Kashiwa Reysol VS Albirex Niigata

Kashiwa Reysol host Albirex Niigata for this Japanese YBC Levain Cup round clash at Sankyo Frontier Kashiwa Stadium Wednesday afternoon Beijing time. Japan is the strongest football country in Asia and the J1 League where both teams play is of pretty good level. I expect quite good entertainment here as well but - most importantly – a good betting opportunity for my fans and me to once again make money betting on Japanese football! With the expected lineups I cannot quite understand the odds offered by  the biggest, often pretty sharp bookies that accept the largest bets from customers. These bookies see the hosts as solid favorites offering them odds of around 2.35-2.45 - at least at the time of writing this preview Tuesday evening Beijing time. However, I would not be too surprised to see the odds on Niigata to win come down before the event starts as clever money is expected to pile up on the visitors! Based on my sophisticated, strongly data-bases in-depth analysis the visitors should be small favorites to take all three points here. Kashiwa Reysoll have had a bad start to the season and it seems the betting market has not reacted to this enough. Yes, the hosts were pretty good last season, finishing as high as in 7th place in the J1 League with 47 points to their account. Even so, their number of expected points was just 43.65 and they were overvalued by the bookies in many games last season already! I expect them to be much worse this season and we must take advantage of them being overvalued on the betting market - for as long as the situation remains the same. 

In the YBC Levain cup they have not won a game so far and expect them to have their main focus on the J1 League.. The teams locked horns in this cup competition on the 5th of this month and Albirex Niigata took a comfortable 2-0 win. Matsuda and Komi scored two fast goals early into the first half - depressing Kashiwa Reysol's players and coaching team. They had ”only” 53% ball possession but recorded many more shots on goal (5-2) as well scoring attempts – 12-7 to be precise. They defended well to shut down the visitors' pretty lame attacks. Indeed, they lacked speed, creativity, structure and passing accuracy near Niigata's goal – making it easy for the hosts to successfully defend. Kaswhiwa's offense has been poor in the J1 League as well – they have managed to net the ball just fibve times in eight games. Five is the lowest number of goals in this league with a total of 18 clubs! Surely they have potential for more but I expect the improvement to take time. The team is low in condense at the moment. Their defense has been decent in the J1 League - they have allowed 12 goals so far but it still definitely does have weaknesses. Their number of expected goals allowed (xGA) is 13.67. They have grabbed just six points and are in the 17th place at the moment. They have won just one game so far in the J1 League and it was a very lucky one! They beat Kashima Antlers 1-0 at home on the 9th of this month despite the visitors having 59% ball possession and recording more scoring attempts (12-6) shots on goal, total passes, completed passes, attacks and dangerous attacks. Kashima Antlers are a dangerous team - the win seems to affect the odds too much here. The visitors were promoted from J2 League for this season and have had a strong start to the season. In the YBC Levain cup they have won 2/3 games and in the J1 League they occupy the 6th place with 14 points. They are the marginally smaller team here in terms of players total market value according to Transfermarkt.com but the 12 million euros is definitely low in my view! The bookies should stop underestimating them.. They have lost just one of their most recent five games and beat Avispa Fukuoka 3-2 at home in their most recent match playing well. They look confident on the pitch and have a good coach as well!