Gamba Osaka vs Kawasaki Frontale 01/08/20

01 August 2020

Gamba Osaka (2nd) welcome Kawasaki Frontale (1st) to the Panasonic Stadium Suita for a massive top-of-the-table J1 League clash this weekend.

The hosts have picked up five victories from their opening seven league fixtures (D1, L1), as they enter the round trailing Kawasaki by three points. Notably, five of those six results (wins/losses) have yielded a narrow one-goal margin, with four of them seeing the identical 2-1 scoreline. Yet, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto’s men come into this clash on a run of four consecutive wins and have also avoided defeat in three of their previous top-flight H2H meetings (W2, D1). Curiously, Gamba’s action usually sparks into life after the break, as 69.23% of their total J1 League goals scored/conceded so far arrived in the second half of play (9/13).

On the other hand, the visitors have been nothing short of outstanding this term, putting together six consecutive league wins following a goalless home draw with Sagan Tosu in the curtain-raiser. Impressively, Toru Oniki’s players have netted an average of 3.33 goals across those successes, with ten of their last 11 J1 League goals scored arriving after the break. However, it will be a daunting prospect for Kawasaki to maintain an unbeaten start to their league campaign, considering they’ve won only once in 15 top-flight trips to Gamba since the turn of the new millennium (D5, L9). Also, five of their last six league H2Hs held at this venue have featured under 1.5 first-half goals and less than 2.5 goals in total.