Machida Zevia suffered an unexpected 2-3 loss to Iwaki FC in Sunday's home matchup, but still holds a spot atop the J-League, as many as six points ahead of the second-place team.
However, even for the strong Machida Zevia, the difficulty of equalizing the score after falling behind by 3 goals is self-evident. They must be vigilant to avoid giving their opponents a free hand in their own penalty area.
Top scorer Alec, who has 18 goals this season, will be out with an injury, but there is still no shortage of attacking talent up front. My guess is that Australian international Michelle Durkee could be the biggest concern for this game.
Kofu Kazuhayashi stayed in the playoff contention loop with a 2-1 comeback win over Shuko Mito last week. The team's attacking duo worked well together and set the stage for the victory. Among them, I'm particularly optimistic about the performance of Motohi Hasegawa, who can play both in the middle and on the wing, creating scoring chances for his teammates as well as scoring on his own breakaway.
