To no ones surprise, S-Pulse took a commanding 7-0 lead after the first leg of its qualifier with the Maldivian side New Radiant. Ahn Jung Hwan (remember him?) opened the scoring for the Japanese side 42 minutes into the match to give S-Pulse a 1-0 halftime lead. The proverbial floodgates were let loose in the second. Brazilian international Baron, Ahn, and Alex (2) among others all scored in the second half. A return trip to the Maldives doesn't figure to make any difference in this matchup and S-Pulse should progress to the final qualifying round with ease.
Woo hoo! Go Ahn!! Sure the opposition was weak, but it's nice to see him in the flow of things again. Good job for Alex, too.
Shimizu starting slow? Yeah, like that's ever happened. Glad to see S-Pulse hasn't completely lost their killer instinct ... hopefully they can carry that form over to the league.
Oct 19 Shimizu 2-1 Kyoto ahn and alex after alex scoring simizu's first goal on ahn's assist 33 second after kickoff. the pic looks like ahn intentionally looked at the camera.
no disrespect to shimizu, but ahn and alex are two players who deserve to play for better clubs. and yes, it looks like the pretty boy purposefully turned toward the camera.
they both won't play for the simizu for long anyway. although shimizi still has some pupular faces including several japan internationals, but the loss of alex and ahn at a same time can cause tremendous damage in overall team performance as well as marketing. btw, how's average attendance of marinos these days after losing kawaguchi and nakamura?
Looks like that's exactly what they did ... a 0-0 draw in the Maldives to see S-Pulse through to the next round. According to the match report, Alex, Morioka, Ahn, Ichikawa, Toda and Ito didn't make the trip. It's sounding like Shimizu will meet up with South China in a rematch from last season's Cup Winner's Cup. The winner will move on to take part in the group containing Dalian Shide, Seongnam and either Osotspa (Thailand) or the winner of Churchill Bros. (India) or Saigon Port. http://www.asian-football.com/scripts/runisa.dll?m2:gp:169945:39913+acl/0203/display+45275+E
BTW, Maldive Islands are like lost paradises. Has anybody visited there before? I have bunch of pics of Male and the islands. I hope I can visit there before I die. If Shimizu already won the 2nd stage, then they could've brought all the players for vacation and celebration but alas, they're suffering at the bottom of the table. No time for vacation. They must fight for tommorow.
Haven't been there myself, but I've seen plenty of pictures and video ... beautiful and pristine, but it doesn't look like the easiest place in the world to get to. #6 on the Travel Channel's list of best beaches, IIRC. http://travel.discovery.com/convergence/beachweek2001/worldsbest/maldives.html One of the few Asian Football Shows I remember was when they did a feature on the Maldives and showed extended highlights from their win against Cambodia. For a country their size and population, they didn't play too badly at all.