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Recently your erstwhile Roar correspondent interviewed Pim Verbeek for an upcoming profile in Inside Sport magazine. It was a wide-ranging discussion, and I got to ask Verbeek about his adventures in Japan, where at various times he was coach of Omiya Ardija and Kyoto Purple Sanga (now Kyoto Sanga) in the national first and second divisions, J-League and J2.
His brother Robert has also coached in Japan, most recently with Omiya, who sacked him late last year after a 6-0 demolition by Urawa Reds.
Verbeek was nostalgic about Japan, waxing lyrical about the facilities available to coaches, the money invested in the development of junior players, the infrastructure of clubs, but mostly the technical ability of Japanese players. They didn’t always score goals, he said, and that wasn’t always a positive, but they could produce some beautiful possession football.
“The Japanese play combination football,” he told me. “More Brazilian influences than European… in Japan, they always try to build out from the backline to the midfield to the striker and back and that’s the way they prefer to play.”
Verbeek’s words rang in my head on Wednesday night watching a brilliant performance by Gamba Osaka in their Asian Champions League match against Melbourne Victory. The Japanese side treasured the ball (55 per cent possession is telling), not wasting it for a moment, conjured some magical passing in midfield, were quicker, defter with their trapping, and overall their touch all over the park was superb.
Not to mention the fact they scored some blistering goals, four from a total of 19 shots, including one rocket of a header from Brazilian striker Bare that should have been awarded after going over the line. (A month ago I wrote about goal-line technology on this blog and why it’s sorely needed in football. Last night we saw just why.)
Melbourne’s consistent approach, by contrast, seemed to be to break down the Gamba attack whichever way it could and clear it out from the defence for Adrian Caceres or Leigh Broxham to then ping it into Danny Allsopp. Pray-for-the best sort of stuff. Nothing patient. Helter skelter. It was a sign of just how Melbourne relied on long passes downfield that they tallied ten offsides.
It was highly disingenuous of Ernie Merrick to say after the match: “That last goal just killed us.” (He must surely be starting down the barrel of being sacked for now losing to Thai side Chonburi away and getting smashed by four goals at home.)
No, it wasn’t the last goal that killed Melbourne, as late and heartbreaking as Brazilian sub Lucas’s was. It was the team’s woeful marking. Its poor fitness. The finesse-free football Merrick gets his team to play.
(Did anyone see Kevin Muscat about five minutes from the end get left for dead by a Gamba player and instead of chase him just angrily throw his arms out and throw him to the ground?)
Nor is the problem Melbourne’s salary-cap constraints, as claimed by club officials before the match. (The Japanese, you see, don’t have one.)
The Brazilians weren’t the difference for Gamba. It was guys such as Yasuhito Endo, Takahiro Futugawa, Satoshi Yamaguchi and Michihiro Yasuda feeding the Brazilians. All Japanese. All half the size of their opposite number. All outrageously skilful.
Gamba romped home in the Pan-Pacific Championship and I can’t see a Japanese side not winning this year’s ACL. It’s quickly becoming clear the J-League is a significant notch above the quality of the A-League.
But rather than put our heads in the sand for another year and wait for Newcastle Jets to maybe put things right for Australia in Asia, let’s start learning how the Japanese do it.
As Chonburi and now Gamba have proved against Melbourne, physical presence alone does not win football games. Patience does. Fitness does. Skill does.
It’s time to bring the cult of the longball to a close.
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