Sunday, December 14

Japanese side to face United


Gamba Osaka will face the reds in Thursday's World Club Cup semi final after beating Adelaide United 1-0 this morning.

The match, which kicks off at 10.30am, will be shown live on Five.

So what do we know about this team?

Q. Are they any good?

A. Well they are officially the best team in Asia, but they concede an awful lot of goals and look dodgy at the back.

Q. Do they have much history?

A. Not really. They were founded in 1980 and were founder members of the Japanese J-League three years later and have stayed their ever since.

They won the league in 2005, these days, they get 17,000 fans for home games at the Expo 1970 Stadium in Suita, Osaka (pictured left).



Q. How did they get this far?

A. Having finished third in their domestic league in 2007, they qualified for the AFC Cup - the Asian equivalent of the Champions League.

Having won that, beating Adelaide in the final 5-0 on aggregate, they were given a place in the World Club Cup quarter finals and, after Adelaide got their via a different route, they beat them again.

Q. What's their league form like?

A. Average. The Japanese J-League ran from March 8 to December 6. Gamba finished 8th.

They played 34 games, won 14, drew 8 and lost 12, ending on 50 points - 12 short of the champions.

Q. Who will be their most threatening player?

A. Yasuhito Endo (pictured right), a versatile midfielder who scored Gamba's winner over Adelaide and notched up eight assists in the league this year.

Q. How much chance have they of beating United?

A. Well, more than Adelaide. They've beaten the Australians three times in the last two months.

But overall, they won't be much of a threat. Betfair have United as 1.02 (1/50) to win the game. It's 1.01 for a draw and 2.18 for a Gamba win.

United are 1.3 favourites to win the competition, with LDU Quito second favourites at 5.0.

Theseare the quarter final highlights.







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They won the league in 2005, and the league's cup in 2007.

vitty100 said...

Ah sorry...I got duff information. I'll change it.