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May 16, 2004

Goal Rush

Below is a summary of the scores from Saturday's matches:

Date	Home	.	Visitor	Venue
15 May		1-2		Shizuoka Stadium
15 May		4-3		Oita Stadium
15 May		3-3		Komaba Stadium
15 May		1-2		Toyota Stadium
15 May		1-2		Nagai Stadium
15 May		0-1		Tokyo Nat'l Stadium
16 May		1-1		Ajinomoto Stadium
16 May		5-1		Kobe Wing Stadium

1 - 2

But Sakata would trouble Jubilo for most of the first half, and Hideto Suzuki's favoured solution seemed to be to foul at every opportunity. Fortunately, the official this week, Toshimitsu Yoshida, managed to keep control this match (most of the time), and Suzuki conceded a number of free kicks in dangerous spots. In the 14 minute, one such play gave Yokohama a shot from about 30 meters out, directly in line with the top left corner of the penalty box. Daisuke Oku lined up to take the kick, and in what was surely sweet revenge against his former team, drove a perfectly placed curling shot into the top left corner to put the Marinos in front.

At that point in the contest, it was starting to look like a Yokohama romp, as the Marinos pressure had completely scrambled Jubilo's midfield game to the point where Jubilo was unable to even produce a decent string of passes, much less a shot on goal. But two minutes later, completely against the run of play, Jubilo got a break which would interrupt this buildup of momentum and make the match a more even contest for the remainder of the first half. As Jubilo desperately looked for a way to respond to the Marinos goal, the back line sent a long ball down the left sideline for Toshiya Fujita. Though the defence was retreating quickly, and surely would have been able to regroup in time to prevent any dangerous shots, keeper Tatsuya Enomoto rashly decided to try to clear the ball himself, and dashed out of the penalty box trying to beat Fujita to the ball. But Fujita easily arrived first, used a nice first touch to send Enomoto flying past, and stepped forward to try to pick out an open spot in goal. Though three defenders were able to dash back into the goal mouth, Fujita placed a soft lob into the far corner that just cleared their heads and levelled the score.

This blunder snapped Yokohama's early momentum, and the rest of the first half was much more balanced in terms of possession nd scoring opportunities. But the Marinos still seemed to have the edge, thanks to a very strong outing by defenders Naoki Matsuda, Yuji Nakazawa and Daisuke Nasu. They limited Jubilo to just 9 shots over the course of the match, most of those from long range. Though Jubilo managed to get back on a competitive footing for the remainder of the first half, another burst of momentum shortly after half time would put the match away. Just seconds after the restart, Yokohama narrowly missed a goal as Yoo Sang-Chul headed a corner kick inches wide of the far post. When Yokohama got another chance for a corner, in the 64 minute, Yoo, Nakazawa and Matsuda were blanketed by defenders wary of the size and strength in the air that these three possess. But Yokohama ran a clever misdirection play with Yoo dashing to the near post and Nakazawa going long. The defenders all followed, leaving the middle wide open for the U-23 star, Nasu -- no slouch himself when it comes to winning headers -- who had an easy time nodding the ball home from point-blank range.

Though Jubilo tried to spark a comeback by bringing on Masashi Nakayama, sand later on, rookie Robert Cullen, it was the Marinos who had the more dangerous chances down the stretch. In the end, neither team could add to the score line, and Yokohama closed to within three points of Jubilo in the league standings, thanks to their victory.

Lineups:

Yohei Sato, Hideto Suzuki, Makoto Tanaka, Naoya Kikuchi, Norihiro Nishi, Takahiro Kawamura, Toshihiro Hattori, Toshiya Fujita (Gaviao 83), Sho Naruoka (Masashi Nakayama 49), Ryoichi Maeda, Rodrigo Gral (Robert Cullen 79).

Tatsuya Enomoto, Yuji Nakazawa, Naoki Matsuda Daisuke Nasu, Yasuhiro Endo (Eisuke Nakanishi 81), Yoshiharu Ueno, Yoo Sang-Chul, Dutra, Daisuke Oku, Ahn Jung-Hwan (Tatsuhiko Kubo 62), Daisuke Sakata (Masato Yamazaki 78).

3 - 3

The Reds rode a wave of home-crowd enthusiasm for the first 15 minutes or so, producing a number of good opportunities through the speed of Emerson and Alex Santos. But in the first big momentum shift of the afternoon, JEF United suddenly silenced the home fans with a burst of brilliance. In the 23 minute, JEF won a corner kick on the left side, and Yuki Abe sent a low line drive that found Marquinhos in full sprint, dashing for the far post. The Brazilian headed home, and suddenly the momentum seemed to be completely with the gold and green.

