A great result, and already looking forward to the final vs Persepolis. Haven't watched much of the West Asian groups this year but they did really well to beat Al Duhail in the quarterfinal. Al Duhail looked like the by far strongest team in West Asia after the group stage and 8th finals, so that was a bit of a surprise. According to stats it seems they were lucky to beat Al Sadd overall though in the semifinal as Al Sadd dominated both the possession and number of shots in both matches. And in the 8th finals they only got through on away goals vs Al Jazira, so there should definitely be good chances for Kashima here.
As a Persepolis Fan who's writing his first post on this forum, I would like to express my sheer delight to see my beloved reds reaching Asia's top tier competition for the 1st time in our history. Due to the FIFA banning us from buying new players this summer and also in last January's transfer window, we have been way short in terms of personnel. For the 1st leg of our semi final tie against Al Sadd, we had only 15 players available in the first team and had to feel the bench with 3 players who had never been in our senior squad. Our game schedule has been pretty congested this year with domestic league and Cup and our short number of players have done simply sensational this year so far, we had 4 wins and 4 draws in our 8 league games with 6 clean sheets and also managed to win our round of 32 cup match. To reach the final in the continental stage giving the situation we are in is a remarkable achievement and I'm pretty optimistic about our chances against the Antlers. Managed to watch the second leg of their game vs Suwon yesterday. They looked to me like a side who prefer to outscore opposition rather than seeing games out. Their goal scoring record has been much better than that of ours in this year's ACL (23 goals to our 17) and they will surely pose a tough challenge to our defenders who did very well contending ACL's top two goal scorers (El Arabi of Al Duhail and Bounedjah of Al Sadd). For any of the sides winning this final will make the greatest day in their history and the supporters will remember the occasion for the rest of their days. I would have loved to travel with Persepolis to the beautiful mainland of Japan but our economic situation in Iran is so bad the idea is already sounds like financial suicide )
Welcome @Mehdi93 and thank you for sharing your thoughts and giving us insights about your team. Best of luck for both teams.
AFC Champions League Final (1st leg): Kashima Antlers X Persepolis (2-0) Good win for Kashima. I hope they can take on pressure playing in front of 100000 spectators next week in Azadi. It wouldn't be an easy task. Good luck.
Kashima's starting line-up for tonight's ACL final second-leg: 【11/10ACL決勝第2戦】#antlers #ACLFinalGKクォンスンテDF西大伍 チョンスンヒョン 昌子源 山本脩斗MF三竿健斗 レオシルバ 土居聖真 安部裕葵FWセルジーニョ 鈴木優磨サブ：GK曽ケ端準DF安西幸輝 犬飼智也MF永木亮太 遠藤康 小笠原満男FW金森健志速報：https://t.co/s7pLl0X6AD pic.twitter.com/ncJ7N7Fw5y— 鹿島アントラーズ (@atlrs_official) November 10, 2018 They can only lose the title if they lose by a 3-goal deficit or lose 0-2 and the match headed into extra-time and then penalties. Given Kashima's excellent away form and the fact that Persepolis will attack to off-set the first-leg score and this will open gals in the Iranian defence, in addition to the fact that Persepolis has not been scoring much in this tournament (mostly 1 or 2 goals per game), I highly doubt Kashima will not emerge victorious, unless they shocked under the pressure of the huge audience at Azadi stadium.
Kashima are ACL champions for the first time in their history!!! It's also another back to back wins for the J-League teams after 2007 & 2008 seasons. Congrats!
YES, they did it!!! Goalless draw and a relatively clumsy game, with Kwon Sun-Tae pulling some great saves to deny the Irananian team from scoring. Suzuki got injured by the 79th minute and was replaced by Nagaki. He recieved the MVP award of the tournament. Hopefully, his injury is not serious to deny him from participating in Japan's NT next week's friendlies. Kwon Sun-Tae won the ACL title for the third time in his career, he already won it twice with Jeonbok in 2006 and 2016. Not sure if he is the only player to win the title three times. By the way, he seems more solid than both Kim Jin-Heyon (Cerezo) and Kim Seung-Gyu (Vissel). Kashima did it at last!! This is the only tournament they have never won before in either the domestic or continental level. Congratulations and well done.