Gamba traveled to meet FC Tokyo at the "new Kokuritsu", the national stadium, and came home with nothing, but frustration of yet another game that could have been won but ended in defeat. The away team out-shot their hosts, and held possession, creating enough chances to win the game, but it was not to be.

Ko Yanagisawa and Hiroki Fujiharu were given starts in the full back positions in a four-back system, while a new-look front pairing of Leandro Pereira and Isa Sakamoto also saw the start.

In torrential rain, that did not help Gamba's usual slick passing movement, early chances were few and far between, with a curling shot from Hiroto Yamami coming closest for Gamba about 10 minutes from the break. Unfortunately, the game turned a moment later as Adailton pounced on a corner that came off the crossbar after the initial header, and his firm shot somehow found its way through a forest of bodies to give the hosts a fortunate lead for the half time break. Gamba came close to leveling before the half time whistle, when Yamami's pinpoint through pass found Fujiharu, who crossed for Leandro Pereira how saw the ball miss his toe by inches with the goal at his mercy.

In the 4th minute of the 2nd half a right win run by Kosuke Onose saw him create chaos in the home defence and Dawhan's shot from 25 yards out hit the crossbar with the 'keeper looking on helplessly and then, what could have been 1-1 turned into 0-2 as Leandro fought his way - quite literally at times, his arms flying everywhere at Dawhan as he pursued - through to shoot home from the edge of the area. with 15 minutes to go, FC Tokyo thought they had added a third goal against the run of play, but VAR quite correctly showed an obvious foul by Kensuke Nagai on Genta Miura and the decision was overturned, and rightly so!

Gamba continued to dominate play at times as they looked for a point, or more, with Leandro Pereira shooting just wide, and hen Patric having a header disallowed (again, correctly) for offside, as the home defence struggled to hold on to their win. Indeed Pereira then headed against a post with minutes to go as FC Tokyo rode their luck and took all three points.

Team - Ichimori, Yanagisawa (Patric, 70), Miura, Shoji, Fujiharu, Onose, Saito (Okuno, 80), Dawhan, Yamami (Wellington Silva, 80), Sakamoto (Nakamura, 46), Leandro Pereira