Every so often, the fixture list throws up a round so full of grudge matches and potential flash points that it's hard to know where to look. Such a round takes place in the J-League this weekend.

It kicks off when Sanfrecce Hiroshima take on JEF United at Big Arch Stadium. Ordinarily fans have trouble trying to generate an atmosphere at Hiroshima's cavernous concrete home, but something tells me that the presence of one Ilian Stoyanov means that for once, that won't necessarily be the case.

Stoyanov, you might remember, is the Bulgarian defender who claimed that JEF United's Bosnian coach Amar Osim was "clueless" and would lead the Chiba side into the depths of J2. Many of us nodded in agreement at what appeared to be a perfectly reasonable statement. The problem for Stoyanov, of course, was that he too was employed by JEF United.

J-League chairman are nothing if not a fairly predictable bunch, and so after a curt "so long and thanks for all the memories," Stoyanov's contract was torn up by United Chairman Takahiro Yodogawa and the firebrand Bulgarian was duly sent packing.

He's now lobbed up at Sanfrecce Hiroshima, and if you think that's the only reason for fans to get excited - think again. JEF United happen to be captained by a certain Yuto Sato, whose twin brother Hisato just so happens to be one of Japan's hottest strikers for... you guessed it, Sanfrecce Hiroshima.

If this colossal clash in the south is not enough to whet the appetit, then perhaps fourth placed Shimizu S-Pulse's tussle with second placed Gamba Osaka is. Around 17,000 tickets have already been sold for this one, with Shimizu locals likely to turn out in force to see if their heroes can't knock off one of the club's genuine bogey sides from the past few years.

There won't be quite the same turn out at Mitsuzawa Stadium, but the connotations of Yokohama FC's encounter with Omiya Ardija are perhaps just as important. Last weekend port city minnows Yokohama FC wracked up the fastest relegation in J-League history, as they booked their ticket back to J2 with an embarrassing 3-0 defeat at the hands of Vissel Kobe - a team who finished seven points behind Yokohama FC in J2 last season.

This time around it's Omiya Ardija who are looking to take advantage of the hapless Yokohama FC - whose new coach Julio Leal has picked up precisely zero points since taking over from the sacked Takuya Takagi, by the way. Omiya recorded a crucial 1-0 win over Hiroshima last weekend and the Saitama side are in a bullish mood, with their refurbished Omiya Park Stadium finally ready for action after work started on it some time around the Jurassic period. The Squirrels of Saitama can expect full houses for the final two home games of the season against Oita Trinita and Kawasaki Frontale.

Speaking of Kawasaki, they travel to Ajinomoto Stadium on Sunday for the always hotly anticipated Tama River Derby. Defence seems to be little more than an afterthought for these two sides, and last season they drew 2-2 at Todoroki Stadium, before taking their grievances across the Tama to Ajinomoto, where FC Tokyo prevailed in a tame 5-4 victory.

That clash is just a precursor for perhaps the biggest match of the round, as all-conquering Urawa Reds (last I heard they were just declared the greatest football team in the history of human existence) take on pseudo-giants Nagoya Grampus Eight.

Something about Urawa just rubs Nagoya the wrong way. Maybe it's the fact that, unlike Nagoya, Urawa actually win things, or maybe it's that after laying their $US3.5 million on the table, Nagoya were laughed at by Yuki Abe, who may or may not have snidely remarked "I wanna play for a club that wins trophies, and if that means that I look stupid playing out of position at left back, well so be it!" as he hopped on the train in the direction of Saitama Stadium.

Makoto Hasebe is rumoured to be on his way to Siena next season, so perhaps Yuki Abe can eventually play in midfield after all, but whichever way you look, there should be fascinating duels all over the park in this one.

Nagoya's Norwegian ace Frode Johnsen will likely try to take advantage of the fact that Urawa centre-back Marcus Tulio Tanaka spends most of his time trying to score goals in his opponent's penalty area. Meanwhile Urawa's token Brazilian striker Washington - who is reputedly Nagoya bound, had his nose plastered all over his face against JEF United last weekend. Ironically it was the first time in his J-League career that he didn't complain after being fouled - probably because he was concussed, and Washington and his pocket-rocket strike partner Tatsuya Tanaka come up against a Nagoya defence that has been decimated by injuries this season.

Elsewhere the combative Kim Jung-Woo and 400-game veteran Toshiya Fujita will size up a Urawa midfield that contains the outstanding Robson Ponte, while in the likes of Keisuke Honda, Keiji Tamada and Tomohiro Tsuda, Nagoya seem to have assembled a handy collection for any "Former Japan Internationals That Have Faded Into Obscurity" museum that might be opening in the near future.

Whatever you do, don't blink now, because the J-League is just starting to heat up.

