26 Jan 2004(Mon)

It's no wonder that the Yokohama F Marinos players returned to training on Wednesday, some seven weeks before the start of the new J.League season on March 13.

February and March will see the J.League champions playing in no fewer than five different competitions.

That's right: Five!

First up is the Asian Champions League Group G games in Vietnam and Indonesia.

Then it's off to Shanghai for the four-team A3 Nissan Cup, featuring the champion clubs from Japan, Korea and China, plus a second team from the host country.

Marinos will then play Emperor's Cup winners Jubilo Iwata in the Xerox Super Cup in Tokyo on March 6, a week before the new league season opens.

And on the last Saturday of March, the 27th, the Nabisco Cup kicks off.

"We've worked it out that we will play 62 games this season if we reach the final of all the different competitions," goalkeeper coach Dido Havenaar said this week at the club's Totsuka training ground.

"When you also look at the number of international matches, some players could be playing 80 games in the year!

"This is why we need four goalkeepers, and two complete teams."

Manager Takeshi Okada welcomed the players with the news that he wants 62 points this season, four more than last year, and 60 goals, which is also four more than last season's efforts.

To win the league championship again, says Okada, will need a goal difference of 30, compared to last year's 23 (56 goals for, 33 against).

Okada's two main targets are the J.League championship and the Asian Champions League, the continent's equivalent of the UEFA Champions League in Europe and the Copa Libertadores in South America.

A clash of dates involving the Champions League and A3 Nissan Cup in Shanghai has been averted, so Marinos can field the best players available in both competitions.

When there was a conflict of interest, Okada was right in giving priority to the Champions League ahead of the A3 Nissan Cup, as the Asia-wide competition provides a path to the Club World Championship, which FIFA is planning to resurrect in 2005.

If Marinos win the Champions League final this year and represent Asia in the FIFA event, they will be in the draw alongside the champion clubs of Europe and South America, as well as Africa, CONCACAF and Oceania.

Just think...Marinos against Real Madrid? Marinos against Boca Juniors?

The A3 Cup was a big success in Tokyo last year, but the pan-Asia events project the club, and the game in general, on a much wider scale.

ends

※
Further to writing my article this morning（January 24）, I have since discovered that the Asian Football Confederation has turned down a request to reschedule the Persik Kediri-Marinos Champions League match in Indonesia from Feb. 24 to Feb. 15. This means there is now a clash with A3.