AFC Champions League Preview (The East - 2016)

You would've needed to have been hiding under a rock to have not seen the AFC off-season be dominated by one league in particular. The ramped up spending of the Chinese Super League has broken out of the Asian bubble and started to make waves across the globe, in particular in Europe where previously unseen transfer fees and salaries are being distributed out regularly.

Back in Asia, it’s hardly been a surprise given the CSL’s growth over the last 5 years. Going into a new AFC Champions League campaign, it does however remain an area of interest whether more of the league’s top clubs can go on to dominate on the continent. Of course this is a question that doesn’t apply to Guangzhou Evergrande, the CSL title winners of the last 5 seasons and ACL champions in two of the last three years, but rather can their success be replicated by their domestic rivals?

The club with the largest profile outside of Asia at the moment has been Jiangsu Suning who’ve bought in Brazilians Ramires and Alex Teixeria for a combined total of over £60 million. While the sudden influx of such high quality is undoubtedly going to improve Jiangsu’s fortunes (after only finishing 9th domestically last year), as their coach Dan Petrescu admitted their home based players are still way behind the quality of the top few sides in China, leading him to raise concerns whether they can truly compete on any front, let alone on the continent.

Greater focus in this year’s ACL should instead be paid to Shanghai SIPG. Finishing within 2 points of Evergrande last season, the heavily backed former “Dongya” branded club are currently experiencing a Guangzhou-like rise of their very own, given they only came into existence a decade ago, with only three years of CSL experience to call upon. However, the crucial difference between themselves and Jiangsu is their general calibre of players is much higher, a steady level opposed to that of Suning which has followed a more marquee signing model.

The squad can count on China’s most promising attacking midfielder Wu Lei, while former ACL top scorer Asamoah Gyan is now partnered in attack by former Evergrande striker Elkesson, a scorer in two ACL winning finals and still well in his prime to cause havoc on the continent. His signing proved to be one of the most interesting talking points of the window, with Evergrande claiming that they were selling the Brazilian to aid the league’s presence in the ACL, which comes across as more than perplexing given their recent domestic rivalry. In turn Guangzhou quickly sought to replace Elkesson with Colombian marksman Jackson Martinez to lead their title retention hopes.

On paper those two squads stand out as two of the best around but it’s far from being a CSL dominated title push. The likes of Jeonbuk Motors, Gamba Osaka, FC Seoul and Sanfrecce Hiroshima all have enough quality and pedigree to keep up with the improvement in China. Korean club sides are regularly high performers in the ACL, with champions Jeonbuk qualifying for the knockout stages in all 7 of their previous appearances in the competition, whilst the return to the competition of Pohang Steelers will instantly hark back memories to their three triumphs in the ACL, the last being in 2009.

Gamba lead the way arguably for Japan after managing to perform admirably on multiple fronts over the last year, including a semi-final appearance in the ACL and a domestic cup triumph. Holding onto Takashi Usami was always going to be the catalyst to their hopes of achieving anything this season, while the introduction of Jungo Fujimoto, expands further one of Japan’s hottest attacking line-ups.

You’ll notice I’ve ignored so far the A-League, a worthy candidate of course in terms of quality, no doubt but in particular with champions Melbourne Victory, Australia’s finest side at the moment are continuing to be infringed upon by the AFC’s overseas player limits. The A-League unlike pretty much any other league in Asia doesn’t apply a ruling restricting overseas player registrations. When it comes to AFC competition this has often limited their resources and once again this has watered down Victory’s chances of progression.

Kevin Muscat’s title winners have had to exclude key playmaker Guilherme Finkler and winger Fahid Ben Khalfallah from their ACL plans, two massive omissions, given both have been and currently are firm first choices for Victory. One overseas player who did make the cut however is Albanian Besart Berisha who has continued unabated in an incredible scoring vein since his switch from Brisbane Roar two seasons back. He’ll have his first opportunity to take on such form into the ACL in four years and will no doubt be one of the key features to look out for in the early stages.

From a neutrals point of view, what the East has over the West is a greater showing from some of the region’s developing nations; from Thailand and Vietnam. The Thai Premier League’s presence has ebbed and flowed during the tournament’s history, but recently all hope has been pinned with Buriram United who have well and truly been dominating the domestic game. In each of the last three showings they have at least made it within a head to head record of the knockout stages, making it through to the quarters in 2013 and will again prove a perilous opponent to Seoul, Shandong Luneng and Sanfrecce who have been drawn against them from the start.

A final point of interest at the start of the campaign is to see how far Vietnamese football has come on, in the form of champions Becamex Bình Duong. Largely considered in previous years as the whipping boys of the group stage, the V-League champions went someway to changing perceptions with a point against Jeonbuk followed up with victory in their last match against Kashiwa Reysol. Jeonbuk have once again been drawn against Binh Duong, while the Vietnamese open up against Asia’s hype club of the moment Jiangsu Suning, setting up an instant test for both squad’s to answer some early questions.