Back when I was a teenager, the Special Broadcasting Service of Australia, or the "Soccer Broadcasting Station" as it was jokingly referred to, used to screen a one hour highlights package called Italian Soccer. Back then European football imposed a three foreigner rule, which didn't stop AC Milan from adding the likes of French striker Jean Pierre-Papin and Croatian maestro Zvonimir Boban to their masterful Dutch trio of Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard.

Milan, of course, famously went through the 1991-92 Serie A season unbeaten - the only time in history a club has picked up the Scudetto without losing a single league game. Their 4-0 demolition of Barcelona in the European Cup Final a couple of years later was a masterclass lead by that Montengrin magician Dejan Savicevic and French enforcer Marcel Desailly. Of course at their heart Milan have always had a core of superb Italian players, with the likes of Franco Baresi, Roberto Donadoni and Daniele Massaro losing nothing in comparison with their colourful continental counterparts.

Contrast that with today's Milan team, and the differences are stark. Milan have always had interesting goalkeepers - Sebastiano Rossi at times looked as mad as a march hare, but in a 240 game career for the club, he was solid, if unspectacular between the posts. Compare that with Brazilian goalkeeper Dida, who when not making school-boy errors in goal, is busy feigning life-threatening injuries if he feels a cool breeze. His understudy Zeljko Kalac inspires about as much confidence as an umbrella made of tissue paper in a cyclone - big "Spider" has never been the same goalkeeper after his personal nightmare in Stuttgart.

Where Milan once had a central defensive pairing of Franco Baresi and Alessandro Costacurta, these days the Rossoneri are marshalled by ex-Lazio captain Alessandro Nesta and whichever interchangeable centre back is fit that particular week. Paolo Maldini has been a superb servant to the club but should probably be coaching Milan's under-15 team by now, and in the likes of Kakha Kaladze, Daniele Bonera and Dario Simic, Milan seem to be employing the rule of quantity over quality.Gone too are the days when Milan brought young players up through the ranks - their four fullbacks in Massimo Oddo, Giuseppe Favalli, Cafu, and Marek Jankulovski were all established stars when they were bought from Lazio, Roma and Udinese respectively.

In midfield the Montenegrin magic of Dejan Savicevic has seemingly been replaced by a system of "reliable mediocrity." Massimo Ambrosini is the type of player who is made captain of a team because there would otherwise be no use for him a starting eleven, whilst "playmaker" Andrea Pirlo is a personality free-zone. Gennaro Gattuso has been trading for years off the ability to deliver withering glances and the occasional rash tackle, and it's only in the ageless Clarence Seedorf and the irrepressible Kaka - who surely deserves a better stage, that Milan possess any real quality.

Up front Milan's striking options are, to put it mildly, limited. Their number one striker is a 34 year old Pippo Inzaghi who looks at times as if he might benefit from the use of a wheelchair. Alberto Gilardino - an eighteen million pound signing from Parma, must surely be one of the biggest wastes of money in European football. And by signing Ronaldo, Milan have signalled their intent to assemble an all-star line-up of faded has-beens - what price Michael Owen becomes the next to join Milan's "Tour de Nostalgia?"

It's ironic that the reigning European champions should be facing a so-called "must-win" clash with those giants of European football Shakhtar Donetsk at the San Siro tonight. It would be even more ironic if Italian hotshot Cristiano Lucarelli fired Shakhtar to victory, but perhaps the biggest irony of all is that Milan are the reigning European champions in the first place!

Their victorious 2006-07 campaign was practically a clinic in efficiency. They won only three games in a group that contained veritable European heavyweights Lille, AEK Athens and Anderlecht, before requiring extra-time to eek passed a technically limited Celtic 1-0 on aggregate in the Round of 16. They were marginally more impressive in seeing off Bayern in the quarter-finals, but lost the first-leg of their semi-final to Manchester United, thanks in no part from some typically catastrophic Dida goalkeeping. Their best performance of the tournament was a 3-0 hammering of United in the return leg of that tie, and they used all their catenaccio nous to see off Liverpool in a final that was marred by crowd trouble at the Olympic Stadium in Athens.

One would hope that this year's competition is not marred by similar disturbances. With the likes of Ronaldinho and Lionel Messi lighting up the Nou Camp, Cesc Fabregas and company leading a revolution at Arsenal and the usual cast of gritty eastern European scrappers like Shakhtar, Dynamo Kyiv, CSKA Moskva and Steaua Bucharest all capable of throwing up an upset or two along the way, one might similarly hope that this year's Champions League is not marred by the presence of the bore-fest that is Milan's 2007 vintage for any longer than is necessary.

A near sell-out crowd, a clash between two titans, a history-making encounter. Or not? Just two hours before Urawa Reds come face-to-face with K-League side Seongnam Chunma Ilhwa in the second leg of their hotly anticipated AFC Champions League semi-final, grumblings continue to rumble about the revisionist nature of some media reports pertaining to the match.

