Chiba Ichihara managed to grab a point in midweek thanks to a 90th minute goal from Tsutomu Yonekura, which helped the team draw 1-1 with Yamaguchi Leifa as visitors.
Chiba will be worried about their inability to score in the first half, but on the other hand, they will be happy that players like Tsutomu Yonekura and others who came in as back-ups have been able to deliver a good performance. Midfielder Takeshi Taguchi is currently out with an injury, but Chiba still have Yusuke Kobayashi, who is a good player, and I expect him to control the team's attacking and defending rhythms in Taguchi's absence.
Iwata Yamaha ended the match with Tokyo Midorin in a scoreless draw on Wednesday, with only one win in their last five league matches. In fact, Iwata's performance was not bad in this trend, controlling the game for most of the time, but the frontline attackers failed to score many times.
Yuki Otsu has missed a few matches this season, while Keisuke Goto left the midweek league match against Tokyo Midorin with an injury, but Ryo Xie is back from injury and I think his strength will be the main threat to Iwata's offense this game.