For the next ten minutes (and really, the remainder of the first half), JEF United seemed to be riding a wave of enthusiasm. Their counterattacks were crisp and swift, temporarily outpacing even the fleet of greyhounds in the Urawa lineup. Just five minutes after his first goal, Marquinhos led a surgical counterattack that sliced through the Reds left flank. But as he reached the box and the Reds defence began to collapse on him, Marquihos sent a clever drop pass across field to Sandro, curling in from the right. Though he had only a narrow angle on goal, Sandro was wide open, and used the time he had to carefully pick his spot and send a screaming drive into the far side of the net.

The bad news for the Reds mounted as half time approached, when some hard tackles by the visitors forced Makoto Hasebe to be carried off the pitch and replaced, and sent Emerson hobbling into the locker room at half time. Though he tried to come out in the second half, breifly, he was soon replaced, and within five minutes of the restart, the Reds had used all three of their substitutions, and were trailing 2-0.

But just when it seemed that JEF were in control, the momentum shifted again. This time the spark that ignited the reversal was actually Emerson's departure. His replacement, Masayuki Okano. may not have Emerson's technique on the ball, but he certainly does not lack speed. As the rest of the team was forced to assume the burden for producing goals, several players stepped up to make key contributions, and with the home crowd behind them, suddenly the Reds were on a tear.

The surge began in the 56 minute, on a free kick from about seven meters outside the box, on the right side. Alex Santos took the kick, but instead of sending it into the box, he played a clever short ball to Marcus Tulio Tanaka, who made a sudden dash out of his defensive position and down the right sideline. The JEF defence was temporarily distracted, as they scrambled to cut off Tulio's penetration, and someone left the far post unguarded. Tulio's cross found Yuichiro Nagai open for a crushing header through the back door, and JEF's lead was cut to one.

After a flurry of Reds pressure, a penetrating run by Santos produced the second goal. Santos outran his defender around the right flank, and as he dashed towards the post, he was knocked to the pitch by a clumsy tackle. Tulio drilled the PK and the score line was level once again. Now the Reds were in full flight, urged on by the thunderous cheers of the Saitama Red Army. Ten minutes from full time, a hgh ball to Nagai at the right edge of the box produced a temporary crack in the JEF defence, and Nagai's quick feed through the penalty area found Okano, streaking in to toe the ball over the line. The crowd went wild as it appeared that the Reds had completed their comeback.

But with a minute of injury time already in the books, referee Masayoshi Okada submitted in his entry for worst officiating call of the week. As Satoru Yamagishi dashed around the right wing and cut for the Reds penalty area, Keita Suzuki fouled Maki from behind, knocking him off his feet. It was clearly a foul. The only problem was, it occurred well outside the penalty box, as the replays show. But Mr. Okada blithely pointed to the penalty spot, and refused to listen to any complaints, even ignoring the Reds pleas that he consult with his linesman on the matter. JEF scored the PK and claimed a draw, which ultimately will be of little use to either JEF or the Reds, who now fall nine and seven points behind Jubilo Iwata, respectively. With one toot on his whistle, a referee with a long and sordid history of such blunders has virtually ensured that two of the top challengers are eliminated from contention for the first stage title. Something is rotten in the J.League, and it isnt just some mislabeled "kurobuta" Hamlet!!!

Lineups:

Ryota Tsuzuki, Ichiei Muroi (Hideki Uchidate 45), Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Keisuke Tsuboi, Tadaaki Hirakawa, Tomoyuki Sakai, Alex Santos, Keita Suzuki, Makoto Hasebe (Yuichiro Nagai 41), Koji Yamase, Emerson (Masayuki Okano 49).

Ryo Kushino, Daisuke Saito, Zeljko Milinovic, Takayuki Chano, Masataka Sakamoto, Yuto Sato, Yuki Abe, Shinji Murai, Naotake Hanyu (Satoru Yamagishi 84), Marquinhos (Seiichiro Maki 78), Sandro Cardoza (Takenori Hayashi 78) .

