Oh cruel fate! Why do you mock me?

How many match reports have you seen start with the phrase "so near, yet so far?" Too many to count. Yet if there was one cliché that could sum up Shimizu S-Pulse's evening in the first leg of their League Cup semi-final clash with Gamba Osaka, that would be it.

And if there was one moment that could sum up Shimizu's miserable season so far, it would surely be the final play of the game. With the scores locked at 1-1, having battered Gamba into brutal submission throughout the ninety minutes, and being roared on by a mixture of passion and sheer desperation from the terraces, S-Pulse swung in a corner. A host of heads attempted to latch on to it - from my line of sight it looked like Shinji Okazaki who got the final touch, and fans in Nihondaira held their breath as Okazaki's header beat Gamba keeper Yosuke Fujigaya... and hit the post.

This was an exhilarating affair, and the clash belies a host of claims that the competition should be scrapped. Certainly the timing of fixtures, what with five weeks between the first and second legs of the quarter-finals, needs reviewing. And, yes, both teams were weakened by the absence of international players, although how Shimizu's Kazumichi Takagi was named in the Japan squad only coach Takeshi Okada will know, while Gamba's talisman Yasuhito Endo is a regular in the Japan squad.

Yet those who claim that the League Cup is not worth playing miss the point that the four teams still in contention haven't exactly been picking up trophies left, right and centre over the past few years. It's true that Gamba Osaka are the defending champions, and the Kansai side won the league in 2005, but before that Gamba had simply been making up the numbers for most of their existence in Japanese top flight football.

At any rate, S-Pulse fans were desperate to see their team take a result back to Osaka on September 7. Things started badly though, when long-range specialist Takahiro Futugawa beat Kaito Yamamoto with a pinpoint free-kick after only ten minutes. The rest of the half was the story of Shimizu's season, as the bustling Takuro Yajima and the more subtle Shinji Okazaki fashioned chance after chance, only for poor finishing to let them down.

The hosts got back into the game thanks to a piece of good fortune ten minutes after the restart when Daisuke Ichikawa's shot took a deflection off team-mate Takumi Edamura, which wrong-footed Fujigaya in the Gamba goal. Thereafter both teams had plenty of chances to win it - a rusty Ryuji Bando missed an absolute sitter for Gamba with minutes remaining, but it will be the Shimizu fans who will have gone home crestfallen following this result... although S-Pulse's unused substitute Marcos Aurélio didn't seem too perturbed.

In the other semi-final Kyushu upstarts Oita Trinita held Nagoya Grampus to a 1-1 draw in Nagoya, as veteran Ueslei scored against his former club to cancel out Frode Johnsen's opener. With away goals counting double, the J. League could now find itself hosting a League Cup semi-final between two clubs situated some hundreds of kilometres from the capital.

Both of the last two League Cup finals have attracted colourful, capacity crowds to the National Stadium, and should Shimizu S-Pulse - one of the most popular clubs in the country, meet Nagoya Grampus - seemingly a "sleeping giant" in Japanese football for the entirety of their existence, tickets will invariably sell out in a matter of hours. But with Gamba having struggled to even sell out their allotment of tickets for last season's League Cup final, there is now the distinct possibility that this year's final could be played out against the backdrop of a half-empty "Kokuritsu."

Many will argue that a Gamba - Oita final will go some way to breaking the dominance of teams from the Kantō plain, although neither Shimizu, nor Nagoya can be found in the Kantō region at any rate, but surely J. League officials are hoping for an S-Pulse - Grampus showpiece. Shimizu fans sure are, but having struggled to pick up results at Gamba's Expo '70 Stadium for years now, the cards are stacked against Shimizu S-Pulse turning their disappointing season around.