It is very likely that they will see the home team take a first title since 2004 as even a three-goal defeat will be enough. Whether it will result in sustained Australian interest in Asian football is more debatable however.
Ange Postecoglou’s success could be a game changer. Assuming disaster is avoided, the former Socceroo boss has a major Asian domestic trophy and a place at the very top of the continental coaching ranks within touching distance.
Media down under has taken to what is a fascinating story with gusto because no Australian (only Sasa Ognenovski who won the AFC Champions League in 2010 with South Korea’s Seongnam before being crowned Asian Player of the Year comes close) has made a bigger impact in Asian football than Postecoglou.
Maybe it is too much to ask but it would be a major step if some of the interest sticks. Postecoglou has provided many people that don’t follow Japanese football with a gateway into the Asian game. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, it is the same in every country.
South Korean journalists follow Tottenham Hotspur closely because of Son Heung-min, Chinese scribes focus on Espanyol due to Wu Lei and back in the day, just as Australian journalists are going to Tokyo this weekend, there were a lot more heading from Japan to Italy in 1998 to follow Hidetoshi Nakata’s Serie A journey.
Japan is a relatively accessible Asian league with good football, attendances and atmospheres to attract the casual observer. It can act as a starting point to delve deeper into the giant continent to the north. There are plenty of Aussies around there too and doing very well. Adam Taggart has won the golden boot in South Korea in his first season in the K-League. His 20 goals are even more impressive as he is playing for a Suwon Bluewings team that finished in the bottom half of the table.
Then there is Mehmet Durakovic in Malaysia. The former Melbourne Victory boss loves life in the Southeast Asian nation and while the football there does not enjoy the standing enjoyed by Japan, his exploits are impressive.
He has led two different teams, Selangor and Perak, to second in the Malaysian Super League. That may not sound as impressive as the J.League title but then football in the country is dominated by Johor Darul Tazim, one of the best-run and ambitious clubs on the continent. The rest are fighting for second and it is a fight that the former Socceroo is winning . He has also delivered a Malaysia Cup for each team, a highly-valued prize with finals watched by 90,000.
The culture can be brutal. Football in Japan is hard to get to grips with for foreign coaches but if you manage to adapt and learn then clubs are run on a fairly consistent basis. In Malaysia, that is often not the case. With most teams financed by the various states in the country, the political interference often has to be seen to be believed and you never know what is coming.
There is also the habit of coaches being sent on ‘gardening leave’ when there is a quick downturn in results. This is often done in the hope that, especially those from overseas, they will return home and get a new job and then contracts will not have to paid out.
While writing a book on Singapore and Malaysian football back in 2016, I witnessed a disciplinary hearing at a leading Malaysian club that the foreign coach had to attend for something said in an interview. For 90 minutes, six members of the club’s board quizzed the tactician on all his actions during all his time at the club in the obvious hope he would say something that could have been viewed as a breach of contract so he could be fired immediately.
Players and staff often have plenty of power and can make life very difficult.
So while Ange Postecoglou deserves all the plaudits he is going to get, it would be great if the spotlight shining on him can stays turned on and also reaches other parts of Asia because there is plenty going on elsewhere.