In a piece circulated around the globe through Reuters, Urawa Reds, it was claimed, would become the first Japanese team to reach the final of Asia's "premier club competition" if they managed to overcome Seongnam in the semi-final. As many fans on message boards across the world have rightly pointed out, Urawa might become the first Japanese team to reach the final of the newly rebranded AFC Champions League, but they are certainly not the first Japanese team to reach the final of a continental competition in Asia.

Whilst the forerunners to the modern-day JEF United and Tokyo Verdy both won the old "Asian Club Cup" in their pre J-League incarnations, the club seemingly most hard done by in the rush to proclaim new glory, is Jubilo Iwata. Not only did they win the old Asian Club Cup as recently as 1999, but they also reached the next two finals in a row as well.

Now that the AFC Champions League has been revamped to take on a look that more closely resembles the format of the UEFA Champions League, does that mean that the history of the Asian Club Cup should be forgotten? Has the success of teams like Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade suddenly been forgotten - teams that in the current European climate now have virtually no chance of ever tasting continental success again, simply because the European Cup changed its name?

In its rush to modernise, the Asian Football Confederation is in danger of eliminating its past. That might be the aim. Yet no amount of revisionism will change the fact that in 1994 and 1995, Asia's premier club team was the now defunct Thai Farmers Bank FC. Perhaps there was more to Saburo Kawabuchi's claim earlier this year that AFC Champions League must become "more like the European Champions League." Perhaps what he meant was that the future of Asian football lies only in glamour clubs like Urawa Reds and Seongnam Chunma, and not in obscure minnows with unflattering names, like Thai Farmers Bank FC.

Win, lose or draw tonight - Urawa's participation in this season's AFC Champions League has certainly brought much needed exposure to the competition. It would be a shame, however, if it has done so at the expense of history.

So the League Cup finalists in Japan have been decided for another year, and the fact that Gamba Osaka have booked their place at Kokuritsu means that the Final is unlikely to sell out in a matter of hours, as it did last season - if it even sells out at all.

Gamba can thank a contentious penalty decision for their progression (and how often can you thank a dodgy call for a victory in Japan? Answer: just about every week), after they beat Kashima 1-0 in the first leg of their semi-final last Wednesday night.

Kashima fought back to win the second leg 3-2 at Kashima Stadium, but Gamba advanced on the away goals rule, depriving the Final of the colourful sight of thousands of Kashima fans filling one end of the National Stadium in Tokyo.

The Nabisco League Cup, as it's officially known, is sponsored by a company that makes biscuits and chips and similar sorts of savoury food items. I must say their heavily-salted chips are no match for the Potelkas that I munch on an ill-health inducing basis, and the League Cup Final also has a somewhat bland, almost stale look to it, with Kawasaki Frontale the team to take on Gamba in the championship game.

At least the Kanagawa club are in close enough proximity to bring thousands of fans to the National Stadium, although one can't help but think Kawasaki's local rivals Yokohama F. Marinos would have brought more.

At any rate Kawasaki beat Yokohama in both legs of their semi-finals, winning 2-1 at Nissan Stadium before making the ten kilometre trip back to Kawasaki to win 4-2 at  their Todoroki home and thus record a convincing 6-3 aggregate win.

A League Cup crown would go some way to vanquishing the disappointment of Kawasaki's AFC Champions League quarter-final exit at the hands of Iranian side Sepahan. It won't mask the fact that Kawasaki dropped out of the J-League title race to try and win the AFC Champions League, nor will it hide the fact that without Juninho up front, Kawasaki probably wouldn't have won half the games that they have this season.

Nevertheless Gamba Osaka have also seemingly spent the past few months busily conjuring up new ways to choke in the J-League title race. Their "star" Brazilian striker Magno Alves is injured, and the Panasonic-backed team will hope that the elusive front man has recovered in time to take to their field on November 3.

They'll need all the help they can get, because if last season's Emperor's Cup Final is anything to go by, then Gamba are perhaps one of the few teams in Japan who can't rely on a fervent support to potentially get them over the line. It must be said that on New Year's Day Gamba's spindly support was being stared down by a roaring, vociferous army of Urawa fans, but what few dedicated Gamba fans there were (when they weren't being disrupted by interlopers like myself)... they were no match for the cacaphony of noise made by Urawa's exictable fans.

Last year's League Cup Final was a cracker (do I get paid for puns like this, Nabisco?) as JEF United and Kashima Antlers went head-to-head in a clash between two teams for whom a trophy would literally make or break their season. It'll be a similar scenario for Gamba Osaka and Kawasaki Frontale, when these two out-of-sorts teams clash at the National Stadium in Tokyo on November 3.