Internacional have won. Ronaldinho has gone home. The stands have all been cleared. But if you listen closely, you'll notice that the football fields of Japan are still resonating - not quite to the sounds of samba, but to football nonetheless. For the Emperor's Cup has rolled into town, and if you happen to be Urawa Reds, it looks like it will be staying there for quite some time.

The quarter-finalists for this year's Emperor's Cup have been decided, after some fascinating encounters in the recent Round of 16. The JFA have found a new way to meddle with the Cup draw this season, awarding home ties to all First Division clubs when they entered the field in Round 4. No surprises then, that seven of the eight clubs that have made it to the quarter-finals are J1 teams.

The one exception are J2 club Consadole Sapporo. After overcoming reigning League Cup holders JEF United in Round 4, the northerners then battled their way to a dramatic penalty shoot-out victory over Albirex Niigata in the Round of 16. Their reward is a tie against Ventforet Kofu, who hammered Kawasaki Frontale 5-2 in their Round of 16 encounter. Thanks to the vagaries of the JFA's scheduling format, the Sapporo - Kofu tie will take place at Yurtec Stadium, home of Sapporo's J2 rivals Vegalta Sendai.

It's not a subject that I profess to be an expert on, but for some reason, the JFA schedules a number of Emperor's Cup matches per round in various regional cities throughout Japan. I think that it's a noble and worthwhile idea to expose towns that don't have professional clubs to big-time football. Towns and cities such as Okayama, Nagasaki and Marugame all successfully hosted matches in the Round of 16. But I begin to scratch my head when I see Sapporo take on Kofu in Sendai. I also struggle to comprehend why Gamba Osaka would take on Yokohama F. Marinos at the dilapidated Universiade Memorial Stadium in Kobe, when the town of Kobe just witnessed its own club win promotion to the top flight! But that's football in Japan.

In its convoluted way, the draw is supposed to offer some semblence of fairness, with each club supposedly receiving at least one home match each. That semblence of fairness tends to disintegrate, however, when you realise that Urawa Reds have been handed a home tie for ALL of their Emperor's Cup matches! So much for the spirit of the underdog! If there was one club in Japan that doesn't need help from above, it's Urawa.

Having said that, it's not as though the clubs that do play the majority of their Emperor's Cup matches at home draw large crowds. Knock-out football doesn't tend to grip this country until New Year's Day, when a packed National Stadium in Tokyo rocks as the two Emperor's Cup finalists do battle. The Emperor's Cup is, after all, the oldest sporting tournament still in existence in Japan, and the final has traditionally been played on New Year's Day since 1969.

Anyway, I'm probably just sore because my team, Shimizu S-Pulse, are playing over a thousand kilometres away in Kumamoto, on Japan's southernmost island Kyushu. Shimizu saw off FC Tokyo 3-2 in extra-time in the last round, and they meet Kashima Antlers this weekend, after Kashima saw off Nagoya Grampus Eight 2-1. The final match-up sees Urawa Reds take on Jubilo Iwata at - you guessed it, Saitama Stadium, for a place in the semi-finals.

Urawa Reds are the 2006 J-League champions, after they saw off Gamba Osaka 3-2 in front of 62,241 fans at Saitama Stadium on Saturday. The final whistle saw an outpouring of emotion from the club's fans, who had not only witnessed the Reds lose the 2004 Championship Series final on penalties to Yokohama F. Marinos, but also finish runner-up amidst chaotic scenes on the final day of the 2005 season. It was a case of third time lucky for Urawa, who were ultimately deserving winners of their first ever league trophy.

Not everyone, however, seems to be enamoured with the Urawa brand. For one thing, the club has a reputation for housing some of the more brusque fans in the league. Others have pointed to the financial clout of the Mitsubishi-backed club, arguing that they have enhanced their squad by signing the likes of Washington and Takahito Soma from Tokyo Verdy, and bringing Shinji Ono back from Feyenoord, to the detriment of their own young players. Personally I don't buy it.

The club certainly does have some of the more aggressive fans in the league. But given that their smallest crowd at Saitama Stadium this season was 34,417 - ironically against the league's other big crowd-puller, Albirex Niigata, the law of averages suggests that you might find one or two more vehement fans than you would at other grounds. Besides, these are football fans and as football fans ourselves, we can hardly criticise them for their passion. The same fans did, after all, continue to support the club en masse when Urawa was relegated at the end of the 1999 season.

As for buying players like Washington and Soma, Urawa was just doing what every successful club in every league in the world does, namely cherry-picking the best players from one of their relegated opponents. Few have begrudged Urawa's crosstown rivals Omiya Ardija for having done likewise, given that ex-Tokyo Verdy players Daigo and Yoshiyuki Kobayashi were arguably Omiya's best players this season. That Urawa bought Washington simply proved to be a wise choice, given that he ended the season as the J-League's equal top scorer with Gamba's Magno Alves, while Soma's decision to join Japan's biggest club was understandable.

Re-signing Shinji Ono from Feyenoord demonstrates, if nothing else, that the club maintains cordial relations with their former players. It is hardly Urawa's fault that their first eleven played so well throughout the season that Ono struggled to get a run. Kazuyuki Toda, for example, could seemingly hardly wait to get away from Shimizu S-Pulse when his loan spell at Tottenham Hotspur didn't herald a permanent deal, despite Shimizu being in desperate need of his combative services.

Speaking of Toda, he was one of the key figures in the match that I attended at Nihondaira Stadium on Saturday afternoon. These days Toda plies his trade with Sanfrecce Hiroshima, who happened to be the visitors to Shimizu's atmospheric ground. Toda was given a frosty reception by the Shimizu faithful, that surpassed even the bone-chilling wind blowing down off the hills that surround the stadium. Those fans were apoplectic in their delight, however, when the feisty Toda was given his marching orders after just twenty minutes, following two late tackles. The second prompted an acrobatic tumble from South Korean striker Cho Jae Jin but in truth, Toda should have known better, and he melodramatically removed his jersey as he trudged from the field, to the delight of the otherwise freezing Shimizu fans.

Shimizu eventually won the match 3-0, and more importantly overtook their bitter rivals Jubilo Iwata on the final J-League standings. But the day and the accolades belonged to Urawa Reds. It has been a long wait for the club, and they will say sayonara to their popular German coach Guido Buchwald, who departs at the end of the season to spend more time with his family. The title drought is finally over, however, and Urawa fans will hope that the club has the depth to fly the flag all the way for Japan, in next season's Asian Champions League.