Are They Serious

There seems to be at least one country in the East Asian half of the Champions League that doesn’t consider the competition much chop. The South Korean club Ulsan Hyundai have made their thoughts apparent to all with the Team they sent out onto the park for their second round match up with Newcastle last night.

Not content to rest a few players after their 0-0 draw against Seongnam Ilhwa in the K-league on Sunday the club effectively gave all of their first team players a rest and brought their reserves to Australia. The Pohang Steelers also rested a few players in their first round match against the Central Coast but certainly not to this degree.

The AFC officials would not be impressed with the Korean side’s less than committed approach to the competition. With the increase in prize money and change in format the AFC is attempting to raise the prestige of the tournament but if the teams don’t place an emphasis on winning it can only damage the spectacle and reputation of the Champions League. It is obvious that Ulsan had decided that a draw here at Newcastle was acceptable and there is no need to push harder for a better result. Quite rightly though Newcastle dispatched them with little trouble.

Of course Gary Van Egmond must have been secretly relieved at Ulsan’s approach. After the disaster that was their first round effort against Beijing Guoan last week (and don’t let the spin deceive you, a disaster it was) he needed a win at home. Make no mistake the Jet’s campaign was hanging in the balance, as we have seen in previous tournaments an early loss at home can be hard to recover from. It was doubly important as Ulsan would be considered the weakest team (except for Newcastle themselves) in the group and a loss here would have seen them struggle to get off the bottom let alone out of the group.

I significant improvement by the Jets was needed last night if they were to take the three points away. Their defence last week was tortured by Beijing and was always going to be interesting to see how Topor-Stanley and Milicevic stood up on home soil, especially Topor-Stanley whose performance last week was so bad that even the Chinese crowd were jeering him when he went near the ball.

In the end though Ulsan made it easy for Newcastle and although there was still many question marks around Topor-Stanley performance in the end Newcastle were not really troubled by the Koreans. Sasho Petrovski was a handful for the Ulsan defence all night and fully deserved his two goals.

Newcastle need to ensure they don’t get too carried away with the result though as the real test comes over the next two weeks as they face up to group favourites, Nagoya Grampus (home and away), who were held to a surprising goalless draw at home to Beijing Goan overnight. With their defence still looking very brittle they have a mountain to climb if they are to even get close to the Japanese side.

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