Ehm, is this rumour about Jackson Martinez true? Really? Cadena SER reporting that Atlétco Madrid have sold Jackson Martínez to Guangzhou Evergrande in China for €45million
AFC must do something. This is embarassing. South Korea and Japan will be too effected from this crazy spending.
I think Japan has money to do that, but for what? (Ok, not to pay 40 for a player, but you can sign a good foreigner with 10). To destroy the local players and the national team. Where is Japan as a national team and where is China? Japan follows the right path. How many Chinese are playing in Europe?
Right, but AFC Champions League will become unwatchable in a few years. Alex Teixeira + Jackson Martinez to Guangzhou Evergrande for 92 millions. Where's AFC? Where's FIFA? FFS.
financial Fair-Play is only for the small teams! That's our world. If you have money you are big if not, no. Quite simple. Do you think the financial Fair-Play will stop City to sign Neymar in the summer. I don't think.
Tokyo starts tomorrow. No foreigners expected to be in the starting 11 for them: El Golazo's predicted #FCTokyo XI v Chonburi: Akimoto, Tokunaga Morishige Maruyama Komano, Mizunuma Yonemoto Ha Higashi, Maeda Abe.— On the Gas (@OnTheGas1999) February 8, 2016
Come on, think about it, surely Evergrande is a great team, but its not like they are dominating, winning every single match 3-0 etc. They won the league by the smallest possible margin, and struggled in several matches in ACL as well, both last year and the year before. Their 2 legs vs Gamba could have easily ended a different way, and they lost to KAshima in the group stage. Reysol were no match to them, but say, if they had met Urawa or Hiroshima instead they could have struggled a lot more. And its not lke the foreigners they had were that much worse than they one they bought now either.. I dont support big spending teams like this ( I detest Man City and Chelsea for example), but that football becomes more global, and that we see more superstars in Asia as well is positive I think. It will generate more money to the ACL as well, increasing the attendances in the matches which eventually will be positive for Japanese clubs as well. Looking forward to another great ACL season!
Come on, Evergrande won in 2013 and 2015. Didnt even reach the final in 2014. And they won by very small margin both times ( away-goals vs Seoul and 1-0 aggregate last year). All other Chinese clubs crashed and burned, despite having foreign players who earn twice as much per player than the entire foreign quota for a Japanese team combined. In the last 7 seasons, Korean teams have made it to the final 4 times, and in Western Asia Saudi Arabia have been and still are much more dominant than Chinese teams are and most likely will be. Dont really see the difference, and if money was the only factor then English teams would dominate CL (and EL) every single year, while in reality they are being dominated and outplayed by German, Spanish or Italian teams with 1/5th or 1/10th of their budget in some cases.... More money into ACL, better quality on the tournament, more coverage in the World Football press, higher attendances etc will in the long-term be good for Asia and ACL I think. I dont agree with how the Chinese teams are trying to accomplish this, but the end-result can be the same.
1) I don't think foreigners aren't a factor for Evergrande. They've been and they will be. 2) It's not about the foreigners, but how much their spending. Plus they've not reached the final in 2014 only because Asia must have a West and East Asia team. Otherwise, they've still reached "Eastern Conference final" ( = semifinal) against WSW.
Yeah, they have the best Chinese players as well. But still, they won the league with just 1 point. PSG is currently 21 points ahead of the 2nd placed team in France, and we are just a little bit over halfway... so its a looong way to go before we see that kind of scenario. And teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern reaches the semifinal of the Champions League almost every season too. In fact, one of those 3 teams have been in the final of CL for 7 years in a row now, and will most likely be it this season as well. The alleged Chinese domination in Asia is nothing like that yet , and will not be anytime soon either imho.
Kota Mizunuma and Takuma Abe are having great debut with FC Tokyo. The amount of enthusiasm and freshness is incredible for FC Tokyo, as if it isn't their 1st game of the season! The first half is yet to be ended and they are leading 3-0 and could've make it 5-0 or 6-0. Good Luck.
Three of four teams have good chances of passing the group stage. I have just some doubts about Urawa.