Persik to contest Seongnam at home

Persik to contest Seongnam at home

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian champion Persik Kediri is gearing up to
take on contender Korean champion Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma
in a Group G match in the first leg of the Asian Football
Confederation (AFC) Champions League 2004 season at Brawijaya
Stadium, Kediri, East Java, on Wednesday.

Seongnam, a double-hat-trick Korean League champion in
1993, 1994, and 1995, and in 2001, 2002, 2003, was
selected as the best club of Asia by the AFC for winning the
Asian Club Cup, Asia Super Club and Afro-Asia Club Champion
Tournament and accomplishing a Grand Slam in the last
century.

Meanwhile, Persik made local headlines last year
as a newly promoted team and the champion of the 2003 Indonesian
Soccer League. However, in this year's season the Kediri-based
squad has shown poor performance and sunk to the bottom of the
league standings.

Nevertheless, the Indonesian team, which will be led
by libero Aris Susanto and defender Wawan Widiantoro,
will surely try to host the Korean squad consisting of
K-League top scorer/national team striker Kim Do-hoon,
and playmaker Shin Tae-yong.

However, Seongnam might find that the local climate is a
major disadvantage, considering that the team is not
accustomed to playing in such a hot and humid place and,
moreover, it is winter in Korea.

Also, local officials have moved the game ahead by one hour
ffrom the usual Indonesian League time of 3:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.,
aarguing that the Brawijaya stadium, which has a capacity of
210,000, has no lights to facilitate late match.

The second season of the AFC Champions League starts
this week with teams from 14 countries from across
Asia eyeing the continent's biggest club soccer
prize.

Twenty-eight teams from Asia's leading nations in the
AFC's 'Vision Asia' ranking were slated to compete in
seven four-team groups - four featuring sides from
west, central and south Asia, and three composed of
ASEAN and east Asian clubs.

"We are excited with the second edition of the AFC
Champions League. This competition will bring the 28
top clubs of Asia to compete for the champions of Asia
title. This year, we anticipate that all the matches
will be equally fought out as there are no firm
favorites," AFC general secretary Peter Velappan told
asian-football.com.

While Group G sees Persik clashing with Seongnam, In
Group F, Vietnamese champion Hoang Anh Gia Lai will play host
IIndonesia's PSM Makassar in an all-Southeast Asian clash. In
another Group G match, J.League champion Yokohama F Marinos kicks
ooff its away-play against Vietnam National Cup winner Binh Dihn.

The group stage of the AFC Champions League will be
pplayed on a double round-robin league basis and concludes on
Wednesday, May 5. The top seven teams will join defending
champion Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates in the quarterfinals,
to be played over two legs on Sep. 15 and 22.

The semifinals are scheduled for Oct. 20 and 27, while
the final will be played on Nov. 24 and Dec. 1.