The long Japanese season is finally over, with the season-ending Emperor’s Cup final attracting a sell-out crowd of 44,066 to the National Stadium in Tokyo overnight.
Gamba Osaka were crowned champions of Japan’s oldest football tournament after they beat underdogs Kashiwa Reysol 1-0, with Ryuji Bando coming off the bench to score a dramatic winner deep into extra-time.
Gamba’s win means the Osakans can defend the AFC Champions League crown they lifted last November.
The Asian Football Confederation originally declined to offer the defending champions a place in next season’s Champions League, but Gamba became the fourth Japanese team to qualify by virtue of lifting their country’s premier domestic Cup competition.
Despite another colourful crowd flocking to the National Stadium – with a massive TV audience also tuning in to NHK’s national broadcast – the showpiece event failed to mask the slow decline of what was once Japan’s most beloved football tournament.
The Emperor’s Cup is a shadow of its former self, and football fans in Australia should take note of the mistakes made by the Japan Football Association in regard to the tournament’s scheduling.
To gain a better understanding of why the Emperor’s Cup has lost much of its magic, I emailed Ken Matsushima – editor of website The Rising Sun News and an authoratitive voice on the Japanese game.
For Ken, the downgrading of the tournament’s importance is one of the most disappointing developments in Japanese football.
“Though the J. League is the most profitable and well organised, I think you could still argue that the Emperor’s Cup was a higher profile event for people who didn’t follow football as a constant passion,” writes Ken.
“The changes that have been made have altered that, and I suppose from the J. League’s point of view, it’s mission accomplished.”
The changes that Ken alludes to are twofold.
Firstly, instead of playing the entire Emperor’s Cup as one long knock-out tournament towards the end of the season – as it was once played – the tournament’s early rounds now kick off in September, which robs the competition of its original continuity.
Worse still, the scheduling now heavily favours top flight clubs.
There’s no FA Cup-style romance here – until the quarter-finals the JFA forces lower-ranked teams to play fixtures away from home – robbing many amateur and semi-professional teams of a big pay-day at the gate, with minnows instead trudging out in front of empty stands at the home of a professional club.
Even more absurdly – and this is my pet peeve about Japanese football – there’s no consistency once the quarter-finals roll around.
When FC Tokyo knocked Shimizu S-Pulse out of the quarter-finals of this year’s tournament, the match took place in Sendai – about 300km from Tokyo and a shade under 500km from Shimizu. At the same time, J2 side Sagan Tosu lost to top flight outfit Yokohama F. Marinos at home!
The bizarre scheduling has wreaked havoc with attendance figures.
Only 19,843 fans turned out at the supposedly neutral National Stadium for the semi-final clash between Yokohama F. Marinos and Gamba Osaka – despite the fact that Yokohama is just a short train ride from the capital.
Even that overshadowed the crowd of 12,458 that showed up at Ecopa Stadium near Hamamatsu for the other semi-final between FC Tokyo and Kashiwa Reysol, in spite of the fact that FC Tokyo attracted the third-largest average attendance in the J. League this season.
Japanese fans are voting with their feet, and all indications suggest that they are unhappy with the tinkering of the tournament’s schedule to suit powerful J1 clubs.
It’s a scenario easily imagined in Australia – and that’s if a domestic Cup competition even managed to get off the ground – with the omnipotent FFA unlikely to look favourably upon a State League team damaging the A-League brand by springing a shock upset.
After Gamba Osaka taught Adelaide United a footballing lesson in the AFC Champions League final, some Australians clamoured to suggest that Japan should be the model for our domestic game.
But Australian fans should be wary.
The Japanese game is not all smiles and sunshine, and this season’s lacklustre Emperor’s Cup is proof of that.
Here is the way the Roar expert panel sees all the action unfolding across the final weekend of play prior to the semi-finals.
It was not too long ago that it was no guarantee that the best youth talents from South Australia would make their A-League debuts…
Even though St.Pauli ultimately lost a high-scoring affair, Jackson Irvine was a standout, as well as scoring a late goal.
Mathew Leckie played a pivotal part in Melbourne City claiming an 8-nil win; playing a role in several of his team's goals.
A 10-man Macarthur FC have scored twice in the final 10 minutes and goalkeeper Filip Kurto saved an added-time penalty to defeat Adelaide United…
Clubs have cited regulations claiming players who decline national team call-ups ought to be prevented from featuring at a domestic level.
