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.