After an achingly close defeat in Japan, Central Coast Mariners’ next AFC Champions League Elite matchup will involve a bit of ship-to-ship combat. Yokohama F. Marinos, the runners-up of last year’s J1 League season, are sailing down to Gosford town for what will be a crucial clash. With CCM’s margin for error getting thinner by the minute, it’s worth looking back at how they handled their last battle, then looking forward to who the Mariners are up against and how they can get what they need out of this next one.
Taking on Japan’s reigning champions in their own house was always going to be a tall order, and Vissel Kobe welcomed the Mariners to the Kansai region with about as much warmth and decorum as a gaggle of hooligans in the Sotenbori district would show Goro Majima. The hosts were absolutely relentless in the first half, out-possessing and out-shooting the Mariners to put up a constant supply of pressure.
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Central Coast managed to keep the dam intact nearly all the way to half-time, and even got some good chances of their own, but something finally cracked in the 40th minute. Off a Kobe free kick, Takuya Iwanami headed it on and Ryuho Kikuchi headed it in, ensuring that the Mariners would have to dig themselves out of a 1-0 hole after the half.
A chaos vortex opened up over Kobe when play resumed, and initially, it was to the hosts’ benefit, as Storm Roux accidentally headed in Rikuto Hirose’s cross to double the Mariners’ trouble after 49 minutes. However, the pendulum swung back hard five minutes later when Roux sent a ball in for his teammates, only for it to instead pinball off Kobe captain Hotaru Yamaguchi and into the goal, giving the Mariners a crucial lifeline.
Things would return to sanity after that, and after a round of yellow cards and substitutions, Bailey Brandtman stepped up for some more continental heroics. After taking a pass from Mikael Doka into the box, the 19-year-old struck a confident low ball into the goal, levelling the game at 2-2 for the second straight time in Asia.
Unfortunately for the Mariners, there were still another 15 minutes and change left for Vissel to mount a response. With less than ten minutes to go, Yuya Kuwasaki sent a through ball from quite a ways out and found Daiju Sasaki. Sasaki fired dead centre, and Dylan Peraić-Cullen got his hands up to stop it, but unfortunately, the ball just bounced behind him to his right and went in anyway. Vissel kept the pressure on, trying for a fourth into the dying embers, and the Mariners once again went home empty-handed despite their best efforts.
Yokohama F. Marinos are longtime fixtures of Japan’s top flight with the trophy case to match, including seven Emperor’s Cups and a run of consecutive Asian Cup Winners’ Cups in the early 1990s. They’ve also been extremely open to Australian coaching, with Ange Postecoglou and Kevin Muscat leading the team to J1 League titles in 2019 and 2022 respectively. Harry Kewell seemed poised to continue the trend when he helped the Tricolor all the way to last year’s Champions League final.
But just two months later, Kewell got the pink slip, and the team currently sit seventh in the J1. However, just because the Nissan and City Football Group-backed outfit are weaker than they were last year, doesn’t mean they can’t do damage. After picking up their third win of the stage, Yokohama have climbed to third in the East Asian Elite, and they’ll be as keen to solidify their standing as the Mariners will be to improve their own.
The obvious threat to deal with is Yokohama’s three-headed Brazilian monster of an attack. In the centre, striker Anderson Lopes is virtually unstoppable. He currently leads the J1 with 24 goals, and his five in Asia so far put him in position to contend for the Golden Boot here as well.
To his right, winger Yan Matheus has built a case as the tournament’s best player to this point. He’s got ten combined assists in J1 and ACL Elite, and is usually the man to score if Lopes doesn’t. Completing things on the left wing is Élber, whose brace against Gwangju helped salvage some dignity from a disastrous start to the tournament. Shut them all down, and you might still have to worry about Takuma Nishimura, who’s been clutch to help secure trophies in both Japan and Switzerland and has a pair of continental goals to his name thus far.
The midfield isn’t quite as stacked or as Brazilian, but it’s not without its names. Kenta Inoue has two assists in Elite play so far, and Riku Yamane has been much more of a help in the central areas than his counting stats suggest. However, the potential offensive threats actually go all the way back to the defence. On top of the usual duties of protecting keeper Hiroki Iikura, four different backliners have notched an assist in continental play—and when the Mariners do have the ball, getting around the likes of Hijiri Kato and Katsuya Nagato will be no easy task.
Playing Yokohama F. Marinos when the F stands for “favourites” is never an easy task, and this will be no exception. Defensively speaking, the Mariners’ best shot is to force Yokohama to attack from their left side. Élber is no slouch, but he’s the weak link compared to Lopes and Matheus, and the more he’s forced to shoulder the attacking burden at the others’ expense, the shakier the Tricolor’s chances get.
Mikael Doka. (Photo by Scott Gardiner/Getty Images)
On the other side of the ball, don’t be shocked if Bailey Brandtman gets more time to shine. He’s now come through in the clutch twice in a row, scoring late equalisers against two of East Asia’s toughest clubs, and if not for a bad bounce seven minutes later, he’d also be the author of another vital point in the standings. On top of that, both of those goals have had some level of assistance from Mikael Doka, creating a vital connection to the team’s clear best player. If Brandtman and Doka can keep building on that, they could be the lifeline this team needs.
Make no mistake, the Yellow and Navy need lifelines urgently, because at this point, the Mariners no longer fully control their destiny. Every team from fifth through ninth is currently tied on seven points, and if all five manage at least a draw while the Mariners lose, the A-Leaguers will be eliminated.
The fact that that’s spread across four other matches may give CCM plenty of escape valves at the moment, but with the home crowd singing for them and their continental ambitions on the line, the Mariners should do everything they can to make a statement ahead of the two-month break and transfer window that separates this match from the next one.
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