The round of 16 (4th round) fixtures are being held in the 95th Emperor’s Cup All Japan Football Championship on Wednesday 11, Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November. Top tier J1 Clubs such as Urawa Reds, Gamba Osaka, F.C.Tokyo and Kashiwa Reysol, who were exempted by J.League from playing the first few rounds, are making the first appearance.

The lone J3 clubs advanced to the round of 16, FC Machida Zelvia (Tokyo) are now challenging Urawa. Machida have shown their solid defence as they allowed only two goals in the last seven matches in the Meiji Yasuda J3 League including six consecutive wins where they held their opponents goalless.

According to their coach SOMA Naoki, their characteristics are "defensive bloc mainly focusing on protecting the middle and quick transition between offence and defence". Led by defenders MASUDA Shigeto and FUKATSU Kota, they put away most of the cross balls opponents feed from the sides. Their game plan for the match against Urawa should again start with their defence and look for their attacking opportunities.

On the other hand, Urawa have been somewhat stagnant in recent matches with two wins, one loss and two draws in the last five. To make matters worse, they will have to match up against Machida without NISHIKAWA Shusaku, MAKINO Tomoaki and KASHIWAGI Yosuke who all are away with SAMURAI BLUE (Japan National Team). It is worth paying attention to how they reshape their squad to score goals without core players on both ends of the pitch.

The match-up that entertained the crowd the most at the tournament draw was Kawasaki Frontale (J1) against Gamba Osaka. Including the cup matches, the results of their past five matches against each other are fairly even with two wins, two losses and one draw for either side. As both specialises in very aggressive attacking football, on the matchday 13 in the Meiji Yasuda J1 League 2nd Stage Kawasaki outscored Gamba Osaka 5-3.

With NAKANO Yoshihiro and other young players adding firepower and balance to veterans including NAKAMURA Kengo, Kawasaki are aiming for their first championship title. Meanwhile Gamba just finished their Yamazaki Nabisco Cup campaign as runners-up. They are looking for another win to boost themselves into the last phase of this season.

Sanfrecce Hiroshima (J1) take on Tokushima Vortis (J2) on the road. Hiroshima list several forward players on the roster who add different dimensions to their offence. The most notable are the trio of physically overwhelming Douglas, quick-footed ASANO Takuma and veteran SATO Hisato, who have contributed to scoring the league best 68 goals (as of the 16th matchday in the 2nd stage). SHIBASAKI Kosei, who used to play for Tokushima until 2013, also requires attention in the midfield.

Tokushima on the other hand have been struggling this season, sitting at 14th place in the standings. In this tournament, however, they showed stable performance in each of the past three rounds by scoring the total of 10 goals and conceding only one.

In the third round against Albirex Niigata (J1), TSUDA Tomohiro and HASEGAWA Yu, who have played in J1 in the past, showed their presence. They outperformed the club in the upper division. Tokushima have never recorded a win against Hiroshima in the past five match-ups, but anything is possible to happen in such a one-and-done style tournament as the Emperor’s Cup. With the backing by their home crowd, Tokushima are ready to pull out a big win.

The 95th Emperor's Cup All Japan Football Championship

Sat. 29 August 2015 - Fri. 1 January 2016
More information