The J1 League game at Saitama Stadium 2002 on Saturday will see hosts Urawa Red Diamonds facing Avispa Fukuoka. Urawa Red Diamonds head into this match after a 4-4 J1 League drawn match vs Shonan Bellmare. In that match, Urawa Red Diamonds managed 57% possession and 15 attempts at goal with 7 on target. For Urawa Red Diamonds, goals were scored by Shinzo Koroki (11'), Yusuke Matsuo (55'), Naoki Maeda (64') and Samuel Gustafson (81'). For their opponents, Shonan Bellmare had 20 shots at goal with 4 on target. Lukian (23', 74') and Akito Suzuki (32', 46') scored for Shonan Bellmare. Matches featuring Urawa Red Diamonds have tended to be engaging affairs lately with plenty of scoring expected. Over their past 6 clashes alone, the sum total of 22 goals have been recorded for both sides combined (at an average of 3.67 goals per game) with 8 of these being chalked up by Urawa Red Diamonds. That kind of pattern might not be carried forward here, however. Following on from being beaten in their last game against FC Tokyo in J1 League action, Avispa Fukuoka and their fans will hope to get a better result this time. In that match, Avispa Fukuoka managed 44% possession and 15 shots on goal with 4 of them on target. The scorer for Avispa Fukuoka was Daiki Matsuoka (82'). For their opponents, FC Tokyo got 11 shots on goal with 3 on target. Yūto Nagatomo (28'), Ryotaro Araki (32') and Kashif Bangnagande (57') scored for FC Tokyo. Throughout their 6 previous matches, Shigetoshi Hasebe's Avispa Fukuoka have had reason to celebrate scoring a total of 6 times, giving them the goals per game average of 1. An examination of their past head-to-head clashes dating back to 27/06/2021 shows us that Urawa Red Diamonds have won 1 of these and Avispa Fukuoka 2, with the number of drawn matches standing at 3. In all, 12 goals were shared by the two clubs in this period, with 6 for Reds and 6 for Avispa. That is an average goals per game value of 2. The last league contest featuring these sides was J1 League match day 33 on 25/11/2023 which ended up with the score at Urawa Red Diamonds 2-3 Avispa Fukuoka. On that day, Urawa Red Diamonds managed 62% possession and 16 shots at goal with 4 on target. The goalscorers were Alexander Scholz (18') and Takahiro Akimoto (75'). For their opponents, Avispa Fukuoka had 7 shots on goal with 3 on target. Kazuya Konno (32', 62') and Itsuki Oda (54') scored. The referee was Masuya Ueda. It doesn’t get much better regarding selection, with just one fitness concern for the Urawa Red Diamonds boss Per-Mathias Høgmo to be concerned with from an otherwise fully-primed squad. Tomoaki Okubo (Metatarsal fracture) will miss out. Thanks to a largely available group of players, there is only a single fitness worry for the Avispa Fukuoka boss Shigetoshi Hasebe to be concerned about. Ryoga Sato (Cruciate ligament injury) won’t be playing here. We’re of the opinion that Avispa Fukuoka have the ability to put one past this Urawa Red Diamonds team, but that isn’t expected to be as many as they will have scored against them. We’re going for a close game with a 2-1 winning margin for Urawa Red Diamonds at the end of the match. There looks to be little in this one.