Will Marinos clinch the title?

Yokohama F·Marinos enter the weekend eight points clear of Kawasaki Frontale and Sanfrecce Hiroshima with four matches to play, giving them a chance to clinch the title this weekend.

If the Tricolor win and both Frontale and Sanfrecce drop points, Marinos will be crowned champions for the first time since 2019.

Yokohama host a Gamba Osaka team that is fighting to stay in the top flight and will certainly bring their very best with so much on the line. Frontale, in search of an unprecedented fifth Meiji Yasuda J1 League title in the last six years, take on Shimizu S-Pulse, who are also in a battle to avoid the drop. Sanfrecce head to Vissel Kobe, another relegation-threatened side.

Will Marinos win and get the help they need to claim the title? Or will the battle for the league’s ultimate prize continue for another week?

The relegation fight is a mess

No team has clinched relegation yet, leaving all three spots to fight for and as many as seven teams battling to stay up.

Júbilo Iwata is bottom of the table on 24 points, but they have the advantage of having only played 29 games when everyone else has played one or two more. Gamba Osaka is second from the bottom on 30 points and Avispa Fukuoka sit in the promotion-relegation play-off place on 31 points.

Above the trio in the drop spots are Shonan Bellmare, Shimizu S-Pulse, Kyoto Sanga and Vissel Kobe, all within three points of the bottom three.

None of the teams battling the drop face off this weekend, so there are no relegation six-pointers, but with so many teams so closely packed together, each of the seven games involving the bottom seven teams is massive. Three points, or even one, can be the difference between another season in the top flight and playing next year in J2.

Thiago Santana in the driver’s seat for Top Scorer

There has been no red hot striker in J1 this season. Instead, teams have relied on total team attacks that have featured centerbacks on set pieces, fullbacks racing forward or midfielders making late runs to score goals, as much as star strikers.

Still, there is a Top Scorer award to be won, and right now Thiago Santana is in pole position.

The Shimizu S-Pulse striker is pacing the league with 12 goals, but Kawasaki Frontale’s Akihiro Ienaga and Yokohama F·Marinos’ Léo Ceará are one goal behind on 11 goals, then F.C.Tokyo’s Adaílton has 10 goals and a slew of players have nine.

Who is going to take home the Top Scorer award? Thiago Santana has it within his reach, and he had a match against an increasingly leaky Frontale defense this weekend, but he has a stampede to hold off.