12 Nov 2009(Thu)

November 10, 2009: Well, hats off to the Asian Football Confederation and the Japan Football Association!

The neutral venue of Tokyo for the ACL final turned out to be a success after all, with over 25,000 fans turning up for the Pohang Steelers-Al Ittihad showdown.

That was way more than I expected - and way more than people working on the inside of Asian football had expected, too, judging by their concerns over a lack of Japanese club in the final.

In a recent column I wrote that I thought 10,000 would be a decent crowd for this match, but clearly I under-estimated the selling power of the Japanese football rulers and the love of the “occasion” by the Japanese public.

So a crowd of 25,000 on the night was a good turnout; more than good, actually, it was excellent under the circumstances. A half-full stadium was a success, something to build on, rather than dwelling on a half-empty stadium for the biggest match in the Asian club calendar.

The atmosphere was good, too. I must admit I was not in Japan at the time of the final, but was able to catch the match on ESPN in my Hanoi hotel.

Two things surprised me: First, there looked to be a decent crowd, especially behind the goals as opposed to down the far touchline; second, it was quite noisy, even though some 20,000 of the spectators would have been neutral.

(What did not surprise me, though, was the utter shambles and chaos at the end, when the Koreans were taking it in turns to encroach at the free kick in stoppage time and take a yellow card for the team. What a terrible advert for the modern game that was.)

The atmosphere, however, was much better than some of the one-off Toyota Cup matches I can remember at the same venue, when there was a bigger crowd but less noise. Some of those Toyota Cup games had the atmosphere of a graveyard, with the calls and shouts of the players clearly audible as if playing in a training game. Occasionally the crowd stirred to life at Toyota Cup time, and woke up to applaud a goal, but more often than not it was a snooze fest and instantly forgettable. Like that one in…err…when was it?...between…err…you know...

On the occasion of the ACL final, then, the grand old National Stadium served its purpose -- but you wonder how many other countries could have pulled in 25,000 for a match between teams from South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Or 10,000 for that matter.

ends