Reds roll into Asian Champions League final

By the skin of their teeth the Urawa Reds staked their place in the finals of the Asian Champions League on Wednesday.
The J-League holders beat K-League champions Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma 5-3 on penalties in the second leg of the home-and-away semifinal at Saitama Stadium after playing to a 2-2 draw in regular time.
The teams also played to a 2-2 draw in the first leg in South Korea on Oct. 3, giving the Reds a slight advantage heading into the return leg.
But true to his word, Urawa manager Holger Osieck had his team play for the win rather than throw everybody behind the ball in hopes of eking out a 0-0 or 1-1 draw, which would have been enough to see the Reds through due to the away goals rule.
Brazilian attacker Washington, playing in a black mask to protect the nose he injured in Urawa's 4-2 league win over JEF United Chiba on Saturday, wasted no time in exhibiting his willingness to play his usual physical style.
The Brazilian recorded the first shot of the match 58 seconds in and tested out his new headgear a short while later by heading a free kick from the Urawa area.
It took Washington 21 minutes to show why Seongnam manager Kim Hag-bum singled out the J.League's joint leading scorer last year as Urawa's biggest offensive threat.
After collecting a cross from Robson Ponte at the right of the Seongnam area, Washington tore off toward goal and launched a blistering shot into the opposite side of the net that keeper Kim Yong-dae had next to no chance on.
Both teams had limited opportunities to score as the first half wore on and what chances did materialize were quickly neutralized by some confident goalkeeping.
Seongnam made the trip to Saitama minus ace striker Mota, who injured ligaments in his right knee during the team's final K-League match a week and a half ago.
The visitors seemed to miss the tournament's leading scorer early on, as the three forwards playing in his absence-Itamar, Nam Ki-il and Choi Sunk-kuk--rarely threatened the Urawa defense.
But that all changed in the second half when the match went from interesting to absolutely gripping as the Seongnam forwards found another gear.
A slip up by defender Keisuke Tsuboi in the 57th minute allowed Seongnam to equalize. Tsuboi, who also had a blunder result in a Seongnam goal in the first leg, lost his footing while marking Itamar to the right of keeper Ryota Tsuzuki. Suddenly free of his marker but too close to Tsuzuki to bury the ball, Itamar fed Choi in front of goal for an easy tap in.
The goal added newfound tension to the proceedings and the 51,651 already-vocal fans in attendance cranked the volume level up another notch.
The Reds, meanwhile, lifted their game a notch as they attempted to retake the lead and finish off a team that simply would not roll over.
But just as Urawa's three-pronged attack of Washington, Tatsuya Tanaka and Ponte started to test the waters at one end of the pitch, Seongnam surprised everybody with a go-ahead goal.
Once again it was Itamar who got the play started. The 27-year-old Brazilian uncorked a stinging shot from the edge of the area that Tsuzuki could only parry away, and Kim Dong-hun beat Marcus Tulio Tanaka to the rebound to head home.
The pulsating encounter took yet another twist moments later when Urawa midfielder Makoto Hasebe slotted home a pass from Tulio to knot the score at 2-2.
Washington and Keita Suzuki both had glorious chances to put the Reds back ahead, but both skied their efforts and the match headed into extra time.
With nothing decided 30 minutes later, it was up to the crap shoot known as penalties to decide the outcome of what was surely one of the most entertaining matches ever to be played in the Asian Champions League.
Ponte, Washington, Yuki Abe, Yuichiro Nagai and Tadaaki Hirakawa all scored for Urawa, while Tsuzuki made the all-important save on Choi to earn the historic victory.
The Reds are the first Japanese team to reach the finals of Asia's premier club competition since the adoption of its current format in 2002. The last Japanese team to claim a continental crown was Shimizu S-Pulse in 2002 when the tournament was known as the Asian Cup Winners' Cup.
The Reds will play the winner of the semifinal between Sepahan of Iran and Al Wahda of the United Arab Emirates. The two-leg final is scheduled for Nov. 7 and 14.
The winner of the tournament earns a ticket to the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan in December. Since the J.League winner will also represent the host country at the CWC, the ACL runner-up will represent Asia at the prestigious year-end club competition should Urawa take both the ACL and the J.League titles.

Copyright: C.G. Williams & Soccerphile

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Full Moon Spells Quarter Doom For Jeonbuk

The Korean thanksgiving holiday is a time to spend with family and pay respects to ancestors that have passed away. What it is not, is a time to do any unnecessary travel. More than half the nation moves around the southern half of the peninsula to visit hometowns. The nightly television news programs all start by broadcasting the same pictures with relish. The first is of the full harvest moon, an image followed by shots of expressways that are equally bloated.

Mounting journey times between major cities are gravely but breathlessly relayed to those lucky enough to be sat in their own homes. The barometer is Seoul-Busan. It usually takes around five hours to drive from the capital to the south coast port but during ‘Chuseok’, that will only get you about halfway.

That was the point that the Asian Champions quarter-final between Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors and Urawa Reds was at on the last day of the harvest festivities with the second leg action due to take place in Korea.



A week previously in Saitama, the Japanese champions had given the Asian champions a footballing lesson. If the two-goal lead that the Reds enjoyed for much of the game had been carried over the East Sea and into South Korea for the second leg, Urawa coach Holger Osieck would have been delighted though perhaps a little disappointed that the J-League leaders hadn’t managed more. As it was, Jeonbuk’s veteran defender Choi Jin-cheul popped up at the last minute to give the visitors a vital away goal and a good deal of hope.



