6 Dec 2004(Mon)

Yokohama F Marinos certainly have the man for a crisis.

An injury crisis, that is.

Ahead of the two-leg Suntory Championship against Urawa Reds, starting Sunday at International Stadium Yokohama, Okada has played down his team's injury problems.

Especially the absence of his first-choice strikeforce, Kubo and Ahn.

"It might have been a problem if we were at the start of the season, but we have only two games to go and need to score only one or two goals," Okada said this week.

This is typical Okada speak: pragmatic and logical.

Of course he is right. A 1-0 win at home and a 0-0 draw away at Saitama on December 11 would do nicely, thank you very much.

And who is to say Marinos are not capable of pulling off two such results. They achieved a 0-0 draw at Saitama in the league in mid-October in a match which looked likely to be a dress rehearsal for the Suntory Championship.

Even without a few key players, you can bet Marinos will be well-organised and very difficult to break down, even for Urawa's high-speed attack.

The two matches promise to be close, tactical encounters, with Reds expected to make all the running and Marinos relying on defence and careful counters.

At the start of the season, Okada tipped Reds to be among the threats for Marinos' league championship crown, and he has been proved right.

Okada pointed out that Reds had an advantage because they could field five "foreign" players to everyone else's three.

This was due to the winter signings of naturalised Brazilians Tulio and Alex, who are playing alongside the three imports Emerson, Nene and Alpay Ozalan.

Despite this, Reds have still shown themselves to be vulnerable on the big occasion, losing on penalties to FC Tokyo in the Nabisco Cup final and then being beaten at home by Grampus when a win would have wrapped up the second-stage title. They have to relax and play their natural game in the Suntory Championship.

Even with Marinos' injury problems, the Suntory Championship could easily go either way.

ends