Day 6 - Who Will Be The World's Biggest Loser?

Saturday, 16 December 06, 06:39 AM · Comments(0)

Well a match that was expected to be completely empty has in fact managed to draw a quite sizeable crowd, the stadium is quite full, although it's probably a lot of people who were able to get cheap tickets, or saw the Barca match last night and just wanted to get in on the action before it was all gone.

It must be said about the Japanese fans, that although they are not the most knowledgable bunch, the certainly are enthusiastic. The oohs and aahs for Ronaldinho's every touch yesterday have been closely matched by the gasps everytime Auckland City second-half substitute Teruo Iwamoto has touched the ball. A decent player in his younger days, he offered his services to Auckland City for the tournament, and as far as PR and media battles go, Auckland City have been winners, because that's one of the only reasons that there are fans in the ground.

There are a few Koreans set up in the corner though, with a banner that says "Best in Corea". They are singing and chanting a bit, and even though there's only about 30-40 of them, they're making a fair amount of noise.

Auckland unfortunately have no fans, all you hear is the occasional yell of a perhaps drunken expat every now and then. Football is not really big in New Zealand, and from my own experiences living in Dunedin (the home of Otago United, who play in the same league as Auckland City), i'd be shocked if they they played in front of crowds of more than 50-100 people.

Although Auckland haven't really played above their level (amateur), especially their players when interacting with the media. Always chatty, and happy to share their experienices, we hope to bring you some material from them after the game.

It's 3-0 to Jeonbuk right now, after 88 minutes, and i'm sure everyone here would love it if Auckland could score a consolation goal, which would be their first of the tournament.

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