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So the three Australian sides managed a draw, a win and a loss between them as the 2012 Asian Champions League kicked off and in the end it was the team that weren’t originally meant to have been there that seemed to shine brightest.
Adelaide United may be propping up everyone other than Gold Coast United in the A-League standings, but the Reds’ 2-1 win over Bunyodkor in Tashkent offered a much-needed moral booster for the “football family”.
Yet the biggest story remains Brisbane Roar’s Asian debut, a 2-0 loss at home to FC Tokyo.
It seemed to come as a shock to many as Ange Postecoglou’s men, having been hyped up on local shores as the team that would finally do the A-League proud since they claimed the Premier’s Plate last year, were out played by a team who had only just earned promotion out of Japan’s second division.
Yet there were two fundamental errors in the thinking that led to bookies putting ludicrous odds of $5.50 for FC Tokyo to come away with all three points:
• FC Tokyo’s relegation two seasons ago came as a massive surprise and the squad that has now jumped straight back into J1 remains at a very high standard
• The Roar may very well represent the best of the forward steps the A-League has made in the last seven years, but the rest of Asia has been improving as well and the Japanese have had quite the head start
After the game, Postecoglou made an interesting comment about his team’s performance against their Japanese opponents, specifically about the Roar’s inability to press their opponent high up the pitch (which is a fundamental part of their game plan).
“We didn’t win the ball back pretty quickly as we do in the A-League,” said the 46-year-old.
And the reason why is because no team in the A-League is as adept at playing through such intense pressure as FC Tokyo were. The A-League champions had simply never experienced anything quite like it.
As my colleague here at The Roar, Mike Tuckerman, wrote on Wednesday over at the A-League’s website, “many Australian analysts miss this point in favour of calling Japanese clubs “cashed up” and obsessing over which Brazilians play at the point of attack.” (http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/tuckerman-opinion-display/Learning-the-lessons-of-Asia/45967)
There are similar lessons to be drawn from the other two ACL games that featured Australian sides this week as well.
While Adelaide United may have won, I saw little in the performance that excited me in the comprehensive way they ground out a result in difficult conditions (though I’ll hold out on passing any judgement on this United side until they’ve played in an ACL game that doesn’t take over 24 hours to travel to).
Few revelations came out of the Mariner’s game either.
It’s been quite clear for a while that coach Graham Arnold is adept at organising his team defensively and this transitioned well to an away game against Tianjin Teda.
What we didn’t see was a system of play when in possession anywhere near as sophisticated or enticing as what Tokyo offered the night before.
Nonetheless, Asian Champions League nights like the ones we saw this week can be instructive if we take the right lessons from them and let’s be clear – we are learning.
Follow Davidde on Twitter @DaviddeCorran
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