1 - 2

Verdy are slowly beginning to come together as a more competitive team after a very weak start, and in particular, have begun to produce some good offensive pressure now that Ossie Ardilles has introduced his "forward rotation" strategy. In recent matches, Ardilles has given Kazunori Iio and Kazuki Hiramoto the starting roles, up front, and asked the two to use their speed, dribbling skills and quick passes to try to generate penetration. The two have been able to play at a very high energy level, and create quite a bit of danger, based on the knowledge that they only need to sustain it for about 45 minutes. At half time, Patrick Mboma replaces one of the two, with Takayuki Morimoto coming on later in the second half. Though Hiramoto and Iio have not yet produced many goals, what they have done successfully in the past few matches is wear down opposing defences with their speed and constant motion. By the time Mboma and Morimoto take the pitch, their opposing defenders are on their last legs, and this has produced some strong finishes from Verdy over the past three weeks.

Grampus, meanwhile, are also beginning to gel as a team. Tapped as potential title winners at the start of the season, Nagoya does not yet look like living up to their initial promise. But even so, the team has a host of skilled players, and is starting to create goals in large numbers. Thus, it was no surprise when a slicing through pass from Naoshi Nakamura in the 18 minute sent Marques away on an uncontested gallop, which put Nagoya in the early lead.

The match was fiercely contested by both teams, and produced a great deal of physical contact which Mr. Nishimura essentially failed to address. This made the match "chippier" than it might have been, but is not really a serious shortcoming, where J.League officials are concenred. The real problems began shortly after Nagoya's opening goal, as Verdy tried to fight their way back into the match.

In the 25 minute, Verdy won a free kick about 35 meters from goal, on the left sideline. Atsuhiro Miura lined up to take the kick, and sent a ball bounding across the face of goal as a crowd of Verdy players dashed in from the far side. But Claudio Ubeda was a bit too eager, and dashed into an offside position as Miura took the kick. The linesman's flag went up as the ball bounded across the face of goal, with Ubeda distracting keeper Seigo Narazaki enough to cause him to miss the ball and allow it to bound past him into the net.

But as the ball hit the net, the linesman suddenly lowered his flag, and when the referee consulted with him, said that since Ubeda had not touched the ball, the goal should be allowed. Replays show that Ubeda clearly interfered with Narazaki's ability to play the ball, and in any case, the Nagoya defenders had been playing for an offside trap, and seemed to stop when they saw the linesman's flag go up. But the goal was allowed to stand, and the score was now level.

Just five minutes later, Verdy won another free kick in an almost identical position. This time, Miura correctly guessed that the keeper would be remembering his miscue on the earlier play and cheating forward. Sure enough, Miura's drive for the far top corner caught Narazaki off guard, banging off the crossbar and into the net.

But shortly after Verdy took the lead, Mr. Nishimura would make another horrendous call that can only be interpreted as a make-up call for the earlier decision to let Verdy's goal stand. with five minutes remaining in the first half, Hiramoto chased after a ball on the left sideline and when it was collected by a Grampus player, tried to make a sliding tackle. The ball was cleared just before Hiramoto arrived, and the result was a foul -- though one that was by no means any more serious than many of the chippy tackles Mr. Nishimura had been completely ignoring, up to that time. With a sudden flourish, the referee went to his breast pocket and pulled out . . . . a red card.

Both coaching staffs looked on in obvious shock. A straight red card is rare in the J.League, and certainly, no reading of the play can justify it. Hiramoto was not only going for the ball (and only missed by milimeters), but he had his cleats down, and made only minimal contact with the Grampus player. A yellow might be justified as a way to "send a message", but a straight red can only be interpreted as Mr. Nishimura's attempt to "make up" for the bad call against Nagoya, earlier.

Unfortunately for Nagoya, this "makeup" call only made their job more difficult. In the second half, Verdy packed their defence deep in their own end, leaving only Mboma up front to chase long clearances. Grampus had to try to create chances with nine Verdy players constantly behind the ball. In the end, they proved unable to generate the necessary penetration, and thanks to some good work in goal by Yoshinari Takagi, Verdy were able to cling to their 2-1 advantage, and record the win. Nevertheless, we cannot help but suspect that the League will be hearing more about this match from disgruntled team officials and fans. Please visit the Rising Sun News later in the week, when this contest will almost certainly be featured in our "Fray of the Day" column.

Lineups:

Seigo Narazaki, Masayuki Omori, Yutaka Akita, Masahiro Koga, Kojiro Kaimoto, Kei Yamaguchi, Harutaka Ono (Kunihiko Takizawa 83), Yusuke Nakatani, Naoshi Nakamura (Tetsuya Okayama 81), Ueslei, Marques .

