Generally speaking I’m loathe to mention the words, rich, Asian and 'football team' in the same sentence but when the letters on a club badge spell it out quite clearly the choice becomes limited.
Meet Central Coast Mariners’ ACL opponent this evening, Guangzhou R&F, or ‘rich’ and ‘force’ as is proudly displayed – alongside a pair of lions holding a football with a golden crown - on its emblem.
As Western Sydney Wanderers showed so well last year, success in Asia is not always borne of deep pockets; preparation, organisation and, often, motivation count for just as much.
For many Chinese teams though the latter comes in the form of a financial reward and this evening’s fixture is no different.
Owner Zheng Li – last year named the 19th richest person in China – has reportedly offered a $100,000 bonus per player (on top of an average playing salary of almost $750,000 per season) should it qualify for the group stages for the very first time and, as far as motivation goes, that’s $100,000 more than the Mariners stand to earn should they progress.
The Guangzhou bonus is more than the total annual wage earned by the bulk of the Mariners playing squad.
So just who are the upstarts from Guangdong, no doubt confused by many with the more famous of the two southern clubs?
While Evergrande is regarded as the team of the city’s boisterous youth, R&F tends to attract an older, more ‘sensible’ crowd and is vastly less popular than the 2013 ACL champion – it is now though backed by an owner who is perhaps even more desperate to achieve football success and prepared to spend more to get there.
Yet, barely five years ago, the team from the nation’s footballing heartland in Canton, where a struggling lower-table side which even slipped down to the second division for a season, returned a year after its city rival.
Then came the arrival of Zheng, as with many of the nouvaeu-riche Chinese owners, a man who had ridden his fortune off the back of a construction boom the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the dawn of Mesopotamia.
When he initially took over the rebuilding was cautious but after the blazing success of Evergrande the purse strings were loosened and the ambition raised.
First came the appointment of a series of high-profile coaches, the former ACL winner Sergio Farias and then the savvy Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson, who parted ways with the club in the past off-season to take up a $6 million a year deal with Shanghai SIPG, another club whose zeal knows no limits.
The replacement was Romanian Cosmin Contra, a fine player in his day and a man who left the Spanish top-flight to take up his new post.
Zheng reportedly targeted the former Getafe boss to continue a playing philosophy which is molded in an attacking framework – lots of fast movement and ball circulation, technically gifted players and a sharp incision when going forward.
To that end he arrived with another Getafe old-boy in former Spanish youth international Michel, who is on a cool $3 million a season and who will line up as the ‘number 10’ in what is set to be the now orthodox 4-2-3-1 formation.
Right-back Tang Miao, along with Korean international - and Asian Cup finalist - Jang Hyun-soo are the defensive standouts while the central midfield pairing of Wang Song and Park Jong-woo form a solid base for wide men Jiang Ning and Ye Chigui to operate in, while Moroccan Abderazak Hamdallah will be tasked with the lone frontman role.
It is a side that its new coach believes has better ‘technical capabilities’ but one which he feels will enter as underdog this evening due to the fact that the Mariners have a far deeper ACL experience, are in-season and at home.
In a positive sign for the home side after some of the owner’s comments a couple of seasons ago the Mariners are set to send out a strong side for a tournament which – much as it can for the Wanderers – could well serve as a springboard towards a return to winning ways after a domestic campaign of stumbles and upheaval.
It will be fascinating to see what a kind of a crowd the Mariners can pull in their fifth ACL tilt; off the back of a wonderful Asian Cup and the Wanderers' success in this same tournament last year there will never be a better time for the Asian game to become the Australian one.
The fact that 25 journalists travelled from China to cover the match shows just how seriously they take this tournament, now the onus is on the Australian football public – and media - to show the Asian Cup was more a genuine embrace of football rather than a large-scale community gala.
