“Of course we have a chance,” Otsuki said. “If we can keep a clean sheet then we can go through to the next round.

“But first of all we need to focus on the game tomorrow, because in Shanghai we are facing a strong team. Unless we are focused on the game tomorrow we will give them a chance.

“They have very talented foreign players, but it’s not only the foreigners. They have talented Chinese players and their unity within the team is quite strong and we have to respect them. But hopefully tomorrow, we can break them down and go through to the next round.”

Urawa’s attempt to keep Shanghai at bay is complicated by the suspension of Brazilian defender Mauricio Antonio, although SIPG have their own issues with Hulk also serving a one game ban after both players picked up their second yellow cards of the knockout rounds in the previous meeting.

Shanghai’s Uzbekistan international midfielder Odil Ahmedov will also miss the game due to injury, leaving coach Vitor Pereira only able to field two of his foreign contingent, Brazilian Oscar and recent signing Marko Arnautovic.

“For sure it will be a difficult game tomorrow because Urawa has quality, technical and tactical quality, but we know we just have one result as our goal; we must win this game tomorrow, we must score,” said the Portuguese coach.

“I don’t believe the game will be 3-3 or 4-4, but I believe we can score and we can win. We must show our ambition and personality to play our game in the way we can. We need to play tomorrow at our best level.”

To do so, Pereira is hoping his side can avoid a repeat of their disappointing first-half performance in Shanghai as his team seek to return to the semi-finals after reaching the last four stage in 2017.

“The players must have confidence to play,” he said. “I will ask them to play a good match when we have the ball and work to be compact and aggressive when we don’t have the ball. I think, in this kind of match, we need to keep our balance. It’s not a goal to change our emotional balance."

“I know in some moments we can lose our emotional balance but we have to recover fast, not concede and not make big mistakes. For tomorrow if we play with 11 players I will be happy.

"It means that everybody plays with the team spirit and this is the most important for tomorrow. I know Hulk and Odil are important players in our team but if everyone is running and fighting in the tactical plan, I will be happy.”