Yoshinari Takagi, Takushi Yoneyama, Kenta Togawa, Claudio Ubeda, Takuya Yamada (Daigo Kobayashi 62), Kentaro Hayashi, Takeshi Hirano, Atsuhiro Miura, Yoshiyuki Kobayashi, Kazuki Hiramoto (Takayuki Morimoto 76), Kazunori Iio (Patrick Mboma 45).

0 - 1

It was not until Masashi Motoyama dropped back to a midfield spot, midway through the second half, that the Antlers really began to generate good chances. Another big boost for the Antlers came in the 68 minute, when Koji Nakata took the field for the first time in over 250 days, rehabilitatd at last from his serious knee injury, last summer. Though his time and contributions wer limited, even in this brief appearance it was obvious what an important player the Antlers have been missing, since Nakata was injured. If other key players rejoin the starting lineup as well, the team may have a chance to be more competitive in the second stage.

As the game wound down, the Antlers finally started to produce scoring opportunities, but tough defending by Reysol made it look like they would manage to claim a point from the contest. But a minute before the end of regulation time, a splending overlapping run by Toru Araiba slashed open the left side of the Reysol defence. Though he had a huge expanse of open space to aim for, Araiba's cross was slightly off the mark -- behind Motoyama, and a bit too far in front of Fabio Junior -- and ended up trickling all the way to the opposite side of the box. But defender Jun Uchida made a nice run up the right sideline to collect the loose ball and send it in front of net a second time. This time Tatsuya Ishikawa in position to stab the ball in from three meters out, and the Antlers claimed a late victory.

Lineups:

Yuta Minami, Naoya Kondo, Mitsuru Nagata, Sota Nakazawa, Takehiro Namida, Tomokazu Myojin, Takahiro Shimotaira, Ricardinho, Takehito Shigehara, Keiji Tamada, Ze Roberto, Minoru Suganuma .

Hitoshi Sogahata, Jun Uchida, Seiji Kaneko, Go Oiwa, Tatsuya Ishikawa, Koji Kumagai (Koji Nakata 68), Toru Araiba, Chikashi Masuda (Tomoyuki Hirase 70), Takuya Nozawa, Masashi Motoyama, Fabio Junior .

4 - 3

Considering the fireworks produced in the second half of this contest, the first half was remarkably sluggish, after an early strike by our candidate for "comeback player of the year, Ryosuke Kijima. Kijima used his impressive speed to dash away from a defender, just 4 minutes into the contest, and fire a shot that beat the diving keeper. But after that initial strike, both teams settled down to a cautious, back-and-forth jousting match that produced no other serious chances in the first half. Gamba, it must be said, did almost everything EXCEPT score during the first half. Their midfield game was running smoothly, and they produced a lot of pretty ball work around the perimeter. But few chances managed to penetrate the Trinita core defence, and on the few occasions that they did, poor finishing let Gamba down.

Aware that his team had been on the back foot for most of the first half, coach Han Berger shuffled his formation slightly at half time, putting left wing Yuichi Nemoto a bit further forward. The result was almost immediate, with Trinita winning the ball in midfield and producing a string of dangerous chances. In the 54 minute, a fine anticipation move by Nemoto allowed him to cut off a long pass by Gamba and send Magno Alves away on a dash down the left sideline. But as he reached the box, Alves lost the ball to Mitsuteru Watanabe, who seemed to have broken up the opportunity. However, Watanabe was a bit slow in collecting and clearing the ball. Nemoto saw the Gamba defender hesitate, at the edge of his own penalty box, and snuck in from behind to snatch the ball away. From there, it was just three steps forward to improve his angle, and a looping shot that hit the opposite side of the net.

This goal set off a flurry of offence that did not slow until the final whistle. Just two minutes later, Magno Alves again used his speed to carry a ball deep into Gamba territory, this time on the right wing. As he drew level with the top of the penalty box, he pulled the ball across his body, sending a low roller to the opposite side of the area, where Takayuki Yoshida was completely unmarked. The Trinita midfielder slammed the ball in from close range to put Oita in a commanding, 3-0 lead. It looked like the match was turning into a rout.

