ideas to move the ball forward, which only gave Urawa an opportunity to press and squeeze Marinos back into their own defensive third for a possession turnover.
Marinos’ out of possession phase was pretty much a similar story. A promising approach, but their inability to execute the plan let them down on multiple occasions, especially their press. Their first mistake was using a 4-4-2 to press Urawa from inside the host’s defensive third. Even though the host also used the same shape to play out from the back, the positioning of their players made it a lot tougher for Marinos to press effectively.
With the involvement of goalkeeper (#1) Shūsaku Nishikawa while playing out from inside their own defensive third, Urawa’s centre-back pairing was able to stay a lot wider than they normally would. This meant that Marinos’ striker pairing would have to cover a lot of distance to close down Høibråten and Boza while also gave them a lot more time on the ball. And this was the case on many occasions throughout the match, where one of Marinos’ striker had to run a decent distance to reach Urawa’s ball-carrying centre-back. By the time he got there, either Høibråten or Boza had already passed the ball forward, leaving them unable to regroup in time.
Adding a midfielder to that equation and it made Marinos’ press even less efficient. Since either (#11) Samuel Gustafson or (#25) Kaito Yasui usually sat right behind Marinos’ strikers, either Lopes or Uenaka had to mark Urawa’s midfielder to prevent the host from playing through the middle. This solution, combined with the lack of aggression that Marinos’ strikers showed when they pressed, allowed Urawa to constantly move the ball either through their pressing lines or to the opposite side of the pitch, usually the former.
The counter-solution to this, which was pushing a midfielder up, also did not work out well. Skorża and Urawa quickly recognised that this was Marinos’ counter-solution, so they played out deeper to bait Marinos’ entire midfield line to move up, which then created space in behind for their attackers to operate in. From there, a long ball over the top of Marinos’ midfielders was enough to send Urawa’s attackers into a quick break attack and Marinos’ backline into vulnerable mode.
Overall, while Marinos and Kisnorbo’s approach to this match showed some promising signs, it felt like they were constantly one step behind Skorża and Urawa. With everything that the away side threw at Urawa, they always seemed to counter that very quickly and forced Kisnorbo to make changes almost immediately. It could also be due to the lack of time that Kisnorbo had to implement his style. After all, this was a significant shift from a more defensive-minded style that Steve Holland used.
But from here, it can go either way for Marinos and Kisnorbo. Can they fix the problems that they had against Urawa, and build on the stuff that looked promising? Or will they make the same mistakes over and over again, which will leave them in an unwanted relegation battle?
Urawa’s tactical win
If (#13) Ryoma Watanabe’s goal was left out of the equation, a goal that you might have seen it being shared across social media multiple times now due to (#33) Kosei Suwama’s unlucky clearance, Urawa was actually less dominant than xG suggested. But this match was one of the occasions where data did not highlight the full story. As mentioned above, Skorża and Urawa dominated tactically and were always one step ahead of Marinos. The only thing that let them down was the quality of the final passes to create better goal-scoring opportunities.
Not taking credits away from the goal scorers, but the three goals that Urawa scored came from a free-kick brilliance by (#8) Matheus Savio, a tap-in with a 99% chance of scoring from Watanabe (which, if he had missed it, would have made the situation even more popular on social media), and a header by Danilo Boza from a corner. Set-pieces are an important part of the modern game, yes, but open play is still the most important since it takes up the majority of game time, and is where most goals are still being scored from.
Urawa’s reliance on crosses when they did not have an attacker who was aerially dominant in the box was one of the main reasons why they did not create too many chances. Savio, Watanabe, (#77) Takurō Kaneko, and (#24) Yūsuke Matsuo were all good on the ball and had both the technical ability and pace to run at Marinos’ defence. This was also why their build-up approach, as described above, worked better than expected and gave Marinos a tough time to defend with their mid-block. But when either of the four dwelled on the ball for too long and allowed the away side to regroup back into a low-block, Urawa struggled because their attackers did not have the space to dribble or to make a shot that would not be blocked by a defender or a midfielder.
Other than that, however, Urawa had a great game and was more than deserved to win, no matter what the stats suggested. I hesitated to use the word ‘perfect’ here since there were a few smaller problems, but nothing is ever perfect and there are always rooms for improvement.
A key reason for Urawa’s win over Marinos was Samuel Gustafson’s dominance in midfield. The Swedish midfielder just oozed a sense of composure and complete control of the midfield, especially in the way that he played and controlled the space around him. This might be an unfair comparison due to both players’ quality, but it somewhat reminded me of Andrés Iniesta’s time with Vissel Kobe where the Spaniard just did things so effortlessly.
Gustafson constantly found himself sitting in behind Marinos’ striker duo, but his movement also attracted the attention of Uenaka and/or one of the midfielders, Claude or Yamane, which then opened up the space for other teammates to move into. It also opened up plenty of opportunity for the former Torino midfielder to receive the ball in between the lines and move it forward either by a through ball or a long pass over the top.
Saying that he was everywhere might feel like an understatement, but Gustafson was literally everywhere on the pitch. From dropping deep to help the centre-backs with playing out from the back, appearing in the middle third to attack Marinos’ backline, to showing up inside the final third and helping his teammates moving the ball to the opposite side of the pitch. A lot of Gustafson’s passes were sideway passes, yes, but some of them were used to find players on the opposite wing, who had plenty of space to work with and was available to progress Urawa’s attack.
In defence, Gustafson was a part of a discipline defence that stopped many of Marinos’ attack, especially when the host formed a mid-block. He was tasked with the responsibility of marking Uenaka and limiting Marinos’ #14’s half-space runs, which he did on multiple occasions. Even though he did get dragged out of his position during those occasions as well, Marinos’ inability to capitalise on the space that opened up behind Gustafson helped him get away with it.
His reading of the game was also crucial to help Urawa win the ball high up the pitch or inside the middle third, as shown in one of the situations in the video above. Instead of following Uenaka, Gustafson recognised that (#44) Thomas Deng was about to make a pass into the middle towards Lopes, who was dropping in to receive the ball, and intercepted it before it could get to the Brazilian striker. That occasion, along with a few others, helped created a counter-attack for Urawa and disrupted Marinos’ attacking momentum. If only the host were more clinical inside of the final third…
Wrapping up
I came into this match expecting to see a change in Marinos’ playing style after Holland left and Kisnorbo stepped up, and I did see that promising change. But I…stopped at the word ‘promising’ because Marinos still had a few big problems that they were not able to solve, even though they had control of the game. It seemed like Kisnorbo had a plan, but that plan needed to be cooked longer and with more time for the Aussie manager to figure things out. Considering Marinos are now in an even worse situation than when John Hutchinson stepped up to be the interim manager, I do not know how much time Kisnorbo will have to cook up that plan.
It definitely also did not help going up against an Urawa side who were well-oiled and understood Skorża’s plan thoroughly. The host were constantly staying one step ahead of Marinos, and they dominated tactically even though their effectiveness inside of the final third was still slightly questionable. The momentum that this win generates for Urawa will also help them shoot up the table and set them up in a decent position before leaving for the Club World Cup.
I will be covering more J.League now and then, which includes another long article that I am working on. But if you want more analysis about the J.League, I highly recommend checking out Ryo Nakagawara’s Shogun Soccer, where he does a better job than I do covering the top three tier of Japanese football!