The smart money was still on Urawa to progress but only just. Jeonbuk had shown while winning the competition a year before that what they sometimes lack in finesse, they make up with passion, power and a never-say-die spirit. Such play doesn’t always make a difference in the K-league that has an abundance of those qualities. Going into the second leg, Jeonbuk may have been in fifth place in the league but were 17 points behind second and only five above Daejeon Citizen down in 11th.

Travelling down to the city of Jeonju, where Jeonbuk are based, from Seoul is always a pleasant journey but more so on the final day of the holidays. The number of people heading south-west was dwarfed by the millions scrambling back to the capital. There were enough Japanese fans making the same journey to give credence to reports suggesting that the home supporters could be similarly outnumbered. The sight of an army of red-clad fans tumbling off buses at expressway rest areas to swamp restaurants and convenience stores, but strangely not the kiosks that blast out sixties and seventies Korean music, was reminiscent of past away days in England.



Their destination was North Jeolla Province in the south-west region of South Korea. It is a beautiful place - full of mountains, deep valleys, lush fields and, if you believe those who hail from the south-east of the country, people who can’t be trusted as far as they can be thrown. It is a stereotype that is hard to believe as folk that hail from Jeolla are as friendly as their version of the national dish, kimchi, is salty.

Jeonju is the capital of the region and while it may be the home of the Asian champions, it is better known for food not football. The city of 600,000 is the birthplace of the famous Korean dish Bi Bim Bap, a bowl of mixed vegetables, rice and spicy pepper sauce that tastes considerably better than that description suggests.



The Urawa coach wasn’t planning to treat his team to a dish of the local specialty; he expected that his players would be served up a generous helping of ‘bim’ and ‘bap’ on the field. Prior to the game he warned the starting eleven that they could expect to get kicked around the pitch at the 44,000 capacity Jeonju World Cup Stadium, an arena that is both large and intimate.

In truth, he wasn’t wrong. Some of Jeonbuk’s tackles would have been x-rated stuff even in the laxer leagues of Europe. Around 20,000 Jeonbuk fans and the 5,000 away supporters created an excellent atmosphere and the Saudi Arabian referee looked increasingly out of his depth as the game progressed.



He didn’t help matters by choosing to send off Chung Kyung-ho, one of the nicest players in the K-League both to watch and to meet. The winger was harshly booked for dissent early on and then shown a second yellow for a dive midway through the first half. There were other players much more deserving of a place in referee’s book than the former international.



Still, football is not always fair but the end result probably was and Urawa return to Korea for the semi-final, this time to face champions Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma.The moon won’t be full but, for the mouth-watering clash between the holders of leagues J and K, the stadium will be.



Copyright: John Duerden & Soccerphile




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ACL loss to Sepahan confirms Frontale's season a bust

Kawasaki Frontale's exit from the Asian Champions League earlier this week proved what many had feared about Takashi Sekizuka's men over the last couple of weeks: they're a spent force whose season has gone the way of a Britney Spears comeback.

Only time will tell how their freefall into irrelevancy in 2007 will affect Frontale in the foreseeable future, but there's no denying that the team has suffered a major setback.
Frontale has improved in the league standings every year since finishing 7th in J2 in 2001, returning to J1 in 2005 before shocking all but the most optimistic supporters with their runner-up performance last season.

What a difference a year makes.

Currently in ninth place, Kawasaki sit 22 points and a prayer behind pacesetters Urawa Reds.
With nothing left to play for in the league, Sekizuka trained all his focus on progressing in the ACL. He rested the bulk of his first-choice players, including Brazilians Juninho and Magnum, for Frontale’s Round 26 match with Kashiwa Reysol three days before Wednesday’s ACL clash with Iranian cup winners Sepahan.

The 4-0 loss to Reysol will hurt a lot more now than it did before the demoralizing defeat to Sepahan, who eked out a 5-4 penalty-shootout win after 210 minutes of scoreless football in the two-leg tie.

Despite outplaying their opponents in both legs, Frontale were unable to put the sword to Sepahan, the result of an impotent offense that Sekizuka says has dogged the team for two months.

“We’ve found it difficult to score since August, and it was the same today (Wednesday). We’ve got to figure out what the problem is and fix it so we can get our league campaign back on track,” Sekizuka said at the post-match press conference.

Frontale may very well be at rock bottom, having won only three of their last 15 league games and having salt rubbed in their wounds by rivals Urawa, who advanced to the ACL semifinals on Wednesday with a 2-0 win over Jeonbuk Motors of South Korea.

The disappointment of the last few months was clear for all to see on Wednesday, as a glum Sekizuka apologized for failing to take his team further in the continental championship.
“I am personally disappointed that I couldn’t meet the expectations of those in the J.League and Japanese football in general. We had a good chance to progress after drawing away in the first match and I feel terrible for not living up to everyone’s expectations,” Sekizuka said.
Frontale need to shake off the hurt quickly, however, as the team is still in the thick of things in the Nabisco (league) Cup. Kawasaki play the Yokohama F. Marinos in a home-and-away semifinal for the right to meet either the Kashima Antlers or Gamba Osaka in the final on Nov. 3.
Motivating his troops will be a tall order for Sekizuka, who has seen his team go from confident and freewheeling to frustrated and vulnerable in the span of a year.
It will take a tremendous turnaround for Frontale to salvage anything from what is quickly becoming a shipwrecked season.

Copyright: C.G. Williams & Soccerphile



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