But a ten-minute flurry by Gamba quickly turned the tide. First it was Fernandinho who took a lead pass at the right edge of the box and slid it underneath the outrushing keeper, Riki Takasaki. Five minutes later, Yasuhito Endo collected a weak clearance at the edge of the Trinita penalty area and drilled a pass to Masashi Oguro at the left post for a short-range header. In the 67 minute, just 11 mintues after Trinita had extended their lead to 3-0, Sidiclei completed the comeback, heading hoome a corner kick from Endo.

The match continued to sway one way and then the other ,as both teams sought the winning goal, but it did not come until the final minute of regulation time. With the clock running down, Daiki Takamatsu collected a high ball into the box and was knocked to the ground by a swarm of defenders. Unlike some of the other PKs awarded this weekend, this one was pretty straightforward, and the referee, Mr. Matsuo pointed to the spot. Magno Alves claimed a well-deserved victory for Trinita from the spot.

Lineups:

Riki Takasaki, Tetsuya Yamazaki (Hideki Nagai 84), Kazuyoshi Mikami, Sandro Chavez Rosa, Koji Arimura, Haruki Seto, Taku Harada (Shota Matsuhashi 71), Ryosuke Kijima (Daiki Takamatsu 73), Yuichi Nemoto Takayuki Yoshida, Magno Alves .

Naoki Matsuyo, Mitsuteru Watanabe, Sidiclei, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Arata Kodama, Hideo Hashimoto (Toshihiro Matsushita 83), Yasuhito Endo, Takahiro Futagawa, Fernandinho, Kota Yoshihara (Masanobu Matsunami 79), Masashi Oguro.

1 - 2

This week, Cerezo were the beneficiaries of a questionable call, as they took an early lead on a penalty kick. Hideaki Morishima was certainly fouled on his way into the Albirex penalty box, but it is hard to believe that Anderson truly deserved to get sent off for what seemed a clumsy but relatively inadvertent foul. Akinori Nishizawa collected the PK to give Cerezo the lead.

But even a man down, Albirex had the crowd behind them, and a great deal of initiative as they threw themselves towards goal on the counterattack. The absence of Okubo and Tokushige may have blunted the Cerezo attack enough to cost them another goal or two, while Albirex fought insistently for every ball, and shortly after halftime regained parity on a brilliant exchange between Shingo Suzuki and Yusaku Ueno. After a long pass from the Albirex end was headed clear by a Cerezo defender, Suzuki collected the ball on the left side of the pitch, about ten meters into the Cerezo end. He began accelerating towards goal, but as a defendre came up to challenge, he spun the ball off to Ueno on the left sideline. Ueno one-touched the ball back as Suzuki continued his headlong sprint, and the return pass left the Albirex defence gutted, scaled, deboned, beheaded, washed clean and tacked out on a cedar board to dry in the sun, like pacific salmon during smoking season. Suzuki had only to slam the ball past the stranded keeper, and Albirex were back on level terms at half time.

After the restart, Cerezo put together a few dangerous drives, but on the one-hour mark, Albirex got another break that would seal their win. Suzuki made another dash into the Cerezo defence, and won a free kick on the right sideline. Setting up quickly, he lobbed a long ball to the far post, where defender An Yeon-Ha rose above the defence to power home a header. Though Cerezo's man advantage allowed them to control play for most of the final 30 minutes, Albirex pulled the defence in and stalled for time, eventually running out the clock and claiming only the second win of their J1 history.

Lineups:

Tomohiko Ito, Takahito Chiba, Kenichi Uemura, Davorim Kablar (Takeshi Hamada 57), Tomi Shimomura, Noriyuki Sakamoto, Hiroaki Morishima, Kiyokazu Kudo (Kruno Lovrek 45), Yusuke Sato, Takuya Kokeguchi, Akinori Nishizawa .

Yosuke Nozawa, Hikaru Mita, Anderson Luis da Silva, Tadahiro Akiba, Yoshito Terakawa, An Yeon-Ha, Hiroyoshi Kuwabara, Shingo Suzuki, Yusaku Ueno, Fabinho (Yasushi Kita 75), Edmilson (Keisuke Kurihara 55) .

5 - 1

Lineups:

Makoto Kakegawa, Park Kang-Jo, Kunie Kitamoto, Roger, Naoto Matsuo, Mitsunori Yabuta (Shosuke Tsubouchi 32), Hiromi Kojima, Koji Yoshimura, Chikara Fujimoto, Leandro (Kazutaka Murase 78), Ryuji Bando (Kazuyoshi Miura 86).

