{"id":6911,"date":"2012-03-12T20:15:50","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T10:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=6911"},"modified":"2012-03-12T20:15:50","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T10:15:50","slug":"asian-champions-league-201112-brisbane-roar-vs-fc-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=6911","title":{"rendered":"Asian Champions League 2011\/12 – Brisbane Roar vs FC Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On March 5th the Brisbane Roar played their first ever game of Asian Champions League football.\u00a0 Australia clubs have generally struggled in the league except for one memorable run from Adelaide United who made the finals in 2008.\u00a0 It was an exciting prospect to see how the Roar would go against Asia’s best, particularly if they could replicate the sort of form that saw them go 38 games unbeaten.\u00a0 Although that, admittedly, feels like a long time ago now.<\/p>\n

Their first match was a home game against FC Tokyo, a side who only got promoted back into the J-League’s first division last season.\u00a0 They qualified for the ACL by winning the Emperor’s Cup.<\/p>\n

There was a great atmosphere for the game at Suncorp.\u00a0 Sorry, I mean BRISBANE STADIUM.\u00a0 Due to the complexities of international football sponsorship the stadium changed names for one night and all the regular advertising billboards at Suncorp where hidden away and replaced with POCARI SWEAT and Qatar Petroleum signage.<\/p>\n

There was great away support however.\u00a0 Around 1,000 travelling supporters from Japan made the trip and I’m sure many more Japanese residents in Brisbane made the trip to Suncorp.\u00a0 At an A-League game we’re lucky to have more than a handful of away supporters so it was an unexpected treat to actually have duelling sets of supporters trying to outchant, outdrum and make more noise than one another.\u00a0 The photo above was taken from when the Suncorp stadium presenter attempted to do an interview amongst the FC Tokyo fans who adorned him with his own bandana, scarf and sunnies.<\/p>\n

As for the game itself, Brisbane looked alright in the first half but appeared to suffer a bit of stage fright.\u00a0 They managed to hold the lion’s share of possession as they always do<\/em> against any club but lacked any meaningful inroads towards FC Tokyo’s defence.\u00a0 Playmakers Erik Paartalu and Henrique both struggled to make their mark and Thomas Broich didn’t really find the sort of space he’s used to until the second half.\u00a0 Poor old Berisha was practically marked out of the game by some excellent FC Tokyo defence.<\/p>\n

FC Tokyo struck right on half time to lead 1-0 heading into the sheds.\u00a0 In the second half, the Roar started out rallying and looked their most threatening.\u00a0 Against the run of play however, FC Tokyo scored a second in the 50th minute and that killed the game.\u00a0 In fact the Roar went to pieces afterwards and looked pretty bad in the final ten.\u00a0 Still, it was great to see a club of the calibre of FC Tokyo who had some crisp passing, skillful dribbling and high intensity.<\/p>\n

I think we will do better as the competition goes on but we’re in a tough group.\u00a0 Next up, an away game to Beijing Guoan.\u00a0 Whatever happens, it’ll be a fun ride and a great experience for the club.<\/p>\n

BRISBANE ROAR 0 FC TOKYO 2<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 5th the Brisbane Roar played their first ever game of Asian Champions League football.\u00a0 Australia clubs have generally struggled in the league except for one memorable run from Adelaide United who made the finals in 2008.\u00a0 It was an exciting prospect to see how the Roar would go against Asia’s best, particularly if …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1208,342],"class_list":["post-6911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-asian-champions-league","tag-brisbane-roar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6914,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions\/6914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}