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
aland
Guest
now football club in thailand a very strong cos a good mangement in there team and many support from fan and sponser I predice in shottime thailand football club will be lead in Asia example Buriram and Shonburi and muangthong and bangkokglass etc same k-leage and J- leage.
Trust Me
Roar Rookie
I'm not J-League bashing, I'm just sick of people bagging the A-League every time we lose a game to foreign oposition - we've also beaten overseas teams too you know. People then try and re-enforce this by saying the Roar were beaten by a "second division" team. Tokyo is not a 2nd division team - they spent 1 year in J-2 and bounced straight back winning the Emporers Cup, so they are quality opposition. They caught Brisbane on the counter in a waterlogged game that didn't suit Brisbane. The Roar will bounce back in the ACL. What about AU's great win in Uzbekistan and the CCM's good result in China? And what about the J-League Champions Kashiwa Reysol losing to an indonesian side and the 5-1 and 3-0 losses by the other teams. Be fair!
mobo
Guest
That's a great point isn't it? Anyway. The A-league is simply far behind what Japan can produce. To be honest the only reason I think we are competitive against them nationally is because we are still using our most experienced players who played in 2006, the golden age which has yet to be really replicated in my opinion. Once they are gone ... man are we screwed. Heck even if you took out all the foreigners from both leagues, brought all our abroad players back we would still pale in comparison to J2 probably. The solution? Get our game into mainstream television and run our league properly for once.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
I'm quite well aware of the respective geographies but its also worth pointing out that the fact we only have, for practical purposes, six nexus points to worry about ameliorates the problems of geography (certainly far preferable if we had spread our population evenly across the land) and each of the nexus points has quite well developed transportation links.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
PS, the League is great but the Gods will not forgive those mascots soon or easily.
Midfielder
Guest
Matsu Thanks for the link ...
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Thanks for the link, Matsu, I'll check it out
Matsu
Guest
Nathan~ Well, at the risk of sounding like a shameless self-promoter, those interested in the J.League can always visit the Rising Sun News. I dont have the resources to cover everything, but I almost always provide at least a breif comment on every J1 and NT match, as well as some overviews of the J2 when time permits. Those who want to get a rough idea of the competitive balance this year might want to read my forecasts for the 2012 season. J1 here: http://www.the-rising-sun-news.com/news/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2964 J2 in two parts: http://www.the-rising-sun-news.com/news/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2959 http://www.the-rising-sun-news.com/news/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2958
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Wow, just reread that, what the hell was I typing. "Its not realistic to argue that football in Australia cannot accomplish what ice hockey in Australia can accomplish." Which, to be explicit, is a national amateur-semipro sporting comp, which is all we would need at present out of a second tier. Just get interested state league clubs and support them from FFA hq.
Lazza
Guest
I dunno. A league that stretches from Perth to Auckland and only has 25m and is the No.4 sport probably can't sustain a second tier. The UK and Japan are geographically the size of Victoria. Costs are too high and the revenue too low. Wish it would happen but don't think it's viable at the moment.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
If that's what I was saying, I would have said it. I've merely summarised the facts from Match Day 1, to refute any fairy-tales that may be written about some perceived omnipotence of J-League & K-League teams.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
There is a lot of misinformation about the J- and K-League because its very hard to get proper information about it here in Australia, its really one of those things where you have to really go deliberately searching for it rather than information about EPL or the UCL and similar leagues where you almost have to avoid it to not get overloaded. Most people who know a bit about them strongly respect the leagues as competitive and skillful (I do, at least), but there is very little exposure. Its not too surprising I guess; the coverage that even the A-League gets in its own host country is fairly woeful. I don't know where the idea that the J2-League was weak came from, beyond, I think local domestic point scoring probably unrelated to the J-League as such. But it really should be acknowledge that the JFA has three tiers of very competitive national football and I would love to see more news and coverage of it here. Would certainly beat having to choose between televised golf, poker and snooker on slow FoxSports days..........
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Couldn't believe Ibini didn't put away that final chance, it was the most clear-cut opportunity of the game...
Nathan of Perth
Guest
You don't need some mythical market threshhold, you just have a league that matches what is available, the only threshhold you need to match is transport and accommodation costs and with existing A-League arrangements we can step in on there is potential. The priority here is increasing player exposure to upper-tier competition to improve player stocks.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Avispa and Ventforet got stuck there? Huh, missed that... need to follow more but its hard when there's almost no reporting beyond SBS' match tracker reports.
qwerty
Guest
So the HAL is better than the J-League is what you're trying to say after one round of ACL?
Matsu
Guest
Well, I have to say, you sure chose a good icon for yourself. "The J-League 2 is very weak and usually teams who go down come back up the next year" The J2 is EXTREMELY competitive. In fact, last season two J2 teams met in the Emperor's cup final. Over the 12 years since the J2 started, roughly 40% of teams that got relegated bounced back the next year. So yes, the best of the relegation victims usually has a good chance to bounce back. But the other 60% usually stay there for several years. Right now, in the J2, there are 7 teams that have spend at least 2 years in the J1 in the past :Ventforet, Montedio, Avispa, Sanga, Verdy, Trinita, JEF United, Yokohama FC. That suggests a pretty competitive pool of teams. Why is it that so many people insist on making up so many untrue things about the J.League/K.League? Does it really threaten you that much to see what other countries are doing? Y'all should spend a bit more time researching things before you post such clearly erroneous information. Its more than a bit annoying to see. In fact, Im starting to feel sorry that I dropped in to the FC Tokyo/Brisbane thread. I had no idea the misconceptions and misinformation was so extensive.
Trust Me
Roar Rookie
The J-League 2 is very weak and usually teams who go down come back up the next year as Tokyo did - they only spent 1 year in J2, so they are not a J2 team really. Don't forget they won the emporers cup to get into the ACL and beat every other team in the league.
JAJI
Guest
Number 4 sport Axelv - yes not as high ac cricket but bigger than the Rah Rah across Australia
Griffo
Roar Guru
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. Although in reference to the Mariners, this could equally apply to Adelaide and even to Brisbane to a far lesser extent. Disregarding Brisbane for a moment (who played a far better football then the Reds or Mariners) what I noticed the most from two first halves I watched of both Adelaide and Mariners was that both teams first instinct was to keep the ball on the deck. Now that might not be a big thing perhaps to some, but it was something I noticed and think it is a step forward as I think teams not that many years ago would be chipping, bumping the ball around off heads in midfield, and generally not trying to string that many passes together, especially while away, so as to get it up the other end quickly. Last night I noticed the Mariners trying to pass through midfield often enough but it broke down easily at times, while they didn't seem to think much about the final ball into the box too much other than hoping someone would be there. Comparing Adelaide then I think the Reds did better with passing and options in final third against Bunyodkor than the Mariners did against Tianjin. 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. Definitely. There will be many, many more years of this and we should be picking these games to pieces and learning rather than hoping for the winds to shift next year in our favour.