Yohei Nishibe, Ryuzo Morioka, Toshihide Saito, Tomomi Tsurumi, Keisuke Ota, Teruyoshi Ito, Kota Sugiyama Takumi Wada (Naoki Hiraoka 69), Araujo, Hideaki Kitajima (Masaaki Sawanobori 78), Yoshikiyo Kuboyama (Kohei Hiramatsu 64) .

1 - 1

Lineups:

Yoichi Doi, Akira Kaji, Teruaki Moniwa, Jean Carlo Witte, Ryuji Fujiyama, Naohiro Ishikawa (Oh Jang-Eun 85), Yasuyuki Konno, Satoru Asari, Mitsuhiro Toda, Lucas Severino (Yoshiro Abe 75), Yohei Kajiyama (Yuta Baba 72) .

Takashi Shimoda, Norio Omura (Yuki Tamura 79), Ricardo Ribeiro, Megumu Yoshida, Yuichi Komano, Ri Han-Jae (Susumu Oki 80), Kazuyuki Morisaki, Koji Morisaki, Daisuke Tonoike (Cesar Sampaio 45), Kota Hattori, Thiago Honorio (Yuki Tamura 73).

Following Yokohama's win over Jubilo, on Saturday, the race grew a bit tighter. Yokohama now trail Jubilo by just 3 points, and the leaders still face tough matches against both JEF United Ichihara and Kashima Antlers. Dont go away just yet; we may actually have a first stage title race brewing!

Rumours and Rumblings

JEF Disjointed?

However, the need for a larger stadium and a wider potential fan base is not something that JEF United can ignore much longer. As we have noted countless times in the past, without better finances -- and better fan support -- JEF is doomed to struggle in the middle of the table regardless of the heroic efforts of its young players and coach Ivica Osim. (Indeed, it is easy to adopt a cynical view of the "grassroots petition" asking the club to retain the Ichihara name. If even half the people who signed the petition would just show up to some of the home matches, JEF would sell out its stadium every weekend!)

Sure enough, in typically Japanese bureaucratic fashion, JEF United emerged this week with a "compromise" plan, intended to try to please all of the people, all of the time, but surely destined to disappoint almost everyone. The club annoucned this week that it will change its official name, as of 2005, to "JEF United Chiba Ichihara", though it will use a shortened version -- "JEF United Chiba" -- for informal purposes of referring to the club. And so, as was the case with "Yokohama F Marinos", the J.League will have yet another ridiculous-sounding club name which will almost never be used in common discussion. After all, its not as if the average fan ever bothers with the "1969" of "Tokyo Verdy 1969", or even the "Eight" in "Nagoya Grampus Eight" (and based on the cheers emenating from the Marinos fan section, at recent matches, even that team"s fans are no longer pronouncing the "F" when cheering on the "F Marinos".

I mean seriously . . . can you imagine a group of fans shouting " Goooooooo! JEF United Chiba Ichihara! Get the goal JEF United Chiba Ichihara! Oh JEF United Chiba Ichihara we love you!"

Marinos Fail to Progress to ACL Quarterfinals

Jubilo Iwata, Japan's other entry in the ACL, were eliminated earlier, and sent a second-string squad to Thailand this week to face BEC Tero Sasana. The Jubilo reserves claimed a 3-2 win, but this was not enough to catch Hyundai in the top slot of group E.

This is the second year in which both J.League teams have been eliminated in the first round. Naturally there are plenty of excuses to go around -- conflicts with other matches, a harsh J.League schedule, the loss of players to national team duty and so on. While a change in the AFC's ridiculous scheduling for the ACL matches might help, the biggest problems that Japanese teams seem to face is the fact that the payoff for the ACL is not large enough to make it worthwhile to contest, in earnest.

Fans in Japan do not take the Asian Champions League seriously, so crowds are often only a few thousand. The matches are never televised in Japan (and given the lack of fan interest, you can hardly blame the broadcasters), so teams opften find it difficult just to break even on the business of particuipating in the tournament. Furthermore, even the top prize money for the ACL winner pales by comparison to the money J.League teams take in from other competitions. Faced with a simple financial decision, it is no surprise that teams are tempted to send under-strength squads, or fail to expend their best efforts.

Hopefully, the introduction of a FIFA World Club Championship, with the ACL winner qualifying for a spot, will be enough of an incentive to change the current situation. But at the moment, Japan must deal with the embarassment of another weak performance from its club teams. Sadly, it seems that there are not too many people in Japan who care. . .